BolshyFaker

Forgive me if anyone has raised this before, but I was just reading an article on Long bets.org about the possbilities of extending human life spans past the so called Haylfck limit.

You can read the article here Long Bets.org .

What occurred to me though was that the Bible sets the maximum length of a human life at 120 years (Genesis 6:3), even though, leaving aside the unbeleivable claims of the rest of Genesis for 900 year life spans for the ancients, there can have been no one who lived for 120 years (as far as I knew it was only after the victorians that anyone lasted past about 60 on a regular basis), so why pick that particular number? And more to the point why does it coincide with the Hayflcik limit of cell divison in humans?

I'm still an atheist/agnostic, but its an interesting co-incidence nonetheless...

Arken

I wouldn't worry too much about it. The bible also says we only get to live 70 years, 80 if we're lucky.

Besides, there have been people who apparently have lived past 120 such as a man in Lebanon who, according to official records, was in his 130s in his death and more recently a man in India has claimed to be even older.

And after all, even if the bible did get that right, it also suggests that bats are birds, that rabbits chew their cud and that pi is 3 so I wouldn't put much stock in it for scientific accuracy. After all, the infinite number of monkeys get to Hamlet eventually.

BolshyFaker

Ummm, like where did the topic go guys? Im sure my OP was just about the Bible neatly guessing the Hayflick limit (number of times a human cell can divide, and therefore limit to life). But that question was nicely answered straight off with someone quoting Psalm 90 :10 saying that we only live 70 or 80 years.

Does any Theist want to explain why this isnt a particularly nice example of a contradiction?

And also, Genesis 6 is pretty clear that 120 years is a LIMIT, yet as correctly pointed out there are documented individuals who have exceeded it. Now biology predicts the Hayflcik limit will be broken in a few cases due to genetic variance (and incidentally a nice example of evolutionary traits in humans), but if the Bible says somethng then its supposed to be literally true, right?

Sooo, doesnt the fact that a few individuals have exceeded the Hayflcik limit mean that the Bible is wrong?

yummyfur

The Hayflick limit for humans, is an estimate based on maximum cell divisions for various human cells in vitro(around 50, this is actually the Hayflick limit for humans, not the number of years), the actual original estimate by Hayflick is anywhere from 110-120 years, not 120 years. Others using more recent information have estimated 120-130 as the range, while I guess Jeanne Calment dieing at age 122, put the maximum lifespan at at least 122. There is a supposed 128 year old woman in the Dominican Republic, but I don't believe her age has been completely verified.

I made this same guess when I was about ten, but not based on any important scientific research, just based on how old people get. A friend asked me how old was the maximum a person could live, and I said 120 years is the max. Of course I have also made many accurate predictions as well, So am I God?

Patrick Schoeb

ExChild

Hey, Bolshy.

I'm not exactly a theist, but when i read your post I got out my handy dandy study bible and the notes on Gen 6:3 say that the 120 years here refers to the time that humans would live before the flood... In other words, God gets sick of humans after that amount of time, his patience grows thin, and he floods the whole place. So this guy, MacArthur, did not interpret that verse as a limit on human life. I guess that would be the standard Christian refutation.

I thought Ps 90 was really more like a limit on lifespan when i read it.

Makes sense to me... of course it means the Hayflick limit is wrong too, I guess. but I wouldn't know much about that.

It seems to me though, that even if you interpret Gen as saying that people can only live 120 years, it is easily a coincidence and nothing more, that it matches the Hayflick limit. Now if the bible said man will only live 118.72 years, and that happened to be the Hayflick limit, then I'd be impressed.