Judeo-Christian scholars: At what point did lifespan become so dramatically shorter?

It's in genesis. It says that from that point no man shall live past 120 years

Gen 6:3

And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. (KJV)

Amazing, I can get thumbs down for posting verbatim.

We (Judeo-Christians) believe that after the flood is when lifespans started to become shorter. Some believe in the canopy effect (water layer around the earth) that existed in the world before the flood. That would have made most of the word as a big tropical like environment. We also beleive that the water layer collapsed and this is part of what caused the flood. The world after the flood did not contain the canopy layer and so the rays from the sun were much more dangerous and so lifespans shortened. Yes this is an unproven theory...but so is evolution.

The canopy disappeared after the world-wide flood. This is why the polar caps froze over the Mammoths and palm trees.

This also wiped out the filter of harmful rays from the Sun. Now we are pierced through on a daily basis and our bodies are literally like Swiss-Cheese from all the harmful radiation. This is when the death rate fell to an average of 70 years for mankind.

It has been getting shorter since the fall of Man when death entered our destiny. Man was originally created immortal.

It has been a gradual but steady change in lifespan to a shorter life. The reason is that our genetic makeup began to change from the immortal being of which we were created to a mortal being. The loss of the genetic purity of immortality is the cause as we see now in the allele frequency of genetic mutation which mankind's fall put into motion.

In Christ

Fr. Joseph

I have read and I believe that it was after the Great Flood that man's lifespan diminished. There was no longer a protective layer of water above the earth, (The Bible says it fell in the Flood) thus the atmosphere and all elements in nature as a result would be different. The Old Testament also mentions a specific time that God told man that his life span would be shorter.

Yes, you are right. In the Old Testament ...in Genesis God states..."my Spirit will not always strive with man..and there fore reduces his lifespan to 120 years Maximum. Before that time people lived much longer.

Then GOD said, "I'm not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually they're going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years."

The shift was gradual. There was no death or illness in the garden until Adam sinned. Then the affects of sin grew from year to year shortening man's life. To understand this gradual shift you would have to read the Old Testament and discover the lessing of a man's lifespan.

I wonder if years were divided in the same way as they are now back then. Humans can't live longer than about 110 years, the body just can't last a multi-hundred year lifespan.

I'm not a scholar but I am a man of God

and from what I understand the change in life span occured after the flood of Noah.Why?I think it's a combination of God pedrmitting us to eat meat,not protein I mean killing animals to eat meat&the sinfulness of man.

The flood began the trend. Then I am thinking somewhere around Babel it finally came out to be shorter.