Post by Theophilus on Jan 26, 2010 21:21:10 GMT -5
Have you ever wondered about the long life spans in Genesis? The sons of God and the daughters of men? Why Abraham was afraid people would kill him for his 90 year old "hottie" of a wife?
I have wrestled with these questions for sometime, and have come up with a possible solution. I am not saying the following is correct, just that it is the best explanation I have been able to come up with thus far. I am curious to hear what y'all think.
I started with Dr. Sailhamer's understanding of the creation account as presented in his book Genesis Unbound, which basically says the Genesis creation week is a literal week, but that it deals with the recreation of the Holy Land (as opposed to a detail account of how the whole universe is created). In this view, the creation account is only concerned with the Jewish land, the Jewish law, and the Jewish people.
Adam & Eve were real, historical people, and the description of their creation is literally accurate and true. Whereas Dr. Sailhamer is adamant that mankind did not evolve, and that all human beings are descended from Adam & Eve, this is where we diverge. The following is my own theory concerning Adam & mankind:
The Interpretation
Suppose mankind already existed before God created Adam. Suppose that man had already arrived on the Earth as a result of some natural process that God had set in motion, like evolution. For some reason, perhaps God decides to then engineer a special human being. God works under the restraint of making a man that is fully compatible to evolved man ("natural man" henceforth), and genetically engineers a person that has a lifespan of about 1000 years. The genetically engineered human has such a long life span because God has designed him to be resistant to heart disease, cancer, to age well, etc. Unlike natural man, Adam and Eve are genetically perfect. But why suppose this?
Biblical Support for this Interpretation
It would make sense out of Cain's fear of being driven out - for there would already be plenty of people out there. It would explain how he could move far away from his family, and yet found a city. It would also help explain how his offspring could go into various industries, as if they had already existed (Genesis 4:17-22).
From Adam to Noah, with only a couple of anomalies, everyone listed lives 900+ years. What is especially significant is when the lifespans begin to gradually decline - the children of Noah. It was during the life of Noah that "the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose" Gen. 6:2. It might be that the sons of God refers to Adam's descendants (genetically engineered man), and that the daughters of men refer to natural man. This is noted in Noah's generation, and notice that in the next generation, the lifespan of Noah's children are less than the 900+ that had previously been the case. Perhaps Noah's wife is from natural man, or mixed, explaining why Noah's sons do not live as long.
Shem, Noah's son, only lived 600 years. The lifespans would gradually decline until all lifespans are similar to what we see today. Notice that Gen. 10:32 even seems to suggest that these descendants became part of peoples that already existed. If you plot the lifespans of these people, it creates a mathematically significant curve - clearly something is going on here. The decrease in lifespan makes sense if you have the continued mingling of Adam's genes with natural man. Over successive generations, the weaker genetics of natural man begin to dominate, slowly watering down the "pure" genes.
This would also explain why it was so important to marry close kin early on, but after Adam's genes were sufficiently diluted, close marriage was forbidden. Close marriages are only harmful due to genetic problems. If one had perfect genes, that would not be a problem.
Consider the odd fact that Abraham is concerned that his wife, who was then around 90 years old, was so attractive that men might kill him to take her. This is very bizarre, no? Abraham lived to be 175. Sarah died at 127, but perhaps she had a similar concentration of Adamic genes as Abraham (they were closely related). Perhaps Sarah died prematurely for whatever reason, and had a life expectancy similar to her husband, around 200 years or so. If this is true, and if she aged well (like all those closely related to Adam), even at 90, she may have only appeared to be 30-40 at the time, thus explaining how she was still very attractive.
One more point, and I think this is key. Consider when Jacob meets Pharaoh in Gen. 47:7-10. The Bible only records one thing that Pharaoh said to Jacob - he asks Jacob "How many years have you lived?" Reading between the lines, Jacob has probably told Pharaoh about his life, prompting Pharaoh to ask "Just how old are you?!" Look at Jacob's response.
Jacob says he is 130 years old, which is pretty impressive, considering he wouldn't die until he was 147. When Jacob says his years are "few," he is using the humility that was customary at that time, indicating that he realized that 130 was a lot of years compared to other people. Jacob also realizes that, even though his lifespan is greater than that of normal people, it is nothing compared to the lifespans of his ancestors! In this passage, Jacob seems to be aware that he has a much longer lifespan than normal folks, and that his family's lifespan is gradually getting shorter, but he doesn't appear to understand why.
After Jacob, you only see a couple more people that have special aging - like Moses and Caleb. But after that, you don't see it again. At that point, presumably the genetics have become so diluted that there is no distinguishable difference between those who are descended from Adam and those who are not.
If this hypothesis is correct, then why didn't God simply say so in the Bible? Well, considering we didn't even have a basic knowledge of evolution or genetics until relatively recently, it wouldn't have made any sense to anyone until the present time anyway. So it would make sense of the fact that the Bible records some very odd things (the life spans) which are obviously noteworthy, but never tries to explain them. These things could be figured out thousands of years later when man came to understand how genetics works.
Extra-Biblical Evidence
The ancient Babylonians, whose myths often have strong parallels to Biblical accounts, record something that might lend credence to this theory. According to the Babylonians, the kings before the flood had long lifespans, but the rest of the people did not. This would be roughly consistent that there were 2 groups of people, the few that lived long lives, and the many which had normal lifespans.
I admit, this theory is very weird and very strange. But it also makes a lot of sense out of a number of things that otherwise are very, very hard to explain. What do you think?
I have wrestled with these questions for sometime, and have come up with a possible solution. I am not saying the following is correct, just that it is the best explanation I have been able to come up with thus far. I am curious to hear what y'all think.
I started with Dr. Sailhamer's understanding of the creation account as presented in his book Genesis Unbound, which basically says the Genesis creation week is a literal week, but that it deals with the recreation of the Holy Land (as opposed to a detail account of how the whole universe is created). In this view, the creation account is only concerned with the Jewish land, the Jewish law, and the Jewish people.
Adam & Eve were real, historical people, and the description of their creation is literally accurate and true. Whereas Dr. Sailhamer is adamant that mankind did not evolve, and that all human beings are descended from Adam & Eve, this is where we diverge. The following is my own theory concerning Adam & mankind:
The Interpretation
Suppose mankind already existed before God created Adam. Suppose that man had already arrived on the Earth as a result of some natural process that God had set in motion, like evolution. For some reason, perhaps God decides to then engineer a special human being. God works under the restraint of making a man that is fully compatible to evolved man ("natural man" henceforth), and genetically engineers a person that has a lifespan of about 1000 years. The genetically engineered human has such a long life span because God has designed him to be resistant to heart disease, cancer, to age well, etc. Unlike natural man, Adam and Eve are genetically perfect. But why suppose this?
Biblical Support for this Interpretation
It would make sense out of Cain's fear of being driven out - for there would already be plenty of people out there. It would explain how he could move far away from his family, and yet found a city. It would also help explain how his offspring could go into various industries, as if they had already existed (Genesis 4:17-22).
From Adam to Noah, with only a couple of anomalies, everyone listed lives 900+ years. What is especially significant is when the lifespans begin to gradually decline - the children of Noah. It was during the life of Noah that "the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose" Gen. 6:2. It might be that the sons of God refers to Adam's descendants (genetically engineered man), and that the daughters of men refer to natural man. This is noted in Noah's generation, and notice that in the next generation, the lifespan of Noah's children are less than the 900+ that had previously been the case. Perhaps Noah's wife is from natural man, or mixed, explaining why Noah's sons do not live as long.
Shem, Noah's son, only lived 600 years. The lifespans would gradually decline until all lifespans are similar to what we see today. Notice that Gen. 10:32 even seems to suggest that these descendants became part of peoples that already existed. If you plot the lifespans of these people, it creates a mathematically significant curve - clearly something is going on here. The decrease in lifespan makes sense if you have the continued mingling of Adam's genes with natural man. Over successive generations, the weaker genetics of natural man begin to dominate, slowly watering down the "pure" genes.
This would also explain why it was so important to marry close kin early on, but after Adam's genes were sufficiently diluted, close marriage was forbidden. Close marriages are only harmful due to genetic problems. If one had perfect genes, that would not be a problem.
Consider the odd fact that Abraham is concerned that his wife, who was then around 90 years old, was so attractive that men might kill him to take her. This is very bizarre, no? Abraham lived to be 175. Sarah died at 127, but perhaps she had a similar concentration of Adamic genes as Abraham (they were closely related). Perhaps Sarah died prematurely for whatever reason, and had a life expectancy similar to her husband, around 200 years or so. If this is true, and if she aged well (like all those closely related to Adam), even at 90, she may have only appeared to be 30-40 at the time, thus explaining how she was still very attractive.
One more point, and I think this is key. Consider when Jacob meets Pharaoh in Gen. 47:7-10. The Bible only records one thing that Pharaoh said to Jacob - he asks Jacob "How many years have you lived?" Reading between the lines, Jacob has probably told Pharaoh about his life, prompting Pharaoh to ask "Just how old are you?!" Look at Jacob's response.
Jacob says he is 130 years old, which is pretty impressive, considering he wouldn't die until he was 147. When Jacob says his years are "few," he is using the humility that was customary at that time, indicating that he realized that 130 was a lot of years compared to other people. Jacob also realizes that, even though his lifespan is greater than that of normal people, it is nothing compared to the lifespans of his ancestors! In this passage, Jacob seems to be aware that he has a much longer lifespan than normal folks, and that his family's lifespan is gradually getting shorter, but he doesn't appear to understand why.
After Jacob, you only see a couple more people that have special aging - like Moses and Caleb. But after that, you don't see it again. At that point, presumably the genetics have become so diluted that there is no distinguishable difference between those who are descended from Adam and those who are not.
If this hypothesis is correct, then why didn't God simply say so in the Bible? Well, considering we didn't even have a basic knowledge of evolution or genetics until relatively recently, it wouldn't have made any sense to anyone until the present time anyway. So it would make sense of the fact that the Bible records some very odd things (the life spans) which are obviously noteworthy, but never tries to explain them. These things could be figured out thousands of years later when man came to understand how genetics works.
Extra-Biblical Evidence
The ancient Babylonians, whose myths often have strong parallels to Biblical accounts, record something that might lend credence to this theory. According to the Babylonians, the kings before the flood had long lifespans, but the rest of the people did not. This would be roughly consistent that there were 2 groups of people, the few that lived long lives, and the many which had normal lifespans.
I admit, this theory is very weird and very strange. But it also makes a lot of sense out of a number of things that otherwise are very, very hard to explain. What do you think?