The Flood - why did people live so long before the flood?

found at  http://www.homestead.com/all_is_all/BiblicalChronology.html

BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY CHART
(Notice the extensive longevity of people born before the flood)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at the date that Adam died (930) and then looking at the date that Lamech, Noah's father, was born (874) you can see that their lifetimes overlap by 56 years, which means they could have known each other.

Methuselah died in the year of the flood - possibly in the flood.

Noah dies after the time that the tower of Babel was built.

Shem, Noah's son, outlives Abraham, and they probably knew each other!

Arphaxad was born two years after the flood, yet outlives Abraham's father, Terah.

Nimrod is born about 200 years before Abraham (Peleg: year of earth divided, which is 1757).  He lives to be 239 years old, and dies in 1996.
(Abraham was born in 1948).

Noah dies when Abraham is 58!!

Noah's son, Shem, outlives Abraham, and dies when Abraham's grandson,
Jacob, is 48 years old!!!

Abraham was 99 years old when God made his everasting covenant with him (year: 2047).  The bible says that the law covenant that God made with Moses came 430 years later, when Moses was 80 years old.  So all you have to do is add 430 years to 2047, which is 2477, subtract 80 years from that, and you find that Moses was born in the year 2397.

This shows us how easily the chronology of events from Adam onward could have been passed down from son to son, with the person witnessing the events still living.

Question:  Why did people live so long before the flood?

The bible gives us a clue when it says there was a canopy of water that surrounded the earth.  This watery canopy filtered out the sun's harmful rays that cause rapid aging.  It also caused the earth to be like a terrarium.  The sun's rays reflected off the canopy of water and were evenly dispersed throughout the earth - from north pole to south pole. - and kept it at a constant temperature.  Because the watery canopy acted as a filter, keeping out the carbon 14 rays of the sun, things discovered before the flood appear older because they have less carbon 14 atoms, or none at all.

This also answers the question of why people (and other animals) lived much longer before the flood, and why the reptiles (dinosaurs) grew so large.  Reptiles grow for as long as they live.  If, for instance, a certain reptile were to live for five hundred years, it might grow to be the size of a bus, or larger.

When the watery canopy fell, causing the flood, it left the earth unprotected from the sun.  People, and animals as well, no longer lived as long as they use to and, consequently, the reptiles no longer grew to be so large.  Ths is why we no longer have dinosaurs (giant reptiles).  They did not grow feathers and fly away, as some scientists would have you believe; they just don't live as long, and so they don't have the chance to grow as big as they use to.

In addition, when the watery canopy fell, the north and south poles were instantly plunged into a deep freeze.  This is why palm trees were found frozen in the ice in Siberia, and Wooley Mamoths were found with buttercups still in their mouths.  Only an instant catastrophe on the scale of the flood could have caused this.