Originally Posted by outhouse

Moses is fiction as the ages of people are.

Originally Posted by Sarpedon

It was a common belief in ancient times (right up to the rennaissance, really) that mankind was diminishing over time. Not only did the ancients live longer, they thought, but were smarter, more moral, stronger, even taller in stature. Virtually all mythology I've read accepts this as a given.

Take the Iliad, where the characters repeatedly hurl rocks at each other which are described as so big that 'it would have taken several men to lift, as such men are these days, but Achilles (or Ajax or Diomedes or Hector, etc) lifted it with ease.'

Genesis is par for the course.

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Yes. Fiction.
But the writers when they wrote, had their reasons for composing that fiction in the manner they did.
It was devised and composed so as to fit to a particular Yahwhistic political/religious agenda and teaching.
Other verses within The Law, regarding inviolable rules of measurements were given to supplement that information.
It may be obscure, but the numbers and lengths of these lives are not random, but are calculated even though being fictional.

Originally Posted by gillianseed

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since I've posted on the board. I have a question. I'm starting to read the Bible again (I'm an atheist -- I've been an atheist for 10 years now) and I'm trying to gain as much of an understanding about its construction as humanly possible.

For the most part, I've viewed the construction of scripture as this: Folklore that's intended to be folklore initially; fables that are intended to be fables initially. It makes sense to me the most if I put things in this context when it comes to the construction of scripture. It doesn't seem rational to me that someone would legitimately lie. I can't imagine someone sitting down and legitimately writing out the Flood story as a lie, intending to mess up people's train of thought thousands of years down the road (ex., Christians believing in the Flood and the Genesis account for creation).

This method of viewing the construction of scripture seems to work for mostly everything, but what about the parts in Genesis where it's literally laying out the exact amount of YEARS that people lived? It's easy for me to imagine grandpa telling children the 'story of the Flood' over a campfire dinner and that ending up as literal 'truth' in a Bible, but what about the notion of people actually recording the lengths of lives in Genesis chapter 5? My interpretation of everything so far has been that people honestly believed in the fables because, after enough time, fables get translated into truth... but whenever I try to imagine someone writing down Genesis chapter 5 for the first time, I get a headache.

How could they legitimately write that chapter and intend it to be truth? It's not just one life with a ridiculous length of years... it's MANY lives with ridiculous numbers of years. ... all at exact ages, as though someone was there, pronouncing them dead... surrounded by people at a funeral who KNEW that the person lived to that specific length in years. That's literally how it's written. My theory for scripture construction kind of breaks down here to a certain extent. Why would a grandpa figure over a campfire tell the children the lengths in years and how could someone, with 'moral integrity' (surely, they believed in 'morality' then) sit down and record those lengths of lives like they were TRUE? It blows my mind when I try to tackle this issue.

So, I'm coming to the forum. What, in your opinion, is the explanation for this part of Genesis? Is it just 'campfire stories' that eventually found their way to being recorded as 'truth'? Is that the best answer we have? . .