I was asked the other day by an unbeliever, "how did these people live so long?" and I wasn't exactly sure how to respond. When I think of the early chapters of Genesis I immediately think of Chuck Missler and his dispey theories of the Nephlim.

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Conscience may lash us, but it cannot replenish a languishing life. Conscience may be God's word and minister to you, telling you of your faults and your follies and your destitution. It may point out, but it will never supply you. Christ must give you new life. Hart has well expressed it: "He to the feeble and the faint, His mighty aid makes known; and when their languid life is spent, supplies it with His own." - J. K. Popham

Many people have speculated that the condition of the earth's atmosphere (being far richer in oxygen because the outer layer of water/ice had not fallen on the earth (the flood)) provided the conditions whereby animals, humans, plants would have been much bigger, faster, stronger, and lived longer than nowadays.

Check out Answers in Genesis, and In the Beginning by Walt Brown. Hope this helps.

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Daniel Franzen
Church Creek Presbyterian (PCA)
Charleston, SC

I remember a class I took by Dr. Harold Whitcomb. He postulated that human DNA took a considerable amount of time to register the full effect of the fall. Recessive genes that contained the code for fatal diseases did not manifest themselves for hundreds of years. As time progressed human DNA became more susceptible to mutations. Eventually human DNA filtered through most racial/ethnic types and found a certain equilibrium.

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Bill Brown
Elder
Reformed Baptist
Maryland

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That's interesting.

I have an old book called "The Grace of Christ" in which the author argues that God cut the lives of wicked men short in His mercy, so that the wicked will not have as much suffering for as many sins in hell.

The flip side is that when the righteous overtake the wicked, then the sinner, being 100 years old will be thought accursed, and dying young.

As for the proximate cause, I would say that the prevalence of sin, as it got greater and greater, and the judgment of the flood, and all of the disease it brought, would also be helpful directions to think in.

Cheers,

Adam

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Adam B., Wine Country, California, PCA

"I fear not to hold with Junius, de Politia Mosis cap. 6, that he who was punishable by death under that Judicial law, is punishable by death still; and he who was not punished by death then, is not to be punished by death now."

Found this :
So.. how did people live to be like 800 in biblical times? - Yahoo! Answers

What a group of answers!

I liked this one from someone that likes the KJV.
I'm not sure if he was arguing for, or against, originally longer life spans:

"Back in thee day, people were more active. There were few few few jobs where one could sit around. People had to walk to places and perform arduous work instead of type on a computer. Also their diet was much better than a typical modern urban diet. No high concentration of fat and sugar. The diet mixed with the exercise of living made some people live longer. The average life span though was a lot shorter than it is today. Because their bodies were always working, they tended to wear down sooner. Couple that with hardly any medicine and sanitation and boom you got some dead suckers."

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Mike Myers
Teaching Elder
West Suffolk Baptist Church
Suffolk, Virginia

Many a plain, honest, unlearned disciple of Christ, by meditation, experience, prayers, and especially obedience, attains to a more clear, sound, and useful knowledge of the word of God, than some great scholars with all their wit and learning. Matthew Henry

Perhaps it was due to the fact that the earth was not populated yet and the longer one lived the longer they could produce offspring? If Adam and Eve were meant to live forever there would be no end to their children (seed) unless God intervened but after the fall, death became a 'roadblock' to fulfilling the creation mandate ("fill the earth" Genesis 1:28).

By the time of Abraham the earth was well populated (see Genesis 11) and Abraham himself only lived one hundred and seventy years. Different cultures such as the Egyptians etc. had sprung and man had begun to fill the earth as God had commanded him.

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Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA

"What sort of pledge and how great is this of love towards us! Christ lives for us not for himself!"
John Calvin, Commentary on the Hebrews (7:25)

I tend to think that this is one of those situations where whilst it is fun to speculate beyond the answer that this ocurred because of the sovereign will of God such speculation is not particularly helpful.

Science is the servant of God, not his master.

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Mike
London City Presbyterian Church
London
England

"Surely, we wish to be orthodox, but we must first learn what real orthodoxy is. Surely, we wish to be progressive, but we must first have a basis to progress from."