Did people really live hundreds of years as recorded in the Bible but nowhere else?

A:To know whether people lived hundreds of years, we should first look at the evidence. Fossils show that our early ancestors rarely lived more than forty years, thus invalidating the biblical claim. Later historical records in Egypt, Mepopotamia and elsewhere show that people lived relatively short lives compared to today. Even The Bible itself makes no claim that anyone other than the direct ancestors of the Jews lived such long lives.

So why does the Bible make these claims of extremely long lives? First, some other early Near Eastern cultures make even more extreme claims, with some ancestors living thousands of years, but these claims are always in a religious context and are never believed today. Only Hebrew claims, likewise made in a religious context, are ever accepted by modern laypeople, but certainly not by serious biblical scholars.

Second, it appears that the biblical records of longevity are more related to numerology than to historical facts. One of the most important numbers in ancient Hebrew numerology is the number 17. Most of the lifespans in the Genesis genealogies involve this number, for example the Patriarchs:

1. Abraham lived to 175 (5 X 5 X 7)
2. Isaac lived to 180 (6 X 6 X 5)
3. Jacob lived to 147 (7 X 7 X 3)

Here we can see:

• Each lifespan involves a perfect square (5, 6, then 7 in a numeric series),
• the third factor also forms a series (7, 5, 3)
• in each case the sum of the factors is 17.

Joseph, favoured son of Jacob, is sometimes referred to as the fourth patriarch, and his 110 years are the sum of these consecutive square numbers (110 = 52 +62 + 72). Interestingly, the first man in Genesis, Adam, has a life span of 930 years, (= 302 + 30), and the last man in Genesis, Joseph, has a life span of 110 years (= 102 + 10). And Adam's lifespan can also be related to his immediate descendants by another series containing the number 17.

It is hardly likely that these precise ages may be explained as simple coincidence. And if they were not coincidences, then they were nominated by the early story-tellersbecause of a spiritual fascination with numbers.