Book Of Genesis: Living To Such An Old Age

BIBLICAL LONGEVITY

How is it possible that the characters of the Book of Genesis managed to live to such an old age? As an example, Adam lived to be 930 years of age, Seth lived to be 912 years of age, Enos lived to be 905 years of age, Cainan lived to be 910 years of age, Mahalaleel lived to be 895 years or age, Jared lived to be 962 years of age, Enoch lived to be 365 years of age, Methuselah lived to be 969 years of age, Lamech lived to be 777 years of age and Noah lived to be 950 years of age. Some traditional theologians conclude that God's intent for mankind was to have everlasting life. However, because Adam and Eve brought sin into the world the lifespan of mankind became shorter and shorter as man continued to sin. In the opinion
of other theologians, long life resulted from the presence of a dense atmosphere or a possibility of stronger magnetic field around the earth, which caused extremely good environmental conditions. As written in Genesis 6:3, after the flood the lifespan of mankind would not be anymore that 120 of age.
But if this were true, then explain how could Abraham live to be 175 years of age, Sarah lived to be 127 years of age. Also, Amran the father of Moses lived to be 137 years of age and his grandfather lived to be 133 years of age. Yet another opinion is that the composers of the Old Testament used the wrong cycles of time to calculate the ages of the biblical characters. This claim is that they used the lunar cycle instead of the solar cycle to determine the ages of their characters. Using this formula, Methuselah who lived 969 lunar cycles actually in reality was 78 1/2 years of age when using a solar cycle. Still a different explanation is that the authors of the Old Testament possibly multiplied the ages of the characters by a factor of 10. According to this, some of the individuals would have died at the age of 62 years of age, which would not be unreasonable, but other individuals would have died at the age 230 years of
age. Then there are those theologians that believe that the writers increased the ages for the simple reason and that was to fill in the gaps of time between the various generations. Another explanation comes from a majority of historians who in their opinion the longevity of characters in the Old Testament comes from the Sumerian King List. Written on clay tablets is a list of Sumerian kings along with the length of their reign. The Sumerian King List begins with the Antediluvian Rulers, which consists of eight kings that reigned for a total of 241,200 years. As an example Alulim reigned for 28,000 years, Alalngar reigned for 36,000 years, En-men-lu-ana reigned for 43,200 years, En-men-gal-ana reigned for 28,800 years and so on.
Next was the First Dynasty of Kish with its 23 kings that did not reigned or live as the long as the Antediluvian Rulers, however, they did have longer lives than most. The first of these five kings was Jushur who reigned for 1,200 years, Kullassina-bel reigned for 960 years, Nangishlishma reigned for 670 years, En-tarah-ana reigned for 420 years and Babum reigned for 300 years and etc. Following the First Dynasty of Kish was the First Rulers of Uruk, which begins with Mesh-ki-ang-gasher of E-ana that reigned for 324 years, Enmerkar reigned for 420 years, Lugalbanda reigned for 1,200 years, Dumuzid reigned for 100 years and Gilgamesh who reigned for 126 years. Interesting enough, is the much shorter length of the reign of the kings that followed Gilgamesh such as Ur-Nungal that reigned for 30 years, Udul-kalama reigned for 15 years, La-bashum reigned for nine years and En-nun-tarah-ana reigned for eight years and so
on. Written around 2100BC, the novel, Epic of Gilgamesh, consisted of several stories and one of these describes a story of Utnapishtim and the Great Flood which historically occurred around 2900BC and it is after the Great Flood that the life span and length of reign of the First Rulers of Uruk such as Ur-Nungal and Udul-kalama became shorter. Coincidently, it is after the Great Flood as told in the Old Testament that the life span of biblical characters such as Abraham, Sarah, Moses also became shorter. This brings about the theory that during their exile in Babylonia, from 597 to 539BC, one or more of the Judeans read the list of Antediluvian Rulers, First Dynasty of Kish and the First Rulers of Uruk and after reading the kings list the Judeans used these examples of longevity when establishing the ages of the characters in the stories written for the Old Testament.