Impossible ages in the OT?

Arcade22

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Arcade22
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I've been reading the OT lately and one thing I'm wondering about is the fact that some major characters in it apparently lived for hundreds upon hundreds of years until they died. Some lived for 900 years until they finally croaked.

How's this possible? Is there some difference in the definition of the word "year" or is it pure magic?
 
The Bible seriously claims that the people back then lived that long. Of course, anyone that can use logic should be able to tell that such a thing never happened.

In Genesis 6:3 God says, "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years."

The only explanations I have heard are that it was the result of the fallen people slipping further from the perfection of Eden, or that there was a canopy of water vapor that surrounded the earth before the flood, somehow making people so much more healthy that they could live to such ridiculous ages.

 
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mayabe the inventors of the OT mixed up 900 months with 900 years :p
 
In those days, and even much later, it was quite customary to ascribe various magic feats and abilities to heroes, kings, and various other iconic figures. Even in the 18th century Europe, the number of deer killed on a hunt, or enemies slain in battles, ascribed to a participating king would often be outrageous. Or think of the number of books allegedly written by the North Korean president!

So claiming fantastic ages attained by patriarchs would simply be a way of glorifying them. Also, perhaps, a way of making a lineage stick together, in an otherwise unlikely time line: If you want to claim patriarch B was the son of patriarch A, although they were known to live some centuries apart, it helps to claim that patriarch A lived to be 500.

Hans
 
As interpreted by fundamentalists, those years are very real years. It is possible because all things are possible with God. i.e. it is what the OP called "pure magic".

Fun fact on Biblical timelines. Shem, the son of Noah, who was with Noah on the ark, lived to see the birth of ten generations after him, including Abraham and his son Isaac. Indeed, Shem outlived Abraham.

As best I can tell then, he lived to have 20 million or so direct living descendants, of several different races. Meanwhile, although he had lived through the destruction of the entire world at the hands of the one, true, God, he was unable to convince more than a handful of his descendants to maintain monotheistic practices.

Plus, there's no evidence that any of his kids ever visited, or even sent a card at Christmas.....er...Hanukah....er....Passover......er......um......they must have had some sort of holidays back then. Deluge day?
 
In quest of an answer to this most serious question I have fired off a quick email to the Goat-Herders' Genealogical Institute. (Currently located in Pahrump, Nevada.) The current holder of the Thomas Browne chair in Applied Numerology, Oprah Winfrey, should be getting back to me soon. Stand by.
 
Arcade22 said:
I've been reading the OT lately and one thing I'm wondering about is the fact that some major characters in it apparently lived for hundreds upon hundreds of years until they died. Some lived for 900 years until they finally croaked.

How's this possible? Is there some difference in the definition of the word "year" or is it pure magic?
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The main difference is that hebrai letters are also numbers, so in the kabbalah numbers equal words ch_i=life=18, A_D_M=45 and so on, so most likely when they say "So and so lived to be XXX" you are then to know the words that match that value.
 
^^Don't listen to any of them! ^^

People used to live to 600 years old, easily.

Then God got mad at people and made us die much much sooner.

Its in the Bible!

;)
 
If you take the biblical accounts as correct, Methuselah lived 900 years. That's almost one fourth of the time the world existed pre-Jesus. You'd think he'd be mentioned in more of the books.
 
Man, can you even imagine the kind of "back in my day" stories you'd hear from someone who actually lived about a quarter of the Earth's age ;)

"You kids don't know how good you have it! Toys? Back in my day we didn't even have a stick to splash in puddles with. Before the Carboniferous, all we had were ferns and those don't make good sticks to splash with! And you always had to look out for velociraptors. Some of the smaller buggers would just zip by and run off with your bloody leg if you didn't look out. "

"And it reminds me, you kids always complaining about having to eat your veggies. Oh, what we wouldn't have given for some veggies like those instead of fern for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Ever eaten a fern, kid? Makes you wish some beans and carrots would evolve already, but nooo, they had to take their bloody time."

"And always complaining about having to walk to school through snow, uphill both ways. Oh what we wouldn't have given for some snow to walk through! You know how hot it got in the Eocene? 'Course you don't. It was a whole bloody 12 Celsius hotter, that's how hot. And on top of that, the bloody continental drift had put us right on the bloody equator at the time."

"And mosquitoes? You call those mosqutoes worth complaining about? Wimps. You should have seen what we used to call insects back in my day. Bloody mosquitoes back then could suck a cow dry, if cows had evolved yet. And there was this dragonfly THIS wide!" (Holds hands 2.5 ft apart.) "You had to hand it to the bugger that it ate the other insects, but you'd pray it never goes hungry because it was big enough to mug you and eat your lunch!"
 
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I had one fundie acquaintance that said there was a giant ice sphere around the earth that prevented bad radiation from coming in and again people, and that ice melting is what caused the "flood"... In other words, more magic.
 
LarianLeQuella said:
I had one fundie acquaintance that said there was a giant ice sphere around the earth that prevented bad radiation from coming in and again people, and that ice melting is what caused the "flood"... In other words, more magic.
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again people what? :)

I can't believe Marduk hasn't weighed in here yet. Paging Dr Marduk!

If I remember right it's something to do with not having decimal points...
 
Zanders said:
The Bible seriously claims that the people back then lived that long. Of course, anyone that can use logic should be able to tell that such a thing never happened.

In Genesis 6:3 God says, "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years."
Click to expand...

Even this proved God a liar or an incompetent -- a Japanese man lived to 121 about 10 years ago.
 
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