How Long Is It Possible for Men to Live?

Some people, as we know, do live to a hundred years or more today. In modern times, the oldest age at death generally accepted as authentic, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica (1968 edition, article on the human life-span), is that of Pierre Joubert, who was born on July 15, 1701, and died November 16, 1814, at the age of 113 years and 124 days.

Do you believe that is the maximum age anyone could live? The Bible, for example, states that “Moses was a hundred and twenty years old at his death. His eye had not grown dim, and his vital strength had not fled.” (Deut. 34:7) Perhaps you will accept this as also possible, since the difference is only some six and two-thirds years.

What, then, of Moses’ ancestor Abraham, who, according to the Scriptural Record, lived “a hundred and seventy-five years” before dying? (Gen. 25:7, 8) And what of Abraham’s ancestor Shem, who is reported at Genesis 11:10, 11 as living six hundred years, or his great-grandfather Methuselah, whose days prior to the global flood “amounted to nine hundred and sixty-nine years and he died”? (Gen. 5:25-27)

In fact, it is the Bible that gives the record of nine men who lived prior to the global flood of Noah’s day and which record shows an average life-span of 847 years.​—Gen. 5:1-31.