Question re: peoples ages in the Bible.....how was age determined?

Question

No way are the ages that are mentioned in the Bible accurate.

Okay....so you believe Noah father children when he was 500 years old?

Adam lived to be 930.

Enosh 905

Seth 912

I don't doubt that....but that's "potential" life expectancy. Add infant mortality rate at the time and women that died during child birth....and then all the other things they endured....sorry but living until your 900 in not physiologically possible.....if you think it is ....prove it or offer something that would indicate that is an accurate age....and other than the Bible.

And the Eygptians.... they kept very good records... average age was in the 50's(I think) ...I'll have to look that up to be sure.

Answer 1

it may be that age was being calculated in a manner that we don't know about. it may be a full year, or a season, or whether the moon was used to calculate a year. most, however, it isn't meant to be a year as we calculate it, but as a description of events as they occurred whether those days are based in years, or days or months or weeks.

Answer 2

I think these ages were actual and accurate. Early in the history of man I believe that God purposefully extended the lifespan of men so as to more rapidly populate the earth. God actually tells us what the maximum life span of a man is without intervention from God.


Gen 6:3
Then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years ."
NIV


What is interesting is I just returned from a medical convention where one speaker spoke on the subject of genomics. This is the study of genetic disease in humans. It appears that almost all diseases we have today are caused by genetic defects we each are born with. By manipulating these genetic defects early in life the goal is to maximize the human life span. When scientists looked at telimers (these are the genetic ends of cells that are shed each time a cell regenerates) we can calculate the maximum expected lifespan of a human. And guess what our the length of our telimers indicates is the maximum lifespan of a human. Yep. 120 years. We could have known that all along by just believing what God had told us. Science has taken all this time to figure it out.

Answer 3

Way, the ages are as mentioned in the Bible are accurate.

In the early history of the Earth and humanity, he environment was quite different than now.

They may have been 365.24259 days of length, or they might have been only 360 day sin length -- based on the lunar year, and as the Hebrew Prophetic Calendar seems to follow.

Answer 4

Peoples ages before the Flood were considerably longer than after the Flood. If you read through the Bible, you will see where these people lived at the same time as future generations of their family.

Answer 5

Mainly by the years they lived. And don't say 'no way'. Were you there? Plenty of non-Christians , like me, are believing that those ages are possible and that we can achieve them again. First we have to pull the pharmaceutical industries into line.

Answer 6

Yeah. 935 years does seem to be pushing it a bit, what with no chemotherapy and invasive cardiac procedures.

Answer 7

Why can't they be accurate? Civilizations the world over have been tracking time for thousands of years . . . why not the Israelites?

Answer 8

They guessed.

Answer 9

wasn't there a Jewish calender?

Answer 10

Why not?