Crucifiction

Having read the thread about Noah being five hundred and having no children, I recalled the idiotic ages listed for people in the book of Genesis, such as:

Adam - 930 Years

Seth - 912 years

Methusela - 969 years

Lamech - 777 years

Noah - 950 years

And so on.

Is there any evidence whatsoever this is possible; or is it merely another Biblical absurdity?

spin

It's part of a tradition: the Mesopotamian pre-diluvian figures lived for thousands of years. Life was longer and better in that golden era, but we've fallen a long way since then, haven't we? Make mine a double.


spin

Kosh

IIRC, it might have been Finkelstein in "The Bible Unearthed" who posed a plausible explanation for this. With those sections of the OT actually being authored around the 7th century BCE, and for political reasons, they had to have a long lineage to point to for a legitimate claim to the territory. So the ages of the patriarchs was made exceedlingly longer as you went backwards, which meant that by the time you got to the ridiculous ones, there was no one who could testify against it.

Now, why they wouldn't just make up more patriarchs is beyond me.... :huh:

Chuck Rightmire

I think Kramer or some such investigator of the tablets of Sumer pointed out that they contained king lists whose thousands of years are in a similar ratio as those of the Begats. If you look at it that way, it makes them more fun to read.

Magus55

Just for arguments sake, if it weren't for bodies aging fast and disease, I see no reason why humans couldn't live that long these days.

Weltall

Not too well up on your cellular biology are you?

Mordy

Perhaps you'd like to elaborate here? I'm under the impression that most (if not all) cells are programmed to die in a controlled and regulated fashion to prevent them from becoming a disease where rogue cells multiply uncontrollably (i.e. cancer). Life evolved from single cell organisms, I don't see why people could not live great ages. For instance the king's Holly (a plant) is estimated to be 40,000 years old and members of its species are still alive today being thousands of years old at least. Perhaps you need to read up on your cellular biology? Or were you specifically referring to human cell biology?

offa

A little bit of Josephus:

ANT 01-088 These years, collected together, make up the sum
before set down; but let no one inquire into the deaths
of these men, for they extended their lives along
together with their children and grandchildren; but let
him have regard to their births only.


If you read Jubilees a few of the patriarch's would die
after the Flood, and this is discovered only if you do
the math, in other words, this is a "hidden" truth.


offa

Weltall

I'd thought that was kind of implied, but you have a point.

Chili

Well they probably lived in the Thousand Year Reign and there you can be up to a thousand years old. This would be the Reign of God that is said to be within our soul whence we have intuit wisdom as well.