'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh; his days shall be a hundred and twenty years' (Gen. 6:3).
As a non Christian this always baffles me.
I don't understand how this is in any way baffling. There were plenty of humans around for people to observe when the bible was being written, and some of them probably lived to be quite old.
I have never seen a supercentenarian myself, and I have been in a lot of nursing homes. I only know they exist because of the internet to be honest.
Metaphors taken literally. Literality taken metaphorically. Esoterica interpreted conventionally. Guiding the hand of the translator. Mistranslation compounding over the iterations.
Any useful knowledge must get lost like dust in the wind.
If it is up to the reader to decide which is and which isn't a metaphor that should not be taken literally, than the text is no better than the reader's capability to distinguish metaphors from facts to be taken literally, is it?
It's a failure of the medium. It requires an expert to interpret properly.
And most of us aren't that. And some of those in charge of translation and interpretation aren't that either.
right, so if a biblical number is wrong we find some reason to excuse it.
Most religious texts can just be accepted as "good human practices summed up in 4 pages".... but instead they have to be made into movements, and groups who believe 'my team is right and yours is wrong'.
My view is that - just as there are many tongues, religion of the same Creator is presented differently to resonate with those localities.
Why isn't civilization really moving past the stories to simply focus on the main points that are being relayed?
I believe dogmatic believers miss the forest for the trees; the non-believers use the trees to disregard the forest.
Some stories can be called prettier, more compelling, more useful than others...
Most are consumed unconsciously. In childhood. And form the foundation of reality. So to mess with it can be ... disturbing.
if they're creating earth, then how could it be that they're using earth days? (allegedely, earth is just getting created)
also, what if a day is a rotation around a body's axis, then what about a solar day (the sun spins around itself once)? what about a galactic day?
Because this is a myth from thousands of years ago, and "scientific" accuracy wasn't relevant, much less possible. Read any ancient creation myth, or most ancient myth at all, it's closer to dream logic than anything remotely realistic. They meant earth days because those were the only kind of days they were aware of, and because there's no reason to believe they made the story more complex than that.
Things can be complete fantasy yet logically consistent.
> there's no reason to believe they made the story more complex than that.
you seem to be working under the assumption that because they lived long ago it must follow that they are simpler or in some sense "dumber". (i.e. I claim you believe that "in the past every man was a simpleton compared to a modern man")
alternatively, if in the past they were using dream logic (which you also seem to belive ought to be expediently discarded) couldn't they also dream about other varieties of days? or do they need to have a modern scientific outlook in order to even be able to consider days of different durations?
>alternatively, if in the past they were using dream logic (which you also seem to belive ought to be expediently discarded) couldn't they also dream about other varieties of days?
I don't know why you're being so defensive, or why it's so important to you that Genesis be justified rationally. If you want to believe the ancient Hebrews based the days of creation on galactic rotations, go right ahead. It would just be odd, given that no one back then knew what stars, planets and galaxies even were. The timeline still wouldn't make any sense
And sure, they could probably dream of other varieties of days, whatever that means, but again - why have a narrative about six days refer to that rather than just six days? And why did they never write this dream down, or mention it? Surely they would have considered that a divine revelation from God.
The story says days, it means days. Regular human Earth days. There's no reason to believe otherwise.
If you are dedicated to the idea the writer of the bible wasn't human then you might go down the rabbit hole of alternative explanations.
Look if you want to accept the Bible as true then acknowledge what it is warts and all. Old Testament God kills kids for mocking someone’s bald head (Kings 2:23-24), that’s your religious text. Feel free to believe it all happened as written, or do what almost everyone does and ignore most of it.
1 Kings 7:23
And he made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and the height thereof was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
This verse is not specifying a maximum human lifespan, but the period of probation in which God's spirit would strive or plead with mankind before their judgment by the Flood. This is the period during which “the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing” (1 Peter 3:20).
Genesis records numerous descendents of Noah who lived longer than 120 years (see Gen. 11:10-25). Lifespans did decline rapidly after the Flood, however, and it was recorded in Psalms that “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” (Psalms 90:10).
Even today with our advanced medical knowledge and technology, life expectancy is still typically between 75-85 years.
If you're a Christian, doesn't this mean that you believe that they are both still alive and are world's oldest humans
As an athiest, there's nothing baffling here. Someone guessed 120, perhaps they even knew someone that lived that long or near that long. This sort of "they got this right!" thing happens in a lot of other religions (look up "proofs of the Koran" for examples from the Islamic perspective). Even mormons got it right that some ancient american civs discovered concrete.
On immortality, my thing is actually psychologically framing it were it to become a reality; it's entirely inconsistent with everything we have ever known. I think mortality has a purpose within the context of life. And there's literally limitless implications it would have. To me it seems like the most inhumane pursuit conceivable.
What is the difference between not investing in life extension research and just putting a pillow over the face of a million people?
On the obverse side, there's a string of unavoidable consequences and complications that are unfathomable. Once such a technique becomes available though, that culpability becomes real. And on many complex levels. It's a fools errand cartooned in the purile mind, and far more responsibility than humanity will ever be capable of justly handling.
The trolley problem would like a word.
You want people to die. I think that is horrendous. Our world views seem to be fundamentally different, is there any point continuing this conversation?
If everyone lived like the average American today, the maximum sustainable population is about 70 million humans (give or take a factor of about 2), even if they’re all mortal.
Conversely one can conceive a green tech and policy future which is compatible with having trillions of ageless humans living comfortably in what are currently deserts while the rest of the world is maintained as a nature reserve.
Gilgamesh encodes myths and lessons for human race with no technological access to 'immortality'.
I think mortality has a purpose within the context of life. And there's literally limitless implications it would have. To me it seems like the most inhumane pursuit conceivable
There is no purpose but what we make of it, and why it would be inhumane? It's inhumane to watch people you loved die.
It must have been obviously inaccurate even when it was written.
No, it will prove that Biblical literalism is false, but that's a novel minority doctrine in Christianity that is already disproven by (among other things) the two conflicting creation sequences in Genesis.
“It wasn't literal [, where convenient]”
“The New Testament retcons this, ignore inconvenient or contradictory things in the Old Testament”
“It was translated wrong in ye olde English from Greek and Hebrew”
and finally conclude “it’s open to interpretation”
there, I saved you the whole conversation.
For example, in law one could fairly comment that:
1. Literalism isn't absolute - e.g the old British legal tradition of using England to refer to England & Wales
2. Laws supersede one another - new laws overriding old ones, constitutional laws taking primacy
3. Translation challenges occur - when documents like birth/death certificates, immigration papers, college transcripts, police clearances, marriage licenses, divorce decrees and etc are submitted in foreign countries for acceptance by courts and other institutions as legal record.
4. There is space for interpretation - See laws deliberately leaving room for interpretation with phrases like "reasonable force"
Despite these challenges, textual critics of legal writings are often able to successfully decide whether a given statement about a text is correct/incorrect.
They were just people like us; right sometimes, wrong much more often, but in their case, lacking the tools to verify most ideas.
Now, they also believed the mind was porous and spirits could flow in and out of your head, that you could predict the future by looking at bird patterns, and other nonsense. But then again, have you talked to any Wellness enthusiasts lately?
So yeah, this is pretty cool, but it's also a warning. Everything people did a few centuries or a millennia ago is still in human nature.