BS: Old Tyme: Time?

Subject: BS: Old Tyme: Time?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 10:24 AM

There are currently & have been threads where the concepts of time, dimensions, age etc have been discussed.

Many, but not all, of these discussions have related to the 'Old Testament', 'Talmud', 'Koran' & other works of antiquity.

For me, & I'm sure others too, there's puzzling aspects to the quoted details of people's ages [Noah, 400+ years, Methuselah etc]

Also dimensions of people & objects, [Goliath, the Ark]

Then there's the passage of time, in particular how it was measured.

I acknowledge that beside the western calendar, there's currently other ways of time measurement [Jewish, Chinese, Muslim calendars etc} but for example using one I'm familiar with, the 'christian calendar' evolved from the roman one, has the dating system beginning at AD & prior dates referred to as BC.

Now even this system's been subject to changes over the centuries, so how can we calculate, estimate these quantities of the ancient world?

Your thoughts?

Subject: RE: BS: Old Tyme: Time?
From: frogprince
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 12:18 PM

So far as lifespans of hundreds of years, I'm with those who think that the explanation is acceptance of that as mythology, rather than any kind of math. As for weights and measures mentioned in the Bible, definitions are generally available which can be used for plausible estimates if not precise calculations in modern terms. I suspect that is commonly true for ancient weights and measures from other sources too, but there are probably instances where the definitions have quite simply been lost.