People in the Bible lived a really long time. Check out this table for the ages of Patriarchs from Adam to Noah.
Table 1. Ages of the Patriarchs from Adam to Noah
| Patriarch | Age | Bible Reference | |
| 1 | Adam | 930 | Genesis 5:4 |
| 2 | Seth | 912 | Genesis 5:8 |
| 3 | Enosh | 905 | Genesis 5:11 |
| 4 | Cainan | 910 | Genesis 5:14 |
| 5 | Mahalalel | 895 | Genesis 5:17 |
| 6 | Jared | 962 | Genesis 5:20 |
| 7 | Enoch | 365 (translated) | Genesis 5:23 |
| 8 | Methuselah | 969 | Genesis 5:27 |
| 9 | Lamech | 777 | Genesis 5:31 |
| 10 | Noah | 950 | Genesis 9:29 |
After the flood, people lived shorter lives, but it is still several hundred years. Even Abraham was 175 when he died, according to the Bible.
Table 2. Ages of the Patriarchs after Noah to Abraham
| Patriarch | Age | Bible Reference | |
| 11 | Shem | 600 | Genesis 11:10–11 |
| 12 | Arphaxad | 438 | Genesis 11:12–13 |
| 13 | Shelah | 433 | Genesis 11:14–15 |
| 14 | Eber | 464 | Genesis 11:16–17 |
| 15 | Peleg | 239 | Genesis 11:18–19 |
| 16 | Reu | 239 | Genesis 11:20–21 |
| 17 | Serug | 230 | Genesis 11:22–23 |
| 18 | Nahor | 148 | Genesis 11:24–25 |
| 19 | Terah | 205 | Genesis 11:32 |
| 20 | Abraham | 175 | Genesis 25:7 |
Is there any scientific support for these old ages. For example, if scientists found the bones of someone like Peleg who lived 239 years, would we be able to tell that he was really 239 years old? What is the best way to describe these ages? Were the ancients really bad at counting, exaggerating, had a different calendar system that inflated ages, or were they really this old?
Carol A. Hill wrote an interesting article called “Making Sense of the
Numbers of Genesis” that suggests the unusual ages were somewhat symbolic or poetic rather than numerical. The article is not conclusive as to the full meaning of all the ages, or how they are symbolic. It’s still an interesting read though. See http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Hill.pdf if you are interested. As a disclaimer, I didn’t look too hard at her credentials or check her references.
I think it is mostly attributable to the “telephone game” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers Each person that has passed on these stories (verbally or written) rounds up a bit.
The long years make sense to me. At first, bodies were perfect. Over time, disease and other conditions of mortality settled in.
Don’t know about (meaning: I completely doubt and have no doubts about my doubt) the accuracy of these ages. However, years ago I did some calculations using the data and found that, assuming Adam “started” in 4,000 BC, he died in 3,070 and was a contemporary of: (shown with their recorded age at and calculated year of death) Jared 962, Yr 2578 BC; Mahaleel, 895, Yr 2760 BC; Cainan, 910, Yr 2765; Enos, 905, Yr 2860; Seth, 912, Yr 2958; Enoch, 365 “Translated”, Yr 3013 (57 years before Adam died); Lamech, 777, Yr 2349 BC; Methuselah, 969, Yr 2344.
Also, by these calculations, the “flood” was in 2344–simultaneous with or causing the death of Methuselah.
The Book of Mormon has some long lived people in it also. One of the jjaredites was 141 when he died. Jacob and Enos lived a combined age of about 179 years. The D&C 107 backs up the Bible on the ages of the Partriarchs
“The long years make sense to me.”
I am glad this website welcomes everybody. Even me.
The best place to look would probably be the ancient Egyptians. They have some of the oldest records of ages or at least dates of pharaohs’ reigns that are from around the time of the Biblical patriarchs. I don’t think it will support the ages claimed in the Bible.
The most convincing argument I’ve found is the connection between the Ages of the Patriarchs and the Sumerian King Lists. The king lists share a feature with Genesis where the ages of the kings are crazy high before the flood, and then they are drastically reduced post-flood. So essentially the numbers are more symbolic than literal. David Bokovoy gives a good summary of the argument in his _Authoring the Old Testament_ book.
Another interesting point supporting the Sumerian influence is how one researcher found the total number of years pre-flood in Genesis matched the total number of years pre-flood in the Sumerian king lists when you accounted for the base 60 numerical system.
Very interesting article Josiah. Carol discussed the base 60 system used in Mesopotamia and says these are sacred, rather than literal numbers.
I’ve heard a theory that years were calculated by lunar cycles (months) which would work for the older patriarchs )living to be 900+ as that would be around 50. It falls apart with the second batch because Abraham must have lived longer than 14!
And people ask why the church won’t take an official position that the bible is literally true…
At Dexter: I know. I like the way some Christian apologists respond tot he the question of whether to take the Bible literally. “Do you take the library literally?”
There’s but three explanations for why the seeming longevity of the antediluvians and the Patriarchs, Noah down to Abraham:
1. Adam and Eve had bodies that could essentially live forever, whether the Garden of Eden would have been equivalent to the Terrestrial or Telestial spheres, IDK. Just the essential fact that their children would HAVE to mate with each other initially would cause the breakdown of the human genome into its present life-span of about 100 years max in most cases. In Genesis 6:3, the Lord declares that “man’s” days shall be “as 120 years”, though some scholars believe this to be a predictor of the timing of the Great Flood. Note that though Methuselah ends up being the recorded longest-lived human, the trend that lifespans were shortening would hold this prediction up, but it’d take many generations for the degradation to take place. What’s of interest is how long did women remain fertile, b/c that’d have a great effect on fecundity and population(s).
2. Translators had difficulty, especially when transcribing Hebrew script that had no vowels, where numbering systems meant different things. For example, the difference between a “Captain of a Hundred” and a “Captain’s Hundreds” is very subtle. More of what Joseph Smith termed, “some old Jew put it there.” Don’t know how it applies to chronologies.
3. The last I consider the least likely: Perhaps what we term a ‘year’ was different in those days, whether it was what we’d now term a ‘season’, or if literally the Earth went faster around the Sun. Now, I’m sure that even though Johannes Kepler wouldn’t come about for thousands of years, his laws of planetary motion were valid then, and the Sun, itself being a 2GV star in the main sequence, burned as hot then as it does now…so for the Earth to have much shorter years, it’d be, as a then-version of ‘Elmer Fudd’ would say, “Weally HOT, Wabbit!”.