Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

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_spotlight
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Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _spotlight »

I notice that many members try to weasel out of a global flood or a literal Tower of Babel but they can't get around the long lives supposedly lived by the antediluvian patriarchs. Why? Because their ages are recorded in "modern scripture" even the D&C.

For example in D&C 107:41-57.

There is a thread about this on the LDS Freedom Forum here.

Notice that one poster tries to rationalize it by suggesting they were on God's time rather than man's time meaning the planet hadn't left Kolob yet I presume. But that backfires since that change in time accounting works in the wrong direction and makes the problem worse.

Another poster suggests that there was a water canopy surrounding the earth that shielded it from harmful radiation. What he doesn't realize is that part of the radiation that such a water canopy would remove would be electromagnetic radiation itself, In other words light. The result would be a frozen wasteland rather than the hot, always summertime environment, that he speculates would prevail as a result. Of course there would need to be some ongoing miracle to hold the water in place as well.

The problem here hopefully is obvious. We have the dead remains of bodies from the time in question and surprise surprise, there is no sign of better DNA back in the good old "antediluvian days" and we have remains of bodies from older than the fall itself. No special long life better DNA to be found anywhere.

One issue by itself presents a problem. That is Telomere shortening as cells divide.
Telomerase counteracts telomere shortening. An enzyme named telomerase adds bases to the ends of telomeres. In young cells, telomerase keeps telomeres from wearing down too much. But as cells divide repeatedly, there is not enough telomerase, so the telomeres grow shorter and the cells age.


So can we finally admit that the church truth claims are false and Joseph Smith did not restore anything but created something out of his imagination?
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
_Maksutov
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Re: Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _Maksutov »

Brilliant post. Once again the Mormons entangle themselves in FundamentalismPlus.

The obvious solution, as since the example of Joseph Fielding Smith, is to borrow nonsense from the Morris family of Seventh Day Adventist creationists, the bottomless well of fantasy and dreck that our beloved Nipper is so enamored of. And so we will have canopies and weird accounts of the windows of heaven and speculation about what The Deep is. And it goes downhill from there. :rolleyes:

Of course the implications of this are that the scientists who have painstakingly developed our body of knowledge of the earth and the emergence of life are lying fools in a world wide conspiracy of Satanic motives. :wink:
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Fence Sitter
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Re: Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _Fence Sitter »

I hope that Clarke will weigh in with his view on what those life spans mean?
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
_Themis
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Re: Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _Themis »

Good catch. It's pretty obvious Joseph was making things up. He borrowed from his own environment to create his religion. That environment viewed biblical events as literal. Joseph of course thinks they are true and his claimed divine translations and revelations attach those beliefs to claimed reality. The OP is a great example of one of Joseph's revelations that became canonized scripture that is clearly not true. I cannot think of any good explanations that would not throw Joseph under the bus.
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_Themis
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Re: Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _Themis »

Maksutov wrote:Of course the implications of this are that the scientists who have painstakingly developed our body of knowledge of the earth and the emergence of life are lying fools in a world wide conspiracy of Satanic motives. :wink:


This is one of the big concerns I see happening today both with many religious people, but also political ideologies.
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_ClarkGoble
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Re: Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _ClarkGoble »

It's worth noting that the D&C often is a mixture of texts that were just written, recorded revelations, reworked revelations (sections from the Book of Commandments reworked or with simply new names added to replace old ones) as well as fragmentary notes that were collected and sometimes somewhat edited. So from a historical perspective it's not all "dictated by God." That's very significant in terms of how one approaches each section. D&C 107 in particular is reworked from other writings (the section header actually mentions this briefly).

My guess (and it's only a guess without having looked at it closely) is that this was being worked out from scripture much like you see some similar ideas worked out in the Lectures on Faith (which were originally part of the D&C). I'll confess I don't know the history of this section too well though. There's a partial history up at BOAP. They suggest this is an excerpt from a different work "The Book of Enoch" or the original revelation that ends up in the teaching on Adam-ondi-Ahman.

To the topic I don't really have much of an opinion on the matter. Were these people modified genetically so they lived longer? Is this an artifact of how the section was compiled? Was something else going on? I honestly don't know and don't have any theories on it since it's not a question I've really looked into. Verses 40-57 seem like it's injected somewhat artificially into the text during the compilation for the D&C. But so far as I know the actual origin of those verses is a bit of a mystery. They might be a revelation or else a kind of catechistic working out ideas ala Lectures on Faith 3:36-43. The difficulty with that view of course is that the Bible gives births but not ordinations. So where did those dates come from? It's definitely an interesting question.
_Maksutov
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Re: Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _Maksutov »

Themis wrote:
Maksutov wrote:Of course the implications of this are that the scientists who have painstakingly developed our body of knowledge of the earth and the emergence of life are lying fools in a world wide conspiracy of Satanic motives. :wink:


This is one of the big concerns I see happening today both with many religious people, but also political ideologies.


Cults with alternative facts can be religious or political and sometimes both at once. :wink:
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_spotlight
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Re: Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _spotlight »

ClarkGoble wrote:It's worth noting that the D&C often is a mixture of texts that were just written, recorded revelations, reworked revelations (sections from the Book of Commandments reworked or with simply new names added to replace old ones) as well as fragmentary notes that were collected and sometimes somewhat edited. So from a historical perspective it's not all "dictated by God." That's very significant in terms of how one approaches each section. D&C 107 in particular is reworked from other writings (the section header actually mentions this briefly).

My guess (and it's only a guess without having looked at it closely) is that this was being worked out from scripture much like you see some similar ideas worked out in the Lectures on Faith (which were originally part of the D&C). I'll confess I don't know the history of this section too well though. There's a partial history up at BOAP. They suggest this is an excerpt from a different work "The Book of Enoch" or the original revelation that ends up in the teaching on Adam-ondi-Ahman.

To the topic I don't really have much of an opinion on the matter. Were these people modified genetically so they lived longer? Is this an artifact of how the section was compiled? Was something else going on? I honestly don't know and don't have any theories on it since it's not a question I've really looked into. Verses 40-57 seem like it's injected somewhat artificially into the text during the compilation for the D&C. But so far as I know the actual origin of those verses is a bit of a mystery. They might be a revelation or else a kind of catechistic working out ideas ala Lectures on Faith 3:36-43. The difficulty with that view of course is that the Bible gives births but not ordinations. So where did those dates come from? It's definitely an interesting question.


Are you throwing the book of Moses under the bus too? Would you proclaim your views from the pulpit next fast and testimony meeting and report back on how that goes?
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
_ClarkGoble
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Re: Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _ClarkGoble »

spotlight wrote:Are you throwing the book of Moses under the bus too? Would you proclaim your views from the pulpit next fast and testimony meeting and report back on how that goes?


Umm what? In what way was I throwing anything under the bus? I said I didn't have strong feelings on the particular question due to ignorance. I'm fine with most readings. The idea that it's a composite text is uncontroversial and is in the header itself.
_spotlight
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Re: Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

Post by _spotlight »

ClarkGoble wrote:
spotlight wrote:Are you throwing the book of Moses under the bus too? Would you proclaim your views from the pulpit next fast and testimony meeting and report back on how that goes?


Umm what? In what way was I throwing anything under the bus? I said I didn't have strong feelings on the particular question due to ignorance. I'm fine with most readings. The idea that it's a composite text is uncontroversial and is in the header itself.


Is the book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price uninspired then per your view?
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
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