is it scientifically possible for a human being to live several hundred years like the ones in the bible?

Question

moses...methuselah

Answer 1

i'm not an expert...by any means, but i went to a christian school for 13 years and this question came up a lot. the theory (remember...theory...) that was presented the most is weird but interesting.

the idea is of a water canopy. kind of like the ozone layer, but with water. it kept the oxygen levels higher, enabling people to live much much (much) longer. after the flood, the levels slowly decreased but would have still been high enough through most of the OT to support longer life. some even believe that's where dinosaurs came from. since reptiles never stop growing, the high levels of oxygen enabled them to live a lot longer, so they got really really big. when the oxygen went down, they just didn't live as long. i don't know what i think about all that, but it's interesting at least.

i'm not a scienctist. hate it in fact. but in my mind, if the earth had a different atmosphere back then for whatever reason, who's to say it's not possible to live that long?

then of course there's always the theory that time was kept in a different way than it is now. 100 years to us may mean a completely different thing than it did to them.

*edit*

like i said...i know nothing about science haha. and the theory may have been different. 8th grade was a long time ago.

but i feel that i have to respond to joan. you said
"Don't forget the bible was written by a persecuted group of peasants who made up stories to show their superiority to other humans.

"The Chosen People" made up their own god and myths to be better than anyone else. Longevity would have been one of the ways to be superior. "You shall have no other god before me" implies there are lots of gods with this god being the superior one. Read your bible without any slanted interpretations and you will get a whole different impression."

i hate being rude on sites like this, but you basically just attacked a lot of people's religion. the only reason to do that in a public sphere is to attempt to make yourself superior to others. says a lot about you...and what kind of slanted interpretation are YOU reading the bible with? have you even read it, or just arguments against it?

ANYWAYS, before people get confused by certain assumptions and ignorant comments, the idea that "You shall have no other god before me" implies there are lots of gods is completely untrue, and if you were to actually read the bible, you'd know it. that commandment did not necessarily mean that the Jewish God was superior to some other gods, it meant that God should be put first, before anything else. you know how people can make objects or other people a god in their life (money, popularity, blah blah blah). God should just come before all of that.

and just btw, every ancient civilization known has a flood story. every ancient civilization has their own "myths". so even if the jews did make those stories up, i highly doubt it was to exert superiority since everyone else did the exact same thing...just some common sense for ya...

in any case joan, have some respect for other people. stop being so close-minded because just like there's no way for Christians to truly 100% KNOW that the bible is true and accurate, there is absolutely no way for you to KNOW that it isn't. have your beliefs, but don't attack others.

Answer 2

Been reading the Pentateuch, haven't you? The first five books of the Bible' the "Books of Moses" contain a lot of information regarding the ages of people who lived for several hundred years. Don't make the mistake of assuming the Bible is merely telling us how long someone lived. If it was, there has to be a reason. There is a reason of course, but it's not merely to give us a number. I mean, what do we gain - specifically - from knowing the exact age to which they lived? The answer is nothing, other than the fact they lived unnaturally long lives. The exact age to which they lived is not nearly as important as the reality that these people were touched by God, and given some sort of Divinely bestowed upon power/authority which they had over their contemporaries. What better way for God to show that a given person was the God-appointed leader than to give them unnaturally long life-spans? We don't know their exact ages, or how long they lives. But we do know that they could not have acheived their freakishly long life-span if not for the direct aid/intervention of a Higher Power.

Answer 3

Yes.

Methuselah lived to age 85. Longer dates quoted are a translation error.

Moses lived 120 years. That is possible today. Modern science puts the natural limit on current human longevity about 150 years. Read "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil for more information on this topic.

On average, we are living longer today. Technology will allow us to live even longer within about 50 years, so the first person to live over 150 years has already been born.

Answer 4

i cant say for certain but from what i understand it is possable that at one time we lived much longer. i cant imagine hundreds and hundreds of years though because the reason why we age and show age is because of genetic mutation and degradation over time. basically our dna makes copies of itself and each time (just like if you make a copy of a paper then use the copy to make another copy and so on )it will degrade it gets to be less perfect with each "regeneration" then you have mutation (cancer) which is pretty much part of life , sooner or later a person would get cancer. i think people could live a couple hundred years not 900. lastly you have to keep in mind there concept of time was different, i dont knwo that they even had the same calender then as now so maybe 1 of our years was a few of theres .

Answer 5

Yes, it is not an impossible thing, but here are two hurdles. First you have live after 2015 disaster, due to rise in Sea level by 2 meters, then around 2036, to escape from the meteor hit. Only after, you will get a perfect answer. Good luck .

Answer 6

Don't forget the bible was written by a persecuted group of peasants who made up stories to show their superiority to other humans.

"The Chosen People" made up their own god and myths to be better than anyone else. Longevity would have been one of the ways to be superior. "You shall have no other god before me" implies there are lots of gods with this god being the superior one. Read your bible without any slanted interpretations and you will get a whole different impression.

Answer 7

no it is impossible cause a) your body wears out look at a grandmother that is like 85. B) in biblical times there years were shorter like 6 months allowing them to "live" longer lol well hope this helps

Answer 8

I hardly think increased oxygen in the atmosphere would extend life. Oxygen is in fact detrimental to life and is the very reason we die. We have to utilise oxygen in our mitochondia and all this 'burning' of oxygen to power our sugar production(via aerobic cellular respiration) creates free radicals which ultimately cause cellular and genetic damage and eat away at us (on a molecular level). Oxygen is a corrosive gas & highly flammable. A higher degree of oxygen in our atmosphere would be incredibly dangerous :p

Answer 9

No, not even with todays technology. And certainly not 3,000 years ago.

Another piece of evidence that the bible is a work of fiction.

Answer 10

IMHO I don't think so, because due to different contaminants humans are exposed to (these days) like microwave, electromagnetic fields, radioactive contaminants...etc that increase the probability of producing more defects in the genetic material, so cells are aging faster than they used to.