No historical evidence for bronze age men living to 500yrs old?

by purrpurr 31 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  purrpurr

  The bible tells us that Noah etc lived to 500yrs old as did many other characters who lived apparently to incredible years.

  Yet archaeological research tells us from looking at skeletons that have been dug up that the average lifespan was very short. If a man got to the age of 50 they would have considered that quite an achievement. When I was in I always wondered about this? Those men who apparently lived to 500, in what condition did they spend those extra 400 or so years? Did they have an extra long childhood? Or did they age as normal and just stay as an old man for 400 years? Which would really suck in my opinion.
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  prologos

  pp: "--Did they have an extra long childhood?  longer Childhood, some did not have children until 120. Childhood, that  or self control, perfect contraception bronze-stile.
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  dbq407

  I was always told that the early men were closer to perfection so they lived longer and life spans consistently got shorter the farther from Adam they got. BS is what i say.

  Because in another talk they would use a illustration of a bread pan with a dent in it as to why we inherited sin from Adam. Adam was the dented pan and every human after that had the same imperfect dent.
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  Finkelstein

  Ok so no one lived to hundreds of years back in ancient times due to archeological evidence but a guy did live a in stomach of a large fish for 3 days and walked out saying " Geez god what the hell ? "
  
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  Half banana

  Purr purr, the Bible is just a collection of folk tales which has been used to beat religious people over the head with.

  How do we know how old a person was at death?

  The wear on the teeth from the time when a lot of gritty matter was chewed is a good immediate reckoner for death age. Teeth could be completely worn down to the gums by forty years old back in the Bronze Age. Also taking note of the sort of life they led such as highly developed muscle attachment points on the bones indicating heavy manual labour or in the absence of such development, it would tell of a passive and possibly elite lifestyle. Joint wear indicating arthritis was commonly found but not on the very young but universal in the aged. So taking this background information firstly then for the forensic archaeologist, the skull becomes the focus.
  

  As we age, right from birth our skull which is made up of five bony plates, is constantly closing up and smoothing over until about fifty years old. (It never fully fuses). A new born has the fontanelle pulsing on the top of its head which closes within eighteen months but the fine meandering fissures joining the plates of the skull, called sutures, seal up at a recognized rate giving the age of death. For example the saggital suture along the top of the skull behind the fontanelle will usually close up at 29 years old in a healthy person.

  In the cemetries of Egypt in the Greek controlled city of Alexandria in the third century CE, there have come painted portraits of the deceased, lots of them. I have twice seen an exhibition of these and was greatly struck by the early deaths in each case and these were people who were not peasants and Alexandria was at the time the greatest and most advanced cosmopolitan city in the world. Mid to late twenties was a common age for death with no one older than early forties as I recall.

  Hyperbole (pronounced hy Per bo lee) or gross exaggeration, is a literary device in ancient story telling which would account for the absurd ages of the heroes of old.

  Don't take the Bible literally!
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  dropoffyourkeylee

  There are some countries now where the expected lifespan is only 49-50 years old. I expect in Bronze age or before it wouldn't have been much different than that, maybe less.
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  notsurewheretogo

  Wasn't there a kid in the bible that was getting weaned at like 8 or something?
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  Half banana

  
  
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  Half banana

  Dropoff, I recall from reading in the first Guinness book of records that the life expectancy in Mali in the mid nineteen fifties was twenty seven.

  Worse still, in 1850 the life expectancy of a male in Liverpool England was a mere seventeen years due to the immigration of hungry and unemployed Irish during the time of the potato famine............... Long live the National Health Service!

  Notsure, that's possible today (with an unhealthy bit of determination from the mother!)

  But again, why imagine that folk tales are true accounts?
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  Lieu

  Well, everyone knows where Abraham is buried, they could run some tests.

  I wouldn't base too much on bronze age Europeans, maybe Romans, simply because their cities, eating habits, and sanitary conditions were filthy.