Health, longevity and the reality of Methusulah

[Buster's Uncle]

I wonder if it isn't more likely than a 976-year lifespan, though...

[Yitzi]

I wonder if it isn't more likely than a 976-year lifespan, though...

Either way forces you to say that things were different (although things being different before the Flood isn't that difficult); better to take the one that doesn't require a mistranslation and is a smoother transition to the ages of people like Abraham.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ah, but how important are those details compared to the message that The Lord made us, The Lord is God, and the Lord God is one?

[Yitzi]

Ah, but how important are those details compared to the message that The Lord made us, The Lord is God, and the Lord God is one?

Probably not as important, but judging relative importance is tricky in general.

In any case, that's an excuse for not answering the question, not an answer to it.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, it can be fun to bat around the possibility of various details in Genesis, but I'd say a strong faith can survive finding out that Earth is more than 6,000 years old and took more than a week to form.  Those aren't the central truths of the book.

[Valka]

It was found, that after the Deluge, or Flood, people started to live considerably shorter. Here is an article, that explains why:
http://www.examiner.com/article/global-flood-and-cancer

In short, before the Flood Earth had a kind of atmospheric water layer, or high temperature water vapor due to radiation, or some say could be ice, on higher altitude? Anyway, this provided shielding from ionizing radiation from the Sun. Now we cannot escape this, unless maybe at the bottom of the ocean.

First, let me make clear that I don't have the science education that most of you here seem to have, and beyond biology, I don't share the interest. So I may not know much about what I'm going to address.

Sure, I can accept that a dramatic difference in radiation could affect longevity. Maybe a sunspot storm could even damage genes and shorten lifespans ever after. I'm sure people could live longer, healthier lives if there were no cancer...at least in my family.

But I'm not sure I accept this premise from your link-
1Ionizing radiation affected the earth after the Global Flood, but not before. As Brown discusses elsewhere, every radioactive element in the earth's crust formed during the Global Flood event. Magnitude-10-to-12 earthquakes deformed the quartz in the earth's crust. This generated megavolt electric potentials. These sufficed to turn large amounts of heavy elements into plasma. The plasma fused and formed super-heavy elements. These then split or cluster-decayed to form uranium, thorium, and the other heavier-than-lead elements. All this produced background radiation human beings had never before known.

I don't think new elements are formed at low, life sustaining temperatures. Is cold fusion a proven fact? I thought you naturally needed supernovae and such, or artificial  nuclear reactions to create new atoms. All of the heavier than lead elements in the Earth's crust were created during or since the Great Flood?  That sounds.... rather unlikely.

I didn't go to college, and even my high school education is outdated by today's standards. I could be wrong.

The article referenced in Mart's post is from a creationist website. There isn't one shred of scientific validity to this nonsensical claim that there were no radioactive elements on Earth before Noah's flood.

Earth (and our Solar System) were formed from the remains of older stars that went supernova over 5 billion years ago. When a star blows itself up this way, it forms many heavy elements in a very short time. Eventually these elements (plus the more common ones) are drawn together by gravity and may form a new solar system. When this happens, any heavy elements, including radioactive ones, are incorporated into the new solar system's rocky planets from the get-go.

But don't take my word for it:

All rocks and minerals contain long-lived radioactive elements that were incorporated into Earth when the Solar System formed. These radioactive elements constitute independent clocks that allow geologists to determine the age of the rocks in which they occur.

Source.

So no, Rusty Edge, you are not wrong.

[Yitzi]

The article referenced in Mart's post is from a creationist website. There isn't one shred of scientific validity to this nonsensical claim that there were no radioactive elements on Earth before Noah's flood.

There isn't one shred of Biblical validity to such a claim either, for that matter...

[Rusty Edge]

Thank you Valka. That is in keeping with what I thought I knew, ( 4 billion year old Earth, 14 billion year old Universe ).

It seems to me that in the Great Flood scenario,  a lot of loose neutrons are required, not to mention protons. That suggests that they are either already present and there's a lot of radiation, or that there's a lot  of nuclear reactions going on.  Otherwise, iron and nickel couldn't  transmutate into heavy metals. Or even lead for that matter.

I wonder if somebody was looking for a way to affirm Methusalah and discredit Carbon dating in one bold stroke when they came up with this theory.

Regardless, reducing one's exposure to radiation should extend one's lifespan. I've been to too many funerals on account of skin cancer.

[Yitzi]

It seems to me that in the Great Flood scenario,  a lot of loose neutrons are required, not to mention protons.

Well, the Flood itself wouldn't require that, although the addition of radioactive elements, according to that theory, would.  (Well, unless that was also a miracle...)

[Buster's Uncle]

Perhaps the brand-new radioactives in this scenario are supposed to have generated a lot of heat that melted subterranean ice and supplied the waters of the deep?

[Geo]

This is basically what Isaac Asimov suggested. In one of his essays he said that there could have been a mistranslation somewhere along the way, in which months became years, since 900 months is a respectable lifespan even now, although quite a few people in the West tend to live 5-10 years longer than that due to better nutrition and advanced medicine.

It's difficult to say that, though, as then you'd also have to cut down the rest of the stuff in that passage similarly, meaning that Enoch fathered Methusaleh when he was only 65 months old.

Oh, but in that case they perhaps mistranslated the amount of seasons instead of months?

[Yitzi]

This is basically what Isaac Asimov suggested. In one of his essays he said that there could have been a mistranslation somewhere along the way, in which months became years, since 900 months is a respectable lifespan even now, although quite a few people in the West tend to live 5-10 years longer than that due to better nutrition and advanced medicine.

It's difficult to say that, though, as then you'd also have to cut down the rest of the stuff in that passage similarly, meaning that Enoch fathered Methusaleh when he was only 65 months old.

Oh, but in that case they perhaps mistranslated the amount of seasons instead of months?

Well, I can guarantee it's not a mistranslation, as the Hebrew also says "years".  Having it be seasons would make the low numbers less problematic, but would not really solve the problem that the change would be trying to solve, as living 900 seasons is still far above what we have today.  (Also, with either approach, you get a similar issue, though with somewhat smaller numbers, in the list from Noah to Abraham in Genesis 11...and there, the problems from "months" or even "seasons" are even bigger because you have births at ages like 30.)