Why / the reasons for long life

[Fiat_Voluntas_Tua]

Why is it stated that people live for like hundreds of years in the Old Testament? What are the reasons for this?

(I would prefer not oppinions but facts backed by scholars...)

[Paphnutius]

Oh my...that is always my problem. I can never remember citations and the like.

Well from what I have read and have been taught (I have learned to defer to phatcatholic in terms of citing sources) there are a few reasons for this:

1) It shows that from the time that man was expelled from the garden his relationship with God grew more and more distanced resulting in a shoterning of life. This is also shown by the way that God communicated to man. In the garden it was almost face to face (God walked through the garden during the cool of the eve). Then after the fall it was by angels and other theophanies (Moses and buring bush. The tent of metting). Finally it was through dreams.

2) Hebraic thought really did not make too much room for a happy afterlife for quite some time. As a result, this life was the primary place for blessings and long life was a result of God's blessing on a person. So the longivity of those was because God blessed them.

3) As sin spread through the world (Fall, Tower of Babylon, Sodom and Gammorah (sp?!), etc...) mans life was shortened.

I hope that is at least a good starting place.

Edited November 29, 2005 by Paphnutius

[phatcatholic]

you rang?

here is part of the Navarre Commentary on Gen 5:1-32, about the ages of Adam that are provided....[list]The ages given for the patriarchs are symbolic, not exact. We can see that the ages of the people reduce, the further away they get from the earliest time of human life, that is, the further they get from God; there is a process of degeneration at work due to the presence of evil. In a way there is the same sort of outlook here as in Proverbs 10:27: "The fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short." Mankind becomes more debased, so God reduces the allotted span to one hundred and twenty years (cf. Gen 6:3).
[/list]here is the part from the Jerome Biblical Commentary on this same topic [note that "P" means the "Priestly source" for the account]:[list]The precise significance of the ages given by P is not certain. The general decrease in ages probably indicates the further estrangement from God, since long life is attributed to "fear of the Lord" (cf. Prov 10:27).
[/list]
that should supplement, from scholarly sources, the information that nutty provided.

pax christi,
phatcatholic

[Paphnutius]

Now see...did I not tell you what an awesome guy he is?

I have found that my little mind cannot hold all that information AND their citations. Perhaps I should put in a requisition for more RAM from God?

[phatcatholic]

yes, more RAM would be good

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

Nutty? What an awesome nickname.