Is there a reason stated why people used to live so much longer (according to the Bible) in the Bible?
These are legends that were passed down orally over the ages; people in legends are often possessed of super powers of various types. It is comparable to legendary heroes like Achilles, who was invulnerable except for his equally legendary heel.
Same reason that Aragorn lived to be 200.
The number of years that God allowed a person to live upon the earth was a sign of the favor that God found in that person. Note that, with a couple of exceptions, each father lives longer than his son(s), thus indicating that the world was generally becoming more wicked with each generation.
This holds true regardless whether one believes that the events are historical fact or that they are a form of mythology.
The numbers themselves are probably symbolic, there are various theories about how they relate to Hebrew numerology and astrology, particularly the precession of equinoxes. The Baylonians gave their kings even longer lives.
Because God wanted them to. 
I know it sounds kinda (ok, maybe a lot) silly, but when it comes to questions of faith and historic/scientific reason in cases like these I just kinda except the faith and get over it.
As one pastor answered a similar question: “What’s more important: how long someone lives or what they did with their life?”
I have read in more than one place the theory suggested by MLS and furt that these long lifespans were reflective by the heroic stature of these individuals.
It reminded me of a part of a program I saw on the “History Channel”, which focused on the Bible in some particular way. The part was an excerpt from an interview with Rabbi David Wolpe, who related the most interesting anecdote. Wolpe said that he was once told that Methuselah’s had to be saddest life in the Bible, because the Bible’s writers noted him only for the fact that he lived for 969 years, and yet no significant accomplishment is attributed to him.
Of course, perhaps it wasn’t all a waste for Methuselah. According to Genesis, he became the father to Lamech (at the age of 187, no mean feat), who would then become the father to Noah, who is a fairly significant character in Genesis.
Actually, what I was getting at was The Fall.
One of the common reasons given is that those people were closer to creation, thus closer to the origin of life. Just as Original Sin brought death, so the longer that humans lived in a sinful world, the shorter their lives. The Glory of Men was fading away, the world was steadily slowing, weakening. Similarly, in Tolkien, the lives of the Numenoreans were shorter in length the farther their distance in time and descent from their ancestors.
That would be fine except that God created Man twice.
Once at Genesis 1:26 : "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. 27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. "
And again in Genesis 2:7 “then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
While it can not be argued that Adam and Eve fell from grace, I can’t see that all early Bibilcans fell with them. Afterall, Cain had to marry someone.
But then again, I hafta ask, is the only reason for reading the Bible how long someone lived really the most important thing?
If it is, then I would suspect that your goal is to disprove the Bible and therefore establish your “intellectual dominance” over God.
If its not, then you just hafta accept the notion of Faith, get over it, and move on. There are a thousand more interesting things in the Bible besides how long someone lived and why.
And I’m sorry. The notion that Adam and Eve’s progeny had some kind of “eternal life” afterglow that faded as the generations wore on is just silly.
Guess God didn’t account for our advances in technology 
Seriously, though, I like the theories here, but if yours were true…how do you explain for today’s age? More a rhetorical question than anything else, unless you see it differently.
[quote]
That would be fine except that God created Man twice.[/quote}
I don’t get it. Those are two separate chapters. If they were contradictory I could understand it being seen as two separate creations. But as it is aren’t they just the same account told twice from slightly different perspectives?
I mean, if I were to read a book on the science of genetics, and it started with an overview of all the important characters including Watson and Crick, and then had a later chapter devoted to Watson and Crick, that wouldn’t mean that Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA twice.
See what I mean? I don’t follow.
It is common in mythology for the stories of creation to contain giants and people you lived extraordinarily long lifes.
[sup]Somewhere in one of Joseph Campbell’s books is the best cite I can give.[/sup]
Genesis 1 and 2 are contradictory. The order in which mankind and the animals are created, for example, do not mesh.
Analog dubs tend to degrade. Unfortunately, the master copies were lost due to water damage, and a lamentable lack of off-site storage.
It’s comes from the literary tradition started in Ancient Babylonia where on the king lists the older and mythological kings would live for huge periods of time (I believe as much as 30,000 years!).
By Atreyu: Of course, perhaps it wasn’t all a waste for Methuselah. According to Genesis, he became the father to Lamech (at the age of 187, no mean feat), who would then become the father to Noah, who is a fairly significant character in Genesis.
Ok, I’m no bible scholar. Heck, I’ve barely read the thing. I sure as heck couldn’t tell you how old Noah was when he built his ark…
but this makes me wonder.
So, Methuselah is 187 when he gives birth to Lamech.
Lamech is not as long-lived as methuselah. Lamech has a child while younger than methuselah was. I assume these things because methuselah is said to be the oldest living human, and because the mention of his 187-year-old-new-father status.
This child was Noah, who then built an ark. Presumably while younger than 900 years old.
so let’s round off… 969 years, minus 187 years… methuselah lived for 700 years after producing lamech.
Let’s be generous, and say lamech was 100 years old when he produced noah.
So, methuselah dies somewhere around noah’s 600th birthday.
Noah had a wife and children, right? Presumably before the flood, and before his 200th birthday…
So methuselah lived for 400 years after the flood? Where was he on the ark, exactly? I don’t remember that part. Maybe he had floaties?
Regrettably, early archivists had forgotten to add UPS boxes to their systems, and the pwoer went out during the Great Flood.
In addition to everyone else’s comments, there are numerological symbolisms (most of which we no longer fully understand.)
For instance, the three patriarchs:
Abraham lives to be 175 = 5[sup]2[/sup] x 7
Isaac lives to be 180 = 6[sup]2[/sup] x 5
Jacob lives to be 147 = 7[sup]2[/sup] x 3
Moses lives to be 120 – 40 and multiples of 40 indicate generational change in the Bible, and three is a common “lucky” number, so 40 x 3 is a symbolic number. The heroes on both sides of him, Joseph and Joshua, both live to be 110, so that Moses stands out by his age, which is expressed thematically in the last verses of Deuteronomy, about how Moses’ strength did not diminish in old age.
It always seemed to me that if someone wanted to challenge the bible for veracity, the patriarchal ages would be the easiest subject to attack. Sure, I imagine the lifespans are inflated to make them seem important, but I doubt if any real bones or mummies have been found from any era that show a 200-year age at death. That is, not only are these ages impossible outside of mythology, and unlikely given the level of medical care, but it is totally unreasonable to expect them to be true or even close.
Yet they are taught as true without question, as gospel 
in bible schools. Or they at least were when I attended.
Why aren’t these numbers challenged more?
Phnord Prephect, Methuselah died the year of the flood (presumably in the flood). See Genesis chapter 5 (best read with a calculator at the ready).