Posted on 02/17/2017 7:30:35 AM PST by Salvation
I occasionally get questions about the remarkably long lives of the patriarchs who lived before the great flood. Consider the ages at which these figures purportedly died:
How should we understand these references? Many theories have been proposed to explain the claimed longevity. Some use a mathematical corrective, but this leads to other pitfalls such as certain patriarchs apparently begetting children while still children themselves. Another theory proposes that the purported life spans of the patriarchs are just indications of their influence or family line, but then things don’t add up chronologically with eras and family trees.
Personally, I think we need to take the stated life spans of the patriarchs at face value and just accept it as a mystery: for some reason, the ancient patriarchs lived far longer than we do in the modern era. I cannot prove that they actually lived that long, but neither is there strong evidence that they did not. Frankly, I have little stake in insisting that they did in fact live to be that old. But if you ask me, I think it is best just to accept that they did.
This solution, when I articulate it, causes many to scoff. They almost seem to be offended. The reply usually sounds something like this: “That’s crazy. There’s no way they lived that long. The texts must be wrong.” To which I generally reply, “Why do you think it’s crazy or impossible?” The answers usually range from the glib to the more serious, but here are some common replies:
So I think we’re back to where we started: just taking the long life spans of the early patriarchs at face value.
There is perhaps a theological truth hidden in the shrinking lifespans of the Old Testament. The Scriptures link sin and death. Adam and Eve were warned that the day they ate of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would die (Gen 2:17), but they did not drop dead immediately. Although they died spiritually in an instant, the clock of death for their bodies wound down much later. As the age listing above shows, as sin increased, lifespans dropped precipitously, especially after the flood.
Prior to the flood, lifespans remained in the vicinity of 900 years, but right afterward they dropped by about a third (Shem only lived to 600), and then the numbers plummeted even further. Neither Abraham nor Moses even reached 200, and by the time of King David, he would write, Our years are seventy, or eighty for those who are strong (Ps 90:10).
Scripture says, For the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). Indeed they are, especially in terms of lifespan. Perhaps that is why I am not too anxious to try to disprove the long life spans of the patriarchs, for what we know theologically is borne out in our human experience: sin is life-destroying. This truth is surely made clear by the declining lifespan of the human family.
Does this prove that Adam actually lived to be more than 900 years old? No, it only shows that declining life spans are something we fittingly discover in a world of sin. God teaches that sin brings death, so why should we be shocked that our life span has decreased from 900 years to about 85? It is what it is. It’s a sad truth about which God warned us. Thanks be to God our Father, who in Jesus now offers us eternal life, if we will have faith and obey His Son!
How or even whether the patriarchs lived to such advanced ages is not clear, but what is theologically clear is that we don’t live that long today because of the collective effect of sin upon us.
Yep. Lots of difference AFTER the flood. Please see my post 58, and then Google, “Does UV light go through water?”
I believe every word in the Bible. I believe even the jot's and titles are there to give information from God. If you believe nothing is impossible for God, then stand on that principle. If you believe God's ways are not our ways and His ways are higher than our ways, then stand on that principle. If you believe "Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.", then you understand that you will have to stand on your faith in order to please God.
God imparted the wisdom in Genesis that "the evening and the morning were the first day" to give us prophesy of the end times. Peter tells us 2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. That was to tell us there will be 6,000 years of history and then Jesus will rule and reign for 1,000 years in a day of rest. Peter even mentions the scoffers as it was in the days of Noah to show these same scoffers are her today even as Biblical prophesy unfolds before their eyes. Even Dan 8:26 "And the vision of the evenings and mornings Which was told is true; Therefore seal up the vision, For it refers to many days in the future." Tells us it is important to believe the days were an evening and a morning. When we try to change the Word of God to suit what the world thinks, you lose the message God was trying to impart to His people. "His people" is absolutely descriptive of the people He is talking to. If you don't want to be one of "His people", then make up your own scriptures. Jesus didn't come to His disciples and declare, "You know all that Genesis stuff I wrote, ahhh there were these monkeys that changed to Adam and Eve over billions of years but I didn't want you to know that God was a monkey, as you were created in God's image." Ahhh, you know that flood was just a river bank overflowing that stupid people couldn't get through their numb skulls that just because a couple of their neighbors died, it wasn't the end of the world." NO, Jesus preached right from the scrolls He wrote and backed up the stories printed in Genesis. If Jesus was a liar, He wasn't perfect and could not be our sacrifice for sin.
The more I study the Bible, I see the love of God and His provision for "His people". There is that phrase again. NO one is forcing anyone to be "His people". The problem arises when someone claims the name of Christ, yet calls Him a liar. That is called "taking the Lord's name in vain". If my wife says she loves me, but goes out with other men and calls me a liar, why even bother to take my name? Jesus will come to take His bride one day and I think He will take a woman that loves Him, believes what He says , and follows His commands. It's not good enough to know the story of Jesus and then say you don't believe it. There are many verses speaking to this but just know that they will be left behind for the Beast and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. If we think not being in jail is good enough to go with God and be His companion forever, we have carved out a god in our head that doesn't match the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. This is called idol worship. The Bible is plain and explains itself if you read the whole book. Changing even one word or adding and subtracting one word gets you a curse.
Yes, Noah was 950 years old when He died. Stop trying to make what you think match some wild theory man has thought up. Believe God. Why would you think you can disbelieve the Genesis story, but say you believe Jesus was born of a virgin? Was sinless? Was able to die to cleanse your sin? Rose from the grave? Is sitting at the right hand of the Father in Heaven waiting to come for His bride? What makes a 950 year old man less believable? You believe by faith, not by sight. I have faith that my Savior, who gave His life for me, would NOT allow me to believe a lie. Jesus said he did not come to judge the world, but to save it. In the same verse He said the WORDS He spoke would judge the world. The Bible will judge you by what you believed and did not believe.( saved by grace through faith) If you really believed God, you would do what He said to do.
How would you know any parts are? Independent verification.
Regarding Noah though, it was a story borrowed from older literature during the Babylonian exile.
I think the atmosphere was different pre-flood. I think the air was super charged and long lifespans were not only possible, but commin.
“And those of you who think this is all hogwash, Good luck to you.”
Thanks again Salvation! Joe your on spot!
God Bless
and The Grand Master of the Order of St. John, Jean de la Valette, was 71 years old when defending Malta against the Turkish islam hordes swinging a sword and defeating a vastly larger force!
God Bless
Defenders of Christendom
http://angeluspress.org/Defenders-of-Christendom
“All those accident victims who lived in Noah’s time never got written about.”
Clever point...
Amen, and amen. Very well stated.
Thank you for that.
I didn’t think of that aspect of it.
The lesson here is don't try to put God in a box. There is no box for Someone that created the universe. Why do we struggle to make up a story for something God has already explained to us?
Source being a Cretan Greek poem, I'm skeptical of him swinging more than a spoon at his oatmeal but since he was the leader he gets the good press.
Genesis 6 clearly tells us that God set a maximum lifespan on mankind sometime after the fall, and it seems to be for reasons related to why he sent the great flood. He uses the future tense when he declares man’s lifespan will be 120 years in the 3rd verse, so I think that means the lifespan didn’t immediately shorten, but tapered down to that length over the next few generations after God made that decree.
So you don’t believe that God declared man’s lifespan would be shortened to 120 years in Genesis 6:3?
Do you have some other explanation for these things that doesn’t amount to saying “the Bible is unreliable”?
Translation from what? The books were written in Hebrew, and those long ages appear in the Hebrew...
I guess you could claim it was a transcription error, but then they would have had to make similar errors over and over, in one section of the book and not in other similar sections of the same book. That’s pretty far-fetched.
That doesn’t work, because there is no clear point you could define for a switch between two systems. For example, if you say that Abraham and Isaac’s ages were counted in years, they still lived to be 180 and 175, which are not reasonable to our modern sensibilities. On the other hand, if you say their ages were counted in months, then they died when they were 15 and 14 years old, far too young to have sired as many children as the Bible says they did, much less to do all the other things they Bible says they did AFTER fathering those children.
So you find the idea that God preordained a special destiny for these men and their descendants reasonable, but you don’t find it reasonable that God would protect them from accidents so they could fulfill that destiny?
So you find the idea that God preordained a special destiny for these men and their descendants reasonable, but you don’t find it reasonable that God would protect them from accidents so they could fulfill that destiny?
I forgot to add that Abraham and Isaac didn’t fit into my suggested “system.”
But, I don’t see why the ages in those books couldn’t have been done according to the calendar usage and practice of the different writers, of which there were many, and over a substantial period of time.
I’m not being dogmatic here—it’s just a possibility that occurs to me.
Yep. Anyone who finds these ideas too hard to swallow should also be skeptical of a story about a perfect man, born from a virgin, dying as a sacrifice to take away the sins of the world and save us from death, shouldn’t they?
Yep. Anyone who finds these ideas too hard to swallow should also be skeptical of a story about a perfect man, born from a virgin, dying as a sacrifice to take away the sins of the world and save us from death, shouldn’t they?
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