Bible Study Snippet Life Expectancy Old Testament Lesson 2
These are some pre-flood questions concerning the world prior to the flood. What was life like before the flood? Well, life prior to the great flood was very different from today. We know that by pieces of information in the Bible, and also geology has helped us. The Earth was probably universally warm with a pleasant and mild climate. It may have had no deserts or icecaps.
The land surface was more extensive, and the oceans were much smaller. The topography itself was very gentle, a lush vegetation all over the Earth, including at the North Pole and South Pole—totally different from what it is today.
A second question is, how advanced was the pre-flood civilization? I want to tell you, there certainly weren’t a bunch of cavemen running around grunting, climbing trees, and eating monkey meat. The fact is, and I wouldn’t die for the accuracy of this, but in my own personal opinion, it may be that Neil Armstrong might not have been the first man to have landed on the moon.
I mean the average age of people before the flood, which we’ll see again a little later, was 912 years old. Can you imagine the incredible wisdom that would have been gleaned in those nine centuries, which would have been passed on to another generation?
Albert Einstein, one of the most brilliant men of the last century, died at the age of 76. Let’s suppose he could have lived 10 times longer than that. Can you imagine what he could have discovered and then passed on to his generation? So, although we don’t know, I think that their civilization could have been far more advanced than ours. But, of course, the flood came and wiped all that out.
How did their age compare with our age? Our Lord says in Luke 17:26, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.”
I have in your notes a number of frightening comparisons between their age right before the flood came and our age today in the 21st century, perhaps living right before the Lord Jesus will come. You can look over that list yourself.’
How could men live so long at that time, 912 years? How would you like to pay social security on those guys? We don’t know how they lived that long. Of course, sin had not fully settled down upon humanity. Sin is like a cancer. In fact, it’s described in the scriptures as leprosy and a cancer. You can have the seeds of cancer, even a small growth, detected in your body for 20 or 30 years, which then finally actually kills the person.
Sin was introduced to the human race and to each individual, maybe through the DNA. So, it may have taken that long for sin to really level out to where we are now. The average age, as the Bible says, is now three score and ten, which is around 70. I think it’s a little higher now for men and women in western countries.
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Comments
I’m considering enrollment, but this page has caused me to dig a little deeper into the course cirriculum. I’m concerned about the amount of speculation and non-traditional school of thought, especially with regard to the nature and concept of sin; passed through DNA and sin levels (?). (Last paragraph) I’m fairly well read bibicaly and this is the first I’ve ever heard this type of theory.
Can you explain with more detail your basis for including such opinion-based speculation in a college course?
Thank you,
Meg
Thank you Meg for your comment. The last paragraph of that post is speculative from Dr. Willmington. There is no specific evidence that sin is passed through DNA. But what we do know the Bible clearly teaches is that sin nature is transmitted from generation to generation through the process of reproduction (Romans 5:12-21). And we do know that because of sin, our bodies degenerate hence disease, physical brokenness, and death. That is why the doctrine of the virgin birth is so vital so that the sin nature was not passed down to Jesus Christ so he could be the sinless sacrifice for our sins. One caution that has to be made when speculating that sin is passed down through the DNA is that is gives the opportunity for sinful man to have an excuse for sinful behavior. And we have already seen this occur today. People want to say that they make lifestyle choices because they are “born” that way and therefore they do not take responsibility for their own choices, which the bible is also very clear that man is responsible for their sinful behavior (Romans 1:18-32). It is our position that the sin nature is passed down from generation to generation and that is does have physical ramifications but the Bible is not definitive on exactly what that looks like or where that resides in the human person except for in his nature.
Christopher Kirk
LHBI Online Staff
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