Bible Characters 'ages'
Offline Hi all,
One thing that always puzzeled me when I went to Bible college and was in the church was the ages of certain Bible characters. For instance.. Noah lived to be 930, Adam 900+, Moses 120, and the list goes on...
These same people who believe this shit.. like for example Kirk Cameron, Mr Comfort, and Tood Frial..say indeed the Bible myths did live 900++ years old..these are the same nuts who believe in a literal 6,000 year old earth... So if Adam and Noah lived to be 900+ only a few thousand years ago..why today cant man live past on normal..100? Hell in Bible times most men never seen 45 years old 'due to hygene ect as science has proven'
Anyway one thing that really lead me away from the Bible was the ages of some of these Bible characters... For example Moses time was the same time as King Tut "give or take 500 years" yet most Egyptians never lived past age 45... King Tut lived only to age 20. Yet Moses and Joshua etc..lived 120+ years 
??? Not only that some of these 100+ year old mens health was perfect...old Abraham was still having sex well over age 120+ and his old hag wife Sara also...
As a historian I can't believe grown men and women take ages of Bible characters seriously! It really is insane when one thinks about it!
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Indeed. The only time in human history when the average age of death actually might have went down for more than a generation was during the rise of christianity during the dark ages. Other than those wayward centuries, man has been getting older thanks to advancements in culture and science.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
This is where Christians will toss around crap about the "firmament".
I agree with "I can't believe grown men and women take ages of Bible characters seriously! It really is insane when one thinks about it!". It's why I'm quite certain few believers have actually thought about it. And those that have, well, "Benny Hinn" "Peter Popoff" "Robert Tilton"...
One thing I have never heard in a debate and would LOVE to hear.. is..of the 1,000s of skeletons, skulls, bones founds..why have scientist never found a body older then 102 years old? If some of these Israelites lives to 150++ why has none of their bones been found? A scientist can tell the age of death... as is clear for example with King Tut. Or was only Adam, Methuselah, Noah etc the only folks on earth 900 years old while all other men died at age 45.?
I'd like to hear the Bull Shit reply Kirk Cameron would say to this...
The fact was the people that wrote these ancient texts used numbers, just like non religious texts in mythology, to distort and conflate the importance of the story. Numbers were not only a superstition, but also a literary device.
So either way, either literal ages of humans(absurd) or "legacies/era" they still lose. But it is quite a common tactic for the believer to say, "That doesn't mean what you think it means".
It used to be that humans, for the most part, couldn't conceive of 1,000,000. More recently 1,000,000,000. Now we have a hard time imagining 1 trillion, much less a googol. So it is not a stretch for the societies of the time to see those numbers as being important because they were big(for their time).
The fact is the people who wrote and passed on these stories believed them literally. Today the believer has no choice but to doge literalism or be laughed at.
I go further than the texts of fans of religion and say that the concept of a god is incoherent and is just as laughable as if I claimed I had an invisible snarfwidget in the trunk of my car.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
But it's annoying as hell when theists dodge literalism in the places we can scientifically prove them wrong and then backflip to insisting on literalism when it comes to impossible magic.
This device is even used by someone as clever as Cap. He glosses over the silliness of the creation story yet he insists jesus descended to hell to suffer for our sins.
And no doubt relying on the gospel accounts as his proof he asks us to try to prove him wrong.
How can theists expect us to accept that the historical method is capable of proving the existence of magical gods from another dimension?
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
We cant, because, we either escaped the clutches of the starting premise "God can do what he wants", being former believers ourselves, or like some atheists, never bought it in the first place.
Once you buy the premise "God can do what he wants" you can move the goal posts around all you want.
The concept of a disembodied being by any name is nothing but humans anthropomorphizing their own human qualities on a utopia that doesn't exist.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Understand that our calendar is quite recent! Adam and eve, being the first SPIRITUALLY living people (not physically, which is what most people presume and is the reason so many people disbelieve) lived for 900ish years in their calendar which was not based on months, but by the lunar calendar. So one year for them would actually be one month so they lived until their mid 70's.
Dont be so quick to say that it is wrong; you have to take into account the time period in which this is all happening. Jesus was quite clear when he talked about death and life that it wasnt physical death that he was talking about but spiritual, which is the case through the whole bible.
"Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable". Matt 13:34, and so did God from the very begginning because they are one God. If God gave us a plain answer, one it would freak people out because its heavy and 2, we cant learn a deeper meaning if we are given the answer straight away.
Drive by preaching impresses and convinces noone.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Not to mention necroposting, baseless spiritual/physical arbitrary distinction and a number of other fallacies sprinkled in for good measure.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
The absence of Noah's skeletal remains isnt a problem for archeology is it? The bible names only a handful of paranormal people who lived >100 years. (None of whom were named King Tut)
Surely, if you are going to attack the credibility of biblical ages you can't just ignore the fact that God is the One who facilited those long lives. (Or are you just cherry-picking)
And if your body was healthy enough to live THAT long, why would you expect to see in a difference in the skeleton of a healthy 200 year old Noah and a healthy 50 year old Vastet?
The aging process was evidently slower - on purpose.
Probably the lamest apologetic is where you try and redefine words and concepts to make them work out your way. No, the original story tellers of the bible were bronze age primitives, and truly believed LITERALLY that a person could live for hundreds of years.
Just to set the record straight medically, all human beings have a genetic cellular 'clock'... literally winding down as we age... thus far, without genetic modification, this clock winds down completely after about 120 years... that's pretty much the human top end.
Medical science may some day figure out a way to raise the death ceiling, but for now, and for all of human history, NO ONE could possibly live 200, 300 or 900 years.
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
Or, and more likely, it's just a fairy tale. You are ALWAYS wrong when you insert a supernatural solution.
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
Um, one cycle of the moon is called a lunar month in essentially every lunar calendar. I don't know that it has ever been called a lunar year.
Yeah.................
Also, some of the characters in the Bible lived between 100 and 200 years old, or even less. By your calculations, what would their age be in our years?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Sure we can. Because that's question begging an incoherent religious belief, and there's no evidence for it. We can ignore things that are incoherent and which there is no evidence for.
Yes, that is possible (as long as we ignore biology). Or, nobody looks older because *pauses for dramatic effect* nobody was older! Omg.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
See, thats what bothers me about the bible errancy crowd.
They nit pick and quibble about presumed technical details in respect to biblical longevity in a book FULL of divine interventions.
You say it can't be true because ...archeologists never found Methuselah's skeleton.
Why bother when you dont even accept the possibility of God in the FIRST place?
Can you at least admit that God could produce that sort of longevity if He wanted?
Eh, the morality of most of the Bible, including the New Testament, is horrendous. The entire book has more errors concerning reality than facts and yet, claims to be inspired by, or even written by, a supposed of the creator of the universe. You can call this nitpicking if you want, but this is just one drop in an ocean of problems.
Okay, so what's your argument? People could live that long because God spoke and it was done? Lol, so, by committing more question begging, you've effectively eliminated any discussion concerning the conformity of the Bible to reality since you can resolve any debate with 'because God said so.' Good job.
It can't be true because it is biologically impossible unless our physical bodies were drastically modified. Merely saying that it was the result of divine intervention or that it was a miracle is equivalent, for all practical purposes, to saying that it is something impossible that happened i.e. more definitively, it is something unexplainable and supernatural that somehow affected the natural world.
No, that's not what we're saying. We're saying there is no evidence, so your claims are unjustified e.g. there is no archeological evidence.
I accept the possibility of gods, in general. For your 'God,' that would depend on how you define it.
Uh, of course. That would be true by definition because you've defined your God such that he can make a human live longer. No one can say that he can't; that would be like saying a bachelor can't be single. This clearly shows that you don't understand what's going on here. The issue is evidence and science. If your response is just that God can do whatever the hell he wants, then there's no reason for this discussion to even take place. You can just scurry back to your scripture.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
You die of disease/degeneration.
Some living creatures have life spans in excess of 1000 years. How? Absence of the things which would otherwise cause death.
Of course they arent humans. But the point is, its not biologically IMPOSSIBLE. An environmental change could result in sudden decrease - (or increase) in natural life expectancy.
People who die of "old age" dont all die at the exact same age... 60, 65, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120...etc.
Thats just an example but its a huge spread in variation from youngest to oldest natural death of so-called "old age".
What if 120 was considered young back then?
No mobile phones. Less radiation. No smoking. More organic food. More physical fitness. More religiosity.
Lol.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
No, unless you are killed by disease or trauma, you die when your cells lose their ability to reproduce. This occurs in ALL humans. The top end is around 120 years. Genetics shows that this has ALWAYS been the case. Like it or not, your bible is simply and demonstrably WRONG.
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
That depends on the physical characteristics and environment of the specific organism.
Basically, you're saying it's possible, but you have no evidence that it's possible for humans, just speculation and wishful thinking? Oh, look what I already wrote that anticipates this exact response.
butterbattle - "It can't be true because it is biologically impossible unless our physical bodies were drastically modified."
Okay, so you're implying that completely natural environmental changes could multiply the human life span to around at least eight times it's current length. What is your evidence for this claim? It doesn't really matter though right; can't God just go *poof, live longer* either way?
So what? That's not even remotely sufficient reason to consider it plausible. By this point, are you just trying to get me to admit the remote possibility that I am wrong? That is really pointless.
Anyone that is truly open-minded will admit that they can be wrong about anything that is not logically incoherent or definitively true. In all other cases, when I use terms like true, false, impossible, etc. for convenience, I just mean that it is true beyond a reasonable doubt, or at least with enough certainly such that one can act as if it were true for all practical purposes.
That said, if you could demonstrate a plausible environmental cause for humans living more than 900 years of age, the logical implications would not really support your original intentions. Intervention by a deity to lengthen the human life span would be a horrendous failure of Occam's Razor next to a plausible natural explanation. Humans have always wanted to live longer, so the fact that characters in the Bible lived a long time is not good evidence either; some ancient religious texts have humans living thousands of years or even longer.
What if your God doesn't exist? What if Christianity is false? What if Olive Garden stopped offering endless soup, salad, and breadsticks?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
There are people who would die of starvation!!
Not me, I wouldn't notice.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Look up telomeres and aging. When your cells replicate, a piece of the end - a telomere - of the DNA is snipped off. When the DNA runs out of telomeres, it can no longer replicate. Therefore, your cells no longer reproduce. This is why Great Danes and Irish Wolfhounds and other giant breed dogs die at age 5 or 6 and your aunt's yappy fuzz ball lives to 20-25 years. The giant breeds use up telomeres just growing that large.
There are no fossilized human remains that show signs of being more than 70-80 years old. They can tell the age of the skeleton by the growth plates on the ends of the long bones (arms and legs) and by the wear and tear on the ends of those bones at the joint. There are also growth rings in your teeth. A person who lived 600 years would have some definitely unusual bone wear or some organic equivalent to titanium.
Yeah, I know, god/s/dess ate/destroyed the bones so they wouldn't fossilize so s/he/it/they could "test our faith". Personally, I am not interested in a god who lies.
This is also the reason research for rejuvenation treatments are going so slow. Researchers are stumped as to how you could ever put telomeres back on DNA. Doesn't appear possible with the technology we have now.
Darn.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
No, unless you are killed by disease or trauma, you die when your cells lose their ability to reproduce. This occurs in ALL humans. The top end is around 120 years. Genetics shows that this has ALWAYS been the case. Like it or not, your bible is simply and demonstrably WRONG.
LC >;-}>
What is interesting about much of this discussion is that many of you are ASSUMING that science has all of the answers right now and we will learn NOTHING new about science in the future. A belief that I think many of you would say you do not actually hold, but for your arguments you prove that you really do believe this.
If we are all just honest, I think we an say science and logic will only take us so far. Furthermore, an honest person should be willing to admit that science is continually evolving and changing. So what we thought to be IMPOSSIBLE just a few years ago is now reality.
A few examples:
We used to think the earth was flat ....new discoveries found it's not!
*The scientific minds of their day LAUGHED at anyone who suggested the world was anything but flat! That's impossible!
We used to think the earth was the center of the universe.......new discoveries found it's not!
*The scientific minds of their day LAUGHED at anyone who suggested anything other than this. That's impossible!
We used to think maggots spontaneously generated out of meat ...new discoveries found they don't.
*The scientific minds of their day LAUGHED at anyone who thought differently.
We used to think it was ok to enslave other humans beings because they have different color skin
We used to think Protons, Neutrons and Electrons were the smallest possible particles of matter.......new discoveries found they are not.
*The scientific minds LAUGHED at anyone who thought differently.
I think I could make a really long list. Now when Christians say the Bible says such and such the "Scientific" minds of our day LAUGH and say its impossible. Impossible is a really strong word for anyone who claims to have faith in the true nature of science.
This is rather humorous and hypocritical.
Is it really impossible that humans could not have lived longer?
So if you have some other objection about God or the Bible, then that's fine, but don't claim that science disproves the Bible because it is the nature of science to continually change and make new discoveries.
That's my 2cents for whatever it's worth.