How did the people which become 900 years old age?

God said that IF Adam and Eve continued to have access to the fruit of the tree of life "They would live forever" -- "how could He do that"???

Answer: God "can" do it.

The 900+ years of ancient man is SEEN to decrease gradually down to 700 then 600 then 500 then 300 then down to 220 then down to about 120.

There is no way to assert that Jacob was only 12 years old when he died/

The ages are real. The same author uses the same scale for time - and records people living over 900 years AS WELL as people claiming to be "too old" to have children at 70 80 and 90 years old later on the SAME book.

You just have to accept the Word of God for what it says. Trying to shoehorn it into 2006 as if Moses MUST be limited to anythng we are limited to in terms of health - is not reasonable.

It is no more reasonable "fix it" for today's world than it would be to have Moses "explain away TV or a DVD" for his day and age.

The one thing that DOESN't work - is assuming that nothing changes.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Having said that about "Just believe it" -- I would offer this "explanation".

God created mankind "vastly superior" than his degraded form seen in recent times. The "life force" of Adam was far superior to ours in many ways and his free access to the Tree of Life resulted in regenerating strength that was passed down to his descenants for generation after generation.

So even though he eventually grew old and died at around 1000 years old -- his children ALSO lived to about that same age. But with the flood came a change in the earth's environment, a change in diet AND continued separation "generation by generation" from vigor of that "first generation" that had direct access to the Tree of Life.

That is my guess. I am not going to defend it like it was the 4th commandment or something - I am just offering it.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Excellent points.

In Christ,

Bob

 

The topic title and question is:

"How did the people which became 900 years old age?"

The answer is:

"V-e-e-e-r-r-r-y S-l-o-o-o-o-w-l-l-y." :thumbsup: :tongue3: :laugh:

Ed

 

:BangHead: :applause: :laugh:

Ed

 

Good to see you reading, quoting and interpreting.

 

There is no question that AFTER the fall they did not have access to the Garden of Eden, the did not have access to the tree of knowledge of good and evil and they did not have access to the tree of life.

But in Gen 2 there is nothing saying that they did not have access to the tree of life. In fact we are explicitly told that they had access to "ALL but ONE" tree.

I am sticking with that point to show that although they DID have access to the tree of life BEFORE the fall - they did not have access to it afterwards. Given that the tree of life would cause them to "live forever" one has to suppose that it has something to do with the genetic properties of living beings so that they can "live forever". If that is the case and the very nature of mankind changed at the fall -- it could well be that the instrusive aspects of the sinful nature would have been both imprinted and eternally sustained if they had been given the same access to the tree of life in their fallen form that they had in their unfallen form.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Another point - in Gen 3 when God shows a plan to "protect against a plan" we can easily assume that the plan God is defeating - is Satan's plan.

 

Recognise that this is just a theory and not absolute biblical fact.
...and I don't believe DNA is mentioned anywhere in the bible (but I may be wrong...:smilewinkgrin: )
This link is from a young-earth creationist origanization "Answers in Genesis" [LINK]
What arguments are doubtful, hence, inadvisable to use?

"Canopy theory"

"This is not a direct teaching of Scripture, so there is no place for dogmatism. Also, no suitable model has been developed that holds sufficient water, but some creationists suggest a partial canopy may have been present. For AiG’s current opinion, see Noah’s Flood—what about all that water? ..."

Regarding the age of the Patriarchs; there is no harm in questioning the account.
The ages certainly seem unusual.
The accounts are ancient; we may not have a full understanding of the customs relating to genealogical record keeping during the time they were recorded.

Rob

 

Scarlet makes the obvious point -- Abraham was not 17 when he died!!

In Christ,

Bob

 

On this issue I would recommend reading Genesis Study by Henry Morris, the True Believer in Jesus who was called by Lord in February this year.

Shortly speaking, the human life time has changed many ways.

After the sin came into this world, we have the limited life time.
Before the flood of Noah, the water-layer in the sky prevented the UV's from penetrating very much.
After the collapse of the layer of the water mist in the sky, UV was increased enormously on this earth, which deteriorated the human genome very much.
Even after the Noah's era, the human life time was still long, because it took some more time after generations, until the human life time was shortened remarkably.
This required the people to avoid the marriage between the relatives as the genome deterioration caused the problems.

After the Flood, the life time was reduced continuously, related to UV's and Genome deterioration.

On the other hand this leaves us the hope that our life can be extended quite a lot when we obey God, even before we reach the Kingdom of God.

 

Read the text of Gen 2 and 3 it is pretty much glaringly obvious.

But your question raises another very good point. We often "imagine solutions" about what God did or did not do that is often contrary to the explicit statement in the text - simply because we like to think of things that way.

God makes it appear that the Tree of Life is "significant" when it comes to "living forever" but we "don't want to believe that" so it is easy to ignore. Then our own predisposition becomes a defacto kind of "proof" against the text we are reading.

I see that all the time on this board.

Join the club.

in Christ,

Bob