OOOOK people, so being wiccan im not particulary a bible follower, but my friends are going through some changes and all becoming christian, which is really quite fun to watch but i always get stuck in debates about religion, which i find quite tiresome as we discuss the same things with the same questions and the same answers....normally something like "well if god is soo good then why.....blah blah" ....BUT today we stumbled on a new topic...yey for that, so apparently in the bible people lived over 900 years old or up to that date.....can someone tell me, if/how/why is this possible....is it symbolic rather than literal??]

explanations...please

They only lived that long in the very early parts of the Bible, i.e. Genesis. After that, their lifespans gradually shortened to 'normal' lengths. When I was small, I asked my minister why this was; He said that because those people early in the bible had sinned less, they were allowed to live longer. Now, though, I wonder if it may have been so that they could continue bearing offspring for longer, in order to (re)populate the Earth. I believe the Bible mentions Noah still fathering children well past the 600 mark.

hmm....so the length the bible says that people lived to was that for every1 in the world or just limited people...and was it meant to be taken literally

I found this interesting

http://www.scripturessay.com/q81.html

Paul,

If you divide 900 by 72 (Average human lifespan), it equals 12.5.
365 divided by 12.5 = 29.2 (Approximate lunar cycle).

Coincidence?

Another thing to consider is that there was less disease, germs, etc. back then, the earth not having been polluted as much as it is today.

Below is a link I found that discusses historical human lifespans. Even with the lunar cycle to which my simple formula leans, 72 (Not the current data, as it happens) would be a stretch centuries/millenia ago. They ate bread and drank wine, so they inevitably developed cavities and gum disease. But no modern dentistry... And no quality healthcare by today's standards.

Granted, there wouldn't have been as much pollution, but the industrial revolution that led to our present environmental issues looks like yesterday on the timeline we're exploring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectan...r_human_history

HISTORICAL LIFESPANS
Neanderthal, 20
Neolithic, 20
Classical Greece, 28
Classical Rome, 28
Medieval England, 33
End of 19th Century, 37
Early 20th Century, 50
Circa 1940, 65
Current (in the Western world), 77-81

All right, I was wrong again. Please forgive my profound ignorance.

Thanks for participating, Fox. The truth is out there, but who do you trust? Hint: it's not me...

It's not possible IMO to live for hundreds of years...this is WHY I see the bible as another Harry Potter book

A good question indeed....

Under today's circumstances, no it's not possible, and nobody ever said it was. The point is, these people that allegedly lived for so long were different people under different circumstances.

Don't misconstrue this as meaning I believe that they DID live that long, but it's not fair to say "Because we can't do it now, then they surely can't have." And IF there was any truth to the story, they would have lived that long as a possible result of being blessed by God, which in any case throws logic out the window.

Just because you believe they did live that long doesnt mean everyone else must believe the same...to me and IMO its a load of cobblers..now why cant you just respect that?? Think about it...the avarage caveman only lived the avarage age of 25/26 and yet a few others where able to live hundreds of years..sorry mate but it doesnt add up to me..
Think about it...God created the entire universe and he created this tiny lil planet in just 7 days..now think about how long it would have taken him to create a lil spec like man..this would be we buns to him (easy) after all isn't he supposed to be the all mighty and all powerful??? then why make just 2 people live for hundreds of years and not bother creating other people? doesnt it make sense to create others?? thather than let it wait out for hundreds of years...sorry again this does not make sense at all...and I believe we all evolved...I believe God created whatever it was to make us evolve from this is my opinion and im sticking by it!!
Now before you rant off at me..I respect you have taken all of that in..why cant you do the same to me and respect that I dont swallow it

I respect your arguments, and indeed I agree with them. I never claimed to believe they lived that long. In fact, I even claimed the contrary:

I'm back with a new thought-

what if years weren't measured in the same way back then?


(i always feel like an idiot amongst scholars in these discussions, but i put my two bits in, anyway)

Here's an interesting thought: were years measured by the lunar cycle, or perhaps the menstrual cycle? That may sound crude, but I'm not joking. A new opportunity for conception marking a new year...

Sorry LOL me bad

hmm....this idea of the years being measured differently seems to make alot of sense, i will now embark on finding out how they were measured!!!...thanks

hmm...double postage lol....interesting points were made about the length of the years, after a couple of minutes of searching, i came across another point, apparently it was b4 the flood (the noahs ark one) that these people lived to such ages....although, there is apparently no evidence of this flood (although some people do believe that boat is on the big mountain thing)...but when did the flood occur, obviously not b4 the times when there were neanderthals becuase they lacked the ability to build an ark...and there wasnt christianity then (i think this was like 230, 000+ years ago) but the neanderthals didnt live for aslong as even 100 years....so this surely cant be explained by the "different" conditions back then

Alan F. Alford postulates that the 900+ years that people lived was actually a mistranslation, and should be............ 9,000 years.

Examining archaeological and astrological phenomena, Alford comes up with an interesting hypothesis as to the beginning of human life.

WHile I do find his book "God's of the New Millenium a most excellent read, one I would recommend to people, I do however find some of his ideas a little..... baseless.

Check it out some time

Regards, PA

OH BOY!

I did a search for that book PA....

I consider Alan Alford's Gods Of The New Millenium a major contribution to the second stage of the inplementation of the radical new paradigm introduced by the Sumerian scholar, Zecharia Sitchin. The first stage was initiated by Sitchin with his publishing of The Twelfth Planet in 1976, subsequently followed by six more volumes.

A Review

Zecharia Sitchin? He's a crack pot!

I agree his conclusions were a little..... off-rail. And much of it based on unfounded assumptions. Indeed, I disagree with many of the conclusions he reaches. That doesn't take away from the fact that it is an interesting read that I think anyone here would enjoy!

I bet we would. We always enjoy new crackpots here at UM.

Both books are fiction.