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Question 340

How is this possible for one to live so long or has this been lost in translation should a year be a full moon? “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.”   

   

 

Answer to Question 340

 

God created Adam to live immortal, death came into man’s life after the fall. If man had the possibility to live for ever, why should it be hard to believe that the early forefathers lived almost a thousand years? Death is the consequence of sin and as sin multiplied so also was there a reduction of man’s years. From Adam to Noah we see that the average human lifespan was over 900 years. Adam lived 930 years, Seth 912, Enos 905, Cainan 910 and Methuselah the longest living man with 969 years. By living nearly a thousand years men probably thought that they were almost immortal and didn’t need God. Thus before the flood God punished men by reducing their lifespan to about 120 years. Now with only 100 or 120 years of life, death would approach must sooner forcing man to remember death and turn to God for salvation.  The flood is a new beginning and the punishment is no more valid and Noah himself, lived 630 and then we see a gradual reduction from 600, to 500 to 400, 300 and 200 years. Abraham's 175 years is said to be a good old age, thus by this time the average must now be about 150 years. In about 500 years when we get to Moses time this drops further. Joseph lived 110 years and Moses 120 years; then in about another 500 years King David tells us in Psalm 88 that "The days of our years are 70 and if we happen to be strong then we might reach 80 years" This has been the average lifespan for man since then until the present day.

 

Same member

seems like the calculations used at different times in the bible have changed somewhat if you take a scientific approach to these numbers, do you think it is possible that the reference to the year could in fact be a synodic month hence if we look at Adam,s age and calculated using this he would have lived to about 75 years of age which seems more plausible

 

Reply

Certainly the Jews calculated every month with the appearance of a new moon so they didn't have a 12 month year but a 13 and sometimes 14 month year, but there is no way they would have confused a month for a year. Why would 75 years of age be more plausible? I think the explanation I gave is much more plausible. Adam's one sin was the cause of his mortality and as man sinned more and more the years of his expected life were slowly reduced. Since the fall man has been devolving or regressing and his regression is not only seen in his life expectancy, but also in the state of his health. Sin is the cause of death and this is made apparent through illnesses that effect the well being of the body reducing its life expectancy, During the dark and Middle Ages, because of wars, famine and plagues, man was lucky if he survived to the age of fifty. In our times with the advance in medical science man can survive for a few more years but these are nothing compared to the 120 years after Noah and especially the thousand years of Adam. As man devolves more and more illnesses are cropping up and even in our age where medical science has over the past hundred years done wonders by finding cures for many illnesses and plagues that scourged mankind, there are new ones developing to take their place.