Did people really live that long in the Bible?

Answer 1

Answer (of sorts)

People live for along time it seems only towards to beginning of the Old Testament. One thing to take into account is that death (for humans at least) only enters the world after Adam and Eve sin. This would mean that Adam and Eve were created to live forever. Science has a hard time pinning down what causes aging, one thought is it is genetic. This means your body actually starts shutting itself down as you get older according to your DNA instruction manual. If Adam and Eve were created to live forever it would imply things like their cells were able to reproduce without slowing down. There are actually animals like this, there is a certain jellyfish that can revert to a younger state at any time and theoretically live forever as long as it isn't eaten or catches a disease (which happens pretty quick to all of them anyway). Point being that if Adam and Eve were designed to live for along time it makes sense that sin took a long time to kill them through sickness or old age problems. As time went on, more diseases, more genetic mutations and problems etc. were sure to come about, not to mention murder and the more visible aspects of sin. These slowly shortened lifespans until God says he capped the lifespan at 120 years. It's interesting that if science does show conclusively that aging is genetic it will be almost like seeing God's fingerprint of how he choose to limit our ages.

Its all Noah's fault!!

As Adam and Eve had the opportunity and choice to select to eat from the 'tree of life' and received eternal life, there was no physical death penalty until their Fall. Then they needed to continue the human race via marriage as God commanded and needed more years to get a gene pool going. When the Flood period began, mankind began anew and his age began to diminish perhaps to the changes in the protective levels in the atmosphere from radiation and from warring people and diseases from those who did not follow God's oral laws. Soon after Abraham's time, the lifespan and marriage laws became effective and the maximum a human could live is still 120 years with 70 to 80 considered 'full of years' - a blessing on the 5th Command.

Answer:

God created the first two people the only way He knows how -- physically perfect. There was every reason to expect that they would live an extremely long time... if not forever.

There were no diseases or other genetic imperfections to pass on to their children... yet.

Those things obtained with the passing of time as people "sinned" [disobeyed God's laws - I John 3:4] and the generations passed their increasing physical and spiritual abuses on to their progeny. God's dietary laws [of clean and unclean meats - see Gen.7:2] were ignored and disobeyed, as people do to this day.

The initial physical perfection of the first generations of mankind slowly deteriorated... along with the longevity of future generations, until 70 years has become the length of a "normal" expected lifespan.

The longest lifespans in The Bible were those of the pre-flood generations... those closest to man's "physically perfect creation."

Answer 2

Opinion

Yes, it true that lifespans were longer since the Hebrews were meticulous record keepers, particularly with regard to genealogy.

Genetically, the human race was more free from accumulated defects. There is also a theory that a protective water canopy was above the earth until the flood. This theory suggests that when the waters of this were released in the deluge, lifespans reduced due to the increased exposure to aging influences.

Several European royal houses also recorded their genealogy back to Noah corroborating the time frame. These records pre-date the Christian era. Answer (of sorts)

People live for along time it seems only towards to beginning of the Old Testament. One thing to take into account is that death (for humans at least) only enters the world after Adam and Eve sin. This would mean that Adam and Eve were created to live forever. Science has a hard time pinning down what causes aging, one thought is it is genetic. This means your body actually starts shutting itself down as you get older according to your DNA instruction manual. If Adam and Eve were created to live forever it would imply things like their cells were able to reproduce without slowing down. There are actually animals like this, there is a certain jellyfish that can revert to a younger state at any time and theoretically live forever as long as it isn't eaten or catches a disease (which happens pretty quick to all of them anyway). Point being that if Adam and Eve were designed to live for along time it makes sense that sin took a long time to kill them through sickness or old age problems. As time went on, more diseases, more genetic mutations and problems etc. were sure to come about, not to mention murder and the more visible aspects of sin. These slowly shortened lifespans until God says he capped the lifespan at 120 years. It's interesting that if science does show conclusively that aging is genetic it will be almost like seeing God's fingerprint of how he choose to limit our ages.

"The thing to remember about the Bible is that the events and characters are just vehicles to convey messages. The biblical narrative was written to educate our young nation, not so much to tell us what really happened."

- If the Bible doesn't tell us what really happened it's worthless outside of its literary merit (which isn't much, its kind of boring). If it DOES tell us what really happened we have a God, a savior and a reason to live.

Answer 3

It can be said, with some assurance, that people did not really live as long as reported in the Bible.
As an example, the author of Genesis claimed to know that Noah lived another 350 years after the Flood, therefore living until Abraham was some 60 years old - yet he played no further part in the biblical story. Although the Bible says Noah was the ancestor of every person in the world, archaeologists have found no evidence of the remaining 350 years of the life of this remarkable man in the records of the Hebrews, Egyptians, Assyrians or any other nation. And Noah did not use his personal acquaintance with God to argue against the rise of new religions, nor was Abraham aware that he had a still-living ancestor who could have provided testimony for his God. Neither Abraham nor any other national leader are recorded as keeping in touch nor seeking Noah's advice on any matter.
From a secular point of view, paleontologists and archaeologists consistently find evidence of early humans having lived short lives, even by today's standards, but never of humans living to the great ages of the Bible.

Finally, Yair Zakovitch, Dean of Humanities at Hebrew University is quoted as saying, "The thing to remember about the Bible is that the events and characters are just vehicles to convey messages. The biblical narrative was written to educate our young nation, not so much to tell us what really happened."

Answer 4

The Bible makes no claim that anyone other than the direct ancestors of the Jews lived such long lives, yet the ancestors of the Egyptians, Assyrians and others would surely have been just as 'physically perfect' as the legendary Hebrew ancestors. Looking carefully at the Bible, we can see that other people alive at the time of Abraham, Moses and others, only lived normal lifespans. This is consistent with actual historical records in Egypt, Mesopotamia and elsewhere, which show that people lived relatively short lives compared to today - never the great ages in the Bible. Fossil evidence going back many thousands of years show that our Stone Age ancestors rarely lived more than forty years, thus also invalidating the biblical claim.

If our common Stone Age ancestors and the contemporary non-Hebrews did not live such great ages, we can rule out hypotheses such as protective levels in the atmosphere or 'physically perfect creations'. Either the early Hebrews were in some extraordinary way able to live longer than any other races, or we can look for a different explanation. To choose to believe that the 'pre-Flood' people lived even more extraordinary lifespans, we must ignore the scientific evidence of the Stone Age and ignore the history of nations already in existence at the time of Adam and Eve. The alternative is to rationally accept that legends are always exaggerated.

Answer 5

Different opinions abound. Give a look at the related links below.

Answer 6

Because God made them live long

Answer 7

Cuz God made em