Why Is It That Adam Got To Live To be 930 Years Old But I'll Be Lucky To Reach 75? (prophet, Jacob)

[Grizzly Addams]

There is a theory that we are half anunnaki and half neanderthal, and we were bread as slaves to serve our "creators".

[pcamps]

Adam didnt know how to die ?.

[theflipflop]

Originally Posted by mythunderstood

The interpretation that makes the most sense based on how the scripture actually reads, is how the Jews interpret it (it is their original scripture after all, so I would think they would know best what it means).


What Jews Believe: Essay #5: No Original Sin

That's a brilliant website.

[whoppers]

I started reading this thread and didn't recognize any names, but saw the usual silly apologetics: they didn't really die physically (what the Hebrew text assures them that they would), the environment wasn't all messed up, and etc, etc. Then I realized it was a very old thread and someone had resurrected the thread to add more silly notions.

Originally Posted by lbhorace

Adam and Eve did die that day. Spiritually speaking, they did die when they ate of the fruit. Physically speaking, they did die within a day's time also. Why? The Scriptures tell us that a day is with God as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. (II Peter 3: 8 and Psalms 90:4) Reasoning on these verses than, Adam and Eve and their descendent, for that matter, have not live one day to God.

A silly apologetic.

The Hebrew word יוֹם, yom ("day") is very clear in how it is to be understood from the context. In the vast majority of cases, it means a literal day, and this is determined from the context of the surrounding text. In case one misses the obvious nature of the word and it's relationship to an actual week in Genesis 1, here's some added context:

God called the dome: Heaven!
There was setting, there was dawning: second day.
(Genesis 1:8 SB)

That's right - in case anyone has trouble with reading the obvious, it states outright that there was a "setting" and "dawning". This is very clearly reinforcing the idea that yom is used in it's normative sense of a literal "day" - despite what a much later New Testament author wrote entirely out of context to Genesis and for an entirely different purpose. I suppose Jesus was on the cross for 3 of God's days. Let's reinterpret ALL the days mentioned in the Bible! I guess it helps if you know Biblical Hebrew before spouting the common Sunday School nonsense.

Yahweh's promise to the human that they would physically die is not removed by someone supposing it means a "spiritual" death - especially since Genesis very specifically does NOT say "spiritual". What "spirit" would that be? The soul? Such a concept was not present in the Hebrew Bible. Humans had a נֶפֶשׁ, nephesh ("life-force") that kept them alive, and it died along with them at their death. This word is usually translated as "spirit" or "soul" in older translations and is very misleading due to the later idea of the soul in Hellenism and Christianity, but the better translations have it more correctly.

But more to the point, the verse contains a prohibition (exactly like the form in the Ten Commandments) and a punishment or sentence for breaking it in apodictic form like other prohibitions in the Torah.

...but from the Tree of the Knowing of Good and Evil -
you are not to eat from it,
for on the day that you eat from it, you must die, yes, die.
(Genesis 2:17)

The prohibition is clear: don't physically eat from the tree. The physical tree. The punishment is clear: death. Physical death. When is the physical death sentence to be carried out? This all depends on how one interprets the Hebrew forms making up the phrase "for on the day that you from it". It can be taken as laws found in the Torah - you break a prohibition, and on that day it has been decided that your sentence is death (or some other form of punishment). It is unlikely that it meant that on the very same literal day, the punishment would be carried out. For the narrative does not make any further mention of it specifically. The only long-term consequence is that they are forbidden to eat from the physical Tree of Life and are thus possibly doomed to die. It is possible, however, that Yahweh DID mean for the humans to die on the very same day, but changed his mind. Who knows? It is a difficult passage - but one thing is sure: nowhere in the passage is a spiritual death stated or even hinted at.

I won't address the rest of your quote, as it goes off on a tangent not directly related to the Genesis narrative.

Originally Posted by bulmabriefs144

Supposedly, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, and yet we have this curious statement. Replenish means the Earth was formerly populated, and then depopulated. And is going to be refilled again.

So, maybe we have something else going on here, some inferior first species. God made a species that lived 900 years, and before that a species that lived about 50-120, which had little time and tried to "live like they were dying" doing pretty extreme stuff, since they wanted to make the most of it while they were on the Earth (but this same zeal for life makes a mess of things, and depleted the environment). So we have a new race to try to give these people time to reflect on their mistakes. Unfortunately, rather than being plentiful, and overpopulating the lesser humans, they mated like crazy with those types. (900+120+120+120+120+120... enough times, and average, and it's pretty much the same number).

Hence, you have why there were other people around besides those mentioned as Adam's line. You also have the reason Hebrews often don't mix with other people, they're defending their line from further dilution.

This is just silly. I'm sorry. The blessing in Genesis 1 is very clear:

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God did he create it,
male and female he created them.

God blessed them,
God said to them,
Bear fruit and be many and fill the earth
and subdue it!
(Genesis 1:27-28)

This is the same quote that Mythunderstood quoted and it is exactly correct. One must understand that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 contain two entirely different Creation Accounts, and as such have different ideas of humanity and mortality. No - Genesis 2-3 is not some "more detailed" look at the events of Genesis 1. They are by completely different authors. For a reader of Biblical Hebrew, it is like comparing Stephen King to Ernest Hemingway and their different styles. Even the names of God are different. But you can look that up on your own. The important issue here is that in the 1st Creation Account (Priestly Author) the humans are created at the same time, male and female because they are understood to be blessed to procreate in order to fill the earth. This implies mortality in the Genesis 1 Account. Now, in other Ancient Near Eastern Creation Accounts it was not always implied, and the growing number of immortal humans proved to be a problem until the gods fixed it - via a Flood in one famous account from Babylon. But in Genesis 1, humans are blessed with procreation to fill the earth. They are mortal from the start.

In Genesis 2, however, the curse to have them return to the soil from which they were taken is not given until the end of the section:

By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread,
until you return to the soil,
for from it you were taken.
For you are dust, and to dust shall you return.
(Genesis 3:19)

Because of the humans transgression of eating the from the Tree of Knowledge, the "death sentence" is carried out by forbidding them access to the Tree of Life, and thus they are doomed to mortality. Perhaps they were always mortal, but the Tree would keep them alive. Who knows? But the point is fairly clear - it's not a spiritual death by any means. The two passages are connected.

Originally Posted by Grizzly Addams

There is a theory that we are half anunnaki and half neanderthal, and we were bread as slaves to serve our "creators".

That's quite the theory! I love how people have taken Sumerian mythology and tried to mix it with science in some crazy mix of nonsense. You DO realize that they were gods, the Anunnaki?

Originally Posted by mythunderstood

Boy, you guys sure come up with some crazy stuff.
Genesis 1:28

I'll say!

Originally Posted by mythunderstood

New King James Version (NKJV)

28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”


Since Adam and Eve were created as mortal beings, they were told by god to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Of course they would replenish the earth by reproducing, to keep the human race going long after they were gone. Why would god have told immortal beings to be fruitful and multiply? There would be no room left on earth if every person ever born was still alive today.

I agree with you 100% - see above.

The problem of overpopulation when humans were immortal in other ANE Creation Accounts is briefly discussed above.

Originally Posted by mythunderstood

The interpretation that makes the most sense based on how the scripture actually reads, is how the Jews interpret it (it is their original scripture after all, so I would think they would know best what it means).

I will disagree with you here. The Jews do not have the only valid interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, written by Israelites. Judaism, and especially the various modern forms of it, is vastly different from Mosaic Yahwism and even the Patriarchal Religion that was supposedly practiced before Mosaic Yahwism, and it this religion that helped produce many of the books of the Hebrew Bible. Judaism was a late development arising during/after the Exile, and was responsible for some books in the Hebrew Bible as well, but was not fully evolved in order to be able to claim the ONLY interpretation of Genesis. A similar situation arises when Christians claim that people who don't have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them are not capable of understanding or studying the New Testament - which is incorrect as well.

You are not an ancient Israelite, and I don't know any running around - and the original authors are the ONLY people who can claim the only, legitimate interpretation of their works.

[thrillobyte]

Don't be envious of someone who never lived, let alone some ridiculous number like 930 years. Adam is just a metaphor for mankind as early people who were trying to make sense out of this universe and how we got here started passing down tales and embellishing on them until we got Genesis around 500 BC. You can find stories of a man, a woman and a snake in dozens of cultures older than Hebrew.

[ancient warrior]

Originally Posted by jennaflorrie

This is an easy one -
the planet is now so polluted, but back in Adam and Eves day - the air was purer, the waters were cleaner - everything was less polluted. Genetically, our ancestors were less 'contaminated' by inherited weakenss - such as diabetes, asthma, arthritis.
Centuries later - we live in a polluted world, our genes are infected. Its a wonder any of us reach 70 isn't it?!!

RESPONSE:

Do you really think the 930 year lifespan of Adam is historical and not allegorical?

The first seven books of the Old Testament (Genesis through Joshua) are regarded by archaeologists as folklore, not history.

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts is a 2001 book about the archaeology of Israel and its relationship to the origins of the Hebrew Bible. The authors are Israel Finkelstein, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, and Neil Asher Silberman, a contributing editor to Archaeology Magazine.

The Bible Unearthed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

According to the Bible, the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt for about 400 years and rose to about 2.3 million people at the time of the Exodus, followed by 40 years in the desert, and then their conquest of the Promised Land.

Is it possible they did all that without leaving any archaelogical footprinet, not even a piece of broken pottery?

According to Finkelstein since 1957, over 250 primitive Hebrew settlements have been unearthered in what was then Cananna. These had artifacts but no weapons since the Hebrews were nomadic herdsmen, not warriors.

The Passover story is folklore not history.

I understand that this book has met with considerable criticism but not for religious reasons. If God didn't really give the Promised Land to the Jews, then the Palestinians have just as much right to it!

[Glacierx]

Originally Posted by ancient warrior

According to the Bible, the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt for about 400 years and rose to about 2.3 million people at the time of the Exodus, followed by 40 years in the desert, and then their conquest of the Promised Land.

Is it possible they did all that without leaving any archaelogical footprinet, not even a piece of broken pottery?

I'm not sure where in the Bible it says there were 2.3 million of them, but I'm no bible expert. To answer your last question, yes it is quite possible. At that time a group of slaves who embarrass and shame you are likely going to be erased from the history books.

Also, lack of physical evidence from some short time 1000s of years ago is not proof something didn't occur. People used to say that the bible was untrue because there is no evidence that city of Jericho existed. But then they found evidence that it did. Not every group of people living for 400 years has left a trace of their existence. There's no evidence that Atlantis existed either, but that is not proof that it never existed.

Maybe the Hebrews were in Egypt, maybe they weren't, but I'm not arrogant enough to stand up and say they were never there without overcoming the null hypothesis.

As to the Palestinian comment, you are mixing politics (of a completely different topic) in with the religion section. Let's not do that, please.

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by Glacierx

I'm not sure where in the Bible it says there were 2.3 million of them, but I'm no bible expert.

It's gathered from estimates that are found in the Hebrew Bible concerning the number of adult males, the woman who would have been married to them, and children. It is a pretty good estimate if one is following the Biblical record.

Originally Posted by Glacierx

To answer your last question, yes it is quite possible. At that time a group of slaves who embarrass and shame you are likely going to be erased from the history books.

This is an old apologetic and a bad one. The Egyptians did not erase the memory of the Sea Peoples, the Hyksos or any other number of "embarrassing" episodes in their history. There is absolutely no basis to your claim, and it lacks any evidence whatsoever. It is pure conjecture.

Originally Posted by Glacierx

Also, lack of physical evidence from some short time 1000s of years ago is not proof something didn't occur.

Of course absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as the saying goes - but if something has no evidence besides one textual witness, a biased textual witness at that, then there's every reason to doubt such an occurrence until actual evidence IS found. Let's use that logic in another setting so you can see how it can fall flat: I claim that there is a purple Centipede on my shoulder that tells me to do things. I have no evidence, besides my words - but YOU have no evidence that it DOESN'T exist! Now that's just silly.

Originally Posted by Glacierx

People used to say that the bible was untrue because there is no evidence that city of Jericho existed. But then they found evidence that it did.

You're failing to point out that the evidence we have found of Jericho shows that the city was abandoned and the walls had fallen hundreds of years prior to the Israelites suppose "conquest". So be careful when you cite archaeology if you do not know the full facts.

Besides that - nobody ever said the ENTIRE Bible was untrue because they couldn't find Jericho. They doubted the story. Whether one story turns out to be true or not does not make or break a library of writings known as the Bible. The Jericho story may be entirely false, yet other historical events may be entirely true. It's not all-or-nothing.

Originally Posted by Glacierx

Not every group of people living for 400 years has left a trace of their existence. There's no evidence that Atlantis existed either, but that is not proof that it never existed.

Again - there's every reason to doubt the existence of something if there is NO evidence. Purple centipede? Remember?

Originally Posted by Glacierx

Maybe the Hebrews were in Egypt, maybe they weren't, but I'm not arrogant enough to stand up and say they were never there without overcoming the null hypothesis.

It's not arrogant - it's called being critical of information and not blindly accepting of a story that has absolutely no evidence besides the textual witness, which is contradictory to common sense and the evidence we do have from the time. Purple Centipede again?

Originally Posted by Glacierx

As to the Palestinian comment, you are mixing politics (of a completely different topic) in with the religion section. Let's not do that, please.

On that we agree, at least. The Purple Centipede approves your last comment! Would you consider a small donation, please?

[Glacierx]

Originally Posted by whoppers

Again - there's every reason to doubt the existence of something if there is NO evidence.

Perhaps I chose the wrong wording because you seem to have misunderstood me. Of course there is ample reason to doubt the existence of something without archaeological evidence evidence. All I was saying (or at least meant to say) was that it is possible for a group of slaves to exist for 100s of years, and then vanish without a trace.

I apologize for going off topic. Isn't this thread about 930 year old Adam?

[Rob Allen]

I think it's more likely that the time units used were months, most likely lunar months, and got mistranslated to "years" at some point. 930 lunar months is around 75 years, which is a plausible human lifespan.