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

I believe that the bible is inerrant, and with any issue, uninformed or less studied Christians typically do not answer well to their atheist counterparts. Due to this, I suggest that atheist on this thread not only read the responses of counter arguments, but look to other research as well to make sure an accurate representation of the argument is being presented; I certainly do with the atheist arguments.The disputed text is the following:"And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Genesis 6:3."And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." Genesis 6:13.God states that he will destroy the flesh which is mankind. We know from the bible that people live longer than 120 years and there are apparently present day people who have lived longer than 120 years. It seems that the interpretation commonly taken by athiests and many Christians on this thread is incorrect, such would suggest a contradiction. A much more possible interpretation is that after God decrees that man will live 120 years, he is saying that he will destroy mankind in 120 years through the flood. It would take a long time to build the ark anyways.

Oh, I'm sorry did you post something like that before? There's nothing wrong with sharing the same idea if its valid!

Thanks!Ok so we are moving on from the alleged contradiction in the bible (the topic of the thread) to whether or not people in the bible lived as long as it is written.The human fossil record is not my strong point, but it seems to be yours (you stated you practice Archaeology, I wanted to be one when I was younger), so you can help on this one. Is there a way to test how old someone was when they died from their fossil? Also, please indicate the depth of the fossil records that are available (I'm specifically interested in the quantity and quality of fossils from biblical time periods) Please answer those, but I'll assume that it is possible to tell the age of death from fossils for now.Assuming that, I do not have knowledge of any human fossil that proves a man can live past the 120s range. But in light of the lack of clarity surrounding the actual historical dates for the Genesis account, and an incomplete record of fossils, and the fact that we are targeting a distinct set of generations in the bible (by the time we get to Moses life is in the 120 range) and a small set of specifically named people you could probably understand how an argument from silence wouldn't hold a great deal of sway with me.In regards to a global flood, I believe most of the earth is covered with sedimentary rock suggesting the earth was covered with water some time in the past. We are also dealing with 150 days here, not a massive amount of time in history, so the accuracy of your findings described would be extremely sensitive to the correct dating of flood and the archaeological sites.Thanks, and I appreciate your comments.

I still don't understand. Do you mean1) I am taking the verses out of contextor2) That I use verses that others quote when stating the same argument?

Religious beliefs and science are not contradictory in my opinion. Just because we can't confirm everything scientifically doesn't mean its not true. Things like the flood and living longer than humanly possible (as we know it) would fall under the category of miracles to me, which are in direct contradiction to science, BUT, if it did happen, any tangible signs left would not contradict science. But we already have one proven miracle in my opinion, creation. Certainly the requirements for life in the universe are realistically insurmountable. Source:
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Even besides the fact of believing that life was created on accident through the impossible odds, scientists can't create life from DNA when trying to do it intentionally. My only point here is that creation is an example where science is somewhat handicapped in accounting for it. Of course miracles would have to exist for religious beliefs to be true, our realm of discussion here is around the scientific tangible signs left.Thanks for the information. I was wondering how you could tell the age of death of bones, and this gives some clarity to it. I was guessing that type of evidence (cranial suture closure, dental wear, some esoteric changes in ribs and the pubic symphysis)was probably the case. I think it would be most reasonable to assume that if humans did live hundreds of years, they wouldn't age like we do up until our 70's and 80's with grey hair, weaker bones, etc. then continue to live in that state for hundreds of years. The aging would probably be proportional to ours but at a slower rate of decomposition of cells. This is an assumption I know, but if this were the case, that aging was proportional to ours but at a slower rate, would you agree that bone examination would not reveal an accurate age of death?In terms of any scientific evidence for the flood, there is not a absence of geological information. Many creationist works are compiled here:
Answers | Answers in Genesis I know that there are people with blind faith out there, but belief in the bible does not require it. How do two people (one a creationist and one an atheist/agnostic) look at the same information and have these two separate beliefs? Aside from the bias of wanting to believe something is true, the hinging factor must be different things for us. You may say that there is not scientific evidence for certain things in the bible. My findings is that there are things in the bible that are not scientifically accounted for, but that nothing in science contradicts the bible. Where it may seem to contradict the bible is always a matter of interpretation, not an actual fact. Think for example, how the church tried to stop Galileo from rejecting an earth-centered universe; The bible does not contradict a sun centered solar system.William F Albright, an extremely respected Archaeologist proclaimed that "No archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference". Conversely, things that we can definitely test in the bible with science have actually helped confirm biblical accuracy as science has improved. Consider the work done by Oxford Archaeologist Dr. William Mitchell Ramsay, who was against the idea of biblical inerrancy before he studied the holy land for himself and found that in all examined cases the bible was true, even in instances where the writers unapologetically wrote something down that could be construed later as false.If one can't confirm everything in bible, yet can confirm a lot through science, and more importantly doesn't find contradicting evidence, belief is logical and does not contradict science.

Sorry for the misquote. Albright's quote was "There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament."I can't speak to Glueck's interpretation of the text, but as it stands every verse needs a correct interpretation, lest the face value interpretation be incorrect. For example, the New Testament genealogies are different between gospels and without the correct interpretation and context (that one lineage was bloodline and the other legal) one would incorrectly state a contradiction.Albright's bio from wikipedia "From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the universally acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement." makes me care less about his self description.I would like to hear of the evidence against the exodus (assuming it's not an argument from silence) keeping in mind that the Egyptians would most definitely lack the incentive to record such a strike and embarrassment against them.

Thanks for the warning!Could you provide me material so I can look at the developed argument of the Genesis 1 refutation? Could you provide other examples as well, or refer me to more of the same type of sources?In the interest of science I would want to make sure that there aren't PRATTs on the other side, and get us back my point of two people looking at the same evidence and believing different things (the two different beliefs being it contradicts or it doesn't).

Ok, now I gotcha.I think those two verses could be viewed in light of any other scripture that would not contradict the possibility that I offered.

I think what he's saying is that the example of someone living over 120 years is so close to God's quote in Genesis of limiting man's life to 120 years that: the author of the book, or the redactor, or the compiler of Genesis chapter (however it wouldn't matter)wouldn't possibly put a contradiction like that in the bible even if they were trying to make it up. I would say if anything this increases the reliability, as Sir William Ramsay found concerning Luke's gospel: lots of unapologetic seeming contradictions that turned out to later be fact.