How old can humans get before their bodies (and minds) start breaking down? It's a question that's been in the news a lot recently, as America prepares for another presidential election season with two historically old candidates.
But in terms of age, even the potential nominees pale in comparison to some of the most famous biblical heroes – some of whom are alleged to have lived nearly 1,000 years. But did they actually? Where do these numbers come from, and what does the Bible say?
First, let's take a look at some of the remarkable biblical age claims. Then we'll attempt to get to the bottom of them.
Adam
Age: 930 years
According to the Bible, when God created Adam and Eve, they were without sin and were immortal, able to live forever. God provided all they could ever need to live happily forever in the Garden of Eden, but as Genesis tells us, Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil against God’s command, introducing sin into the world and initiating the fall of man. Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden and made mortal, though it took a while for that mortality to catch up to them.
Even expelled from Eden, Adam lived a much longer life than is possible now. Before the flood, the Bible tells us that humans could live to be nearly 1,000 years old. After siring many sons in his 100s, Genesis 5:5 tells us that Adam lived to the ripe old age of 930 years old, then died.
Methuselah
Age: 969 years
Methuselah is the oldest figure in the Bible, supposedly living to a whopping 969 years old. Methuselah is a minor figure who is rarely mentioned outside of the genealogy linking Adam to Noah, and his name is often invoked in pop culture to denote that something is really, really, really old. Note his advanced age in his rookie card in this clip from The Simpsons:
Noah
Age: 950 years
Noah is the last of the patriarchs, the fathers of Israel who all lived lives spanning hundreds of years (Lamech, father to Noah, died at the youngest age, only making it to 777 years old). Noah was about 650 years old when the great flood happened, meaning he lived another 300 years, long enough to see earth restored.
Moses
Age: 120 years
Following the flood, the oldest ages of people described in the Bible began to drop quickly. Even in his era, Moses was remarkably long-lived at 120. As he writes in Psalm 90, the average lifespan was 70 or 80 – about what it is now (a "score" is twenty):
“For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
Can Humans Actually Live That Long?
The oldest documented living person was Jeanne Calment, a French woman born in 1875 who died in 1997, making her 122 years old when she died – even older than Noah!
But that means the advanced ages of some biblical patriarchs still dwarfs the world’s oldest documented human by 800 years.
This has made it a subject of much debate amongst Christians. Are the ages meant to be taken literally? Some believe that because Adam and Eve were genetically perfect, their closest descendants in the following generations would have inherited their incredible immune systems and cellular regeneration. This could have allowed them to live much older than an average human.
Skeptics, however, believe that the ages are merely symbolic in their importance, exaggerated beyond believability to lend them near-mythical status. Opinions remain split to this day amongst biblical scholars on how seriously to take these very advanced ages.
What we do know is that the modern human body has a rough limit of about 100 years. Given the pace of evolution, it's also reasonable to assume that has been the case dating back to biblical times (absent some sort of divine intervention, that is).
The future could look different, though. Recent scientific breakthroughs suggest the body may potentially have an upper limit of 150 years. Some experts even believe that with the right technology, the human body may be able to live forever.
What is your take?
56 comments
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CB Cuff
.... and the Planet Earth is only 6,000 years old. High Diddle Diddle the Cat and the fiddle....
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Matthew Mastrogiovanni
It's mythology. Stop applying science to mythology.
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Daniel Gray
And if we started doing that then oh my, we would never have taken the shots for covid as science claimed they were safe, and now even England is saying that over 85% of the people who died during covid were the ones who got the shot. And even the CDC is saying the covid shots caused major heart problems. SO is this the science you want us to follow?
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Dan Anderson
Your thinking is flawed.
One reason that more people died who were vaccinated is that there are far more vaccinated people than unvaccinated. Also, vaccine effectiveness wanes over time, and few people have received updated booster shots.
Unvaccinated people continue to die at a higher rate than vaccinated people.
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Daniel Gray
and sorry the NIH in England and the CDC all show the ones who dies have it in their medical records that they were the ones who receive the shots. It must be amazing to have your beliefs destroyed in less then 15 seconds.
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Daniel Gray
My thinking is based on scientific fact. So sorry it does not agree with your opinion
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Keith Graham Ainsworth
Your interpretation is based on a distortion of figures, not scientific fact. You conspiracy theorists seem to like grasping any figure that suits your opinion, without any scientific analysis
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Daniel Gray
Ok tell ya what, how about you PROVING me wrong instead of just claiming so
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Rev. Dr. Father JJ
sadly, but unsurprisingly, you appear to lack critical thinking skills
please cite source/reference for "...even england is saying that over 85% of the people who died....were the ones who got the shot."
did you even consider that those "85%" have pre-existing health conditions that put them at risk for c19 as well as other viruses?
source/reference for "...the CDC is saying shots caused major heart problems." was there some exacerbation? possible? but if you're claiming perfectly healthy people suddenly developed "major heart problems..." then yeah, no, I doubt it.
CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS clearly lacking in a LOT of respondents here
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Daniel Gray
So just because I rely on medical science and proof and it destroys your claims you have to whine and cry?
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Rev. Dr. Father JJ
lol exactly what medical science and proof did you use? I asked you to cite sources, you didn't, you don't. You sound like the cheeto ex president who would say things like, 'some people say', 'I've heard' and other nonsense things.
You clearly don't understand science or medicines. Just "saying" thinks, like you did here is absolutely meaningless without anything to back up what you're saying. And don't pull that nonsense that it's up to me to prove you wrong, that's not how it works when someone pretends to have specific knowledge.
We get it, you're on of those bibble people who believe only what's in their 'holy scripture' you're a vaccine denier, young (and flat) earther and Dog knows what else
Thanks for playing, try again soon
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Rev. Michelle Love
Mythology is a fictionalized account of true events.
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Russel A. Kester
I'm wrong. Psalm 90 is attributed to Moses. My bad.
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Lionheart
It’s no problem, there is still no archaeological evidence that Moses ever existed anyway, or even Abraham for that matter. 🤷🏼
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Dr. Zerpersande, NSC
Maybe, as some believe, there was interaction with extraterrestrials. I’d have to say I’m agnostic on that subject. But it’s a helluva lot more likely than a sky-dwelling, finger-snapping, 6-day universe-creating Mr. Magic.
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Barbara Ann Bauml
Regarding the question, my response is this. What we do with the time we have is more important that how long we live. Does my conduct, decency, and presence make this a kinder and better place? The answers primarily lay in the hearts of others.
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Bishop William Dusenberry, DD
As Hebrew Mythology was precursored, by Greek, Roman and Germanic Mythologies, each wanting their mythologies to outdo the mythology of their competitors,(and, fact checking back then, was based on who could was willing to loose the most armed men who were willing to risk their lives to steal the property of those whose mythologies, offered longer lives for their mythological predecessors, than they were. However, because all the ages, of those living in myth-based tribes, were based on myths, each age-myth should be assessed accordingly,
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Russel A. Kester
This was a fun article. Nah, I doubt they actually lived that long. These should be read less literally.
Just for the record, I think there are two errors in the article:
- David is believed to have written the Psalms not Moses. So Moses did not compose Psalm 90.
- The French lady outlived Moses not Noah.
Thank you for the article and the information on just how long our descendants might live.
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Peter Senderowitz
What nonsense! No one can live those amount of years. Many people crave existence well beyond the time range alloted to the homosapien body. Who wants to be 110 and be lying in a bed with tubes coming out of every orifice of your body!?
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Warren Calvin Wall
Exactly. There is a major difference between life and quality of life. One fear that I have about old age is having my mind being completely intact and my body being completely unable to communicate that fact. How many people have been removed from life support while they are screaming in terror in their head?
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Patricia Ann Gross
These are the things where Biblical inerrancy become problematic. People who claim that if it is in the Bible, then it HAS to be true, fail to understand how the Bible was created. The stories, particularly in the Torah, were passed down by oral tradition and not put in scrolls until roughly 1,000 before Christ was born. If you've ever played the "gossip" or "telephone" game(s), you know how stories change every time they are told, especially if it is different people who tell the story. It is highly likely that certain extremely long-lived characters in the "early earth" stories were composites of a patriarchy and represent several generations of a "Moses (for example)" family. Every story in both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament need to be taken in context of the genre (for example: Psalms is poetry, Revelations is fantacy, First and Second Corinthians are letters, etc., and the New Testament is entirely written after Jesus' death by people who never met him prior to the crucifixion), time, local customs, and for whom they were written. The current Christian scriptures were not decided upon until 420+ years after Jesus died, and only represents about 30 percent (if that) of the documents submitted to the Council of Nicea.
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Eric T. Heller
Despite the fact that this seems to be a contentious blog, I feel I have to contribute. First, we have to be operating on the basis that the bible, insofar as it is translated correctly, is fact, not mythology (and I do believe it to be fact). Once we have that established we look at the different ages of people recorded in that book. Something that I feel is often overlooked or taken for granted is exactly how time is reckoned as the centuries have passed. The Gregorian Calendar is really not that old relatively speaking, and when it was introduced and put into effect people went to bed one month and woke up another, not unlike when we set the clock back and lose or gain time. As the way time was measured over the millenia has undoubtedly changed and been relative to the people doing the recording, it seems likely that there could be room for massive inconsistencies between a year now and a year millenia ago. I'm not saying this is a concrete solution, but I have often thought that it was one overlooked. That said, I did enjoy the perspective that Adam and Eve were as close to genetically perfect as possible and that as that genetic advantage broke down, so did the life spans. In short - it's fun to hypothesize about, but really, we have no way of currently knowing for sure.
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Joe R Day
I did a search for "How did people tell time in Moses days?" This was what I found.
"In Moses’ time, people primarily used the lunar calendar to measure years. They based months on the cycles of the moon, with each new month beginning with the new moon1. A lunar year typically consisted of 12 months, each lasting about 29 or 30 days, making the lunar year shorter than the solar year. To align the lunar calendar with the solar year, they occasionally added an extra month."
So, it would seem they told time in a manner that was similar to us. Hope this helps...
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Rev. Dr. Father JJ
so what you're saying is, is we drink the kool aid, pretend the bible is true well then boy howdy, everything in it is also true.
pretty sure just about every civilization learned very early on to determine the length of a year.
as for adam and eve being genetically 'perfect', what color do you image them to be? did adam have nipples? did adam and eve have belly buttons?
further question: if the great flood killed everyone except who was on the ark (noah, mrs. noah and their children) who did everyone have sex with to repopulate the earth?
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Thomas P. Davis
Adam and Eve were told not to eat from the forbidden tree because in "Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." FOR IN THAT DAY The bible also tells us that a day to the Lord is as a thousand years. That is why no one lived past 1000 years. Adam and Eve were also removed from eating from the tree of life. So, they went from being supercharged every day to a slow discharge. So, the life span just kept decreasing. We will never become immortal. Only God is immortal. We will become immortal in the fact that we will have access to the tree of life once again.
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Come As You Are
This is a religious site.. how are there so many skeptics? In the beginning of Jesus' time anything was possible because He was in control. God can do ALL THINGS.
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Michael Hunt
It is. Not all religions are Christian...
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Rev. Dr. Father JJ
who was in control? cheeses? how come he died then? or are you suggesting it was suicide?
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Rev. Donut
Back in those days they may have considered each full moon the beginning or end of a year or it may have been how many full moons they lived.
950/12 is a consideration.
How long was the life span of original man many millions and millions of years ago or even one million years ago?
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Russel A. Kester
950 / 12 = 79.17 or almost 80 years. That agrees with another Biblical passage that say something about our lifespan being 70 years or 80 if we're in good health. You and Eric above were thinking alike. And I like it. Thank you to both of you. Thoughts like this make this blog fun and interesting.
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Joe R Day
No, they didn't tell time that way... Here is what I found when looking for "How did they tell time in Moses days?"
"In Moses’ time, people primarily used the lunar calendar to measure years. They based months on the cycles of the moon, with each new month beginning with the new moon1. A lunar year typically consisted of 12 months, each lasting about 29 or 30 days, making the lunar year shorter than the solar year. To align the lunar calendar with the solar year, they occasionally added an extra month."
Hope this helps...
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James Riggle-Johnson
These are stories from the bible, so I am a little suspect of the timelines. It is written that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, but what is one day to a timeless, omnipresent entity? I think the stories that are referred to were passed down from generation to generation and grew more exaggerated with each telling. I have no way of knowing if people could live several centuries, but I doubt it. Just my opinion.
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John P Maher
I DO NOT KNOW I WAS NOT THERE, BORN, EXIST, its ALL B S
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Steven Ferrell
Some will believe, some won’t because they try to use human logic. Human logic will fail us if that is how we view everything in life.
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Raymond Ash
It’s disheartening to me that this is a religious site. Supposedly based on actual religious accounts. And all the depictions are of Caucasian people. But we know that the original people of the earth. And Bible are people of color. We have to get past this false narrative in order to grow spiritually.
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Thomas P. Davis
Curious when you speak of color, what color?
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Raymond Ash
When I speak of color I mean people with high melanin. Non Caucasian
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Thomas P. Davis
The reason I asked was several years ago on the local religious station there was a discussion about what skin tone was Adam and Eve. There was a genetic scientist that was also an atheist on the program. His comment was if the world is 6,000 years old as Christians believe, Adam and Eve could not have been either black or white. In order to get all the color permutations that we have today, they had to be brown.
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Walter J. Holbrook
This is such a juvenile question. Let me ask this. How young is too young?
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Joe R Day
Preflood and post-flood are the telling marks. I found this in a search for "How did they measure time back then."
"In Moses’ time, people primarily used the lunar calendar to measure years. They based months on the cycles of the moon, with each new month beginning with the new moon. A lunar year typically consisted of 12 months, each lasting about 29 or 30 days, making the lunar year shorter than the solar year. To align the lunar calendar with the solar year, they occasionally added an extra month."
So, according to this info... People measured time in a similar fashion to our years. Do I believe that a human lived to be 800-900 years old? No, not without better understanding...
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Theresa C. Marquess
Given the amount of times the calendar has changed over the millennium, perhaps the measurement of time has also been adjusted. They may not have lived nearly as long, by our standards, if you consider our way of counting the years as theirs may have been.
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Rev. Michelle Love
There are at least eight instances in the New Testament that refers to the concept of eternal life. I believe that listing the ages of these biblical characters was intentional because it corroborates His claims that eternal life was possible. Knowing that in the late 1800's that the average life expectancy in England averaged around 37 years of age, even if you shaved off the last digit of these ages would, they would still be much higher than normal especially considering that sanitation methods were lacking back then and modern medicine had not yet been invented.
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Diane Michelle Love
I think you most of you could use a lesson in how to have a civil discussion. Is it doubtful to me people lived that long, yes. Is it possible to prove, no. So....who cares? Arguing something that can not be proven one way or the other is a waste of time. Like I had a friend that argued the earth would be better if we blew up the moon....well we'll never really know.
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Raymond Ash
I’ve always wondered about this subject myself. And maybe 🤔 the answer is that our ancestors. We’re able to live much longer than us today. Is because there was less pollution in the atmosphere and on the planet. The world wasn’t industrialized yet. So the plant life and food that was consumed. Air that was breathed and water consumed. Wasn’t poisoned like today. Allowing humans to live longer.
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Timothy Walker
In the Christian belief system the saying with God all things are possible. In the pagan belief system anything is possible . if we can dream it we can achieve it. So is it possible ? Yes is it probable ? Unlikely if you have the faith of a mustard seed you can move a mountain. But if you have child like belief then. God said it , I believe it , that settles it. We are all free to believe as we will. so to all may you be blessed by your own deity.
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Ari Joseph Bertine
My take is that the ages related are not literal but metaphorical. Researchers knowledgeable about Hebrew numerology can dissect the ages given for patriarchs in such a way that reflects their significance and religious story. The numbers are part of the theological history, not meant to be taken as actual age.
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Rev. Mojo
Many things in History have been proven, and many stories of the Bible have been proven. Those ages seem very long to me, so I propose they counted "age" differently than we do. To account for such a high number for the ages of death here, I propose they possibly counted each season as a year.
Religionists will believe anything they read without any demonstrable evidence whatsoever if it’s in what they like to call “Holy Scriptures”.
I just hope they never get called upon to serve on a jury where they will be expected to use their brains applying logic and reason interspersed with factual evidence to prove innocence or guilt. Any jurist that will rely on praying to find a person guilty or innocent are usually removed from jury service. I wonder why 🤔
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And you need to stop with your bias Lion. I cant begin to count the number of times I have heard on the media that Humans could live till 200 or 250. In fact there was a report from the UN health commission that inside of the next 30 years a human life should be roughly 150 to 170.
Now with all that, why is it so hard to believe these dates?
You're so funny, did you "hear it on the media" then Daniel? Bless your heart, it must be true then. Was it on CNN? 🤪
You are aware though that there is no evidence for the existence of Methuselah, Adam, Eve, et al. Oh but I forgot, if it's in the Bible it must be true.....right? 🤣
Can I interest you in some oceanside property in Nevada. It's going really cheap. I think it's right up your alley. You can buy a boat and live for 950 just years like Noah and sail off into the sandy sunset. 🤭
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Try Scientific america Lion....... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-could-live-up-to-150-years-new-research-suggests/ So I guess that destroys your claims?
Don’t you just love postulated theories “suggesting” people “could” live up to 150 years. Wouldn’t it be nice if it ever proved successful. We already know that a very few have lived extremely long lives, mostly I think are Chinese. However, fallacious biblical ages of 969 years of longevity are merely fairy stories with no tangible evidence people lived that long, or even existed, but I guess it’s just another belief structure you like to hang your hat on, which of course is just a smoke and mirrors concept because you’ve seen it “written down somewhere in a book” that you “like to believe” is true. 🤭
Bought any ocean property yet in Nevada, Daniel?
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And dont you love it when someone with no medical or scientific or gene therapy backgrounds can just up and call the experts in the fields wrong because it does not fit your agenda?
As an aerospace design engineer, having work on the Space Shuttle program for NASA, you are chatting with someone that does have a scientific background.
I have also been involved in genetic studies as a secondary vocation, which developed after my Romano-British archaeological studies in England in the late 70’s.
I am sure your comment was meant well, even though it did not fit with my academic background, but thank you for your comment.
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You can’t begin to count? Not even ‘begin’? Ain’t cha’ any gud widjer yur numbers, Greh?
And you are just whining as I proved what I said, and you cant do the same.