950 year old man?

[Axxman]

Something else to consider...

I believe that Jesus the Christ raised from the dead on the third day. Do you? It is much easier to consider God sustaining the life of someone into their 900th year than it is raising someone from the dead. But yet the resurrecion is central to our faith.

I can believe in 900 year old men and a man surviving in the belly of a large aquatic animal and Joshua's long day because I believe that God has the power to raise the dead. In comparison, living 900 years is really rather minor (at least for me) .

Sorry I missed this post earlier Andy...

The resurrection was a miracle and had spiritual implications. In fact, all of the things you mentioned were all KNOWN miracles of God. Nobody ever says Joshua made the day long, or that Jonah was the author of his own miracle of surviving in the belly of a whale (or was it a large aquatic animal?) Miracles of God are acts of His supernatural power and have spiritual implication to man-kind.

In reference to the long lives of the people of Genesis...nobody ever regards it as a miracle because the bible never calls it a miracle. It would be an unspoken act of God that has no spiritual implication. God never claimed to have given man the supernatural ability to live naturally for hundreds of years...but people assume He did. Thats why people always try and make the case for weird atmospheric conditions and whatnot to explain the long lives...because there is no scriptural evidence that man could live NATURALLY (absent a miracle) for that long. If it was a miracle, then it is an unspoken miracle with no spiritual application, and no scriptural or real-world evidence.

It is FAR EASIER for me to believe in the resurrection of Christ...and all the other known miracles...because God said He did them.

[Guest Butero]

I don't have any problem believing that humans lived over 900 years early on. God shortened their lifespan as was already pointed out in this thread. I don't think it had anything to do with conditions on earth. Had Adam not sinned, man would have lived forever. After he sinned, he was given a death sentence, but he lived to be more than 900 years old. Later on, God spoke the word and man's lifespan was shortened. There is nothing complicated or hard to believe in this. The only reason it is a problem for some is because it goes against what is normal for us. That is why some have problems with the virgin birth of Christ.

Like I've said...I have NO problem with you believing that and I respect why you do. I personally think there are just way too many logistical problems with the idea to make it feasible in my mind...outside of an unspoken miracle of God. I think their is a HUGE difference between the virgin birth and people supposedly living naturally for hundreds of years. The virgin birth was prophesied, had a legitimate spiritual reason, and was a clear miraculous event.

Also, I'm inclined to disagree with your translation that God shortened man's lifespan in Gen 6, to 120 years. Especially in light of the fact that God made that announcement 100 years before the flood, Noah went on to live another unlikely 450 years, and the long life spans allegedly continued for another 1000 years. That verse only appears to be a limitation to 120 years if you believe that men were actually living beyond that time frame in the first place. For me, there is NO indication of limiting or changing of the status quo based on what God is saying in that verse.

After God spoke this about man's days being 120 years, the lifespan gradually dropped off. It didn't happen all at once. As for a reason for the long life spans, I believe it was because there were so few people on the earth, and it allowed for people like Adam and Eve to have many children during their lifetime. As the earth became more populated, and as man's thoughts began to look to do evil, God shortened our lifespans. I don't have any problem with you questioning or outright dissagree with me. I am just saying that it is easy for me to see how and why it occured.

[Axxman]

After God spoke this about man's days being 120 years, the lifespan gradually dropped off. It didn't happen all at once. As for a reason for the long life spans, I believe it was because there were so few people on the earth, and it allowed for people like Adam and Eve to have many children during their lifetime. As the earth became more populated, and as man's thoughts began to look to do evil, God shortened our lifespans. I don't have any problem with you questioning or outright dissagree with me. I am just saying that it is easy for me to see how and why it occured.

I can TOTALLY respect your viewpoint...and I can honestly say that I have NO PROBLEM with why it is easy for you to believe it occured. I actually think its fascinating to talk about. With that said lemme make a few points about what you said...

We have no evidence that Adam and Eve (or anyone) had any more kids than a normal couple in a normal lifespan. And what is the point of populating the world heavily (up to 5 million people conservatively) and then wiping them all out and then re-populating the world far more slowly with only Noah and his three sons?

Also...man's thoughts began looking to do evil when the population was TWO...lol. From that moment on the die was cast and it didn't matter if the population was 10 or 10 million..man was sinful. The length of a man's life has no bearing on it.

Let me ask you...isn't it just as likely that the time frame used to judge the length of a persons life before the flood was different than after? It seems to me that before the flood one measure of time was used...and after the flood...over the course of 1500 years that measure of time gradually came closer to what we would use today.

[~candice~]

Something else to consider...

I believe that Jesus the Christ raised from the dead on the third day. Do you? It is much easier to consider God sustaining the life of someone into their 900th year than it is raising someone from the dead. But yet the resurrecion is central to our faith.

I can believe in 900 year old men and a man surviving in the belly of a large aquatic animal and Joshua's long day because I believe that God has the power to raise the dead. In comparison, living 900 years is really rather minor (at least for me) .

Sorry I missed this post earlier Andy...

The resurrection was a miracle and had spiritual implications. In fact, all of the things you mentioned were all KNOWN miracles of God. Nobody ever says Joshua made the day long, or that Jonah was the author of his own miracle of surviving in the belly of a whale (or was it a large aquatic animal?) Miracles of God are acts of His supernatural power and have spiritual implication to man-kind.

In reference to the long lives of the people of Genesis...nobody ever regards it as a miracle because the bible never calls it a miracle. It would be an unspoken act of God that has no spiritual implication. God never claimed to have given man the supernatural ability to live naturally for hundreds of years...but people assume He did. Thats why people always try and make the case for weird atmospheric conditions and whatnot to explain the long lives...because there is no scriptural evidence that man could live NATURALLY (absent a miracle) for that long. If it was a miracle, then it is an unspoken miracle with no spiritual application, and no scriptural or real-world evidence.

It is FAR EASIER for me to believe in the resurrection of Christ...and all the other known miracles...because God said He did them.

To be fair, I said God sustains them, I didn't say it was a miracle by another name. God sustains the earth too. It is not a miracle, just His providence.

[Axxman]

We assume that people lived that long because the Bible tells us they did. I dont think it was a supernatural ability, I think it was how God made man. You look at today's man and say there is no way a human could live that long. I have no problem assuming that when God first made man without any flaws that to live this long would be the natural state of things.

Well...the bible tells us Noah lived for 950 'years.' I that actually 365 days?...or is it 356?...360? Is it actually a year as we know it? Or is it a more basic frame of time? Is it a year of 12 months?...10 months?...or even a 6 or 9 month calendar? There are ALOT of ancient variables on the calendar...so it kind of throws into question the whole age range anyway. The Septuagint uses completely different ages on all these guys for that EXACT reason...they use a different calander.

The word that is translated as "year" doesn't define the time frame...it simply means "a frame of time." Basically the Hebrew tells us that Noah lived for 950 "frames of time" for whatever time frame the early humans were using.

Yes there is scriptural evidence that man could live NATURALLY (absent a miracle) for that long, it is in the Word of God that they did, how much more scriptural evidence do you need? Is the case for "weird atmospheric conditions" any more off the wall than your case for misplaced decimal or some other such thing?

Well...I gotta admit that a decimal seems more likely than some odd atmospheric condition that allowed humans to live or 100's of years...but thats just me...lol. However, I don't personally follow the "decimal" theory myself...its just one possible explanation. The scriptural evidence only works if you believe that they (or even God) was using the exact same 365 day calendar that we use. I don't see any reason to assume they did since our modern calendar wasn't used until 4000 years later. But...just to clarify...what I meant by scriptural evidence was the the scriptures themselves actually announcing the miracle as a supernatural event perpetrated by God. Not an assumption that something really unnatural happened in the bible so it must be a miracle of God.

Well if the people writing Genesis got it wrong, how do you know that those in the New Test didnt also? maybe they used the wrong word or maybe they meant something different. If you use this arguement for Genesis, you have to be willing to use it for the whole Bible, which I think is the wrong way to go.

This, of course, is a highly important point...and trust me, I don't take it lightly. I don't believe the writing in Genesis to be wrong...I think it is highly misunderstood. Like many things in the bible are misunderstood.

Just like our friend Andy chose to correctly use the term "Large aquatic animal" for the example of Jonah...for hundreds of years the Authorized Version 1611 and William Tyndale used the word "whale" and have led to alot of misunderstanding of that story. To this day the "big fish" is still referred to as a whale and many would say you don't agree with the bible to say otherwise. Of course, many of us realize that it was a misunderstanding of the scriptures to assume it was a whale. However, we certainly don't blame people for believing it is.

Great reply...btw...i am actually enjoying this topic as a refreshing getaway from alot of the otehr topics that seem more stressful.

[Floatingaxe]

Man was created to actually live forever. Because of sin we now age and die. Because God saw that mankind was seeking only evil and not Him, He flooded the Earth and shortened our lifespans.

In time we have lowered our own lifespan to just over 70 years on average, with sin and careless living and unhealthy eating.

[Fez]

In the Bible it says in Genesis that Noah lived to be 950 years old, how is this possible?

I questioned that myself when I was first saved and then I I started thinking.......sometimes a dangerous state of mind for me

What I decided was that if God is the Great I Am, if he is eternal (and He is), if He created the universe, if He could call, and save me, He is capable of anything He wishes to do. And that is when I stopped questioning (nothing wrong with questions - they are good and we should!), and took every single word on faith and Faith alone.

Blessings

[MorningGlory]

Man was created to actually love forever. Because of sin we now age and die. Because God saw that mankind was seeking only evil and not Him, He flooded the Earth and shortened our lifespans.

In time we have lowered our own lifespan to just over 70 years on average, with sin and careless living and unhealthy eating.

That depends on what country you're looking at. For example, people in China, Andorra and Japan all have a life expectancy over 80. At the other end, Zambia, Angola, and Swaziland have a life expectancy that doesn't reach 40.

Given that you say sin and careless living contribute to our lower lifespans, how do you explain a communist (and non-Christian) nation like China housing the people that live the longest? And Swaziland is primarily Protestant (a sect of Christianity). Your logic doesn't fly.

I'm not going to answer for FloatingAxe but I AM going to point out that the life expectancy in China is only four years longer than that of Americans. Hardly worth mentioning, IMO. The major faith (or lack thereof) in any country is irrelevant. FA's point stands.

[MorningGlory]

No, its 6 years more. And FA makes it relevant by stating that sin and careless living contributed to our lower life span. By that logic, those who are more faithful commit less sin. I'm pointing out the stats that proves his statement wrong.

Latest figures from the CIA World Factbook....China is still ranked lower than the U.S.....their life expectancy rate is expected to climb dramatically in the next decade or so.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/population...tal_2009_1.html

[MorningGlory]

That's interesting because the CIA World Factbook says something different here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...life_expectancy

Even more interesting....I found this on Wikipedia also. It seems the numbers are all over the place! I'm not going to argue your figures because every site I looked at had different numbers....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...09_estimates.29