Jerusalem pre flood remains

[Assyrian]

Cherry picking

That is quite an accusation coming from you

and rendering absurd selected quotes completely out of any possible context

Actually Creationists recognise the importance of how Genesis was interpreted by other people throughout the bible, as we see in the frequent claims that Jesus and the apostles interpreted the creation and the global flood literally, their only problem is they can't see past their own interpretation of Genesis to look at how people in scripture actually handled the text. In Psalm 90 we have the ideal opportunity here, a psalm looking at the creation and drawing its imagery from Genesis, from the creation and before it, through the children of Adam being returned to dust, God sweeping them away in a flood, God's days not being like our days, Moses even gives our lives metaphorical evenings and mornings. And this whole Psalm is ascribed to Moses the man of God, who even if he did not write Genesis as many Creationists believe, would have had a major role in passing down the ancient accounts and wrote much of the Pentateuch we have today. Who better to tell us how to understand Genesis?

In no way does this say 'the ages God gave for others in the past are lies'! It simply is a passing mention of expected lifespans in that time. Apparently about the time of the rebuilding of the temple.
...
Psalm - Chapter 90 - Adam Clarke Commentary on StudyLight.org

Interesting that Adam Clarke recognised the implication of Psalm 90 about lifespans, that if it was written by Moses as it claims, it contradicts the literal interpretation of the lifespan of the patriarchs. Clarke who had a deep dislike of allegory was clearly unable to to deal with this. Instead he opts to deny the plan meaning of verse 1, that this Psalm was written by Moses, even though the title Moses the man of God was only ever used of Moses who led the Israelites out of Egypt and gave them the law.
Deut 33:1 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death.
Josh 14:6 "You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me.
1Chron 23:14 But the sons of Moses the man of God were named among the tribe of Levi.
2Chron 30:16 They took their accustomed posts according to the Law of Moses the man of God.
Ezra 3:2 and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.
Psalm 90:1 A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
I double any God fearing Jew, even if his name was Moses, would ever take on himself the title 'Moses the man of God' and put himself on a par with the giver of the law. To make yourself an equal with Moses was to claim to be the messiah Acts 3:22 Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers... 23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.' Besides the purpose of the Psalm 90's introduction is to explain who the writer of the Psalm is. If this does not actually refer to the one known in the bible as Moses the man of God, the most famous man in Jewish history, then the introduction is pretty useless. In fact there is no reason not to take the introduction at fact value other that the fact the plain text of the psalm challenges literalists preconception of how to read scripture.

One cannot wave off hundreds of known and clear verses, interpreting one alone, to try and support a pet theory, that contradicts the rest of the word of God. This is news? That is one reason these things are hid from those that think they are wise.

The problem with your 'hundreds of verses' is they all say the same thing, person x lived for y number of years, what they don't tell you is what it means. Just because you interpret all the following ones the same way you interpret the first, does not mean you have multiple verses confirming you interpretation. If you pictured the dead kings of Israel having a giant sleepover because it says multiple times 'and he slept with his fathers'. The fact the phrase is repeated again and again in OT does not confirm the interpretation. What we need with the lifespans are some passages outside Genesis-Joshua where the extended lifespans are found, that tell us how to interpret them, whether they really are meant literally or had some figurative meaning. The only passage I know of that sheds light on how long people actually lived in this time is Moses' Psalm 90 telling us that people really only lived to seventy or eighty.

Even if the life spans changed there isn’t the slightest hint it had anything to do with Peleg or your split.

Well, the fact that the life spans changed drastically about that time, and can be graphed, goes toward evidence. By itself, it does not provide enough to deduce that a universe fabric change had to have occurred. But, with the evidences of science, and the rest of the bible, and history, we can zoom in on what happened. For example, we know that this state of the universe is temporary. That is known from the bible. We also know that many things went on in creation week, on up to the flood and beyond that could NOT happen in this universe state. The list is long. So, something had to have changed drastically if the bible is true. We know about when this change took place. One reason we do, is because of the spirits that mingled among men. They are not here and visible, and marrying women, etc. now.

This is your add up all the changes argument, but these so called changes fall apart each time we look at them. Your angels marrying women is a very good example which involves ignoring Jesus clear statement on the subject and a very selective choice of interpretation as to when angels had sex with women. You have no evidence that plants naturally grew superfast before Peleg, you just need it to fit God's creation into a young earth timetable and as we have seen God's timetable is very different from young earth literalists. Even if you six literal day timetable were correct, the creation of plants and stars is an act of God, you do not know the simply grew faster naturally and light travelled faster naturally before Peleg. Appealing to Revelation and the fact this universe it temporary does not help you when when Revelation tells us we are in the first universe, and experience the first things. No amount of made up changes can be explained but a made up split in the universe that is never hinted at in scripture. It is not the truth of the bible that is at stake here, just the young earth creationist interpretation, but we should not have to plead such a massive change in the universe that is never hinted at in scripture and for which there is no evidence in science just to support a failed interpretation. Cosmas tried to do that when he denied the earth was round and the inquisition did the same when they tried to silence Galileo, all in the name of defending mistaken interpretations of scripture that should have simply been left by the wayside.

Science also helps. We know that feeding the animals would be a problem, having a world of water up above the earth, and getting rid of it after it fell, separating the continents without great killing heat..etc.

Why would those be a problem when the bible never says the flood was global? Nothing there about separating continents either.

Creation was a direct act of God. The changed universe in the end of the millenium is a direct act of God. Any change in the universe in the past of course was a direct act of God. The changes are far too broad in scope to be anything but universal. It is ridiculous to imagine, for no reason, that God had to do trillions to the 11th power of miracles each minute of each day, and night all over the universe, and earth! Like He has nothing better to do than be silly?

You tried that before it didn't work. So God could not change human genetics so we don't live for a thousand years? That is a pretty small God you have there.

Because it does not fit the rest of the bible, and common sense. It can be ruled out.

Your split does not fit the rest of the bible, and common sense. It can be ruled out too.

Man's days were not, and are not 120 years. Elementary.

And yet 120 does seem to be the maximum human lifespan, while the norm is as Moses tells us about 70 or 80.

When God gave that warning, a few verses before, we saw the sons of God were still here, marrying women.

You bring it up but you can never defend you interpretation.

The flood could not have happened in this state.

Which state are you talking about, the state where angles are marrying women? Or the state after Peleg? If you mean the state after Peleg what do you bring up the angels for? And what has that got to do with your next statement?

Therefore, why would Almighty God be referring to that in a dire warning to man.

Therefore what? You train of 'logic' throws in words like 'therefore' but there is no coherent train of thought. Why would God refer to what?

No flood of water can alter lifespans of animals ten fold! No flood makes a tree grow in years instead of weeks. No flood washes away a spiritual heaven up where men could build up to it away! (that was after the flood as well, so we know the flood did not bring the change!)

Who says the flood would have had to wash away a spiritual heaven or make a tree grow in weeks? You have to show these things actually happened first before you base you imaginary split on imaginary changes. Creationist have suggested the change in lifespan is a result of changes that happened in the global flood, increased radiation after the vapour canopy collapsed, I certainly don't agree, but you would have to show that that is not an better explanation than your split. At least they have scriptural references to try to support their canopy even if I don't think it great exegesis, You do not have any reference for your split, and the 120 years is a much stronger argument than a split with no scriptural support.

What should we think the change in life spans is the effect of a split never ever mentioned in scripture?

The lifespans are mentioned! The mystery of why has never been known, and therefore is not meant to have been know. Man never even comprehended that the earth was now revolving around the sun, till the dawn of science. How would he begin to be able to comprehend the kind of changes that left us in a temporary universe state? Why would he even need to know way back when? Now, we do need to know, apparently. So called science has been slapping creation around for too long. I say it deserves to be put in it's place.

Let not forget to deal with that pesky science about the earth being round and orbiting the sun too. That has been slapping literalism around even longer. If however you want to think of your split as a great new revelation in science, astronomers came up with evidence to back up heliocentrism and it was able to explain the data better the geocentrism. You have no evidence and no scientific argument other than it was different because you say so. You haven't presented a scriptural case either. And you haven't answered my question. What should we think the change in life spans is the effect of a split never ever mentioned in scripture?

It does say stars were for men to see as signs. We saw the light from far stars, and still do. That means it could not have been a present universe fabric light. Impossible. We know that now. We can rule that out. Light is also involved in plant growth. The sudden change from Noah's day till today, (known history) had to involve light.

The bible say nothing about the speed of light, you have a problem in the literal six day interpretation that light would take much too long to reach earth. But that does not mean light must have been faster in the past. The bible says no such thing. That is simply something creationist made up to explain away the problem. Doesn't mean it is true. There are other creationist explanations such as God making light in transit. Bible doesn't say that either. A much simpler explanation is that the literal interpretation is mistaken and as Moses tells us in Psalm 90, God's days aren't always meant literally. After all Gen 2:4 tells us creation took a day add to which Gen 2 has a completely different order of creation to Gen 1, which tells us they can't both be literal chronologies. Even if there really was a change in the speed of light, what makes you think it happened after the flood? Why couldn't it begin after the fall as many creationist think? Why not immediately after God created the stars? Even if it happened after the flood, what makes you think the change was the result of a split never hinted at in scripture? Your whole idea is completely without any basis.

Life processes in the future will be greatly changed, and in short order. Men on the earth, in the millennium will again have the long lifespans. Lions and other animals will all be greatly changed! This all happens way way way too fast for present evolution to have a thing to do with it! Elementary. Likewise the changed animals and man (of the present) from the past, happened at far far far too great a speed to involve present state evolution. Simple.

Who say these thing are supposed to be the result of evolution? Who says they are even literal? I did point out before that the lion and the lamb is in a highly symbolic passage with the messiah with a stick in his mouth growing from a tree stump. The long lives in the millennium is in one of the lion and lamb passages. Besides this is describing the millennium, not the new heaven and new earth. I though these long lives could not happen in the present state?

 

[dad]

K thats nice dad. Get back to us when you actually have a point that I haven't refuted. Ignoring the fact that I've refuted all of those points ad naseum is simply pitiful

Your point is like a pebble, washed into the middle of the ocean in a major flood.

 

[dad]

That is quite an accusation coming from you

Observation.

Actually Creationists recognise the importance of how Genesis was interpreted by other people throughout the bible, as we see in the frequent claims that Jesus and the apostles interpreted the creation and the global flood literally, their only problem is they can't see past their own interpretation of Genesis to look at how people in scripture actually handled the text. In Psalm 90 we have the ideal opportunity here, a psalm looking at the creation and drawing its imagery from Genesis, from the creation and before it, through the children of Adam being returned to dust, God sweeping them away in a flood, God's days not being like our days, Moses even gives our lives metaphorical evenings and mornings. And this whole Psalm is ascribed to Moses the man of God, who even if he did not write Genesis as many Creationists believe, would have had a major role in passing down the ancient accounts and wrote much of the Pentateuch we have today. Who better to tell us how to understand Genesis?

No. The Life of Moses and all the greats is well recorded. It wasn't the Mo from Egypt here.

Interesting that Adam Clarke recognised the implication of Psalm 90 about lifespans, that if it was written by Moses as it claims, it contradicts the literal interpretation of the lifespan of the patriarchs. Clarke who had a deep dislike of allegory was clearly unable to to deal with this. Instead he opts to deny the plan meaning of verse 1, that this Psalm was written by Moses, even though the title Moses the man of God was only ever used of Moses who led the Israelites out of Egypt and gave them the law.
Deut 33:1 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death.
Josh 14:6 "You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me.
1Chron 23:14 But the sons of Moses the man of God were named among the tribe of Levi.
2Chron 30:16 They took their accustomed posts according to the Law of Moses the man of God.
Ezra 3:2 and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.
Psalm 90:1 A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Yes, if you had an uncle Jacob that died at 79, and we were talking about a Jabob, also a man of God, that died when he wa 24, we would know they were not the same guy. No agonizing required at all.

I double any God fearing Jew, even if his name was Moses, would ever take on himself the title 'Moses the man of God' and put himself on a par with the giver of the law.

Funny, I can't seem to find that title anywhere in the bible? You have a reference? Son of man, I can find. David was a man after God's own heart. Many millions are men of God. If THE Moses had a prayer in this chapter, it eneded before the verse about life spans!

The problem with your 'hundreds of verses' is they all say the same thing, person x lived for y number of years, what they don't tell you is what it means.

Paaleeeeese. So Jesus died at 33, really means He died at 88? Get serious. You disrespect the text.

This is your add up all the changes argument, but these so called changes fall apart each time we look at them. Your angels marrying women is a very good example which involves ignoring Jesus clear statement on the subject and a very selective choice of interpretation as to when angels had sex with women.

I disagree. The angels do not marry one wife, it never says they do not have sex?

You have no evidence that plants naturally grew superfast before Peleg, you just need it to fit God's creation into a young earth timetable and as we have seen God's timetable is very different from young earth literalists. Even if you six literal day timetable were correct, the creation of plants and stars is an act of God, you do not know the simply grew faster naturally and light travelled faster naturally before Peleg.

False. I have solid biblical evidence. The garden was planted, and we ate the fruits of it that week. Also, Noah sent out a bird, no trees. A week later, another bird, and a fresh twig from a tree. It truiggered a reaction from Noah, KNOWING it was OK now to leave the ark. If a tree took 20 years to grow, they would be dead.

Appealing to Revelation and the fact this universe it temporary does not help you when when Revelation tells us we are in the first universe, and experience the first things.

First comes before the next. No where does it say that it was the original state! It just happened to be before the new heavens.

... massive change in the universe that is never hinted at in scripture and for which there is no evidence in science just to support a failed interpretation.

The changes are massive and many, and I have listed them before. They cannot be denied. They are simple and stark, and clear, and many.

Cosmas tried to do that when he denied the earth was round and the inquisition did the same when they tried to silence Galileo, all in the name of defending mistaken interpretations of scripture that should have simply been left by the wayside.

Nonsense. People that have weak ideas can't be compared to those with strong ideas. Strawman.

Why would those be a problem when the bible never says the flood was global? Nothing there about separating continents either.

Science tells us that. But creation week did see the waters separated from the land also!

You tried that before it didn't work. So God could not change human genetics so we don't live for a thousand years? That is a pretty small God you have there.

What could have happened doesn't matter. What did happen matters. It was not just life spans, not just tree growth rates, nor just light, not just the properties of matter, that did not decay or make killing heat, not just no gravity as we know it not being here, so a world of water could be up there, not just the spiritual separating from our physical, not just evolution not being possibly slow as today, not just the way man communicated and thought being different, etc... It is all things considered, as well as science and history!

Your split does not fit the rest of the bible, and common sense. It can be ruled out too.

And yet 120 does seem to be the maximum human lifespan, while the norm is as Moses tells us about 70 or 80.

No, that was in Davids day. The changed spans are well recorded. The changed state fits the bible like a glove, and nothing else could!

Who says the flood would have had to wash away a spiritual heaven or make a tree grow in weeks? You have to show these things actually happened first before you base you imaginary split on imaginary changes.

The tower of Babel was building up to heaven. The bible says. No water can wash spiritual things away. If trees grew as fast as the bible indicates, no water could change the rate of growth. Something else has to be responsible.

Creationist have suggested the change in lifespan is a result of changes that happened in the global flood, increased radiation after the vapour canopy collapsed, I certainly don't agree, but you would have to show that that is not an better explanation than your split. At least they have scriptural references to try to support their canopy even if I don't think it great exegesis, You do not have any reference for your split, and the 120 years is a much stronger argument than a split with no scriptural support.

I agree there was water up there. Whether a partial canopy or rings, or whatever. But in no way can water make you live a thousand years. Period. It had to be something else. ..As much as some would simply rather disbelieve it, and wave it away.

 

[Assyrian]

When God tells us about his days in the Creation account shouldn't we remember who's talking to us? Especially when it is in a Psalm about the creation that Moses told us how God sees days.

Not a sane God. A sane God agrees with what is already said.

It never ceases to amaze me how creationists slander the Lord God in the name of their creationism, usually it is the simple slur 'if evolution is true God is a liar' but you have surpassed them all, not fearing to call God insane or an imbecile if he spoke to us in metaphor.

No. The days of creation week cannot be ignored because of some misuse of how the word also can be used.

I am not ignoring the days of creation, we just spent a series of posts discussing how the seventh day of creation was interpreted in scripture. How is it a 'misuse' pointing out the word day begin used figuratively just one verse after the the seventh day of creation?
Gen 2:3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
It shows the word day being used figuratively right in the heart of the Genesis creation accounts. In fact the word day is used three or four different way just in the first two chapters.

(1) It is used for the 12 hours of daylight in Gen 1:5
(2) You have the numbered day which are 24 hour days because the include the period from evening to morning too, if they are meant literally of course.
(3) We have Gen 2:4 where the whole of creation is described as taking place in a day.
(4) Then we have Gen 2:17 where Adam is warned he would surely die in the day he eats of the tree, which he didn't, so either day did not mean a literal 24 hour day, or death did not refer to literal physical death.

When God inspired these creation accounts he showed wide flexibility in the way he used the word day and other metaphors. This fits beautifully with Moses' interpretation of God's days as figurative, rather than the creationist insistence God had to mean a literal day or he is a liar/insane/imbecile.

It is becoming clear you have no respect for what is actually being said.

This from someone who claim Moses the man of God must be talking about someone else, who happily picks and chooses commentaries to fit with not care in the world for context, word use, or proper exegesis.

Straining at out of context nats is a waste of time.

I know, but you don't seem to have anything bigger.

You seem to think that it justifies all things.

All things? Hardly. But it does justify interpreting Genesis figurative when God loves to speak in metaphors, and people in the bible from Moses to Jesus and the apostles draw out the metaphorical and allegorical meaning of the text instead of teaching the literal interpretation.

No. God is not an imbecile. His word is to be understood in that context.

I do. However you seem to be suggesting that if Genesis is meant figuratively then God must be an imbecile. Is that what you really mean? Or is this slander on God's name just a word game and you realise that if God really were speaking metaphorically, he would still be vastly wiser than you. I still think it is the height of disrespect toward God's holy name to use it in game like that.

There can be no escaping that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Of course.

And man, and etc.

He created man too of course. I am not sure if you are conflating different descriptions to suggest man was created at the beginning of the universe, your statement is pretty vague.

Yes, we can use a day to mean something other than what it has to mean in creation week.

You keep confusing your interpretation with what the bible has to mean. Like when you assumed your interpretation was what Jesus believed too and disagreeing with you was disbelieving Jesus. You need to get out of that habit if you want God to teach you his word.

But it can mean nothing else when used in clear context.

Actually you often have to step outside the immediate context tell if a passage is literal or not. Read the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, loads of reference to it being a day, and to various hours throughout the day, yet it isn't speaking about a literal day at all. We find throughout the bible. There is nothing in the story of the talking trees in Judges 9 that says they aren't literal, apart from some God given incredulity When God told the Israelites he bore them out of Egypt on eagle's wings in Exodus 19:4 there is nothing in the immediate context to tell us that he wasn't speaking literally. There is nothing in Genesis 3 to say Eve was tempted by Satan rather than a literal snake, or that the redeemer wasn't going to literally step on the same literal snake's head. But outside the immediate context, we find the range of ways day is being used in the first two chapters, we find two completely different orders of creation in the first two chapters, which means at least one of the creation accounts is not literal. Even if you say it is the account in Genesis 2 that isn't literal, it means Genesis 1 is in the context of a non literal chronology of creation and a non literal description of the temptation and redemption. Add to that the fact that Moses himself didn't take God's day literally. Creationists think the days must be literal because of the numbers and morning and evening, but all of these can be figurative, there is no reason they can't be figurative used together in fact Moses uses them all in Psalm 90.

The old defeated arguments you regurgitate off topic here are tired.

You mean you are tired of not being able to answer them?

Do you think we have time for you to go on, to try to wave away, and explain away morning and evening?

Why do you assume evening and morning means Gen 1 must be literal? Simply claiming "A morning is still a morning. An evening is still an evening." does not actually count as an argument.

Gen 49:27 Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil.
A morning is still a morning. An evening is still an evening. A wolf is still a wolf. So Benjamin was a werewolf. No wonder his father wouldn't let him out of the house. Either that or the description with morning and evening was figurative.
Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
5 You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning-
6 though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.
Zeph 3:3 Her officials within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves that leave nothing till the morning.
Matt 20:1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard...
8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.'

]No. It is what it is.

You keep saying that, as if 'what it is' happened to be what you interpreted.

Jerusalem was the central point where Jesus died for us. It will be the capitol of the world. If the separation of continents was rapid, it also is very probably where Eden was. It also was where Abraham sacrificed the lamb, after Isaac was spared by God. Be amazed.

Simply thinking 'wouldn't it be amazing if' doesn't make it so. Genesis could have mentioned the Jordan as one of the rivers of Eden, instead it lists the Tigris and Euphrates.

 

[dad]

It never ceases to amaze me how creationists slander the Lord God in the name of their creationism, usually it is the simple slur 'if evolution is true God is a liar' but you have surpassed them all, not fearing to call God insane or an imbecile if he spoke to us in metaphor.

Fine with me, be amazed. I'm not into games. If God is God, then He is God.

I am not ignoring the days of creation, we just spent a series of posts discussing how the seventh day of creation was interpreted in scripture. How is it a 'misuse' pointing out the word day begin used figuratively just one verse after the the seventh day of creation?
Gen 2:3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
It shows the word day being used figuratively right in the heart of the Genesis creation accounts. In fact the word day is used three or four different way just in the first two chapters.

No. There are many uses of the word, and that is fine. There can not be any other use in the creation week. He even gave the morning and the evening for folks like you.

(1) It is used for the 12 hours of daylight in Gen 1:5

No, looks to me like morning and evening are not "12 hours of daylight"? 1:5 - And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

(2) You have the numbered day which are 24 hour days because the include the period from evening to morning too, if they are meant literally of course.
(3) We have Gen 2:4 where the whole of creation is described as taking place in a day.

No the description was already given, day by day. Here the context is the whole week. The time when God made everything. Nothing wrong with that. We simply need to learn the context. Your approach is to make God an idiot at every turn, for no reason.

(4) Then we have Gen 2:17 where Adam is warned he would surely die in the day he eats of the tree, which he didn't, so either day did not mean a literal 24 hour day, or death did not refer to literal physical death.

It didn't say literal physical death. That came later. If Adam died that day it would have all been over.

When God inspired these creation accounts he showed wide flexibility in the way he used the word day and other metaphors. This fits beautifully with Moses' interpretation of God's days as figurative, rather than the creationist insistence God had to mean a literal day or he is a liar/insane/imbecile.

No, it does not fit in any way. One has to ignore the whole flow and content of the history to arrive at surrealistic days, that neuter the whole word of God.

This from someone who claim Moses the man of God must be talking about someone else, who happily picks and chooses commentaries to fit with not care in the world for context, word use, or proper exegesis.

That psalm, at least by the time it hits that verse, was in no possible way talking of lifespans in Moses day. That is directly contradictory to what has already been said six ways from Sunday.

All things? Hardly. But it does justify interpreting Genesis figurative when God loves to speak in metaphors, and people in the bible from Moses to Jesus and the apostles draw out the metaphorical and allegorical meaning of the text instead of teaching the literal interpretation.

I disagree. Sometimes He has to wax somewhat metaphoric, but in no way does that turn the bible into surrealistic fairy tales. Neither does it mean the whole thing is weird cloaked, metaphors. It is what it is. You need to accept it, or not.

I do. However you seem to be suggesting that if Genesis is meant figuratively then God must be an imbecile. Is that what you really mean?

Precisely. Or worse, a lousy liar.

Or is this slander on God's name just a word game and you realise that if God really were speaking metaphorically, he would still be vastly wiser than you. I still think it is the height of disrespect toward God's holy name to use it in game like that.

No, if He told a fib, He is a fool. A liar. My God is not that. Check your inspiration.

He created man too of course. I am not sure if you are conflating different descriptions to suggest man was created at the beginning of the universe, your statement is pretty vague.

Yes, where a week is very near the beginning, actually 5 days, we were created at the beginning of this universe. Actually, the universe, in the sense of stars, and moon, and sun, etc was only made the day before, if I recall. Either that or 2 days before man! We were there from the getgo.

You keep confusing your interpretation with what the bible has to mean. Like when you assumed your interpretation was what Jesus believed too and disagreeing with you was disbelieving Jesus. You need to get out of that habit if you want God to teach you his word.

Not at all, Jesus spoke of the time of Adam, and the flood.

Actually you often have to step outside the immediate context tell if a passage is literal or not. Read the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, loads of reference to it being a day, and to various hours throughout the day, yet it isn't speaking about a literal day at all.

No? So how long did they work?

We find throughout the bible. There is nothing in the story of the talking trees in Judges 9 that says they aren't literal, apart from some God given incredulity When God told the Israelites he bore them out of Egypt on eagle's wings in Exodus 19:4 there is nothing in the immediate context to tell us that he wasn't speaking literally. There is nothing in Genesis 3 to say Eve was tempted by Satan rather than a literal snake, or that the redeemer wasn't going to literally step on the same literal snake's head. But outside the immediate context, we find the range of ways day is being used in the first two chapters, we find two completely different orders of creation in the first two chapters, which means at least one of the creation accounts is not literal. Even if you say it is the account in Genesis 2 that isn't literal, it means Genesis 1 is in the context of a non literal chronology of creation and a non literal description of the temptation and redemption. Add to that the fact that Moses himself didn't take God's day literally. Creationists think the days must be literal because of the numbers and morning and evening, but all of these can be figurative, there is no reason they can't be figurative used together in fact Moses uses them all in Psalm 90.

Ah, so you doubt it all. Ok. Forget Ps 90, that was not Moses. Not by the verse about life spans at least. Period. Give it up. You can't prove your contradictory claims, trust me.Gen 2 is not a chronology. Get over it. The cherubims that are around the throne of God, have a face as an eagle. So if God uses a phrase, there are reasons for it. In other words, He had His hand in it. That has nothing to do with waving away the reality of creation. As for Jotham, in Judges, He ran away to 'Beer'. Would you really trust his little attempt at a parable in a time of civil war, or whatever was going on? I didn't see, "thus saith the Lord" Or "God commanded him to speak" Or "God gave Him a vision, etc! Who cares what some coward 'also ran' said? Some things are recorded in the bible, just to show what people did, not because they were in the power of God's spirit. This is news??

Why do you assume evening and morning means Gen 1 must be literal? Simply claiming "A morning is still a morning. An evening is still an evening." does not actually count as an argument.

Simply claiming a day and a morning and an evening can't be what they are is not an argument. (about Eden near Jerusalem) No, because there was no Jordan at that time. Remember, that the continents had not separated yet either.

 

[Assyrian]

Observation.

No just wishful thinking. If you want to accuse someone of cherry picking, you should at least give some evidence. That is what I have done when you pick and choose commentators and interpretations without are care in the world for good, or even consistent exegesis.

No. The Life of Moses and all the greats is well recorded. It wasn't the Mo from Egypt here.

And yet the Psalm calls him Moses the man of God, a title only ever used for Moses from Egypt. Could it be you don't want it to be him because it contradicts your literal interpretation of the genealogies?

Yes, if you had an uncle Jacob that died at 79, and we were talking about a Jabob, also a man of God, that died when he wa 24, we would know they were not the same guy. No agonizing required at all.

I know a preacher from Brazil called Jesus, an anointed preacher, but I would not call him Jesus Christ. That title is taken. I know another guy called Alex who is great at playing the Northumbrian pipes, but I would never quote him and ascribe the quotation to Alexander the Great. The writer of the psalm is clearly identified in the title, the purpose of which is to tell us who wrote the psalm.

There is a very simple explanation for the life spans Moses described, the longer lifespans in Genesis to Joshua are another metaphor like so many other metaphors used throughout the bible. There is nothing in the text of Psalm 90 to even hint that verse 1 means anything other what it plainly tells us, that it was written by Moses who is know throughout scripture as Moses the man of God. It is not the plain text of Psalm 90 that make you want to change its meaning, but your insistence on a literal interpretation of passages back in Genesis. A dislike of metaphors in Genesis is no reason to reject the plain meaning of a text in Psalms. Especially when God loves to speak to us in metaphor and allegory.

Going back to you uncle Jake, I wouldn’t claim to have an uncle who died at 969 either. The big problem with your analogy is you are trying to read modern cultural practices back into ancient customs and claiming because we don’t do something they couldn’t possibly have a reason to. We don’t exaggerate people’s age, except perhaps jocularly. Back in the time of the patriarchs old age was seen as a mark of respect, and in the culture of the time revered kings were given long life spans, Much longer than Gensis for kings before the flood, and the extended lifespans were still as high as 1200 years old 20 generations after the flood. What we learn from Psalm 90 is that while these long lifespans were ascribed to kings and patriarchs, people of the time did not take them literally.

I double any God fearing Jew, even if his name was Moses, would ever take on himself the title 'Moses the man of God' and put himself on a par with the giver of the law.

Funny, I can't seem to find that title anywhere in the bible? You have a reference? Son of man, I can find. David was a man after God's own heart. Many millions are men of God. If THE Moses had a prayer in this chapter, it eneded before the verse about life spans!

Can't find the title? I just quoted six reference to Moses being called 'Moses the man of God' which you ignored.
Deut 33:1 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death.
Josh 14:6 "You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me.
1Chron 23:14 But the sons of Moses the man of God were named among the tribe of Levi.
2Chron 30:16 They took their accustomed posts according to the Law of Moses the man of God.
Ezra 3:2 and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.
Psalm 90:1 A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
There are three titles used scripture to describe Moses, Moses the servant of God, Moses the servant of the Lord, and Moses the man of God. They are used interchangeably and never used for anyone else.

Paaleeeeese. So Jesus died at 33, really means He died at 88? Get serious. You disrespect the text.

Does Jesus being in his thirties contradict what Moses tells us? Why do literalists always go for the silly argument that if something is figurative in one place, it must be figurative everywhere else. So if Jesus being the lamb of God is a metaphor, then the Jewish priests must have sacrifice metaphorical sheep at passover.

Really, all these silly argument show is that literalists don't have a decent argument.

I disagree. The angels do not marry one wife, it never says they do not have sex?

Ah, so Jesus meant angels have extramarital sex, and so will we in heaven. Your argument is getting more and more bizarre.

False. I have solid biblical evidence.

You have over interpretation and supposition.

The garden was planted, and we ate the fruits of it that week.

If it was a literal week, if it was even a literal garden. Then you have the problem that even if it was a literal garden and a literal week, it is God who made the trees grow, Gen 2:9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree. What makes you think the trees grew quickly because that was natural for trees back then, rather than because it was God who made them spring up? There is no reason to claim this was the result of a different state of the universe that change with Peleg, when there is absolutely no reference to this in scripture.

Also, Noah sent out a bird, no trees. A week later, another bird, and a fresh twig from a tree. It truiggered a reaction from Noah, KNOWING it was OK now to leave the ark. If a tree took 20 years to grow, they would be dead.

The dove brought back a leaf not an olive tree.

Appealing to Revelation and the fact this universe it temporary does not help you when when Revelation tells us we are in the first universe, and experience the first things.

First comes before the next. No where does it say that it was the original state! It just happened to be before the new heavens.

Then why not call what we have now the present heavens and earth, or the old heaven and earth. In fact that would go so much better with the new heaven and earth. Instead God chose a word that means, well, first. If we look at heaven and earth in Revelation, there are reference to their creation too. Are these heavens and earth supposed to be before the first heaven and earth?
Rev 10:6 and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay,
Rev 14:7 And he said with a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgement has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water."
Rev 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. When Revelation calls the heaven and earth we have now first, it must really mean first. Notice as well how each verse refers to heaven, earth and sea. When Rev 21:1 talks of ‘and the sea was no more’, it is referring back to the heaven, earth and sea in previous verses.

Again I am amazed at the way literalist keep trying to wriggle out of the plain meaning of scripture.

The changes are massive and many, and I have listed them before. They cannot be denied. They are simple and stark, and clear, and many.

You claimed them through highly selective interpretation and picking and choosing commentaries, over interpretation of text reading much more into the texts than is actually said, ascribing the your over interpretations to what happened naturally before Peleg rather than acts of God, but you have never been able to support one of your supposed changes.

Nonsense. People that have weak ideas can't be compared to those with strong ideas. Strawman.

Of course you think you ideas are the strong ones Flat earth was much more widespread, and had better biblical argument supporting it, than your groundless split. Geocentrism was the universal literal interpretation of a wide range of scriptures for most of church history, unlike your claim the universe was split apart in Peleg's time, which has no biblical basis and I have never seen anyone support it apart form you.

Science tells us that. But creation week did see the waters separated from the land also!

So?

You tried that before it didn't work. So God could not change human genetics so we don't live for a thousand years? That is a pretty small God you have there.

What could have happened doesn't matter. What did happen matters. It was not just life spans, not just tree growth rates, nor just light, not just the properties of matter, that did not decay or make killing heat, not just no gravity as we know it not being here, so a world of water could be up there, not just the spiritual separating from our physical, not just evolution not being possibly slow as today, not just the way man communicated and thought being different, etc... It is all things considered, as well as science and history!

Typical non answer. You cannot address the question so instead you reply with a long list of your other failed arguments.

No, that was in Davids day.

What was in David's day? Psalm 90? The psalm we are told was written by Moses? Any evidence it was written in David's day or are you just making that up like everything else?

The changed spans are well recorded.

So is the zoology of seven headed lion leopard bears. Doesn't make it literal. Especially when Moses tells us people only lived to 70 or 80.

The changed state fits the bible like a glove, and nothing else could!

You made up change in state that isn't mentioned anywhere in scripture even though you claim God tore apart the universe to do it, fits like a glove with a series of changes in the state of the universe that you have make up too that cannot be supported from scripture.

Fits like a glove

Who says the flood would have had to wash away a spiritual heaven or make a tree grow in weeks? You have to show these things actually happened first before you base you imaginary split on imaginary changes.

The tower of Babel was building up to heaven. The bible says. No water can wash spiritual things away.

And the heavens are where rain comes from. Remember? I dealt with that. The claim the people in Babel could see the spiritual realm is entirely of your imagination. There is no need for water to wash that away.

If trees grew as fast as the bible indicates, no water could change the rate of growth. Something else has to be responsible.

Who says water changed the rate of growth? Who says tree grew fast naturally in the first place? The bible doesn't.

I agree there was water up there.

Still is. We have a lot of it dripping down this morning. Ah the wonders of living in Wales.

Whether a partial canopy or rings, or whatever. But in no way can water make you live a thousand years.

Whoever said that it did? You are mistaking the creationist argument that the end of the vapour canopy led to increased radiation and genetic damage which limited our natural lifespan. But that is not the same as saying water made us live a thousand years. According to the creationist argument (rather than your strawman version) it was God's good creation, even after the fall, that let us live a thousand years, the damage is done now and living under water wouldn't change it. It is fascinating you have to use strawman arguments even against Creationist views, it just shows how baseless you ideas are.

Period. It had to be something else. ..As much as some would simply rather disbelieve it, and wave it away.

Of course it has to be something else and Moses shows us in Psalm 90, not only are God's days figurative, so are the long lifespans from the patriarchs to Moses. But understanding that God speaks to us in metaphor, is not 'disbelief' and more than thinking Jesus is not literally a sheep, or saying he did not literally step on the serpent's head.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Since it fits with other things I have come to accept, I think it may possibly be true. Any takers?

You believe baseless nonsense because it fits in with other baseless nonsense... good on you.

 

[Assyrian]

Fine with me, be amazed. I'm not into games. If God is God, then He is God.

If he is God then you should realise is wiser and more intelligent than you and you should not call him an imbecile and insane if your interpretation of the bible is mistaken. You should have much more respect for God if he is God. Perhaps you could even try addressing your insults to his name instead of dismissing it as 'games'.

No. There are many uses of the word, and that is fine. There can not be any other use in the creation week. He even gave the morning and the evening for folks like you.

If God used the word day in a wide range of ways literal and figurative in the first two chapters of Genesis then it is very possible your interpretation of day and you insistence it has to be a literal day because it also mentioned even and morning is mistaken. God used the word day figuratively in the creation accounts, evening and morning don't change that or mean the word day has to be literal.

(1) It is used for the 12 hours of daylight in Gen 1:5

No, looks to me like morning and evening are not "12 hours of daylight"? 1:5 - And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

What? You're saying day does not refer to daylight instead of night in the first half of Gen1:5? It's statements like that that make me think literalists don't even understand the literal meaning of Genesis.

(3) We have Gen 2:4 where the whole of creation is described as taking place in a day.

No the description was already given, day by day. Here the context is the whole week. The time when God made everything. Nothing wrong with that. We simply need to learn the context.

Your literal interpretation of the numbered days does not change the fact God used he word day metaphorically in Gen 2:4. However Gen 2:4 does challenge your literalism and your insistence God has to mean day when he uses the word day. Creation cannot be both a literal week and a literal day, however both the single day creation and the six day creation can both be figurative, and it is certainly a much more consistent interpretation in the context, especially when the have different orders of creation in the two creation accounts. It is also possible the the six day could be meant literally and the single day creation is meant figuratively, but if God is using day so freely describing creation there is no basis for insisting the six days have to be literal. God shows us how he uses language, how he speaks to us the very next verse after the seventh day.

Your approach is to make God an idiot at every turn, for no reason.

Insane, imbecile and an idiot?

It didn't say literal physical death. That came later. If Adam died that day it would have all been over.

It says die. Literally that means physical death. As I said the alternative is that the word day is meant figuratively, which is an interpretation that has been widespread since the early church.

When God inspired these creation accounts he showed wide flexibility in the way he used the word day and other metaphors. This fits beautifully with Moses' interpretation of God's days as figurative, rather than the creationist insistence God had to mean a literal day or he is a liar/insane/imbecile.

No, it does not fit in any way.

God uses the word day metaphorically in the Genesis creation accounts, Moses gives a figurative interpretation of God days in his psalm on creation, then he shows us he does not take the long lifespans of the patriarchs literally. Sounds like a good fit to me.

One has to ignore the whole flow and content of the history to arrive at surrealistic days, that neuter the whole word of God.

Since when does a metaphorical interpretation neuter the word of God when it is a metaphorical interpretation that Jesus taught his disciples, and we get again and again in the epistles? Remember how we looked at Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. If my understanding of the Genesis days is surreal so is the epistle to Hebrews, not only its interpretation of God's rest on the seventh day, but also the interpretation of the word 'today' in Psalm 95:7
Heb 3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts...
Heb 3:13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today,"
Surreal? Perhaps to a modern materialist mindset, but it how God loves to communicate. Get used to it if you want to be a follower of Jesus.

That psalm, at least by the time it hits that verse, was in no possible way talking of lifespans in Moses day.

Why not? We are told it was written by Moses. Luke 24:25 O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!

That is directly contradictory to what has already been said six ways from Sunday.

It certainly contradicts the literal interpretation but that is noting new. the bible is full of metaphors that should not be taken literally

I disagree. Sometimes He has to wax somewhat metaphoric,

Great you are beginning to understand how God loves to communicate with us. Now all you need to realise is that you might just be making the mistake of taking things literally that God meant metaphorically, just like Nicodemus, the apostles, and the mass of Jews who deserted Jesus when he told them that had to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

but in no way does that turn the bible into surrealistic fairy tales. Neither does it mean the whole thing is weird cloaked, metaphors.

Except if you read your bible there is loads in it that is surreal, seven headed monsters talking trees and a talking snake, most of Revelation Daniel and Ezekiel is completely weird. Whether you want to call them fairy tales is up to you, but it is a lot more surreal to take them literally than metaphorically. You may consider taking the days of creation figuratively to be a surreal fairy tale but it is a lot less surreal than seven headed monsters or eating Jesus' flesh and blood.

It is what it is. You need to accept it, or not.

Again with the 'is what it is', doesn't mean 'what it is' is the same as you literal interpretation. Why should I accept you literalism rather than a more biblical figurative interpretation?

you seem to be suggesting that if Genesis is meant figuratively then God must be an imbecile. Is that what you really mean?

Precisely. Or worse, a lousy liar.

Insane, imbecile an idiot and a liar. You must be very confident in your literal interpretation, in spite of knowing God can 'wax somewhat metaphoric'. What to you plan to say to him if you find out you were wrong and have reviled the name of the Lord Almighty calling him insane, an imbecile an idiot and a liar? Do you think this exegesis of yours honours your God?

No, if He told a fib, He is a fool. A liar. My God is not that.

Is it just in Genesis that a metaphor is a lie, or was Jesus lying when he said we had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, or when God told the Israelites he carried them out of Egypt on Eagle's wings? Exodus 19:4 You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Terrible thing to call God a liar just because you don't like metaphors. He does.

Check your inspiration.

Yes that is very good advice you should be taking yourself right now. It is not the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that teaches us to call God insane, an imbecile an idiot or a liar.

Yes, where a week is very near the beginning, actually 5 days, we were created at the beginning of this universe. Actually, the universe, in the sense of stars, and moon, and sun, etc was only made the day before, if I recall. Either that or 2 days before man! We were there from the getgo.

Unless of course Moses is right and God's days aren't literal.

You keep confusing your interpretation with what the bible has to mean. Like when you assumed your interpretation was what Jesus believed too and disagreeing with you was disbelieving Jesus. You need to get out of that habit if you want God to teach you his word.

Not at all, Jesus spoke of the time of Adam, and the flood.

Doesn't mean he interpreted Genesis the way you do and he gave no hint he believed in your split. You see as long as you keep telling Jesus what he must have believed, you will have no chance of actually learning from him or of the Spirit of God showing you where you have got things wrong.

No? So how long did they work?

In the parable 12 hours, in reality it is speaking of any individual Pharisee or scribe who spent his life to serving God only to baulk at a prostitute or tax collector repenting and being accepted, or it can speak of the entire history of Israel and the church.

No! can't be metaphorical, no labourer could work in vineyard for thousands of years

Ah, so you doubt it all. Ok. Forget Ps 90, that was not Moses. Not by the verse about life spans at least. Period. Give it up. You can't prove your contradictory claims, trust me.

You refuse to believe Psalm 90 was written by Moses but accuse me of doubt. Lol.

Gen 2 is not a chronology. Get over it.

Course it is, it is an narrative, it is the story of how God created Adam and Eve. And the story has an ordered sequence of events running through it. The fact is the order of events in the story is completely different to the order of events in the first creation account tells me the creation account are no meant literally. No need for me to get over it. The text is very clear, though literalists try to deny what the plain text says in the name of the literal interpretation of Genesis.

The cherubims that are around the throne of God, have a face as an eagle. So if God uses a phrase, there are reasons for it.

Yes, the reason is it is a metaphor, nothing to do with cherubim, just the metaphor of an eagle soaring high and free. But the Israelites did not fly out of Egypt, they were not carried by literal eagles or cherubim, they walked. It is pure metaphor but without the slightest hint in the text that it was. God said it completely straight faced.

In other words, He had His hand in it.

Exactly. No eagles, God.

That has nothing to do with waving away the reality of creation.

Who is waving away the reality of creation? Genesis tells us God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, same as the wing of eagles tells us it was God who set the captives free. What it also has to do with understanding the account of creation is that it tells us how God speaks to us. What you cannot do is ignore how God speaks to us in his word but still insist you understand what he means in Genesis. The wings of eagles metaphor does not tell us Genesis is figurative, it does tell us Genesis could be.

As for Jotham, in Judges, He ran away to 'Beer'. Would you really trust his little attempt at a parable in a time of civil war, or whatever was going on? I didn't see, "thus saith the Lord" Or "God commanded him to speak" Or "God gave Him a vision, etc! Who cares what some coward 'also ran' said? Some things are recorded in the bible, just to show what people did, not because they were in the power of God's spirit. This is news??

Another passage of scripture you reject as inspired. If I recall, Gideon hid too. Tell me, was Jotham's prophecy fulfilled?
Judges 9:21 And Jotham ran away and fled and went to Beer...
I think that is as far as you got. Read on a bit.
...and lived there, because of Abimelech his brother.
22 Abimelech ruled over Israel three years.
23 And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech... It was downhill for the subjects of Jotham's parable after that. Sechem and its inhabitants were burnt in a fire and Abimelech was killed in the battle (vs 49-54). Sounds to me like God had a much higher regard for Jotham's parable than you do. Even if it wasn't inspired, it tells how people of the time understood parables and allegory and were much more at home with them than modern literalists are. God word in Genesis was give for people like this who had none of the modern literalists hangups.

Simply claiming a day and a morning and an evening can't be what they are is not an argument.

I don't claim they can't be, but the verses I quoted, that you conveniently snipped out, show evening and morning don't have to be literal. Your argument needs evening and morning to always be literal, otherwise they aren't evidence the day in Genesis has to be literal. All I have to do is show they can be used figurative too, which with the verse I quoted. Here they are again.

Gen 49:27 Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil.
Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
5 You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning-
6 though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.
Zeph 3:3 Her officials within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves that leave nothing till the morning.
Matt 20:1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard...
8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.'

(about Eden near Jerusalem) No, because there was no Jordan at that time. Remember, that the continents had not separated yet either.

No Jordan, you know this how?

 

[laconicstudent]

You believe baseless nonsense because it fits in with other baseless nonsense... good on you.

Yes. While I hate to say this, the alternate universe state is non-parsimonious nonsense. There is no reason to believe it. Therefore, believing things based on that alternate universe belief is also non-parsimonious.

 

[dad]

No just wishful thinking. If you want to accuse someone of cherry picking, you should at least give some evidence. That is what I have done when you pick and choose commentators and interpretations without are care in the world for good, or even consistent exegesis.

There are scores of verses giving ages, and years of people. To try and interpret some bit some place that seems to contradict that, with a certain spin put on the cherry picked verse, is insulting to the spirit of the text.

And yet the Psalm calls him Moses the man of God, a title only ever used for Moses from Egypt. Could it be you don't want it to be him because it contradicts your literal interpretation of the genealogies?

There are many men of God. David, for example was a man after God's own heart. So? The Mo given dreit for the psalm either was not the mo we know, or the psalm cuts out in mid stream, and is no longer Mo. One must give the Almighty the benefit of a baseless doubt, especially when the flipping book spells it out six ways from Sunday in many places.

I know a preacher from Brazil called Jesus, an anointed preacher, but I would not call him Jesus Christ. That title is taken. I know another guy called Alex who is great at playing the Northumbrian pipes, but I would never quote him and ascribe the quotation to Alexander the Great. The writer of the psalm is clearly identified in the title, the purpose of which is to tell us who wrote the psalm.

I know Jesus was the 'son of man' So was Daniel, and I think it was Ezekiel called that. Move over Mo.

There is a very simple explanation for the life spans Moses described, the longer lifespans in Genesis to Joshua are another metaphor like so many other metaphors used throughout the bible.

Unsupportable, and contradictory to the bible as a whole. It may be simple to also say that a giant worm ate Jerusalem, so it had to be rebuilt...but that is unsupported also. We do not need to agonize and wonder at all here. The life spans are well known for men of old. Waving it away is nothing more than not believing the text. No excuses.

There is nothing in the text of Psalm 90 to even hint that verse 1 means anything other what it plainly tells us, that it was written by Moses who is know throughout scripture as Moses the man of God.

Here is verse 1, for the lurkers. What, do we gluestick in Mo somewhere?--Just so you can have a lam excuse to disbelieve the scores of recorded life spans of actual people?

1 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

Going back to you uncle Jake, I wouldn’t claim to have an uncle who died at 969 either. The big problem with your analogy is you are trying to read modern cultural practices back into ancient customs and claiming because we don’t do something they couldn’t possibly have a reason to. We don’t exaggerate people’s age, except perhaps jocularly. Back in the time of the patriarchs old age was seen as a mark of respect, and in the culture of the time revered kings were given long life spans, Much longer than Gensis for kings before the flood, and the extended lifespans were still as high as 1200 years old 20 generations after the flood. What we learn from Psalm 90 is that while these long lifespans were ascribed to kings and patriarchs, people of the time did not take them literally.

Your insinuation that the Holy Spirit recorded the life spans of the bible, just to prop up some respect quotient of the forefathers is patently ridiculous.

Can't find the title? I just quoted six reference to Moses being called 'Moses the man of God' which you ignored.
Deut 33:1 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death.
...
There are three titles used scripture to describe Moses, Moses the servant of God, Moses the servant of the Lord, and Moses the man of God. They are used interchangeably and never used for anyone else.

Well, I haven't looked at the chapter before this thread, so can't really give all the answers. Generally, we need to put things into step with the rest of the bible, not throw out scores of verses, to try and make one verse make sense.

How about this one..IF it was Moses (as it sounds like it was) What is being presented here? It seems a picture of the time in the wilderness, no? As I look at a breakdown of what is meant in various verses, it occurs to me that it may refer to the death in the wilderness!? In other words, the men wouldn't really live out their natural full lives..

" Verse 7
Are consumed - Thou dost not suffer us to live so long as we might by the course of nature. "
Psalm - Chapter 90 - Wesley's Explanatory Notes on StudyLight.org

So, therefore in that light, we are not talking about all men of all generations, but THE men in the wilderness that died. Either the ones that got swallowed up at the mountain, or etc..and/or the whole group that died in the dessert, save for the kids!?

Unless you can overthrow that puppy, I'll stick to that for now, and leave the bible smelling like a rose, as always, and God as true, and bang on, as always. Any objections?! Maybe we cracked another major mystery here. Thanks for that.

Ah, so Jesus meant angels have extramarital sex, and so will we in heaven. Your argument is getting more and more bizarre.

I don't know. But if the sons of god before the split and Babel, were angels, as many expositors claim, they sure had sex. I would have to conclude that having a wife as men do here is not the norm in heaven, because of what Jesus said. So..what does that leave? Either some sexless place, or a place where clean sex is not restricted as much as it needs to be here. So??

If it was a literal week, if it was even a literal garden. Then you have the problem that even if it was a literal garden and a literal week, it is God who made the trees grow, Gen 2:9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree. What makes you think the trees grew quickly because that was natural for trees back then, rather than because it was God who made them spring up?

Because the tree of life is also in the new heaven state. We see it has unsual groth as well, in fact we get more details. Every month it has a new gwoth, and 12 different kinds of fruit. It is illogical to assume that God has to run around making them grow fast, and etc..! Also, Noah sent out a bird, no trees. A week later, a fresh twig!

The dove brought back a leaf not an olive tree.

8:11 - And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
True, it simply plucked off a leaf from a tree, that is why Noah knew the waters were down, and that all was well. That whole scene would make no sense if they needed to wait 20 years before a tree grew fruit. They would not be partying...they would be about to die!

 

[dad]

On a further note, about Psalm 90

So, many men went down to the pit, and died before their time in the wilderness of sin. Even Moses never made it out alive. Notice that the psalm doesn't say the years of MY life are...!!

There was a rebellion, for example, and many men met their death in that wilderness.

"The Lord told Moses to tell all the people to get away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. And Moses went to Dathan and Abiram's tents with the 70 elders of Israel following him. Moses told the congregation, “Depart now from the tents of these wicked men! Touch nothing of theirs, lest you be consumed in all their sins.” The people quickly got away from that area, and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood in the opening of their tents, with their wives, sons and little children.

Moses then addressed the people. “If these men die naturally like all men, or if they are visited by the common fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the Lord.”>

Immediately, the ground split apart under them, as if the earth had opened its mouth. Korah, Dathan and Abiram and their families (except for Korah's sons) and their tents and belongings were swallowed up, and the earth closed over them. A fire came out from the Lord and reduced to ashes the 250 men who were offering incense."

Wandering the Wilderness, Moses Challenges Korah

"[FONT=Times New Roman,Times]28 And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 29 If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the LORD hath not sent me.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 30 But if the LORD make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD.
[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times]31 And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 32 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 33 They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 34 And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 35 ¶ And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.[/FONT]

Earlier, we see others also died...

36 And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, 37 Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD


Even Aaron had to die there in the wilderness. Another time, God sent derpents to kill many there.
Num 21:6
". And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

Another time, 24,000 died!

9 And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand


Another time we see 3000

28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.


--So, some died early, in theor sin, others, by reason of greater strength, lasted longer.

 

[dad]

Yes. While I hate to say this, the alternate universe state is non-parsimonious nonsense. There is no reason to believe it. Therefore, believing things based on that alternate universe belief is also non-parsimonious.

"Multiverses have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, philosophy, transpersonal psychology and fiction, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. The specific term "multiverse" was coined in 1895 by psychologist William James.[1] In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternative universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel worlds", "alternative realities", "alternative timelines", etc."

wiki

So, you better reign science in, kid, in almost every field, they had to resort to other states! Looks like you are almost the only pure parsimonious one on the planet! Good work.

Even when looking at the universe, you know, they find fully 94% OF IT HAD TO BE EXPLAINED AS INVISIBLE, UNOBSERVED, UNKNOWN DARK STUFF!?


Now, as it turns out, they are starting to begin to clue in, that they had no idea what they were talking about all along!!!


Read it and weep.


"
Only 4% of the universe is made of known material. Stars and gas in galaxies move so fast that astronomers have speculated that the gravity from a hypothetical invisible halo of dark matter is needed to keep galaxies together. However, a solid understanding of dark matter as well as direct evidence of its existence has remained elusive.
Now the team believes that the interactions between dark and ordinary matter could be more important and more complex than previously thought, and even speculate that dark matter might not exist and that the anomalous motions of stars in galaxies are due to a modification of gravity on extragalactic scales.....


Dr. Benoit Famaey (Universities of Bonn and Strasbourg) explains: "The dark matter seems to 'know' how the visible matter is distributed. They seem to conspire with each other such that the gravity of the visible matter at the characteristic radius of the dark halo is always the same. This is extremely surprising since one would rather expect the balance between visible and dark matter to strongly depend on the individual history of each galaxy."



Dr. Zhao at the SUPA Centre of Gravity notes, "The pattern that the data reveal is extremely odd. It's like finding a zoo of animals of all ages and sizes miraculously having identical, say, weight in their backbones or something. It is possible that a non-gravitational fifth force is ruling the dark matter with an invisible hand, leaving the same fingerprints on all galaxies, irrespective of their ages, shapes and sizes."


Is Unknown Force In Universe Acting On Dark Matter?


Welcome to TODAY'S science news!!!!!!!!!!!!


Be astounded.

 

[Assyrian]

There are scores of verses giving ages, and years of people. To try and interpret some bit some place that seems to contradict that, with a certain spin put on the cherry picked verse, is insulting to the spirit of the text.

I see you have toned down from your claim of 'hundreds of verses' to 'scores'. Then again, there's no harm a bit of hyperbole, is there?

As for your accusation of cherry picking, I have answered it and you could only come up with a silly swipe against figurative age in general, Jesus died at 88, rather than actually dealing with my point.

You see, no matter how many verses you have giving unusual lifespans, whether you have hundreds or scores, they are all saying the same thing in the same way, you cannot tell simply by adding up verses if the long lifespans are literal, figurative or simply the normal convention of the time. You may take one verse literally, but finding another verse doing the same thing does not confirm you literal interpretation, they could just as well all be following the same non literal convention. What we need are scripture passages outside of these texts showing how the rest of the bible views the ages of people in this period or shows us how the long lifespans are interpreted. There are very few passages outside the long lifespan texts in Genesis to Joshua that shed any light on the question. How is it cherry picking to look at every verse in the bible that shows us how to interpret the lifespans? It is simply allowing scripture to interpret scripture.

There are many men of God. David, for example was a man after God's own heart. So? The Mo given dreit for the psalm either was not the mo we know, or the psalm cuts out in mid stream, and is no longer Mo. One must give the Almighty the benefit of a baseless doubt, especially when the flipping book spells it out six ways from Sunday in many places.

It does not simply say the Psalm was written by a man of God, it say the Psalm was written by Moses the man of God, a title only ever used in the bible for Moses.

As for you attempt at a documentary hypothesis, is there any textual reason for thinking this other than the fact you do not want verse 10 to be written by Moses as the psalm tells us? It is after all the title for the whole psalm and if your unknown redactor edited the different parts of the psalm together, he still placed the second half in a psalm to Moses, attributing the claim of a 70 or 80 years life span to Moses who is supposed to have lived to 120. So clearly your redactor didn't take Moses lifespan literally, either that or he goofed. Perhaps you do not think your redactor was inspired when he composed the psalm?

You see this 'benefit of the doubt' thing shows the real problem you have, you think if the genealogies are not literal then God was wrong. No, it simply means the genealogies are figurative. Taking God's metaphor literally is not giving him the benefit of the doubt, it is simply failing to understand God often speaks in idiom, metaphor, parable and allegory.

I know Jesus was the 'son of man' So was Daniel, and I think it was Ezekiel called that. Move over Mo.

Was Jesus called 'Daniel the son of man' or 'Ezekiel the son of man'? Because unless he was you don't have a point. The writer of Psalm 90 was called 'Moses the man of God'. Why would the bible attribute the psalm to Moses, using a title that referred specifically to Moses of Egypt, if it really meant someone else? Your argument does not make sense. It does illustrate very clearly the lengths you will go to to try to deny the plain meaning of scripture.

Unsupportable, and contradictory to the bible as a whole. It may be simple to also say that a giant worm ate Jerusalem, so it had to be rebuilt...but that is unsupported also. We do not need to agonize and wonder at all here. The life spans are well known for men of old. Waving it away is nothing more than not believing the text. No excuses.

Personally I would think a giant worm eating Jerusalem is more likely to be metaphorical. But I don't see how your giant worm is supposed to show figurative lifespans are ''unsupportable and contradictory to the bible as a whole'', giant worms are not that much of a counter argument. Unsupportable? Well we have Moses to tell us God days are not literal, and that people only lived to 70 or 80. That seems pretty strong support to me. If you don't want to believe Moses when he shows us how to understand the Pentateuch... And as for 'the bible as a whole', you only have these long ages in the first few books of the bible, the rest of the bible is silent apart from the few verses we have looked at which do not support the literal interpretation of the patriarch's longevity.

Here is verse 1, for the lurkers. What, do we gluestick in Mo somewhere?--Just so you can have a lam excuse to disbelieve the scores of recorded life spans of actual people?

1 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

Why do we gluestick Mo into Psalm 90? Because the bible says he wrote it.

Your insinuation that the Holy Spirit recorded the life spans of the bible, just to prop up some respect quotient of the forefathers is patently ridiculous.

No just showing that the figurative use of longevity fits the conventions of the time, instead of your attempt at a modern comparison with your uncle Jack. God spoke to people in their own language and idioms.

...
Deut 33:1 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death.
...

Well, I haven't looked at the chapter before this thread, so can't really give all the answers. Generally, we need to put things into step with the rest of the bible, not throw out scores of verses, to try and make one verse make sense.

The chapter before this thread?

I quoted six verses, not scores, these were all of the verses in the bible that refer to Moses the man of God, which sound to me like a reasonable way to learn what 'Moses the man of God' means in Psalm 90. They all refer to Moses of course. And Moses' testimony in Psalm 90 shows us how understand the longevity verses in the beginning of the bible. So on the one hand we have Moses testimony about longevity, on the other your claim we need to keep in step with the rest of the bible, or rather, with your literal interpretation of it. I think I will go with Moses, thanks.

How about this one..IF it was Moses (as it sounds like it was) What is being presented here? It seems a picture of the time in the wilderness, no? As I look at a breakdown of what is meant in various verses, it occurs to me that it may refer to the death in the wilderness!? In other words, the men wouldn't really live out their natural full lives..

" Verse 7
Are consumed - Thou dost not suffer us to live so long as we might by the course of nature. "
Psalm - Chapter 90 - Wesley's Explanatory Notes on StudyLight.org

So, therefore in that light, we are not talking about all men of all generations, but THE men in the wilderness that died. Either the ones that got swallowed up at the mountain, or etc..and/or the whole group that died in the dessert, save for the kids!?

Unless you can overthrow that puppy, I'll stick to that for now, and leave the bible smelling like a rose, as always, and God as true, and bang on, as always. Any objections?! Maybe we cracked another major mystery here. Thanks for that.

What makes you think all you have to do is pick an idea of the top of your head, or choose a commentator that suits you fancy and suddenly all the burden of proof is on everybody else to disprove your claims?

Psalm 90:9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

So you think the people swallowed up by a hole in the ground 'ended their years like a sigh'? Or when they were swallowed up by the earthquake, or bitten by snakes, they were all seventy years old but the really strong ones held the sides of chasm apart or fought off the effects of venom until they were eighty? Why pick 70 or 80? The Israelites who died in the wilderness were those 20 and over when the census was taken who died over the next 40 years. Num 14:29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. That makes 60 years as the lower limit to give if you are discussing dying in the wilderness not 70. And you don't reach 80 because you are strong as Moses says but because you were older than 40 when you rebelled against God at Kadesh Barnea. Of course the big problem is this is in the first person plural, all our days, the years of our life. Moses included himself in the description. We are still back where we started, Moses is supposed to have lived to 120 just like his dad Amram who lived to 137 and his grandfather Kohath who lived to 133. Yet we have Moses claiming his and other people's lifespan was only 70 or 80.

But it is good you are beginning to realise the bible says it was Moses who wrote the psalm.

I don't know. But if the sons of god before the split and Babel, were angels, as many expositors claim, they sure had sex. I would have to conclude that having a wife as men do here is not the norm in heaven, because of what Jesus said. So..what does that leave? Either some sexless place, or a place where clean sex is not restricted as much as it needs to be here. So??

If they were angels. As you point out some expositors claim they were, which means there are other commentators who say they were not. But even if they were, that does not mean they physically had sex, there are other interpretations out there that do not contradict what Jesus tells us about angels and marriage, one interpretation I came across spoke of demon possess rape, another compared it to the practices in pagan temples, where the deity would use a high priest as a stand in for ritual sex. None of these contradict what Jesus tells us about angels. And even if you do interpret it as angels physically having sexual intercourse with women, you have to be very selective in your interpretations to claim sexual relation happened before Peleg but exclude all the interpretations that say it happened after Peleg too. Your change is simply a product of selective interpretation.

Because the tree of life is also in the new heaven state. We see it has unsual groth as well, in fact we get more details. Every month it has a new gwoth, and 12 different kinds of fruit. It is illogical to assume that God has to run around making them grow fast, and etc..! Also, Noah sent out a bird, no trees. A week later, a fresh twig!

Again you are making the mistake of confusing Genesis with Revelation and claiming the highly allegorical picture of the future describes a literal past. If God made the trees spring up in Genesis I am sure he could make them spring up at any speed he chose without having to 'run around' as you put it. Of course I take God planting the garden figuratively, but it is strange I have more faith in God's ability than you do.

8:11 - And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
True, it simply plucked off a leaf from a tree, that is why Noah knew the waters were down, and that all was well. That whole scene would make no sense if they needed to wait 20 years before a tree grew fruit. They would not be partying...they would be about to die!

You only need grass growing to feed your sheep, then you have milk and mutton. Partying and getting drunk only came after Noah planted a vineyard. Nothing instant there. But the whole problem disappears once you realise the bible never describe the flood as global.

 

[Assyrian]

On a further note, about Psalm 90

So, many men went down to the pit, and died before their time in the wilderness of sin. Even Moses never made it out alive. Notice that the psalm doesn't say the years of MY life are...!!

There was a rebellion, for example, and many men met their death in that wilderness.

"The Lord told Moses to tell all the people to get away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. And Moses went to Dathan and Abiram's tents with the 70 elders of Israel following him. Moses told the congregation, “Depart now from the tents of these wicked men! Touch nothing of theirs, lest you be consumed in all their sins.” The people quickly got away from that area, and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood in the opening of their tents, with their wives, sons and little children.

Moses then addressed the people. “If these men die naturally like all men, or if they are visited by the common fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the Lord.”>

Immediately, the ground split apart under them, as if the earth had opened its mouth. Korah, Dathan and Abiram and their families (except for Korah's sons) and their tents and belongings were swallowed up, and the earth closed over them. A fire came out from the Lord and reduced to ashes the 250 men who were offering incense."

Wandering the Wilderness, Moses Challenges Korah

"[FONT=Times New Roman,Times]28 And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 29 If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the LORD hath not sent me.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 30 But if the LORD make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD.
[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times]31 And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 32 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 33 They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 34 And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times] 35 ¶ And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.[/FONT]

Earlier, we see others also died...

36 And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, 37 Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD


Even Aaron had to die there in the wilderness. Another time, God sent derpents to kill many there.
Num 21:6
". And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

Another time, 24,000 died!

9 And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand


Another time we see 3000

28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.


--So, some died early, in theor sin, others, by reason of greater strength, lasted longer.

Yet Moses is talking of people's natural lifespan, not being cut short by catastrophe, Psalm 90:10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Having a strong constitution will not necessarily see you through being swallowed by the earth, bitten by poisonous snakes or struck down by plague. Not grumbling and treating God with respect might let you live longer, but not your own strength. However a strong healthy constitution would make the difference between living out your natural life to 70 or making it as far as 80. Notice as well how Moses describe life as toil and trouble. What exactly did the Israelites have to do all day in the wilderness, apart from gather some manna in the morning, look after the sheep and dig the odd hole in the ground when nature called. Most of the time they were camped in one place rather than migrating. Compare that to Egypt where they were slaves. Psalm 90 is speaking about on life in general, not their particular circumstances in the wilderness. The normal lifespan, and Moses includes himself in this too, was 70 or 80.

 

[dad]

Yet Moses is talking of people's natural lifespan, not being cut short by catastrophe, Psalm 90:10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Having a strong constitution will not necessarily see you through being swallowed by the earth, bitten by poisonous snakes or struck down by plague. Not grumbling and treating God with respect might let you live longer, but not your own strength.

Deut 34:7 -Although Moses was one [SIZE=-1][/SIZE] hundred and twenty years old when he died, his [SIZE=-1][/SIZE] eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated.
Therefore...
8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. 9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. 10 The days [SIZE=-1][/SIZE] of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. 11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

I don't know about you, but I do not spend all my days in wrath. We are not appointed to wrath. Neither was I there in the wilderness of sin with this group, if it is what most people think it is. So I am not part of the "our" Even Moses was not part of that, in the sense that his years any less than what they were. So, "who" is the "our"? I think it may be narrowed down (if this is Moses) to not only people in the wilderness, that never got to see the promised land, but, possibly, a certain part of that group that met their fates. For example, if the inspiration for the psalm happened to be about the time of the rebellion, where many died, including the 250 burning incense, if I recall. Now, later on, perhaps 10 years, for all I know, some rebels also deid, tens of thousands of them! So the question becomes the context, and who exactly is being referred to.



If I am in a unit, in the marines, say, and in a battle, 24 men are killed, I would say "we" lost 24 men. That doesn't mean I died too. We already know ho long Moses lived, that is not any issue whatsoever in the equation here. If most of the rebels were young men when they left Egypt, say, about 45 years old, that means that if they died at 70, in the wilderness, it was about 25 years later. Maybe some of the rebels early on, that died were older men, after all, they were notable and had a reputation among the people. So, that could fit, if that is the people in mind.

Another thought is that we do know that the older people were doomed to die in the desert. I would not want to be in a desert 100 years! Maybe God in His mercy shortened their life spans? That way, the "our" could be broadly applied to the main group. Whether we attribute the smaller years to conditions, like heat, and suffering, or maybe to diet, like manna!? After all, how would you know what a diet of manna would do to men in the stage where their life span was about 120?

Think about it.

 

[dad]

You see, no matter how many verses you have giving unusual lifespans, whether you have hundreds or scores, they are all saying the same thing in the same way, you cannot tell simply by adding up verses if the long lifespans are literal, figurative or simply the normal convention of the time. You may take one verse literally, but finding another verse doing the same thing does not confirm you literal interpretation, they could just as well all be following the same non literal convention. What we need are scripture passages outside of these texts showing how the rest of the bible views the ages of people in this period or shows us how the long lifespans are interpreted. There are very few passages outside the long lifespan texts in Genesis to Joshua that shed any light on the question. How is it cherry picking to look at every verse in the bible that shows us how to interpret the lifespans? It is simply allowing scripture to interpret scripture.

Because they need no interpreting. All you work over is the cherry picked bits that you think appear to contradict the norms of the bible. Those you interpret the beheezes out of.

As for you attempt at a documentary hypothesis, is there any textual reason for thinking this other than the fact you do not want verse 10 to be written by Moses as the psalm tells us? It is after all the title for the whole psalm and if your unknown redactor edited the different parts of the psalm together, he still placed the second half in a psalm to Moses, attributing the claim of a 70 or 80 years life span to Moses who is supposed to have lived to 120. So clearly your redactor didn't take Moses lifespan literally, either that or he goofed. Perhaps you do not think your redactor was inspired when he composed the psalm?

No need to retreat to this line of defense, I adopted a new tact, as you see in the last posts.

Was Jesus called 'Daniel the son of man' or 'Ezekiel the son of man'? Because unless he was you don't have a point. The writer of Psalm 90 was called 'Moses the man of God'. Why would the bible attribute the psalm to Moses, using a title that referred specifically to Moses of Egypt, if it really meant someone else? Your argument does not make sense. It does illustrate very clearly the lengths you will go to to try to deny the plain meaning of scripture.

Eze 2:3 -And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day.
Eze 2:1 -And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.
Eze 2:6 - [ In Context | Read Chapter | Discuss this Verse ]

[ Original: Hebrew / Greek | Multi-Translation | Make Poster ]And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.

Eze 2:8 - But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee.

Eze 3:1 - Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel.
Da 8:17 - So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.

What, need a literally dozens more?

... Well we have Moses to tell us God days are not literal,

The verse compares days.."as" a watch in the night, etc. The context is also in God's sight, to Him, in other words, a day is not so much as it is to man, with limited days. Heck, thank heaven there is no manna today..

...The Israelites who died in the wilderness were those 20 and over when the census was taken who died over the next 40 years. Num 14:29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. That makes 60 years as the lower limit to give if you are discussing dying in the wilderness not 70.

If hundreds of thousands left Egypt, we must assume they were not all newborns. If they were in the wilderness 40 years, we tack on the average age they were also before that, to see how long they lived. I remember hearing that the average age on some US warship was 18 years old. If we had an average age of, say, 30, leaving Egypt, that means they died at 70. Or, some of the older ones, that made it through the hard slavery, and then the hot dessert, strong ones, maybe tack on another 10 years. That gives us 70, or 80.

Notice that the guys that came out of the wilderness still had long lives!!! So it COULD not have been talking about them! Elementary. Therefore we are narrowing it down to the wilderness here for sure!

Jos 24:29 -And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old.

Again you are making the mistake of confusing Genesis with Revelation and claiming the highly allegorical picture of the future describes a literal past. If God made the trees spring up in Genesis I am sure he could make them spring up at any speed he chose without having to 'run around' as you put it. Of course I take God planting the garden figuratively, but it is strange I have more faith in God's ability than you do.

You only need grass growing to feed your sheep, then you have milk and mutton. Partying and getting drunk only came after Noah planted a vineyard. Nothing instant there. But the whole problem disappears once you realise the bible never describe the flood as global.

If all died but 8, nothing could be more global. If ALL life was to die, save the things God brought to the ark, that is as global as you get. If it covered the whole earth, that is global. Apparently all that is less than global in magnitude is some people's faith in God and His word.

Heaven is not allegorical. It is a place with dimensions and materials and inhabitants that are known. So was Eden in many ways known. There were trees, and rivers and creatures, and etc. You love to wave away just about everything, bizarre.

 

[Assyrian]

Deut 34:7 -Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated.
Therefore...8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. 9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. 10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. 11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

I don't know about you, but I do not spend all my days in wrath.

Wait until you hit 70 or 80...

We are not appointed to wrath.

We have Jesus Christ. Those under the law still are though. Rom 4:15 For the law brings wrath, John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. But I don't think that is what Moses is speaking about here. Look at the context, Psalm 90:3 You return man to dust and say, "Return, O children of man!" This is shared by all mankind whether they are swallowed up in an earthquake or die in their beds when they are 70 of 80.

Neither was I there in the wilderness of sin with this group, if it is what most people think it is. So I am not part of the "our" Even Moses was not part of that, in the sense that his years any less than what they were. So, "who" is the "our"? I think it may be narrowed down (if this is Moses) to not only people in the wilderness, that never got to see the promised land, but, possibly, a certain part of that group that met their fates. For example, if the inspiration for the psalm happened to be about the time of the rebellion, where many died, including the 250 burning incense, if I recall. Now, later on, perhaps 10 years, for all I know, some rebels also deid, tens of thousands of them! So the question becomes the context, and who exactly is being referred to.

So you think it was just 70 or 80 year olds who were offering incense? Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were killed along with their families, who can hardly have been the same age. I don't know of any disaster that just picks off 70 or 80 year olds unless a meteorite hits an old folks home. what picks off 70 and 80 year olds is age and the diseases of old age. And why do you think Moses said people lived to 80 if they were strong, you don't make it to 80 'by reason of strength' when the problem is being swallowed up by a hole in the ground or consumed by fire.

You highlighted 'our secret sins' when you quoted Psalm 90. If Moses was talking about Korah, it was hardly secret sins that were the problem.

If I am in a unit, in the marines, say, and in a battle, 24 men are killed, I would say "we" lost 24 men. That doesn't mean I died too.

You do get passages like that, Psalm 44:22 Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Paul quotes it too in Romans. But Moses wasn't describing being part of a company where people were being killed before their time, he was describing their normal lifespans, all our days... the years of our life... we bring our years to an end like a sigh... This is not people's lives being cut short, this is people living out their lives and dying of old age at 70 or if they are fit and healthy making it to 80.

Psalm 90:9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

We already know ho long Moses lived,

120, if it is literal, but Psalm 90 tells us people only lived to 70 or 80 and Moses included himself among them.

that is not any issue whatsoever in the equation here. If most of the rebels were young men when they left Egypt, say, about 45 years old, that means that if they died at 70, in the wilderness, it was about 25 years later. Maybe some of the rebels early on, that died were older men, after all, they were notable and had a reputation among the people. So, that could fit, if that is the people in mind.

You are forgetting how long people were supposed to have lived back then. Moses' grandfather lived to 133 his father lived to 137. Aaron was already 83 at the time of the Exodus. And what did Moses and Aaron do when Moses got back from shepherding in Midian? They met with the elders Exodus 4:29 Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. Aaron lived to 123, Joshua 110, Moses 120. If these ages are literal then people lived a lot longer than 70 or 80 back then. You would have had people well into their 100s, 110s even 120s. Unless they left all the old folk behind in Egypt. You just don't get a 70 or 80 year limit in the wilderness because people were already well past that limit when they left. If it is literal of course.

Another thought is that we do know that the older people were doomed to die in the desert. I would not want to be in a desert 100 years! Maybe God in His mercy shortened their life spans? That way, the "our" could be broadly applied to the main group. Whether we attribute the smaller years to conditions, like heat, and suffering, or maybe to diet, like manna!? After all, how would you know what a diet of manna would do to men in the stage where their life span was about 120?

Think about it.

So you are saying God's provision of food in the wilderness was inadequate. Funny, so did they.

 

[Assyrian]

You see, no matter how many verses you have giving unusual lifespans, whether you have hundreds or scores, they are all saying the same thing in the same way, you cannot tell simply by adding up verses if the long lifespans are literal, figurative or simply the normal convention of the time. You may take one verse literally, but finding another verse doing the same thing does not confirm you literal interpretation, they could just as well all be following the same non literal convention. What we need are scripture passages outside of these texts showing how the rest of the bible views the ages of people in this period or shows us how the long lifespans are interpreted. There are very few passages outside the long lifespan texts in Genesis to Joshua that shed any light on the question. How is it cherry picking to look at every verse in the bible that shows us how to interpret the lifespans? It is simply allowing scripture to interpret scripture.

Because they need no interpreting. All you work over is the cherry picked bits that you think appear to contradict the norms of the bible. Those you interpret the beheezes out of.

Of course, you do not deal with my response, you simply repeat the cherry picking claim and try another argument instead, that I am interpreting and you are not. Literal interpretation is interpretation too.

As for you attempt at a documentary hypothesis, is there any textual reason for thinking this other than the fact you do not want verse 10 to be written by Moses as the psalm tells us? It is after all the title for the whole psalm and if your unknown redactor edited the different parts of the psalm together, he still placed the second half in a psalm to Moses, attributing the claim of a 70 or 80 years life span to Moses who is supposed to have lived to 120. So clearly your redactor didn't take Moses lifespan literally, either that or he goofed. Perhaps you do not think your redactor was inspired when he composed the psalm?

No need to retreat to this line of defense, I adopted a new tact, as you see in the last posts.

And no need to answer my point either...

Was Jesus called 'Daniel the son of man' or 'Ezekiel the son of man'? Because unless he was you don't have a point. The writer of Psalm 90 was called 'Moses the man of God'. Why would the bible attribute the psalm to Moses, using a title that referred specifically to Moses of Egypt, if it really meant someone else? Your argument does not make sense. It does illustrate very clearly the lengths you will go to to try to deny the plain meaning of scripture.

Eze 2:3 -And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day.
Eze 2:1 -And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.
Eze 2:6 - [ In Context | Read Chapter | Discuss this Verse ]

[ Original: Hebrew / Greek | Multi-Translation | Make Poster ]And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.

Eze 2:8 - But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee.

Eze 3:1 - Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel.
Da 8:17 - So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.

What, need a literally dozens more?

Do any of them call Jesus 'Daniel the son of man' or 'Ezekiel the son of man'? No, you just ignore where I showed your 'son of man' argument didn't work. and simply reeled off a load of verses to illustrate the same irrelevant point.

The verse compares days.."as" a watch in the night, etc. The context is also in God's sight, to Him, in other words, a day is not so much as it is to man, with limited days. Heck, thank heaven there is no manna today..

Like I said before, if God is talking to us about days Genesis, we need to know what he can mean by them. Moses shows us in Psalm 90.

If hundreds of thousands left Egypt, we must assume they were not all newborns. If they were in the wilderness 40 years, we tack on the average age they were also before that, to see how long they lived. I remember hearing that the average age on some US warship was 18 years old. If we had an average age of, say, 30, leaving Egypt, that means they died at 70. Or, some of the older ones, that made it through the hard slavery, and then the hot dessert, strong ones, maybe tack on another 10 years. That gives us 70, or 80.

As I pointed out in my last post, if the lifespans are literal you would have had people in their 100s 110s 120s at the start of the Exodus and life in the wilderness was much easier than back in Egypt.

Notice that the guys that came out of the wilderness still had long lives!!! So it COULD not have been talking about them! Elementary. Therefore we are narrowing it down to the wilderness here for sure!

Jos 24:29 -And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old.

And Moses and Aaron lived to 120 and 123 in the wilderness. So what?

If all died but 8, nothing could be more global. If ALL life was to die, save the things God brought to the ark, that is as global as you get.

All died but Lot and his daughters when God destroyed Sodom. That wasn't global. You need to show that all who died was everyone across the globe not just everyone caught up in the flood. Remember when I showed you how the bible uses very similar language to describe the flood and Sodom?
Luke 17:26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man.
27 They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot--they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building,
29 but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all--

If it covered the whole earth, that is global. Apparently all that is less than global in magnitude is some people's faith in God and His word.

The same language is used to describe the flood covering the whole earth as is used to describe the locusts covering the whole earth in the plagues of Egypt, but it wasn't the whole planet that was covered with locusts, just the land of Egypt. Exodus 10:15 For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

Heaven is not allegorical. It is a place with dimensions and materials and inhabitants that are known. So was Eden in many ways known. There were trees, and rivers and creatures, and etc. You love to wave away just about everything, bizarre.

Why do keep making vague claims leaving it to everybody else to figure out what scripture reference you are talking about? By dimensions I presume you mean the New Jerusalem? Rev 21:16 The city lies foursquare; its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. 17 He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel's measurement. 18 The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The problem is the New Jerusalem was not a physical city, it is the bride of Christ, the church, us. Just because we are given measurements doesn't mean it isn't allegorical.

Rev 21:9 Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, "Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God... This is not about a sheep getting married to a cubic metropolis.

 

[dad]

....

You do get passages like that, Psalm 44:22 Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Paul quotes it too in Romans. But Moses wasn't describing being part of a company where people were being killed before their time, he was describing their normal lifespans, all our days... the years of our life... we bring our years to an end like a sigh... This is not people's lives being cut short, this is people living out their lives and dying of old age at 70 or if they are fit and healthy making it to 80.

Since most died before the younger ones could enter the land, that was where their days ended. Ps 44 is not about Moses, and the children of Israel.

Psalm 90:9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

120, if it is literal, but Psalm 90 tells us people only lived to 70 or 80 and Moses included himself among them.

No, it does not. It talks in a generality, and from the context, the 'our' has to be the people he led out of Egypt, if it is Moses. We have at least 2/3 of the equation spelled out for us in black and white. There is the group "our" There is Moses, and there is Joshua. The only ones with lifespans like the ones mentioned, we are certain, are the 'our' group. We know Moses lived longer. We know Josh lived longer. That leaves the application and context on those that died early. Why early? That is known too! Because if Joshua lived on many years AFTER they died, it means that those older folks there about his age never lived as long as their natural lifespan would have been.

You are forgetting how long people were supposed to have lived back then. Moses' grandfather lived to 133 his father lived to 137. Aaron was already 83 at the time of the Exodus. And what did Moses and Aaron do when Moses got back from shepherding in Midian? They met with the elders Exodus 4:29 Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. Aaron lived to 123, Joshua 110, Moses 120. If these ages are literal then people lived a lot longer than 70 or 80 back then.

No. The father and grandfather of Moses, if I recall, were not IN the wilderness group! Therefore it goes to showing what the normal ages were of the time. Not the "our" that is being talked about! The evidence mounts.

Because the one verse was not a census, or detailed average, it was a passing generality. Probably to some folks he had in the back of his mind when writing that psalm.

You would have had people well into their 100s, 110s even 120s. Unless they left all the old folk behind in Egypt. You just don't get a 70 or 80 year limit in the wilderness because people were already well past that limit when they left. If it is literal of course.

So you are saying God's provision of food in the wilderness was inadequate. Funny, so did they.

No the provision was great. But apparently He didn't exactly prolong their lives out there. Yes, the lifespans were greater than today. Likely many leaving Egypt were older than 70. Maybe some were called elders. I notice that they were the first to rebel, and die, though.

I notice that people that retire, generally don't really labor, generally. Maybe if they are a slave in Egypt, or something...

10 The days [SIZE=-1][/SIZE] of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

I notice that in the numbering of the people (the "our" group) that only those older than 20 were counted!!!!! That knocks off 20 years right there !! So, if a 10 year old left Egypt, they were not numbered. The averages here are greatly affected. Now, rather than living to 80, to be considered old, one has to live to 100!!! Fits right in. It doesn't say no one could live beyond that either.

Not much mystery left here.

 

[Assyrian]

....

You do get passages like that, Psalm 44:22 Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Paul quotes it too in Romans. But Moses wasn't describing being part of a company where people were being killed before their time, he was describing their normal lifespans, all our days... the years of our life... we bring our years to an end like a sigh... This is not people's lives being cut short, this is people living out their lives and dying of old age at 70 or if they are fit and healthy making it to 80.Since most died before the younger ones could enter the land, that was where their days ended.

Then it is not a very good description of people's lives being cut short. But we have only your claim that it is specifically referring to Sinai. 70 or 80 does not fit, The youngest to die in Sinai, the ones who were 20 at the census lived only to 60 years old, the oldest reached at least 123. We find out who Moses is talking about in the first verse: Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. When Moses uses the first person plural 'our' it refer to all generations.

Ps 44 is not about Moses, and the children of Israel.

I Never said that it did, I gave it as an illustration of your Marines analogy. You really do just throw out any old answer you think of don't you?

No, it does not. It talks in a generality, and from the context, the 'our' has to be the people he led out of Egypt, if it is Moses.

Or all generations. Speaking of generations, what makes you think if the context is Sinai that it is only referring to the ones who died in the wilderness? There was a whole new generation growing up in the wilderness, all those under 20 at the time of the census and all the children born in the wilderness that Moses was teaching and preparing for the promised land, and Moses was teaching them that they might teach their children.

We have at least 2/3 of the equation spelled out for us in black and white. There is the group "our" There is Moses, and there is Joshua. The only ones with lifespans like the ones mentioned, we are certain, are the 'our' group. We know Moses lived longer. We know Josh lived longer. That leaves the application and context on those that died early. Why early? That is known too! Because if Joshua lived on many years AFTER they died, it means that those older folks there about his age never lived as long as their natural lifespan would have been.

70 or 80 does not describe a range from less than 60 to 120.

No. The father and grandfather of Moses, if I recall, were not IN the wilderness group! Therefore it goes to showing what the normal ages were of the time. Not the "our" that is being talked about! The evidence mounts.

Moses, his father and grandfather show us the natural lifespan at that time if the ages are literal. ''Our'' included Moses who died at 120 and any Israelite 80 year and older at the time of the Exodus who could have lived out their natural days in the wilderness and reached the normal 120. 70 year olds could have lived to 110, 60 year olds could have lived to 100, and 50 year olds made it to 90, all well above the Psalm's 70 or 80. Even a 45 year old could make it to 85.

On the other hand, the 20 year olds died in the wilderness between age 20 and 60 and you had to be 30 at the time of the census to be able to make it to Moses' 70. But Moses says 70 or by reason of strength 80, to live that long you had to be at least 40.

So basically your interpretation of ''our'' is narrowed down to Israelites who left Egypt when they were about 40 years old. And Moses who lived to 120.

Because the one verse was not a census, or detailed average, it was a passing generality. Probably to some folks he had in the back of his mind when writing that psalm.

It is a passing generality that bears no relationship to the lifespans of Israelites in the wilderness if longevity is literal. It does bear a very close resemblance to normal human lifespan, and the descriptions of 'all our days...' 'the years of our life...' 'we bring our years to an end like a sigh...' is a description of a natural lifespan rather than lives cut short.

No the provision was great. But apparently He didn't exactly prolong their lives out there.

By ''didn't exactly prolong'', you mean shortened it by 40 or 50 years?

Yes, the lifespans were greater than today. Likely many leaving Egypt were older than 70. Maybe some were called elders. I notice that they were the first to rebel, and die, though.

There were 250 chiefs of the congregation who sided with korah, but the elders of Israel, usually listed as 70 elders, sided with Moses. Judging by the numbers the elders would have been more senior, and older.

I notice that people that retire, generally don't really labor, generally. Maybe if they are a slave in Egypt, or something...

10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

I am not sure people retired back then, but I think is an important point. They laboured as slaves in Egypt and when they had farms in Canaan, but they had too much time on their hands in Sinai, with nothing much to do but gather manna in the morning and look after the flocks. The psalm can't have been talking about the wilderness.

I notice that in the numbering of the people (the "our" group) that only those older than 20 were counted!!!!! That knocks off 20 years right there !! So, if a 10 year old left Egypt, they were not numbered. The averages here are greatly affected. Now, rather than living to 80, to be considered old, one has to live to 100!!! Fits right in. It doesn't say no one could live beyond that either.

Not much mystery left here.

How does only counting people over 20 knock 20 years off?