# How old was Adam, really?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [December 30, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129 "2006-12-30T18:39:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Molly\_Polly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Molly_Polly)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/1 "2006-12-30T18:39:17Z")
Did Adam die at age 900 something or more like 30 years old? (I thought they all died young in the olden days, before 1-A-Day vitamins š )
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2006, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/2 "2006-12-30T18:45:22Z")
Adam is a fictional character, like Batman. He died whenever the writers felt like making him die. Itās a common theme in ancient myth that people in the dimly remembered past were far more powerful than people in the writerās day. See the Illiad for more of the same. āAnd Achillies lifted a stone that twenty men today could not lift.ā
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### Author:  [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2006, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/3 "2006-12-30T19:16:03Z")
I have it on good authority that Adam was one of my ancestors. Iāll thank you not to make fun of my family like that!
Seriously, there is a biblical tradition that people lived longer times in olden days. Iām not quite sure why, but there it is.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/4 "2006-12-30T20:58:57Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
āAnd Achillies lifted a stone that twenty men today could not lift.ā
[/QUOTE]
And he walked 20 miles to school, barefoot, uphill each way!
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### Author:  [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/5 "2006-12-30T21:12:31Z")
We have no independent proof of the existence of Adam ā I mean, it wasnāt as if there was a Made From Clay General Hospital and Obstetrics Department in West Eden with whom we can verify his birth records. One explanation is as good as another\* for why some people believe Adam was 932.
One possible explanation is that Adam could have been a very common name in antiquity, and that over time, various Adams were conflated with one another, confusing the oral record.
\*According to the genealogies, Adam began Seth, who begat Cooter and Uncle Jessie, who begat Zilla, who begat Nilla Wafers, who begat Ritz Crackers, who begat the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, who begat the fur trade, which begat Menachem Begin. Adam discovered America by sailing East on his three ships, the Nina, the Pinto, and the Santa Monica Freeway, therefore proving that the traffic was worst at five in the evening local time, which is why everybody stayed home. If Adam had gone West instead he would have discovered Batman. And that, dear children, is how the elephant got his trunk.
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### Author:  [@wolf\_in\_second\_hand\_clothing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_in_second_hand_clothing)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2006, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/6 "2006-12-30T21:56:16Z")
The ancient Babylonians had myths about their venerable ancestor kings who lived for centuries. It is commonly thought that the Jews borrowed quite a bit from Babylonian lore during the exile.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2006, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/7 "2006-12-30T22:49:25Z")
[QUOTE=Fish]
One possible explanation is that Adam could have been a very common name in antiquity, and that over time, various Adams were conflated with one another, confusing the oral record.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, my understanding is that āAdamā wasnāt a name at all, but a common noun meaning something like āmanā or āhumanityā or āeveryman.ā
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### Author:  [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/8 "2006-12-31T05:48:53Z")
^^^I thought that literally adam (or was it adamah) meant something like āearthā or ādirtā or āmade from earth.ā Could be wrong; just something I vaguely remember hearing somewhere.
Sir Rhosis
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/9 "2006-12-31T06:05:01Z")
Well, I thought we knew for sure there was an āEveāā¦therefore, their had to be an Adam as well. š Iād guess that the actual real life āAdamā and āEveā lived somewhere between 20-40 years. The BIBLICAL ones were fictitious of course, and they probably DID live for hundreds or thousands of yearsā¦as others have pointed out, there was a tradition in the Bible that folks way back when lived for, er, ungodly periods of timeā¦so to speak.
-XT
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/10 "2006-12-31T06:20:23Z")
Well, heās a mythological character, so Iād say he was exactly as old as Heracles when he died.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/11 "2006-12-31T13:11:50Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme]
Well, I thought we knew for sure there was an āEveāā¦therefore, their had to be an Adam as well. š Iād guess that the actual real life āAdamā and āEveā lived somewhere between 20-40 years. The BIBLICAL ones were fictitious of course, and they probably DID live for hundreds or thousands of yearsā¦as others have pointed out, there was a tradition in the Bible that folks way back when lived for, er, ungodly periods of timeā¦so to speak.
-XT
[/QUOTE]
Look, archetypes are that because they āring a bellā in peopleās psyches, and far more often than chance, they are acted out on the SDMB. I mean, the highly improbable element of Genesis 2 (one of them) is that Eve was made by a surgical procedure from phenotypically-male body parts, right? š
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To answer the OP, Genesis 5:1-5 suggests that Adam lived 930 years. As others have noted, there was a strong tendency to attribute extended lifespans to the antediluvian patriarchs, and the Bible is mild to the ten-thousand-year spans of the Akkadian kings before the flood. There have been various ingenious means to reconcile Bible to reality, where 120 with the aid of modern medicine seems to be the absolute maximum ā for example, āyearā in the Bible literally means āmonth.ā (Although this implies that Adam had 3 sons, two of whom had grown to adulthood and one killed the other, before he himself turned 11. :eek: )
But at rock bottom, what we seem to have is a quantification of āHey, old geezers are full of wisdom, right? Well, _our_ ancestors lived for _hundreds of years_, thatās how old and wise **they** were! So neener neener!ā
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### Author:  [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/12 "2006-12-31T13:41:15Z")
I will check in as a faithful, actively practicing Christian and say Adam was a character invented to help felsh out the story of the origin of man for the early jewish people.
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### Author:  [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/13 "2006-12-31T14:31:52Z")
Non Biblical references for the life of Adam seem odd to me. How many references are there that affirm Genesis, but then give other information about Adam than what is in Old Testament? And if you donāt believe in Adam, well, he wasnāt. How long he wasnāt is a failrly silly question.
However, from the perspective of the biblical, I donāt believe there is any particular statement in Genesis that limits how many years, if years mattered, passed between the creation of Eve, and the fall, and expulsion from the Garden. Counting the years after that gives you a lower limit, but no specific count.
Tris
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/14 "2006-12-31T15:29:30Z")
[QUOTE=newcrasher]
Adam was a character invented to help felsh out
[/QUOTE]
I think you mean āfleshā.
I hope you donāt mean āfelchā.
š
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/15 "2006-12-31T15:32:59Z")
[QUOTE=Triskadecamus]
However, from the perspective of the biblical, I donāt believe there is any particular statement in Genesis that limits how many years, if years mattered, passed between the creation of Eve, and the fall, and expulsion from the Garden. Counting the years after that gives you a lower limit, but no specific count.
[/QUOTE]
[Nitpick]
Genesis 5 does not appear to reckon from the creation of Eve or the Fall:
[sup]1[/sup] This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
[sup]2[/sup] Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
[sup]3[/sup] And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
[sup]4[/sup] And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
[sup]5[/sup] And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
[/Nitpick]
I agree that it is pretty difficult to put a ārealā age on a character discovered only through a presentation of Myth.
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### Author:  [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/16 "2006-12-31T16:47:22Z")
[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan]
I think you mean āfleshā.
I hope you donāt mean āfelchā.
š
[/QUOTE]
As Adam was the only man at the time, felching would probably be an impossibility.
This does not take into consideration that Adam could have been anatomically different than man today, so see, with God all things are possible!
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/17 "2006-12-31T17:01:33Z")
Goats had already been created, though. š
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/18 "2006-12-31T17:38:26Z")
This previous thread has some good points:
[Why did the Patriarchs live so long?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=371930)
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### Author:  [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/19 "2006-12-31T17:44:22Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
[Nitpick]
Genesis 5 does not appear to reckon from the creation of Eve or the Fall:
[sup]1[/sup] This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
[sup]2[/sup] Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
[sup]3[/sup] And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
[sup]4[/sup] And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
[sup]5[/sup] And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
[/Nitpick]
I agree that it is pretty difficult to put a ārealā age on a character discovered only through a presentation of Myth.
[/QUOTE]
Adam was a myth?
How so?
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-was-adam-really/386129/20 "2006-12-31T17:52:30Z")
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
Actually, my understanding is that āAdamā wasnāt a name at all, but a common noun meaning something like āmanā or āhumanityā or āeveryman.ā
[/QUOTE]
Almost. _Ben adam_ - āSon of Adamā - is the Hebrew term for human being or person. The shortened term _adam_ is also used instead. In other words, the common noun is (supposedly) derived from the person. However, thatās modern Hebrew; I canāt tell you if the term was used in ancient times, although I canāt recall the word _adam_ appearing in the Bible as referring to anything other than the individual.
[QUOTE=Sir Rhosis]
^^^I thought that literally adam (or was it adamah) meant something like āearthā or ādirtā or āmade from earth.ā Could be wrong; just something I vaguely remember hearing somewhere.
[/QUOTE]
_Adama_ is earth; _Dam_ is blood; _Adom_ is red; _Adam_ is man. Itās a loaded root.
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