Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Age of Patriarchs - Are These Guys for Real?

The book of Genesis in the bible claims to be a true and literal written record of early history. Chapters five and eleven in particular, are extremely specific in the recounting of the length of time lived by successive members of the lineage from Adam to Jesus.

Interestingly, when these ages at death are plotted on a graph against the corresponding generation number, two intriguing sections of data jump vividly from the graph. The first is a nearly linear plot that suddenly turns into an exponential decay curve until the age of Abraham is reached.

As you observe and analyze this visual display of written data, a picture of some sort of reality necessarily emerges.

One simple question remains.

What message does this mathematical representation of seemingly innocuous data send to you?

25 comments:

  1. The clear conclusion after observing the life-spans of Patriarchs before and after the flood in a linear form is that there is a sharp decline in years lived after the flood. Though I do nota have enough data or research to answer this question positively, I feel that there must have been some sort of biological or physical change to the earth or the earth’s atmosphere causing humans to not be able to live as long. For instance maybe certain diseases did not exist before the flood. The flood clearly changed the earth.


    posted: Jes S.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I did not see anything connecting to the graph we had to construct and science. The only science aspect to this assignment was the graph itself. Clearly, I'm not getting it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. After plotting the discovered information and graphing the points, I noticed a significant decline in the age that the patriarchs lived. I attribute this difference to the fact that after the flood, something happened to the world that caused life spans to diminish. I am not knowledgeable enough on the topic to say what exactly happened, but because everyone after Noah started living fewer years, I am fairly certain the flood affected why this was the case.

    Cat T.

    ReplyDelete
  4. From what I have seen by plotting out the ages of the patriarchs that there was a natural decline in the life span. Adam lived about 930 years while Abraham lived about 175 years.

    Kir D.

    ReplyDelete
  5. After gathering and plotting the death ages of the patriarchs, there is a declining trend after Noah. Seeing as the flood occurred during the time of Noah I believe that this decline is related to the effects of the flood. During the creation story, we are told that God separated the waters from the waters. During the flood, Genesis says that the floodgates of Heaven were opened. I see the conclusion that I came to by plotting this data as supporting this idea of the creation story. If this was the case then there would be a difference in the atmosphere and that may have interfered with the lifespan of people on earth. Perhaps having water in the sky protected people from things that have only become more devastating as time has gone by (seeing as I could only hope to live to even 90 let alone 930).

    I also came to other conclusions from what Scripture says during the mention of Enoch that challenged my spiritual life. So, this exercise was beneficial in a scientific and spiritual perspective.

    -Bro G.

    ReplyDelete
  6. From initial observation of graphing the patriarchs it is safe to say that in times before Noah everyone lived longer whereas afterwards, the longevity severely decreased. Something happened to the world after the Flood. Something to do with the firmament above the earth and below the earth. So physical changes in the atmosphere and such?

    Dav A.

    ReplyDelete
  7. After collecting all the data and inserting that data to construct a graph, I can conclude that as the generations passed by, the age at death steadily started to decrease with the exception of Enoch and a couple other outliers. Overall, from graphing this data I learned that the age of death of Adam was extremely high and then by the time we get to Abraham the age of death had decreased dramatically. My hypothesis is that as time passed by and as the age of man developed, there was more sin in the world and that shortened the lifespan.....or it could have been all natural reasons, who knows?

    ReplyDelete
  8. After graphing the death ages of the patriarchs, I have come to the conclusion that the flood had some kind of effect on the human population. Whether or not it was a natural occurrence or something having to do with the ways of mankind, it is interesting that there is a sharp decrease in the death age when the patriarchs before them had lived to such old ages. Since all of mankind (besides the ones on the ark) was killed in the flood, the people after Noah would not have known was it was to have people of such old age living around them.

    Mor L.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Reading the different ages of the different people in the early times of the Bible, makes me amazed at what God has done to start the world we now live in. These people need to stay alive a significantly longer time because they were populating the earth, but it still is amazing.
    That's really all that came to me as I was writing the plots down

    All D.

    ReplyDelete
  10. After looking at the age of each person when they died, it drastically fell after Noah and the flood. I have read that the reason why this happened was because before the flood, there was no rain, which was a reason everyone was so scared about God's warning of a flood. Bringing on the rain brought different atmospheric pressures, which directly effected the lifespan of individuals. Many people believe the Bible exaggerates the lifespan of some individuals, but nonetheless, the flood brought on a big change.

    Der F.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The data depicts a dramatic drop in life expectancy after the time of Noah. I would have to agree with other posters that this appears to be linked to the flood and potential changes in the earth's atmosphere. I was particularly intrigued by Abraham's obituary in Genesis 25:8 - "He (Abraham) took his last breath and died at a ripe old age, old and contented, and he was gathered to his people." It's interesting to me that even though Abraham only lived 175 years (he was a baby compared to Adam), the Bible still calls his lifespan a "ripe old age." Clearly shorter life expectancies were now the norm - not just for these particular patriarchs, but for their greater communities as well.

    Ann M.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Based on the data seen in the graph it seems as if there's a rapid decline in life expectancy after Noah. I would speculate that the flood was the specific event that sparked the time where people weren't living as long. Its a huge jump from Adam living 930 years to Abraham who lived 175 years.

    Kay C

    ReplyDelete
  13. I noticed that there was a drop over time as to the life span of these people. However there were a few time where this gradual drop had exceptions such as Enoch only lived to be 365 where as his relative both older and younger were over 960 before they died. The first signs is the drop of life span were very sudden. The first drop was 300 years difference and it never recovered. This however is just data and with out a cause for the drop in age there is no real conclusion we can come up with as to why this happened. Kind of wierd, I wonder if if has to do with growing population.

    Phi Cra

    ReplyDelete
  14. The only thing that I noticed was that the ages would drop and then come back up but to be completely honest I didn't really get anything out of looking at when these people died. It just made me jealous that they were able to see and experience so much more of the world even if it may have been bad I can only imagine the wisdom they got from that...
    kri m

    ReplyDelete
  15. I noticed after awhile the text actually changed the way in which it stated how long the patriarchs lived. Other than that, I also noticed that the ages fell dramatically after Noah. Enoch was the only early descendant who did not make it very far. It was interesting to notice, as I have never really looked closely at Genesis in particular
    Joh D

    ReplyDelete
  16. the basic principle from an analyst's perspective would simply be to recognize that life spans shrink after the flood and that makes sense if we agree that something triggered during the flood affects our health. if that's the case then there must be some chemical or chromosone that was inside or contained within the firmament and that disappated after the flood. if we can figure out what that was, we can extend our life span by slowing down degeneration.

    Sea B

    ReplyDelete
  17. i didn't really get it at first why the graph of ages would look like that but then i started thinking about it and realized that it probably has to do with Noah and the flood.

    Meg K.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Before the flood, the entire earth was under a process called the greenhouse effect. Almost but not quite like the theory with cloud cover. God separated the water on earth and in doing so He created the firmament, which you touched on in your lecture. Greenhouses trap heat and precious sunshine to provide an environment perfect for tremendous growth. Sunlight, when refracted by water, scatters, redistributing direct rays of sunshine all over that side of the earth. When God established the firmament He created the ultimate greenhouse -people, plants, and all living things on earth could grow to fantastic sizes. I believe you were right when you said that the weather was mild and almost tropical the world around. You can almost imagine a view not of a clearly circular sun but more like a semi-bright haze as if viewed from under water. When this growth stimulus was removed and released through the flood, the results of such an action imitate exactly how a plant would being removed from it's warm environment of a greenhouse. It doesn't live nearly as long.

    Mat C

    ReplyDelete
  19. From Adam to Noah the life spans are pretty similar with the exception of Enoch. When plotting the points of the generations from Adam to Abraham there is a definite change in life spans after Noah. This can be attributed to the flood and possible changes to the earth or to human beings after that time. I am not sure what exactly can attribute to the drastic change in life spans since the flood but it is interesting to see that something has effected a change in life spans.
    Kay B.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I thought this assignment was very interesting. The flood obviously had something to do with the decay in ages after Noah. Even before last class, my roommate and I talked about the theory where there was a huge mass of water surrounding the atmosphere of the earth. When the water entered the earth, there was less protection from the sun. This may have had a part in the degeneration of ages. This also made me think about how the land on earth used to be one land mass (you can see on a map how they would have fit together). Perhaps the flood made the seven different continents and they drifted apart. But this is less about the patriarchs in Genesis.

    Joe. S.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I thought it was very interesting that people lived so long but then the average life span decreased so much. It doesn't make since. Maybe God just decided that 930 years was too long and he needed his brothers and sisters with him sooner!

    mic s.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I thought it was interesting to see the age of death decrease after the flood. I think that after the flood there was so much sin in the world and because of that sin and the nature of mankind God decreased the age of death.
    Douglas K.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I noticed that as time went on, the age that people died became younger and younger. This can even be compared to today's times. Many people have a hard time reading the Bible and seeing that people lived to 500 years old whereas today the average life expectancy is somewhere near 70 years of age. But this just goes to show how much sin and pollution has entered our world. God allowed people during the patriarchs to live that long because He could and because the earth was clean and not as filled with sinful things. Today, we have pollution, gases, car accidents, drugs, alcohol, airplane crashes, terrorist attacks, murders, etc. There are many different things that can lead to a shorter life span today but God is still bigger than an "expectancy" and can work in many different ways, even a number like age!

    -Kaylee Hunter
    (Tuesday/Thursday 4:20-5:45)

    ReplyDelete
  24. I am very glad I found this prompt! This was in the last lecture we had about the model of the dense cloud layer that used to cover the earth. I thought it was interesting when the connection was made with the descending ages of the patriarchs to breathing the ozone. From what I remember in the lecture, the earth never used to have wind and weather. When the dense cloud layer broke, temperatures changed on the earth and weather started happening. The winds could have blown down some of the ozone that was in the cloud layer closer to the surface of the earth. Then the connection was made to the study with exposing fish to ozone. Fish were kept in an aquarium and gradually exposed to more ozone. The graph from that experiment was similar to the graph with the ages of the patriarchs. Noah was the last patriarch before the exponential decay on the graph, and from what I remember, the dense cloud model included a possible flood during the time the ozone was getting mixed around. That is also when the first rainbow was seen by Noah as a promise from God and a connection could possibly be made there because rainbows can't exist without the sunlight and there was no major sun before the cloud layer broke apart. I am intrigued by all the possible connections that could be made.

    -Chris Kline

    ReplyDelete
  25. From looking at the different ages of the Patriarchs and then plotting them on a graph, it seems that there is a decline. I'm not quite sure of the reason behind this decline, but one assumption is the flood. I think that it's very possible that the flood could have had an effect on this issue. I think that since I'm not completely aware of the reasoning, more research and studying could be done to help me come to a conclusion.

    ReplyDelete