How do we explain the very old ages that people lived to in Old Testament times?

[exoflare]

Our appointed lifespan these days is 3 score and 10, or 70 years. If you live longer, you are on borrowed time.

Where did you get that? I’m not necessarily disagreeing, just curious.

 

[DaveBj]

Where did you get that? I’m not necessarily disagreeing, just curious.

Ps. 90:10

(I’ve got four years to go :bigyikes: )

 

[exoflare]

Thanks, Dave.

Interestingly enough, just by coincidence this is what comes up when you google “world life expectancy.”

• 69.4 * years - 2009
  Source: World Bank

 

[feed_me]

Actually it is all in the genes, look at all the people that are 90 years old and can still swing around us young bucks. But yea, when God created Adam and Eve, he gave them 1000 years to live, after there fall from grace. It is in genes and when God said that he would limit the lifespan of those to 100 years, he mutated the genes to make that happen, and mutations work fast.

 

[hglundahl]

Ps. 90:10

Was written after God lowered the age of man. He made 120 the maximum age (Moses lived that long, Abraham I think somewhat longer even), but 60-70 a reasonable medium expectancy.

But then again, maybe they were counting years differently than how we count them?

They may very well have been doing that. But the difference between ten years Gregorian calendar and ten years on older Attic calendar - with lunar months and some years a leap month - is not all that stunning.

And it is sure and certain that someone adding up twelve months to a lunar year or twelve months and now and then thirteen months to a lunar-solar year does not take a month for a year. It is very much no use at all to divide the ages by twelve. Especially as the ages after the flood show no indication to be related to a change in calendar and all indication to be related to a change - a drastic change - in lifespan.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

The Council of Trent enumerates Genesis among the books that are the word of God - who cannot make mistakes and who cannot lie. It also makes clear it must be understood according to unanimous interpretation of Church Fathers (i e presumably whenever they are unanimous, their interpretation obliges, when they are not at least their common ground obliges).

Which exact Church Father supports that view, and how is it made clear in Genesis that the old ages come in a passage to be treated as a quote?

Now, first off, to speak seriously, whether God speaks to ignorant or to wise, he is no liar.

Second off, whatever the ignorance of any human society, it was certainly not ignorant of the ordinary lifespan of man.

Third off, the high ages being original and the considerably lower ones we have now, it is those who need explanation: and they are explained as God deciding to shorten human lifespans after the flood.

Which would be the explanation needed.

I have recently read that man has a gene for producing vitamin C, but it is turned off, i e men cannot produce vitamin C in their own body. That may be part of the DNA degradation involved. However, I think it happened suddenly, more or less, on a divine decision.

Dont go that way.
After Trent, there was Vatican I and II.
It is a dogma the ages of the ancestors.
God said thing so that people understood. And old times people understood the message which was metaphorical.
God does not lie. Jesus did not lie when he said the parables but you cannot interpret the parables literally. They are a “midrash”, a tale with a meaning.
Dont go for the DNA.
The meaning is simply that long. long, long time ago, people were so strong that they could live so many years.
Today people say that our ancestors lived longer for the food had no chemicals…

 

[InJesusItrust]

I can’t. I believe it’s is true because I believe in the resurrection, which is also scientifically impossible. If the supernatural can influence the natural to do things we consider impossible, then when we say something is impossible we are only basing it on a subset knowledge of reality.

 

[hglundahl]

After Trent, there was Vatican I and II.

Which adressed the ages of the ancestors HOW?

It is a dogma the ages of the ancestors.

I presume you mean it is not. No, but it is what St Thomas Aquinas called “secondary dogma” and what Orthodox call “truth but not dogma”.

God said thing so that people understood. And old times people understood the message which was metaphorical.

They maybe even understood WHEN a message was metaphorical and when it was NOT.

And maybe even transmitted that to the Church Fathers.

God does not lie. Jesus did not lie when he said the parables but you cannot interpret the parables literally. They are a “midrash”, a tale with a meaning.

What exact Church Father calls the ages previous to deluge a parable?

Dont go for the DNA.
The meaning is simply that long. long, long time ago, people were so strong that they could live so many years.
Today people say that our ancestors lived longer for the food had no chemicals…

OK, according to you DID they or did they NOT live, like Adam for some less than one thousand years and so on?

If “the meaning is” that they COULD but in fact did NOT, how do we know they EVEN COULD? And what exact Church Father gives that interpretation?

 

[gus]

Some church fathers made the point that no man in the Bible made it to 1000 yrs. This was the equivilent of one of Gods days. So no fallen man ever made it through one day.

 

[PJM]

=Holly3278;9275272]Hey everyone. How do we explain the very old ages that people lived to in Old Testament times? For example, the Bible says that Noah was 600 years old when the floods came upon the earth. Did people back then really live this long or is this just a figure of speech or something?

Only possible explaination is it was God’s Will. Amen

 

[fred_conty]

600 is a round convenient number. Why wasn’t it 601 or 599? Maybe this number 600 is a symbolic number with a special meaning like “chosen”, or “blessed”, or …?

Just a thought.

 

[Credo_in_Deum]

You know, I am beginning to think that maybe we just flat out don’t know whether or not people lived for hundreds of years back then. I suppose that if they had pure or almost pure DNA it could have been possible. But then again, maybe they were counting years differently than how we count them?

So yeah, I think maybe we just simply don’t know the answer to this question.

Whether someone lives for 900 years or 1 day is up to God. Before Noah man’s life span was longer however, in Genesis God shortens man’s life to 120. After God does this the life span of man starts decreasing from 900, 600, 400, 200, high 100’s, low 100s, and now present day 100 and less.

So the question shouldn’t be how did humans live so long; but rather why are we not living as long? The answer; God doesn’t will us to live that long anymore.

 

[hglundahl]

Some church fathers made the point that no man in the Bible made it to 1000 yrs. This was the equivilent of one of Gods days. So no fallen man ever made it through one day.

Indeed. But the six days were before the fall.

The rules of the Roman Authorities allowed them to answer only “affirmative” and “negative”, sometimes “ad utramque partem”, or “ad primam partem”/“ad secundam partem” added to the two basics.

So, when under St Pius X they were asked if it was allowed to see the word “yôm” as meaning other than 24 h., the context being already set as the three first chapters of Genesis, the answer was “affirmative” - because of the “same day in which …” obviously.