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Did the Patriarchs Really Live to Be 900 Years Old? Perhaps, but Here’s Why We Do Not;
Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 08-11-15 | Msgr. Charles Pope

Posted on 08/12/2015 7:23:42 AM PDT by Salvation

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To: .45 Long Colt

Looking at our modern day families — in the woman dies in her 70s, but the man lives to be 100 — is there sin mixed in with that? Or is it all genetic?


21 posted on 08/12/2015 7:39:02 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Salvation

“This solution, when I articulate it, causes many to scoff. They almost seem to be offended. The reply usually sounds something like this: “That’s crazy. There’s no way they lived that long. The texts must be wrong.””

We are a faith who believes that God Himself came down, lived amongst us as a man, was killed, and rose from the dead. If people are going to scoff at someone living a few hundred years, then I doubt they will ever truly accept the really radical propositions of the faith.


22 posted on 08/12/2015 7:39:16 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Salvation

It is my understanding that if we go back not too far the average lifespan was something like 30 or maybe 40 years but improved medicine, nutrition and sanitation has pushed it to about 80 now at least in developed countries. Whatever number of years we live however it is short and we should make the best of what we have been given.


23 posted on 08/12/2015 7:39:58 AM PDT by xp38
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To: xp38

**Whatever number of years we live however it is short and we should make the best of what we have been given.**

Adding to your statement.

Whatever number of years we live however it is short and we should make the best of what we have been given for eternal life meets us at the end of our earthly days.


24 posted on 08/12/2015 7:42:09 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Salvation

Genesis 6:3 comes to mind.


25 posted on 08/12/2015 7:42:30 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: Salvation
Could it be that, as humans became greater in number, they started congregating in cities? Along with that came an increase in vermin, disease transmission, stress, crime, dirt, poor sanitation, etc. - all the problems cities experience today.

Even those not living directly in the cities would likely be affected due to travellers, trade etc once the cities were established.

If a new disease mutated previous to that, it would likely be isolated to an individual or small family group and then die off. Once groups congregated, the disease would easily spread over larger distances.

Just a thought...
26 posted on 08/12/2015 7:42:34 AM PDT by chrisser (This space for rent.)
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To: Salvation

Yes indeed


27 posted on 08/12/2015 7:44:53 AM PDT by xp38
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To: Salvation

In Genesis 6:3, God set a limit for man’s days at 120 years. Despite our best efforts, it holds true to today.


28 posted on 08/12/2015 7:46:49 AM PDT by pgyanke (Republicans get in trouble when not living up to their principles. Democrats... when they do.)
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To: Salvation
Adam and Eve were warned that the day they ate of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would die (Gen 2:17). But they did not drop dead immediately, and though they died spiritually in an instant, the clock of death for their bodies wound down much later.

They did, in fact, physically die "that day"; and none lived more than "a day", though some came close to living a full day.

2 Pet 3:8 (KJV
King James Bible But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

29 posted on 08/12/2015 7:49:57 AM PDT by ApplegateRanch (Love me, love my guns!©)
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To: Zionist Conspirator
Because as we all "know," the testimony of G-d Himself isn't good enough for Catholics (or Orthodox).

We are to test all things. Some things are a great mystery and make for great explorations. There's no reason to get all snippy.

30 posted on 08/12/2015 7:50:01 AM PDT by pgyanke (Republicans get in trouble when not living up to their principles. Democrats... when they do.)
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To: Salvation

Very interesting! Thanks!


31 posted on 08/12/2015 7:50:34 AM PDT by surroundedbyblue (DEFUND BIG MURDER NOW!)
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To: Salvation

I believe it had to do with the fact that the heavens opened to allow the rain. Before the Great Flood, there had never even been rain before. When the heavens opened the protective layer disappeared that previously had been the reason for long life spans.


32 posted on 08/12/2015 7:53:16 AM PDT by MayflowerMadam
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To: Salvation

The number of our days are in His hands for His purposes. Job suffered mightily, but not due to his sin. There was a cosmic war going on behind the scenes he knew nothing of. Many wicked people live long lives while Christians are cut off suddenly at a young age. Why? Some things are not for us to know. All I know for sure is that God is absolutely sovereign.


33 posted on 08/12/2015 7:57:14 AM PDT by .45 Long Colt
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To: Salvation

It actually is. I actually got a chance to talk to the author and he had changed his opinion since the book was written about which planet it was. Oh, and the ice (and 40 days of rain) came from an “ice moon” that accompanied this rogue planet and basically got close enough to the earth to reach its “rouche limit”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit

His argument is that much of it fell to earth on our poles, instantly creating catastrophic tides and giving us the sea level we now enjoy. He gets into the history of the wooly mammoth and the condition in which we find them today - and how they probably died.


34 posted on 08/12/2015 7:57:38 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: wattsgnu

The bible is not really a science book, but when it does touch on the subject it does it in such a way that even with our knowledge of science today (and it is formidable), the bible is not contradicted. Books like The Origin of Species do not fare as well.

Here is another fun one: Back in the middle 20th century, “non-Christian” science was uniformitarian while Those that believed in the bible account of genesis were catastrophists. We’ve learned a lot since then. Everyone is catastrophist now. Who had to change? ;-)


35 posted on 08/12/2015 8:00:58 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: Salvation

Actually, my question is this. GIVEN that man once lived up to 900 years and more. WHEN in his chronological life did he become old, as in feeble and not physically productive? Assuming the women were also long-lived, when did women go through the change of life?


36 posted on 08/12/2015 8:01:01 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics)
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To: 11th Commandment

Dr. Huge Ross...


I see what you did there. That is series!


37 posted on 08/12/2015 8:01:38 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: .45 Long Colt
Doubt as to the literal truth of Genesis is one of the main drivers of apostasy in our day.

Well stated!

See tag-line.

FReegards!

 photo million-vet-march.jpg

38 posted on 08/12/2015 8:02:16 AM PDT by Agamemnon (Darwinism is the glue that holds liberalism together)
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To: Olog-hai; Salvation

Great thoughts from Msgr. Pope...this has been on my mind a great deal.

Adam and Eve were in perfect harmony with the will of God.

This has enormous implications for genetics. God, who knows all things, would certainly know which two people should mate and when. He knows everything about our makeup right down to the base pairs of the DNA and what exactly they will result in through the process of meiosis and then fertilization.

So as long as we were in God’s grace and doing His will, we were plugged into that minute knowledge. We had the infallible Hand of the Creator guiding us through the minefield of genetics.

The minute we departed from that, well, then the whole thing unraveled. Adam and Eve no longer came together in peace and tranquility but now you had lust causing them to mate at times that were never intended. Then you had Abel’s genetic information completely destroyed. Then people married whoever they wanted to, for lust or money or any other sinful reason, there was rape, there was fornication, there was murder and everything else. Unions that were never directly intended. Genes never meant to be lost.

The eugenicists could well have diagnosed the problem of “bad genetics”, but of course they are complete idiots about the solution. Mankind cannot fix it. Because mankind has only limited knowledge about the minutiae of genetics and no knowledge of the future. Only God’s omniscience can restore what was lost...and that can only happen when we submit to His will.

The Patriarchs could well have been the last gasp of that divinely ordered strain through Seth...eventually itself becoming whittled down to nothing by sin.


39 posted on 08/12/2015 8:03:07 AM PDT by Claud
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To: Salvation

In the book I mentioned in an earlier post, he posits that before the great flood the trade winds moved north to south rather than east to west. He makes the argument that the temerature variation from equator to pole was no more than a few degrees Fahrenheit.

It does explain a few things. Forests in the Sahara, the type of animal carcassas found at extreme northern locations, etc.


40 posted on 08/12/2015 8:04:22 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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