At synagogue recently there was a reading from the Torah about the age of Noah when he died. It said that he lived to be 950 years old. Afterwards I read some other passages from Genesis and lots of other people had super long lives, too.

So:

Did people just live longer then? or,
Did they use a different calendar for years? or,
Was it not meant to be taken literally? or,
Was it maybe even gematriya (code)?

I realize there are probably a lot of differing opinions but I'm very interested to hear about this, thanks.

Err the Board has censored the Hebrew name for Genesis, Bere****, LOL!! It's spelled B-e-r-e-s-h-i-t, and roughly pronounced as "bear-ray-sheet", in case anyone is interested.

Nez

I'm not totally convinced about the ozone.Volcanoes still exploded,methane swamps,animals,etc.
Personally I do not believe that the human body is designed to live beyond a certain age.Cell degregation being the main concern.Yes we are livng in the so-called modern age,with pollution,stress,and other variables.I tend to agree with Style,and Scott,in that how people "used" the calender count,might have been different.Still,as Joe said,living to 900 might be nice,if I could avoid the boredom.

ScottGem

I think Nez's point about the cell degradation is very important. That aging occurs and cells degrade is a fact of physical law. It can be measured. While it might vary from organism to organism, there is an range. Given that scientific fact, I think it makes more sense that ways of measuring time have changed.

orange

Yeah I agree with the cell degeneration theory as well. My first degree was in Zoology, so I guess I should be defending this more!! Still, the other theories are intriguing to me, from the point of view of someone who loves science fiction!

I wondered about them using a different calendar or a different definition of years, but I can't seem to find any theories on that, and I've done a lot of searching online. If anyone finds anything please post it here, as I am fascinated by calendars. Obviously they would not have used the Jewish calendar, as that was not used until much later, and Noah wasn't a Jew anyways. I would think, though, that they would use approximately the same year as we do now. Ancient peoples such as the Sumerians were able to measure the seasons and years in quite sophisticated ways. But I guess Noah was even before them, so who knows.

I did find another modern theory which I thought was interesting and made some sense. Appparently the story of Noah is very similar to (and some say is derived from) a story in early Mesopotamian mythology, about a man called Gilgamesh. Apparently Gilgamesh survived a great flood, and as a reward from the gods, was granted immortality. The immortality part would explain Noah's extremely long life.

DrJizzle

Hmmmm.... Im having a hard time buying the calendar difference. That is A LOT of difference. How could their calendar year be 1/10 less than ours? Even the old Hebrew Calendar had 12 months of 30 days. It was all lunar based back... so I could see if they counted a year as a full lunar cycle (which would put ages between 30-75 or so) but that seems ridiculous to think that the verbage was confused so quickly thru time. I dont know how far back the Hebrew Calendar goes but it definitely dated back well into the Old Testament.

Cell degeneration is a good point... but that could also be contributed to the the atmoshperic makeup. Everything is subject to its environment and if our environment was severly different, isnt easily possible that we could be living considerable longer, or shorter, lives??

ScottGem

The Hebrew Calendar is in year 5766. I can understand what you are saying, but there is still no clue how they did things. Did they understand lunar phases, season changes, the orbit around the Sun? We really have no idea, maybe their years were one lunar month.

orange

A year in the Hebrew calendar (which is a lunar-solar calendar) is approximately the same length as a year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 12 "regular" months and one extra "leap" month used every few years. All of the months are 29 or 30 days long. So a person's age according to the Hebrew calendar would not be very different than that of someone measuring their age in our calendar. It certainly wouldn't be a difference of several hundred years.

If we used the month as year theory, the people mentioned in Genesis 5 would have lived fairly normal lifespans. For example, Adam 77 years, his son Seth, 76 years, his descendents Enosh and Jared 75 and 80 years respectively, and Noah would have lived 79 years. However, this only works in early Genesis. By the time we get to Abraham, if we continue with the lunar month as a year, Abraham would only have lived to be 14 lol. But it seems to make sense for Genesis 5 anyways!

Actually I think someone could do a whole doctoral thesis on this topic!!

Starman

The lifespans mentioned in Genesis are pitiful in comparison to the eternity that Adam and Eve were designed to live. The reason that these lifespans seem great to us is because we have slipped even further down the physical deterioration continuum since then.

Notice also how quickly the lifespans dropped after the Noachian Flood.

ttzippe85

The andeluvian people (pre-flood) were bigger in stature and intelligence. They also lived much longer than we do. However this intelligence and long life span enabled the unrighteous to do much more evil in their lifetime.This is one of the reasons why God allowed Noah to eat meat on the ark. The eating of meat has deteriorated the condition of man and shortened our lifespan.

NeedKarma

On the contrary - the eating of meat has allowed man to survive. What about all the other meat eating animals? Are they doomed too? I don't think so. Your rhetoric is faulty.

orange

What about the Inuit and Yupik peoples of Canada, Alaska and Russia? They've eaten nothing but meat for at least 5000 years, and they only started getting sick when the Europeans brought them alcohol and various diseases such as smallpox.