It doesn’t take long for children when they start reading Genesis for themselves to ask about how long people live. There it is in black and white: Adam 930 years, Jared 962 years, Enoch 365 years, Lamech 777 years and of course Methuselah at 969 years. Your children will know as well as you that no one they know is that old. No one else seems to make it much past 100 and certainly not past 12o years old. Last week, the world oldest man (unofficially) died at the age of 116.

It is very common amongst atheists to then point at these ridiculously long lifespans and make something like the following argument:

1. No one lives that long.
2. Therefore these people in the Bible did not live that long.
3. Therefore you’re stupid for believing it could be true.

The Bible certainly seems to be more realistic about life and death in other places suggesting that 70 or 80 (Psalm 90:10) is about what we will manage with a few outliers who might make 100 or so.

There isn’t really any plausible alternative dating system or calendar or code that smooths out the ages of these ancients to something more palatable and relatable. So you can treat is a myth or as true and not much else.

But what if people start living that long again? It is not uncommon any more to read that scientists say they’re one step closer to delaying the ageing process and there are enough rich people around spending money on this that some people believe, quite sincerely, that it is entirely possible that people will start living hundreds of years. The discussion is not so strange that people haven’t started thinking about it.

The Christian response has been, to say, like me, “What we see is a human longing to defeat death, overcome sickness, live forever but to do it without Christ. Ultimately I believe that is a futile path…”

But what if? Not what if we could live for a million years but somewhere between the 6-900 years again like Noah’s family tree? How would Christians react?

Right now we’re sceptical of the possibility and I would guess inclined to think it an impossibility this side of heaven. But because we believe in heaven we do also believe in immortality and if you accept Genesis’ record you accept the possibility that people have, could and were made to live extremely long times. So in theory, we should be open to the idea again.

Then if people did start living that long I imagine that some Christians would quickly swap to saying, “I told you so. The Bible was right after all.” Would we celebrate? Would we rejoice that death had been, if not entirely defeated, but reduced in stature? I think it would cause us some deeper reflection because we are sure that only in Christ can be defeated. Would vastly extended lives make us more fearful or more faithful? Would after carrying the weight of 600-700 years would we still see death as the enemy or as a welcome friend? Would we still feel like fireflies and rage against the onset of death that comes still all too soon?

Would Christians embrace the life-extending technologies? My guess is we would, because as much as we long for heaven, no one wants to die.