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Biblical historians: why are the lifespans of people mentioned in the genesis accounts recorded as lasting so long?
Biblical historians: why are the lifespans of people mentioned in the genesis accounts recorded as lasting so long? * /r/AskHistorians
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The question is quoted below. Click on the link to see the answer given by the historian.
Are there any theories as to reason for the records of extremely long lifespans (300-900+ years) of the people written about in Genesis?
- Was it a cultural thing, to exaggerate things like that to make your bloodline seem more impressive (i.e. an indication of your family being more favored by God)?
- Translation errors?
- Did the author actually believe that their ancestors lived that long?
I know it's tough to speculate on the exact motives of authors writing thousands of years ago, but I'm fairly ignorant in this department. Are there any known explanations for why they wrote like this?




"Year" and "day" in ancient Hebrew aren't really exactly the same as now. They're just general time periods. Even now we'll use year not to mean a 365 day period of time from January 1st to January 1st. Talk to a parent, oftentimes next year is in September when the school year starts.
A year, Biblically speaking, was a time period of milestones. Seasons, harvests, moons, births, deaths, floods, fires... Things that were important to those living at the time.
Yes. "Yom" could mean a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, and even an eon.
Did you happen to read the historian's response to the question? I thought it was fairly convincing.
I'm looking at it now. (I was building sets and working backstage at a play rehearsal for over twelve hours yesterday. I responded in a quick lunch break.) For sure most of these numbers are symbolic and a way of saying really old.