Evidence for God from Science

Here is a nice article on the long ages in Genesis from those chaps at Biologos.

http://biologos.org/blog/long-life-spans-in-genesis

Any thoughts?

Silvertusk.

Silvertusk wrote:Any thoughts?

Junk. Another attempt to re-write the Bible. You might as well believe that they counted age in dog years back then.

The Bible says what it says and we'll have to live with that. And don't forget that we have a 120-year limit on life now. (Was the 120 in dog years too?)

FL

Furstentum Liechtenstein wrote:

Silvertusk wrote:Any thoughts?

Junk. Another attempt to re-write the Bible. You might as well believe that they counted age in dog years back then.

The Bible says what it says and we'll have to live with that. And don't forget that we have a 120-year limit on life now. (Was the 120 in dog years too?)

FL

Fair enough - but I am more inclined to believe that it was some thing different than a literal 900 years+

I don't see the issue with ages. All it might take is some mutation and now DNA isn't duplicated as effectively or the like.

Re: the article, it ignores other passages in Scripture. Such as God reducing the number of years, etc as FL pointed out. So it's kind of like, well, why bother with such a thing?

Consider http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... spans.html

Kurieuo wrote:I don't see the issue with ages. All it might take is some mutation and now DNA isn't duplicated as effectively or the like.

Re: the article, it ignores other passages in Scripture. Such as God reducing the number of years, etc as FL pointed out. So it's kind of like, well, why bother with such a thing?

Consider http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... spans.html

At the point of the age limit - it could then be referring to literal years certainly - but before not. Because of the limited amount of words available in Hebrew they could have well had different connotations.

I agree this is wild speculation - but it sits comfortably with me

Sorry K - I edited your document rather than quoting it - rectified that mistake.

Silvertusk wrote:At the point of the age limit - it could then be referring to literal years certainly - but before not. Because of the limited amount of words available in Hebrew they could have well had different connotations.I agree this is wild speculation - but it sits comfortably with me

''Wild speculation'', indeed! You now have to ''wildly speculate'' as to why the Writer of the Bible uses dog years in various places, then changes over to human years when He sets the limit on our longevity.

FL

You have such a way with words FL.

Furstentum Liechtenstein wrote:

Silvertusk wrote:At the point of the age limit - it could then be referring to literal years certainly - but before not. Because of the limited amount of words available in Hebrew they could have well had different connotations.I agree this is wild speculation - but it sits comfortably with me

''Wild speculation'', indeed! You now have to ''wildly speculate'' as to why the Writer of the Bible uses dog years in various places, then changes over to human years when He sets the limit on our longevity.

FL

The reason is possibly one of the ones I just linked to - I linked another possibility in another thread as well. I do not have a problem with these interpretations.

http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... 14&t=38272

Silvertusk wrote:Here is a nice article on the long ages in Genesis from those chaps at Biologos.

http://biologos.org/blog/long-life-spans-in-genesis

Any thoughts?

Silvertusk.

I have always liked Biologos and tend to agree with the majority that their scholars post.

This is simply ONE of many ways to interpret Genesis.

As for the age limit of 120....well, I guess God made an exception at least once:

The longest unambiguously documented human lifespan is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875–1997), who died at age 122 years, 164 days. She met Vincent van Gogh when she was 12 or 13.[1] This led to news media attention in 1985, after Calment turned 110. Subsequent investigation found documentation for Calment's age, beyond any reasonable question, in the records of her native city, Arles, France.[2] More evidence of Calment's lifespan has been produced than for any other supercentenarian; her case serves as an archetype in the methodology for verifying the ages of the world's oldest people.[3]

PaulSacramento wrote:

Silvertusk wrote:Here is a nice article on the long ages in Genesis from those chaps at Biologos.

http://biologos.org/blog/long-life-spans-in-genesis

Any thoughts?

Silvertusk.

I have always liked Biologos and tend to agree with the majority that their scholars post.

This is simply ONE of many ways to interpret Genesis.

As for the age limit of 120....well, I guess God made an exception at least once:

The longest unambiguously documented human lifespan is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875–1997), who died at age 122 years, 164 days. She met Vincent van Gogh when she was 12 or 13.[1] This led to news media attention in 1985, after Calment turned 110. Subsequent investigation found documentation for Calment's age, beyond any reasonable question, in the records of her native city, Arles, France.[2] More evidence of Calment's lifespan has been produced than for any other supercentenarian; her case serves as an archetype in the methodology for verifying the ages of the world's oldest people.[3]

Also the hebrew year is a bit smaller than the modern calendar. I think it was 5-11 days shorter. Accounting that, the 120 years would be even less if calculated based on the present calendar. And that might allow more exceptions, like Jeanne Calment.

neo-x wrote:Also the hebrew year is a bit smaller than the modern calendar. I think it was 5-11 days shorter. Accounting that, the 120 years would be even less if calculated based on the present calendar. And that might allow more exceptions, like Jeanne Calment.

Daniel the prophet regarded the year as having 360 days. In Revelation 11:3, three and one-half years is given as 1,260 days. So, we can safely say that the limit to our longevity has been placed at 43,200 days by God, or 118.19425 years.

Now, if you believe that anybody who reaches 118.19426 years must immediately drop dead, I would call you a legalist. Anything is possible with God and He may choose to keep someone alive a little longer.

I am now 398 dog years old. If I live to be 118.19425 human years, I would be 827.36 dog years. Maybe there is something to my Dog-Year Theory; it seems to line up with the biblical record and doesn't require believing in copyist errors...

FL

Furstentum Liechtenstein wrote:

neo-x wrote:Also the hebrew year is a bit smaller than the modern calendar. I think it was 5-11 days shorter. Accounting that, the 120 years would be even less if calculated based on the present calendar. And that might allow more exceptions, like Jeanne Calment.

Daniel the prophet regarded the year as having 360 days. In Revelation 11:3, three and one-half years is given as 1,260 days. So, we can safely say that the limit to our longevity has been placed at 43,200 days by God, or 118.19425 years.

Now, if you believe that anybody who reaches 118.19426 years must immediately drop dead, I would call you a legalist. Anything is possible with God and He may choose to keep someone alive a little longer.

I am now 398 dog years old. If I live to be 118.19425 human years, I would be 827.36 dog years. Maybe there is something to my Dog-Year Theory; it seems to line up with the biblical record and doesn't require believing in copyist errors...

FL

My point is for those who treat the text literal like 120 years meaning our modern calendar years. Because the calculation of the hebrew calendar year has varied throughout history. So it could be different in the time of genesis and be different in Daniel Its definately not a copying error. Its what the accepted calculation at that particular era was.

neo-x wrote:My point is for those who treat the text literal like 120 years meaning our modern calendar years. Because the calculation of the hebrew calendar year has varied throughout history. So it could be different in the time of genesis and be different in Daniel Its definately not a copying error. Its what the accepted calculation at that particular era was.

From a biblical perspective, the ''Hebrew year'' is stable at 360 days. Daniel, writing circa 600BCE, is in agreement with John writing Revelation circa 90CE: the Hebrew year is 360 days.

As for the year being different at the time of Adam & Eve, that is pure speculation unsupported by Scripture. Such is the difficulty of those who use the allegorical method of biblical interpretation as opposed to the normal (literal) method. They must continually devise hypotheses to shoehorn the plain meaning of the Bible into their pre-conceived views. I'm fine with this; the Word of God is often harsh and uncompromising, so some of us need to sweeten it with our own reasoning.

FL

Just FYI, it is possible if not more likely that the reference to 120 years in Genesis 6 is not to how long people would be allowed to live from that point on but rather to how long God would give people to repent before the Flood. Such an interpretation is grammatically possible (I think grammatically preferable) and certainly makes sense in the context of the passage. It also avoids the problem that after Genesis 6 people have lived longer than 120 years. Lastly, it takes seriously the idea that Noah was a preacher of righteousness all while highlighting just how depraved mankind was. They had 120 years--that is the people, their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids, probably (four to six generations here!)--to watch Noah building that ark and hear his message. And did they turn back to God? Nope. So the judgment turns out to be even more justified.

Just a thought.

Beyond that, though, I agree that it's completely unwarranted to try to take the years as anything other than a literal year. I don't even think we can do ourselves in favors by counting the difference in a lunar and solar year, because while the former is slightly shorter than the latter, the ancient world knew that and periodically included an entire leap month to account for difficulty. So all in all, it still turns out to be around the same amount of time.

Just another thought.