I read somewhere that all the ancient cultures were making excessive longevity claims back in the day. The Sumerians had their kings reigning for tens of thousands of years for example. I can't find the original article now, it was on the James Randi Educational Forum I think, but here's a Wiki link on the subject:
why did man go from living 900 years to 90?
by sowhatnow 55 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
-
cofty
It's important to distinguish between maximum life span and life expectancy.
The former hasn't changed for millennia. The latter continues to improve due to better diet and health care.
-
LisaRose
The bible stories are simply our ancestor's version of modern urban legends, stories passed around by word of mouth and embellished or changed each time. At some point they were written down and became sacred truth.
The stories are no more true than the ones about people waking up in a bath of ice missing a kidney, or the lady killed by spiders nesting in their hair, or the Mexican dog that turned out to be a rat.
-
John Aquila
Either the original writer or the copyists of the Genesis account, for some reason undisclosed, (Not good at math, the slave girl accidentally spilled wine on the copies when the wife came home unexpectedly, or some other reason) caused the writer of Genesis to add an an extra digit. 96 + 9 = 969
(Genesis 5:27) So all the days of Methu′selah amounted to 969 years and he died.
-
DarioKehl
Unplugged fans & water canopies--it's all crap.
it's as true as the walking smurf legend.
-
OUTLAW
why did man go from living 900 years to 90?
You can`t expect Ancient Illiterate goat herders..
Who had to be educated not to shit in their own camp,to be able to count..
.
...................How Old Are You?........................................................900..
.........
-
millie210
Thank you for the link Onager. At the link one reason given is that rulers were often said to live on and on.
It is easy to see why that story would have served the class in power well. Less disruption.
-
Vidiot
@ Outlaw...
Actually, that guy looks like he could be 900...
-
InjusticeSystem
As Onager said above, the Sumerians started the tradition of attributing extreme longevity to their rulers which took a sharp decline after the Sumerian rendition of the flood (as it did after the biblical flood), and then further declined through the years to standard ages. I would assume that they did this in order to emphasize that their line of kingship descended directly from heaven and the gods themselves, therefore solidifying their power and divine right to rule. These long lives all the way back to the very creation of the chosen people (insert the nationality of the individual telling the story here) serve the same purpose in the biblical accounts. The Society has attempted to deal with this via the "Vapor Canopy" idea (there are other excellent threads here on this subject, definitely worth the read) that supposedly shielded humanity from the harmful cosmic radiation therefore increasing longevity and also fatally skewing all attempts at radiocarbon dating methods therefore neatly killing two nasty problems with one very hollow stone. Dr. Irving Finkel (curator in charge of cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia at the British Museum), in his book The Ark Before Noah, handles the flood, extreme longevity, and the captivity in Babylon in detail and provides a very good comparison between the Sumerian/Akkadian myths and the Biblical narratives, and it is very clear by the end of the reading that the biblical tall tales are re-worked versions of these older myths. -
neverendingjourney
'cause of the flood n stuff...water canopy and what not.
