Do we need any other explanation?
Monsignor Pope Ping!
A usefuleness for the early patriarchs to live through several generations, was that it permitted their stories to be accurately recounted for generations; ie, to get the story down straight and make sure it was remembered properly.
The sun went around the earth faster back then
Apparently, for Catholics the assertion of the Bible that they lived that long doesn't constitute proof.
Personal anecdote: the point at which I left the Catholic Church was when a seminarian told me he couldn't prove a man named Noah ever existed, but neither could he prove he didn't. I walked away that minute after six years of cognitive dissonance.
G-d's assertion that something happened isn't good enough for Catholics.
We do not NEED another explanation, but there are quite a few good books which talk about the post flood and pre flood world and how the removal of the water vapor barrier at the highest altitudes allowed radiation to affect our genes and cause the degradation of what God created.
“The world that then was perished”
Easy answer. God created man with perfect DNA. Perfect DNA means long lifetimes. As generations went by, flaws developed in the DNA pool resulting in the current 70 year lifespan.
For over 2,000 years, these stories were told verbally around the campfire....and never were written down until you reach a point where written language started to exist. So, there’s some pretty good odds that ages might have gotten shifted around and maybe told a bit different, until some guy fixated all this to exact dates with written words. So I might not be too worried or too trusting of this number business. Some of us are lucky if we barely remember our wife’s birthday.
Pre/Post-Flood -- THAT is the key.
The entire world was re-booted. The planet itself, magnetic field, air pressure, genetics, and perhaps shield from radiation were dramatically altered.
Pre-flood fossil record reveal much larger flora and fauna, indicating a longer genetic "expiration date." Some argue that today's current "dating" methods and mechanisms don't apply since the earth was "re-booted."
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.
Yes you do! You have the inerrant, literal Word of God.
“Many scoff when I articulate this solution. They almost seem to be offended.”
Let them scoff. If they don’t believe God about something as simple as someone’s lifespan, then they surely won’t really believe God when he tells them the more preposterous story about sending His Son to die for our sins.
Leap years not consistent?
Seriously, if sin were to be found the reason for a shortened life span, then everyone in DC would be found to have head stones.
Funny thread...space age man trying to justify bronze age man’s limited thinking.
I have always been of the opinion that the diminishing lifespans were related to both the flood and the degenerative effects of sin. In fact, those effects of sin would probably also be the reason that initially brothers and sisters would have had to marry each other, and yet later incest was forbidden.
We are still discovering, as additional texts are found and deciphered, the extent of the astronomical knowledge and sophistication of the Maya, whose civilization rose in the 700 B.C. time frame and flourished in various forms until the 1500s.
Those patriarchs who followed God’s pre-Flood prescription for vegetarianism (which He rescinded in Gen. 9:3) were enabling themselves to live long lives, by avoiding toxic buildup of metals in their bodies from meat-eating. When God determined to shorten human lifespans, He used a nearby supernova to bathe the earth is cosmic rays, thus forever shortening our lifespans to the current maximum of 120 years, per Genesis 6:3.
The Earth’s rotation and orbital speed were slowed by near misses with other planetary bodies, making the years longer and the lives shorter? (Worlds in Collision, Velikovsky, 1950)
Actually, yes. The wages of sin are death, but that doesn’t mean an easy death. The son of Abraham (175), Isaac (185), became blind at some point, and was tricked into giving his blessing to Jacob (147), instead of Esau (murdered shortly after Jacob died). His murderer was Hushim, the son of Dan, son of Jacob, who was hard of hearing.
So blindness (and being crippled from angel wrestling) followed by bad hearing in just three generations.