My self and a friend were talking about ancient peoples and she maintains that the bible ( the king james version) is the one she reads i think, any way she rekons that the bible says that many years ago people lived to be 300 years old and sometimes 700 or 800 years old.
personally i find that ridclous. but my question is, does anybody know if that has been said anywhere in the bible. thanks.

Gen 5:3 Adam had been living for a hundred and thirty years when he had a son like himself, after his image, and gave him the name of Seth:
Gen 5:4 And after the birth of Seth, Adam went on living for eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters:
Gen 5:5 And all the years of Adam's life were nine hundred and thirty: and he came to his end.
Gen 5:6 And Seth was a hundred and five years old when he became the father of Enosh:

I guess that answers your question

Come on

969 years

Methusala

longest Biblically recorded living person

Thought people knew this

yeah knew that. but she was saying whole populations of people living to be 700 years and on... so does it say that...

A "population" can live for an indefinite amount of time.

if you make a big impact on life and the others around you then you will become immortal.

ok but did it say that people lived mortal for 700 or 800 years, not in theory or in parables.

The first two responses answered your question, Louie. Yes, many genealogies represent people living that long. Genesis 5 records births, deaths, and significant events. I'll record the death dates only for brevity:

- Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died (v5)
- Altogether, Seth lived 912 years, and then he died. (v8)
- Altogether, Enosh lived 905 years, and then he died. (11)
- Altogether, Kenan lived 910 years, and then he died. (v14)
- Altogether, Mahalalel lived 895 years, and then he died. (v17)
- Altogether, Jared lived 962 years, and then he died. (v20)
- Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. (v23-24) NOTE: one of only two people in genealogies to never actually die.
- Altogether, Methuselah lived 969 years, and then he died. (v27)
- Altogether, Lamech lived 777 years, and then he died. (v31)

When you write fiction, you can make your heroes live as long as you want them too and if you set it way way back in time, who is around to say that it is fiction....the scribes that wrote the bible in the 6th century BCE knew this and made good use of that fact!

AH......YES
Yoda was 900 years old when he died.....seen it in the movie.

You can also debate what a year was to these people. Maybe they lived in Dog Years.

If you count months as years it comes out about right

900 months = 75 years old

The story of adam and eve is even more unrealistic than a disney movie, really

The thing is, the more you read the bible the more it all hangs together. Believe it or not, is another issue, but as a story it is very coherent. People lived a long while because genetically they were closer to Adam and Eve who were designed to live forever, they were created in god's image, and possibly, depending on how you read the bible, were bred from sons of god who walked the earth in the early days. Another example is Goliath. He and his weapons are quite clearly described in the bible and while his size is open to interpretation he was big. What not everyone knows is that the bible clearly says goliath was one of a "family" which was supposed to be wiped out for their sins some time before. A part of the family lived on, and David not only killed Goliath, he was also given the job of killing off other members of this Giant family. Again, written long before any knowledge of genetics, the story has a much greater ring of truth today, if you have read it all, and not just the story of David and Goliath.

HMM......God tried to wipe out a family/people (yet again)......and failed (again).

By the way....that story was the world flood as in Noah's ark.

actually Genesis chapter 4-9 it talk about that

srcinc

Irish's scripture passages are correct. The reason being for the fact that people don't live to be that old anymore is because when God is talking to Noah about the Flood, he says how He will no longer allow people to live over 130, as His Spirit cannot bearit anymore.

When I get home from canoing tomorrow I'll post the Scripture

You should read what Mako (a member here) has to say about that topic: The Flood




Genesis 6:3
And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

Of course they did. Back then people ate more healthy than we do now! it's all about their diet!

He's asking if everyone on the planet lived to be as old as the more popular characters in Genesis.

Thanks to Dakong and Zandore, we can conclude that there were a good amount of people who lived to turn the ripe old age of Ancient.

I'm fairly sure that there is no further clarification to prove every one person did indeed live to ridiculous ages.

UMM No I don't think so


The best way ancient man had to tell time was the cycle of the moon.....when do you think the 365 day calender was invented(?).

Please inform your friend that Genesis is not to be taken literally, and no one has ever lived to the ridiculous ages described therein.

Development of the text. The development of the book of Genesis was a long process extending over centuries. The first book of Moses, or Genesis, as we know it, is only the final stage of this process. Oral tradition—narratives, genealogies, itineraries—played a large part in the evolution of this book; it was a long way to the present unity that combines all of primeval and ancestral history. The question of the identity of the author (in the modern sense) of Genesis is irrelevant. It was not writers or poets who desired and first formulated these accounts; their origins lie in the human communities to whose life they belonged. Thus they express an understanding of God, of the world, and of humanity, which did not yet make distinctions between knowledge and belief, between science, philosophy, history, and religion. This explains in part the parallels to the themes of the creation story in many other cultures. These parallels were not necessarily due to literary derivation; rather, questions about origins were asked everywhere in early human history. Therefore, primeval events cannot be understood or described as the beginning of history; it is misguided to inquire about their “historicity.” The appropriate question to ask of this material is not, “Did it really happen that way?” but, “Is it our world that is being portrayed? Is this description of human beings accurate?” The essential fact is that, in describing creation, people for the first time grasped the world, and humanity, as a whole.--CLAUS WESTERMANN, Professor of Old Testament, Heidelberg University

And dump the KJV! Argh! A terrible translation of the scriptures!

Most kindly,

Sean

Compare the King James version of the Christian OT to the Jewish Tanakh

The Tanakh

Closer than you think.

If both of these posts are correct (besides Dakongs apparent year error), God felt the need to lower the average age of men, which could only mean there was quite a few of them. If not, he wouldn't have been so general. Though I suppose that's open to debate.

Major debate!

When do you think the Gregorian calendar <<a link<< (the calendar we use today) was devised?

Can we, as an intellectual exercise, entertain the idea that perhaps some of the pre-Sumerian writings might have held some element of truth? They, too, speak of a people who had extremely long lives and that they were somehow “different” from man. They mixed freely with humanity, however, and a large portion of the “human” society was what could legitimately be called hybrids of the two.

While I recognize that this has the sour flavor of science fiction, it is interesting to note that Herodotus went to Egypt to study under the priests there and returned to Greece with the now-famous king’s list. The translation of the king’s list says:

"After kingship had descended from heaven, Eridu became the seat of kingship. In Eridu, Aululim reigned 28,800 years as king. Alalgar reigned 36,000 years. Two kings, reigned 64,800 years. Eridu was abandoned and its kingship was carried off to Bad-tabira. . . .

"Total: Five Cities, eight kings, reigned 241,200 years.”

It is well recognized that the names Aululim and Alalgar stem from a pre-Sumerian language.

The theory can be carried forward to another pre-Sumerian account wherein human population exploded and there was a concern that there would be a loss of control. For that reason a new law was passed prohibiting these people from continuing to mix with humans. Shortly after there was a huge scandal when some young men saw human women and had their pleasures with them as they had always been permitted to do before the law. But now this was a serious violation of the new law and was so scandalous that it probably entered the Bible as:

GENESIS 6:1 Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. 3 And the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years." 4 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. (NKJV)

Theologists have always had a problem with the concept of the “sons of God” since it directly goes against the “only begotten son” proclamation. They were interpreted to have been angels, etc. That, however, is another topic.

What is interesting here is that immediately after this new law and its enforcement, the stated ages of humans started to decline. The comment in Genesis 6:3 clearly indicates that there was a goal in mind for an amount of time for man to live. But is it possible that through the diluting of the genetic influence of these “different” people (whoever they were) the extended lives of man were given and later taken away by the new law prohibiting their relations?

That is not the only place in the Bible that refers to the “sons of God”.....in Job there is reference.

Yes, and it appears in one of the most disputed and confusing tales within the Old Testament. It is suggeted by some that the translation of the Septuagint into Greek produced many liguistic anomalies and fundamental errors such as the word “almah” as “virgin” while it actually translates as “the young woman.” The word “virgin” is actually “besulah.” When this error was pointed out to Christian theologians, their answer was that the error was dictated by God to insure that his son would have the proper recognition.

The earliest copies indicate the "sons of God" as "bene Elohim" that was never used for humans, but always of supernatural beings that are higher than man but lower than God. Given that concept, we again have a problem with the concept of the holy trinity.

Though I don't believe that anyone in Biblical times lived to be such ages, I have to say that the Bible wants you to. No matter what the "interpretation" is, this one can't be changed. It doesn't say they lived long, but how long they actually lived. Yes different parts should be interpreted differently (as in not the way most people think of them, i.e. Creation, "Seven days," "Tree of Knowledge," and more), but these lifetimes should be thought of as what they say, 969 365-day years, and down.