Pre-flood
Longevities
Pre-flood Longevities
Why don’t we still live this long?
|Post-flood atmospheric changes| |water canopy| |genetic changes|
By: Jonathan Sampson
Many people often ask how the life spans mentioned in Genesis and other
locations could be so great, reaching often into the 900+ years, as with Noah
and Adam. This is a hurdle for many people when coming to the Bible simply
because it basically violates what we understand to be ‘natural’ in today’s
world. We must understand that nobody should come to the Bible with such an
axiom, claiming that the Bible must adhere to their particular understanding or
subsequently the Bible is false. We need to first keep in mind that we are the
creation, and our intelligence will never reach that of our Creators, nor will
our understanding of things ever reach His [Jesus Christ]. We need to first
establish that if the Bible states man lived to be 900+ years, then man most
certainly lived to such extreme ages. Now that we have our starting point, we
can start the dirty work and figure out exactly how they accomplished such
impressive feats.
Post-Flood Atmospheric Changes
Many feel that there were external causes that forced live spans to shorten
drastically such as the immediate post-flood world being much different than
the pre-flood world. As this may indeed have somewhat of an effect on our life
spans, we feel it may not be the major cause of such a ‘cut’ in years. Lets
take a look at what effect this had on Noah. We can read in Genesis 7:6 that
Noah was 600 when the flood occurred.
Genesis 7:6
And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
So at this
point we can speculate that the pre-flood world assisted in long ages. Let us
now look at Genesis 9:28-29 to see when Noah died.
Genesis 9:28-29
And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. And all the days
of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.
We can read
here that following the worldwide cataclysmic flood; Noah managed to live an
additional 350 years. Noah was not the only person to experience a long life
span following the judgment of God, Shem lived to be 600 years old, Arphaxad
lived to be 438 years old, Salah lived to be 433 years and many others also
experienced extended life spans. For a more detailed list of life spans from
Adam to Joseph, check our website [www.drdino.com] for our longevity chart.
We are now left with two choices in regards to the atmospheric effect on our
life spans. Either the Noahic flood had little effect on our life spans, or the
world flood started a downward effect on following generations.
Water Canopy
There are other factors that may be at hand in this situation. Many scientists
believe there was once a water/ice/vapor canopy above the earth in the
pre-flood world. If this is the case, many theorize the canopy would provide
greater air pressure and would also filter out harmful radiation expelled from
the sun. This most certainly would be beneficial to all of Gods creation. Lets
look at the scripture used in support of this theory:
Genesis 1:6-7
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it
divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the
waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the
firmament: and it was so.
Genesis 1:8
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the
second day.
Genesis 1:20
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that
hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of
heaven.
With these
few verses we can conclude that the ‘firmament’ mentioned is the open sky. But
what was it that encompassed the earth above the sky? We can read in Genesis
1:7 that the firmament [sky] separated the waters from the waters. Many
theorize that this is a vertical separation and not a horizontal as others have
claimed. What evidence is there for water above the heavens though? We can now
look into the book of Psalm at chapter 148 for this answer.
Psalm 148:4
Praise him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.
Space.com Quotes
“New observations of selected regions of our Milky Way Galaxy show that water
is more abundant than expected. The new measurements show that water is the
third most common molecule in the regions studied, giving researchers useful
information about the abundance of elements…”
SPACE.com Staff: 12 April 2001 (Water in Space More Abundant than Expected)
We have
first a reference in Psalm, which talks about ‘waters that be above the
heavens’, and secondly we have a secular claim made by Science.com that water
is very abundant in our galaxy. So in conclusion, if there were a canopy that
fell down during the flood; the atmosphere would experience serious alterations
subsequently affecting the life spans of people in one way or another.
Genetic Changes
Other theories also include that of genetic changes that occurred in the
population bottleneck that existed at the time of the flood. The human
population went from what could have been almost a billion down to a small
family of 8. If Noah had any heritable mutations, they would be passed on to
his children, which would then pass it onto their children. Because the
population is so small, the information cannot be watered down into a large
population. Possibly this was an effect. Many people throughout recent history
have lived longer than average lives. The current oldest living person known
lives in Chechnya and is 124 years old.
"Despite her advanced age, she still works around the
house, looks after her numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and
great-great-grandchildren, and prays five times a day,"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3110525.stm
I suspect
Mrs. Khakimova has a family history of long life spans but I cannot test this
simply because I have no access to her family history. Other people who have
lived lives exceeding 100 years have shown to have relatives living
longer-than-average life spans also. The reverse is also true in some cases;
families may not have average life spans but instead less-than-average.
In recent years many scientists have been battling cancer cells by studying the
ends of chromosomes, called telomeres. Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes
that are reduced when cell divisions take place. Once the telomere is
completely ‘cut’ down, cell division can no longer occur. This is not the case
for cancer cells however. Cancer cells can divide and divide and so on without
end. They completely bypass the telomere hurdle and go happily along their way.
Many feel cancer cells are able to do so due to an enzyme called telomerase, which
adds telomeric sequences to the ends of the chromosome.
An analogy was once put forth to better explain this instance, which may
suffice: Imagine a painter in a room. The floor needs to be painted so the
painter begins. The painter is able to paint the entire flood space, with the
exception of the tile that the painter is standing on. That tile remains
unpainted.
This analogy falls short eventually in explaining the events of telomere
shortening but it gets the basic idea across. Scientists are currently working
with telomeres and telomerase in attempts to battle cancer whereas others have
done the opposite and have started conducting experiments in attempts to
possibly lengthen the lifespan through genetic alterations.
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