No. Methuselah was of the eighth human generation. He enjoyed a life span of 969 years, the longest of Bible record, and one that has become proverbial for longevity.

No, I don't because it contradicts what we know about people and how long they really lived during those times due to poor diets, desease, living conditions and a whole host of other factors. That actually median age for someone living in Biblical times 40. I have a feeling the reason why those ages of amazing longevity are from two factors. One is just good old bragging like the whole "my dad is better then your dad thing". Two is more plauseable and that's a pure accident of translation. See the calander used in Biblical times was not the same as the one used when the Bible was translated. They used a lunar and not a solar one like the later translators did. And add in the fact they counted ages in seasons and not years and you get a probable reason for those ages.

No more than I believe that the world was created in six days. There are many aspects of Biblical texts that one can't take literally, and conceptions of time are decidedly among them.

I see no reason not to. We have no idea what humanity was like in its infancy. We only think that they were somehow inferior to ourselves. If DNA was purer and less corrupted closer to creation, there is every possibility that they could live longer than we do now. Science is open to the possibility.

No, I don't. First, not even the Bible records any human life to be 1000 years. The oldest was 969. Second, it completely contradicts known science, history, and anthropology about the lifespan of humans and our ancestors.

Someone's chasing you around with the Negative Stick Antigone! Oh well. Nope - I don't believe those ages at all - whether they were meant to be taken literally or not. All archeological evidence for people living around that time indicate lifespans generally shorter than our own.

Yep. The Bible has yet to be proven wrong in all the time it's been around. I doubt someone could find a fallacy in it now.

Not 1,000, because as far as I have read, the Bible does not state any man living to be 1,000, but the farthest is 900, so almost that long. Thank you and may God bless you. :) -In Jesus' Name.

I certainly do believe these ages. Firstly, I believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God. Secondly, there is good reason why the first generations of the earth had longer lifespans than we do today. The first generations simply lived longer in order to continue to fill the earth. The bible looks at the family of unbelievers in those first generations by talking about the line of Cain. It also looks at the line of believers in the line of Seth. The long lifespans allowed more children to be born. It is not a stretch that the childbearing period of these ancients was proportional to that of today. So imagine the number of children you could have if you could have them up until you were 500 years old. It was the providence and special circumstances given by God that allowed this, what a blessing to fill the world at God's command.

Nope sure don't

If you pick and choose what to believe, doesn't it invalidate the whole selection?

Well, no, not 1000. 969, but not 1000.

no, that's impossible given that time's technology, and medicinal prowess. No

no where in the bible does it say anyone lived to be a thousand years old. the oldest living human in bible record is mathusaleh. he lived to be 969. adam died at the age of 930. since man was close to perfection, this enabled him to live much longer than man does now. when adam and eve sinned, God told them that they would die before they reached 1000 years old.

I like the idea of confusing lunar months with solar years. But it just doesn't hold up. The ancient Jews knew how to tell time and they knew the difference between a month and a year. It's hard to see how mis-translations could account for fantastic life spans. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls contains a copy of the Book of Isaiah. It's a couple thousand years old and yet it's almost word for word the same writing that's been passed down through the centuries. The bottom line: The Jews didn't make errors or "mis- translations" in copying their sacred texts. Also if the month/year confusion was due to mis-translations some linguist would have discovered it by now. My own theory is that the Book of Genesis is fiction. Some highly intelligent thinker (call him Moses) was wondering how the world came to be and why men have to work so hard. So he derived a creation story that is not that far off from the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution. The idea of the Fall of Man is not that different from the idea of the evolution of consciousness. The evolution of consciousness is the equivelant of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Once men became conscious beings they realized that they were different from other animals and that the world was not a garden. In short Genesis is a remarkable intellectual achievement. But just as Homer added gods and goddesses in writing about the history of the Trojan War, so too the author of Genesis couldn’t' resist exaggerating. Hence we get extreme life spans, world wide floods, talking snakes etc. Steven King couldn't have done a better job!