Why, if god limited man's life to 120 years, did people live longer?

Because, as I suggested to you in another thread, being able to make the argument in your own words suggests that you have some grasp of what it is you are talking about and encourages others to engage you. Simply C+Ping a huge chunk from AIG or some other site is insufficient to constitute participation in a debate.TTFN,AW

the fact the cut and pasting was totally relevant to the question pays testament to the fact that i understood what i was pasting.there are simpy too many posters on here and too many questions for one to read something, then re-word it to your satisfaction.this forum is very unbalanced which the evolutionists surely appreciate, no?How much time does one have to answer all the questions and defend ones faith when the numbers of creationists vs evolutionists are grossly unbalanced?i simply relayed information to evolutionists so they are aware that Christians have very (operational) scientific answers to all their theories.

Why do you think we've never seen Answers in Genesis material before? Why do you think that evolutionists aren't aware of creationists' ham-handed "rebuttals" to scientific challenge, and that we don't already have our own rebuttals to the materials you seem to think are so conclusive?Why do you seem to think that the evolution vs. creationism debate only began when you arrived?

Funnily enough I think most of our members are aware of the existence of Answers in Genesis.Could you perhaps restict yourself to just one forum for discussing this issue, at the moment it is very piecemeal.Or if you wish to just keep on C+Ping then go ahead and I can get on with suspending you.I appreciate that what you posted had some relevance to the topic but that doesn't mean you understood more than the first paragraph of each one. It certainly doesn't mean that you are in a position to defend the argument should it be rebutted.I see you have been given a temporary suspension. Perhaps you will still want to join us here when it has lapsed, if so then it might be an idea for you to choose one topic to focus on rather than trying to address every thread on the board at the same time.If the number of posters is a problem there is a forum for conducting one-on-one debates which I'm sure we could find someone to debate you in.You are just going to have to accept that this forum has a rule on such substantial C+Ping. If you wish to participate here you will have to live with it, otherwise I wish you good luck at some other message board.TTFN,AW

You have clearly no regard for the forum rules. Maybe you think they were put there to shut down valid debate by evil evolutionists. It doesn't matter - they are there, and if you want to use this forum you need to obey them. You may discuss their validity calmly elsewhere. My sig contains a link where you can discuss Moderator action.You have clealy no regard for intellectual property rights. I do.I am suspending you. This is why: failure to abide by rules 6,7 and 10. Probably 4 and 1 too, with a big helping of 2. Here they are for your confirmationIt is likely you will regard this suspension as confirmation of everything you have just said about shutting down debate and the conspiracy of indoctrinated evolutionists. That is fine by me, I don't tolerate rule breakers and I don't tolerate disrespect and I don't tolerate copyright infringement.If you decide to return to this obvious den on iniquity filled with evilutionists, please follow our rules. If you don't want to, you will be suspended and possibly relegated to the Showcase forum where you will be free to raise your issues with less concern for the rules that apply to the rest of us.Otherwise, I wish you the best. If you want to continue debating in this style you might want to try Fred Williams' website, evolutionfairytale, which seems right up your alley.

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You:"Genesis 6:3 'The the Lord said "I will not allow people to live for ever; they are mortal. From now on they will live no longer that 120 years"' How come there were others who lived longer.Me: You misunderstood the context. If you read a few more verses, you will note that God got furious coz of evil. Taken these and that one that you cited would give a different meaning. And the meaning was that: he will destroy the earth in more or less 120 years from that moment. And, true enough w/in that span of time the Great Flood occurred.

sorry double postEdited by pilate_judas, : No reason given.

How does this mean that man will not live longer than 120 years?Also, are you saying that the Ark took almost 120 years to build?Brian.Edited by Brian, : No reason given.

You: How does this mean that man will not live longer than 120 years?
Me: That statement alone is open to interpreation. One is that God limited man's age to 120 years, which obviously is not the case. Another is: man--from that time the word as spoken--has more or less 120 years till he is eliminatedYou:Also, are you saying that the Ark took almost 120 years to build?Me: I don't have my bible w/ me right now. But, I believe it is silent as to the time span of the building of the ark. With the size of the ark, coupled w/ Noah's inexperience, old age, and few helpers the building of that life boat would really take long. And remember also that Noah had other jobs to do. One of this, according to Peter, was to preach.

But man wasn't eliminated more or less 120 years later, we are still here.If you wish to quote someone if you type the following without spaces [ q s ] then insert the text you wish to quote, then you close the message with [ / q s ], again without spaces. it makes life a little easier.There's also a 'peek' button at the bottom right of the message box, this allows you to see all codes used in a message.Brian.

Hi Brian,
You must forgive Governor Pilate_Judas we didn't have this computer thing back in Judea. Ha ha ha. This lap tap just dropped from the sky and I stared pressing its buttons, and lo and behold I am able to communicate w/ you. =)=)Seriously you said: Me: I was referring to those guys who perished in the great flood, excepting of course Noah and his family.Edited by AdminPD, : Fixed Quote Box

No probs, anyone who turned Jesus in and then sentenced Him to death isn't all bad. You need to put a / before the final 'qs' at the end of the quote to get the shaded quote box. But the Bible doesn't say this anywhere.I think it is more likely that when this part of Genesis was written down the more mythical life spans of the patriarchal age were becoming more realistic, although 120 years is probably three times as long as the true life expectancy at that time.As we move closer to the end of the first millenium BCE, the life spans become more realistic, with the 70 years of Psalm 90:10 The length of our days is seventy years, being at least historically plausible. Though I think to reach 50 would be quite an acheivement 3000 years ago.This is the thing with the obvious mythical narratives of the Bible, they are quite ambiguous as the theological message and not historical accuracy was more than likely the aim of the writers.Brian.

TheStickman (original poster),You wrote:

quote:

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In Genesis 6:3 'The the Lord said "I will not allow people to live for ever; they are mortal. From now on they will live no longer that 120 years"'. Now, after this there are examples of people living longer than 120 years (genesis 23:1 'Sarah lived to be 127 years old' being one of them). Now i know there are many believed contradictions in the bible and they are continually refuted (although not always with proper reasoning and fact) and I tried to find reasoning for this seemingly massive contradiction, but couldn't find any. So, any help?

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I do have some help I can offer.Here is something I recently read on the issue:

quote:

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God does not say that the shortening life span will be immediate. Despite this, many have read Genesis 6:3 and expect that God would have implemented that decision at that time. We read further on into Genesis and notice that people continued to live much longer than 120 years after the flood. Some would see this obvious contradiction in the Bible as a rational to deny that God exists, but our God does not lie.

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Hi T,I see somehting here that looks like a contradiction.Your source says:God does not say that the shortening life span will be immediate. However, Stickman's quote says:'The the Lord said "I will not allow people to live for ever; they are mortal. From now on they will live no longer that 120 years"'.So, to me anyway, the words 'from now on'indicate an immediate introduction of this condition.If I said to a group of students, "from now on, everyone will use the Harvard system of referencing " , I would expect all of them to immediately start using the Harvard system, and I am sure that they too would take it to mean straight away.When God says "from now on" how can it be taken any other way? But some biblical authors did, and many so-called 'experts' do as well if they can see a buck.Brian.Edited by Brian, : added 'student' example.

except dr. bill. you're thinking about this all wrong. let's start with what the text says.

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, —- ‘ ——, ‘’, ‘; ,

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v'yo-amar yahueh, "lo-yadon ruchi b'adam l'olam, b'sha-gam basar hu v'hayu yomiu meah v'esrim shanah."

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and-said yahueh, "no-fighting soul(mine) in-man(kind?) to-eternity, in-who-also flesh he, and be(his) days(his) hundred and-twenty years.

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and [the lord] said, "my soul will not struggle over man for eternity. because he is also mortal, his days will be 120 years."

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or more idiomatically,

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and the lord said, "i will not be bothered with mankind anymore. but because he is fallible, he has 120 years"

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look at the context in genesis 6. this god saying mankind is a pain, and nothing but trouble. he is tired of fighting with or judging them, something that grieves him to his soul. he decides to destroy mankind -- ALL mankind. but god, being a loving and forgiving god, gives mankind 120 years to shape up. take a look a bit down the page. 100 of those years are spent building a giant boat. it is not a coincidence that this passage uses a number so close to the duration of noah's ark building term.this is not a limit on human lifespan. to read it as such is to misunderstand the usage of adam in this verse, and then to take the verse entirely out of textual context -- all of which has to do with god wanting to wipe ever living thing off the face of the earth. but to assume it applies to human lifespan is to do more than to read it ouf context. while there are internal conflicts, it seems a little ludicrous this time. maybe the fact that only two people in the entire book of genesis die before their 120th birthday is a product of editting different documents together (this is j. genealogies are p). but to have internal descriptions in j of noah living a lot longer? and shem? and abraham? it requires the author of a single document to have made a big important point explaining something, and then totally forgotten about it.

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