I don't believe that scripture gives a definitive answer to the question of how (other than that God ordained it so), any thoughts outside of scripture are mere conjectures on the question. I would take them with a grain of salt. However, my earlier post was only half joking. A key difference between the people of the antediluvian world from those after Noah was that God permitted them to eat meat, whereas Adam was told only to eat plants.
I don't believe Anglicans are committed to a literal understanding of the text (though I certainly accept that there are those who do). Suffice to say that comparing the genealogies (the begatitudes) in Genesis they show a remarkable correlation to the genealogies in the ugaritic texts, though our numbers are a good deal more realistic. On the one hand that suggests that they have not originated in scripture as we know it, but were part of a oral tradition of legends of origin. The correlation in fact attests to the truth of the Abrahamic migration from Ur of the Chaldees, for it suggests they brought the stories with them, as your would expect. The notion of the longevity of our forebears is the understanding of what it was like before humankind made a mess of things. God did not create us to die, but to live with him for ever.
Wouldn't change in lifestyle and diet have a direct impact to longevity? I know this is an old thread but I had to ask.
Also environmental factors, no pollution, no food additives, cleaner air , more physically active and less stress!!!
If prior to the flood people did not eat meat, why did God divide the animals into clean and unclean? This classification was dietary. There is no evidence we were vegans or non meat eaters prior to the flood. In the Garden God limited types of fruit on trees to put off limits the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I have heard strange reasons as to why we lived so long back then. One was a water vapor that shielded us from the harmful radiation etc from the sun. Who knows? Though medicine is now starting to increase our lifespans. One doctor told me it will not be unusual for children born today to live to be 100. Less than 100 years ago, the average life span was less than 65 in the States. That was why the Federal Government set 65 as the age to begin receiving Social Security, most of the people being taxed would die before collecting. Blessings Fr. Mark
They didn't. The flood account has direct parallels in the Sumero-Akkadian, and later Babylonian, myths of Atra-Hasis and Gilgamesh. The antediluvian Patriarchs have close parallels in the Sumerian King List in which, after "the kingship descended from heaven," Alulim of Eridu ruled for 28,800 years, Alalngar ruled for 36,000, and Enmenluana ruled for 43,200. Five more mythological kings ruled until the flood, after which the length of their successors' reigns decreased dramatically, until finally becoming semi-historical at the dawn of literacy. It would be fruitless to attempt to interpret the Biblical account historically or scientifically when the broader context of the story is clearly meant to impart some kind of mythological and/or theological message, however obscure it may be to modern scholarship. It seems the Sumerian King List had some kind of original purpose which the Genesis authors wished to subvert in much the same way they had done with the first myth of creation in Genesis 1.