Was Jesus young or old when he died on the Cross?

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This is all conjecture and the like, it doesn’t matter. Christ is God so He could of been the age of 33 in our time or He could of slowed his cellular decay to look any age.
 
On the other hand, let’s look at Anna (the old lady in the temple at the time of the Presentation): married for seven years, and outlived her husband for fourscore and four years (that’s 84 years).

So that’s 91 years + whatever age she was when she got married. True old age, like what we’d recognize as old age today did happen. True, not on the frequency of today, but it is still a fact.

Then in John 8, there’s that objection to Jesus: “But you’re not even 50 yet!” Now, why pull such an age out of the air, unless there were a number of 50 and older people walking about?

Average ages are useful bits of information when talking about an entire population, but they start losing their usefulness when you try to apply it to a single individual within a population.
 
Joe Kelley:
Note that life expectancy at birth in those times was strongly biased by infant mortality. If you made it to age two or three, you had a reasonable long life expectancy.
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Fifty percent of Roman children in the age of Christ died before they were ten years old.
 
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severinus:
The Romans viewed life as divided into ages originally based on, as you might expect, miltary service obligations. These divisions were carried over into general usage. Roman manhood began at age 17, when pueritas ended and one assumed the toga virilis. A man was considered to be iuventus (youthful) from 17 to 45, with adulescentia comprising the years from 17 to 30. Men were liable to active military service when needed while iuventi. The *aetas seniorum * (older age) went from 45 to 60, during which a man might be called out during a city emergency. Senectus (old age) was reckoned to begin at age 60, when military obligations ended. A man would, therefore, not be considered senex (old) until about 60,

According to the Romans, Jesus would have been barely out of adulescentia, and certainly not old.

Life expectancy during the late Republic/early Empire was, as Bobby A. Greene noted, around 25 to 30; few made it to 70. If you were lucky enough to survive childhood and its huge mortality rate, warfare, famine,or disease would probably get you.The Romans, however, did not consider ‘old’ anyone who beat the odds and made it to 40; a man dead at 40 was still iuventus. Even a man at 50 was fortunatus or felix, but not senex. The Romans knew that a person *could * live to 70, but also recognized that most would be dead long before.

See Cicero’s *Cato Maior De Senectute * for more info.
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Living to be 70 in Rome was like living to be 110 today in the USA; it would get your picture in the paper. To reach either 70 in Rome or 110 in contemporary America is extremely unusual, almost rare, but of course it happens.

The majority of Roman skeletons examined by forensic Anthropologists has given direct evidence that the average Roman citizen died by 28 years old.

But the average citizen like me and you during the first century would not have lived to be 70, we would most likely have kicked the bucket way before 30 years old.
 
Bobby A. Greene said:
And facts are never false.

The average life expectancy today in the U.S. is about 78 years.

The average life expectancy of a Roman citizen during the time of Christ was 25-28 years.

If today a 78 year old American were Crucified, he would be an old man and his age might contribute to his death.

Christ was, say, 33 years old when he was Crucified. If the average lifespan was between 25-28 years back then, Christ was an old man at 33 years old. I am of the belief that Jesus was an old man when Crucified and that contributed to his demise.
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Life expectancy, as most of the people in this thread have been saying, includes death from disease, war, accidents, and numerous causes other than old age. The average death
from old age was necessarily higher than the average life expectancy.

It sounds like you define old age as surviving longer than most people. I think the others here define it as a certain stage of biological deterioration–often characterized by wrinkles, white hair, baldness, etc., which would be quite rare in a 33 year old then as now. Old age is the life expectancy once deaths from violence, disease, etc. have been removed from the equation (ie, we consider only people who died “of old age”).

Suppose we use the former definition (a person is old relative to a given population if he or she has survived longer than the average member of that population). Now consider a town that is about to be massacred by Romans (it happened once in a while). If the average age of those people was 22 when they were massacred, the life expectancy of that population would be 22. So anyone who is at least 22 in that town is old relative to the town. But we already know that 22 is the average age, so does average age = old age?

If you look at the ages of Roman senators and patricians (since we have good records of their lifespans) who died of old age (ie, not disease or violence), I think you’ll find they tended to have lifespans closer to ours than to the 25-28 range that you described.
 
I believe Bobby Greene’s post points us in the right direction. We look on at the life expectancy of Christ’s time and compare it to our own and it is easy to conclude that Jesus was an old man when he died.

This is not necessarily accurate. The one factor that should be considered is the high infant mortality rate of Jesus’ time. That high rate is a major factor in a low life expectency rate.

Usually, if one survived into adulthood their bodily development was pretty much like our that is a normal 30 year old man then would be the same as a 30 year old man today. (Of coarse I’m not bringing factors such as desease or diet - just talking about the "Normal).

One other factor in Jesus’ case was his trade. A “Carpetner” was agrueling job which demanded more than just working wood. One could reasonable think that Jesus must have been in pretty good physical condition then (similar, if I may say, to the bodily condition of the figure on the Shroud of Turin - minus the beatings and whipping he went through).
 
Even in the US, up until about the 1950’s, the life expenctancy was in the 50’s. When Social Security was set up for age 62, the government knew then that most folks only lived unitil their mid or upper 50’s. They never expected to pay more than half of the folks, ever.

PLUS that was with semi modern medicine. 2000 years ago there were no medicines, no antibiotics for infections, no doctors to prolong life, no dentists, no nurses, no hospitals, no ambulances, no stitches for major cuts. In a medical emergency, you were sunk. Simple wounds could get infected and become fatal. Food would spoil easily with no refrigeration and many could die from food poisoning. Nuitrition was non existent and no vitamins supplements were around to give you support.

I think it would have been extremely rare for folks to make 70. 60 or 70 back then was probably like living to 100 now. Some folks do it but it would be really rare.

Living to age 40 or 50 back then was like making it to 70 or 80 today.

33 was probably not an old age, especially for Jesus, but 33 back then was nothing like it is now, Most 33 year olds had grown children of marriagable age, and some were already grandparents.
 
Actually infant mortality is higher in the US than in some 3rd world countries where medical care is not available.
 
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wcknight:
Actually infant mortality is higher in the US than in some 3rd world countries where medical care is not available.
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Intriguing. Any idea which countries, or why that would be (assuming you’re not counting abortions)?
 
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meep:
Intriguing. Any idea which countries, or why that would be (assuming you’re not counting abortions)?
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A side note. Our infant mortality numbers are slightly deceptive in that modern medicine can save babies that otherwise wouldn’t have been born, that then die because they are too weak. It’s always good to keep that in mind.
 
It’s hard to believe you’re not just being purposely obtuse Bobby.

Let me put it to you this way. Let’s assume you are 33 years old. As the new tyrannical dictator of America, I’ve decided to intruct you on this topic in a fairly brutal way.

I’ve selected 100 of your family and closest friends as well as yourself and put you all onto a remote island. I provide all the food shelter and medicine you need, so your life expectancy as a group is similar to the norm in America.

But now, I introduce a well trained sniper onto the island who will SHOOT 50 of them. He is instructed to spare you so you can learn this lesson.

After the mission is completed, the group as a whole will have an average life expectancy about 33 years old, due to the unnatural deaths of half your number!

Now let me ask you this: does the fact that I’ve shot down half of the islanders mean YOU are about to die of old age? Why not, the math says you are statistically at the end of your life expectancy!

Same goes for Jesus. He avoided the snipers of communicable disease, war, famine. He would have been in as good or better shape as any modern American his age.

If you still don’t get it, you are hereby prohibited from the use of any and all statistics in arguments by my imperial decree (You may be off the island now, but I still have the number of that sniper…).
 
I heard that a few years back. I’m not sure if that is still true. The reasons given for that back then was that breast feeding was the predominant practice in these other countries. Whereas in the US the percentage was quite low back then.

Plus newborn infants are not exposed to the public until some weeks later in life, thereby exposing them to outside pathogens a little later in life. And last because in these 3rd world countries, the grandparents lived with the young couple so advice was more readily available from an older and presumably wiser generation. Don’t remember which countries were mentioned.
 
Bobby A. Greene:
Living to be 70 in Rome was like living to be 110 today in the USA; it would get your picture in the paper. To reach either 70 in Rome or 110 in contemporary America is extremely unusual, almost rare, but of course it happens.

The majority of Roman skeletons examined by forensic Anthropologists has given direct evidence that the average Roman citizen died by 28 years old.

But the average citizen like me and you during the first century would not have lived to be 70, we would most likely have kicked the bucket way before 30 years old.
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Your “facts” make little sense.

Trick
 
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Trick:
Your “facts” make little sense.

Trick
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The fact that forensic Anthropologists have examined thousands of skeletons of Roman citizens and have determined the average age of death through the physical evidence which can be verified at any time makes little sense to you? Wow you are tough to convince.
 
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manualman:
It’s hard to believe you’re not just being purposely obtuse Bobby.

Let me put it to you this way. Let’s assume you are 33 years old. As the new tyrannical dictator of America, I’ve decided to intruct you on this topic in a fairly brutal way.

I’ve selected 100 of your family and closest friends as well as yourself and put you all onto a remote island. I provide all the food shelter and medicine you need, so your life expectancy as a group is similar to the norm in America.

But now, I introduce a well trained sniper onto the island who will SHOOT 50 of them. He is instructed to spare you so you can learn this lesson.

After the mission is completed, the group as a whole will have an average life expectancy about 33 years old, due to the unnatural deaths of half your number!

Now let me ask you this: does the fact that I’ve shot down half of the islanders mean YOU are about to die of old age? Why not, the math says you are statistically at the end of your life expectancy!

Same goes for Jesus. He avoided the snipers of communicable disease, war, famine. He would have been in as good or better shape as any modern American his age.

If you still don’t get it, you are hereby prohibited from the use of any and all statistics in arguments by my imperial decree (You may be off the island now, but I still have the number of that sniper…).
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You just rendered a wonderful example of ‘obtuse’ in your post; plus a demonstration of your total lack of understanding of the concept of average life span and life expectancy.

The concept should be easy to grasp: What is the average lifespan or life expectancy today in America? About ~78 years old.
What was the average lifespan or life expectancy 2,000 years ago in Rome? About ~25-28 years old.
Jesus was crucified approximately around ~33 years of age, which placed him past the average life span of people of his time period, making him an old man at his demise! Understand?
 
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

One of us has a serious learning disability! Others please sound off on which one it is!

The scenario I just painted for you ALSO is a society with an average life span of 33 years. So answer me. Are you about to die of old age in my scenario above? NEITHER WAS JESUS!

Keep your eyes out for that sniper Bobby…

EDIT: OK, If we want to be TECHNICAL, then I have to have that sniper shoot about 75 of those on the island to get the average life expectancy down that far. Is that what it’s going to take here?
 
Bobby A. Greene:
You just rendered a wonderful example of ‘obtuse’ in your post; plus a demonstration of your total lack of understanding of the concept of average life span and life expectancy.

The concept should be easy to grasp: What is the average lifespan or life expectancy today in America? About ~78 years old.
What was the average lifespan or life expectancy 2,000 years ago in Rome? About ~25-28 years old.
Jesus was crucified approximately around ~33 years of age, which placed him past the average life span of people of his time period, making him an old man at his demise! Understand?
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I understand you.
You seem to not understand us.
The fact that one is older than the life expectancy of one’s time does not make you old, biologically. It means that a lot of people you knew have died all ready.
Now, if they had died of old age (which is really a meaningless phrase; old is as old does), that would be one thing. But they were not dying of old age. They were dying of gangrene, tetanus, influenza, polio, heart failure, systemic infections, etc, etc.,ad infinititum.
If I had been born 20 years earlier, I would be dead–of natural causes. I went into congestive heart failure about a year ago. They cracked my chest, & repaired the damage. My life expectancy went up. I am the same age as my grandmother was when she died–of heart failure. They didn’t replace valves in those days.
My grandfather died of pneumonia in 1944 at about my age, because all the penicillin was used for the troops in WW2. If he had been born 20 years later, he would have no doubt lived to a ripe old age.

All this is due to modern medicine. We have to be careful to consider all the variables.
I think that your desire is admirable. Unfortunately, it is not going to fly with anyone who knows even as much as I do about this subject…and I never pretended to be an expert!!

Jesus died voluntarily on the cross. He chose the moment of His death. Reread the gospel accounts. Again & again, He speaks of “laying down His life”, & says that “no man takes it [His life] from Me”.
 
As for his age at the time of the Crucifixion, our Lord probably was not 33. Some reasons why:
  1. The year of the Crucifixion can be narrowed down by astronomical considerations. The two most likely years are A.D. 30 and A.D. 33, with the former year favored by most scholars.
  2. Jesus almost certainly was not born in A.D. 1. (Our numbering is based on a miscalculation.)
  3. The year of his birth can be approximated, based on such things as the year of Herod’s death. Most scholars think he was born between 8 B.C. and 4 B.C.
  4. If he was born in 8 B.C. and died in A.D. 33, he was about 40. If he was born in 4 B.C. and died in A.D. 30, he was about 33, but most scholars place his birth earlier (6 B.C. is common) and his death later (as I mentioned).
  5. Remember the curious comment by the Jews who disputed with him that Jesus was “not yet fifty” (John 8:57)? Irenaeus said this meant that Jesus was known to be past 40. If he were in his early thirties, his detractors would have said that he was “not yet forty.” On this logic, Jesus would have been born at the earliest date (8 B.C.) and would have died at the latest (A.D. 33).
  6. Of course, if Jesus were nearing 40 but not quite there, for emphasis his detractors could have used 50 instead of the almost-attained 40, so Jesus’ death could have been in A.D. 30 (when he would have been around 37, if born in 8 B.C.).
 
Karl Keating:
As for his age at the time of the Crucifixion, our Lord probably was not 33. Some reasons why:
  1. The year of the Crucifixion can be narrowed down by astronomical considerations. The two most likely years are A.D. 30 and A.D. 33, with the former year favored by most scholars.
  2. Jesus almost certainly was not born in A.D. 1. (Our numbering is based on a miscalculation.)
  3. The year of his birth can be approximated, based on such things as the year of Herod’s death. Most scholars think he was born between 8 B.C. and 4 B.C.
  4. If he was born in 8 B.C. and died in A.D. 33, he was about 40. If he was born in 4 B.C. and died in A.D. 30, he was about 33, but most scholars place his birth earlier (6 B.C. is common) and his death later (as I mentioned).
  5. Remember the curious comment by the Jews who disputed with him that Jesus was “not yet fifty” (John 8:57)? Irenaeus said this meant that Jesus was known to be past 40. If he were in his early thirties, his detractors would have said that he was “not yet forty.” On this logic, Jesus would have been born at the earliest date (8 B.C.) and would have died at the latest (A.D. 33).
  6. Of course, if Jesus were nearing 40 but not quite there, for emphasis his detractors could have used 50 instead of the almost-attained 40, so Jesus’ death could have been in A.D. 30 (when he would have been around 37, if born in 8 B.C.).
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Yes. But all this information would still place Jesus well pass the calculated average life span during the first century of ~25-28 years old.

Again, as a reminder, I have used this observation of Jesus’s age to counter those claims that Jesus survived his crucifixion experience. I believe Jesus’s age was one of several contributing factors leading to his death.
 
Bobby A. Greene:
From what I understand, Jesus was between 27 and 33 years old during his crucifixion experience.

Yet the average life expectancy of a man, lets say a Roman, during the time of Christ was from 25 to 28 years old, with 50% of children dying before their tenth birthday.

It seems to me that if Christ was 33 years old when he went to the Cross, he would have been an old man for his first century time period. Jesus was not a young man but an old man during his crucifixion experience. His old age would have contributed to his death.

I use this/my observation when I debate persons of other religions who believe that Jesus survived his crucifixion ordeal.
What are other viewpoints?
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Interesting, but I don’t know that it’s accurate. Let’s look at it in the light for a moment. Mary was older than Christ by probably at least 13 years (a guess here) which is 39% older than Christ at his death. That would make her 108 years old if you compare her life expectancy then with now. Then what about Saint John, the Apostle? He did not die until 100 A.D.!!! In general, people died earlier than they do today. However, the human body and how it reacts to aging remains the same then as it does now. There were many gray-haired men and women around when Christ walked the earth. If the earth’s population back then was 10,000,000 people and today the earth’s population is 6.5 billion it stands to reason that there are far more people living into there 80s, 90s and beyond today. That does not mean that it was unheard of back then.
 
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