Why Did People Live So Long in the Old Testament?

So why did people live so long in the Old Testament? I began to talk about this in my last post.

I didn’t mean that ALL lifespans are relative to each other as symbols. What I meant was that the lifespan of Joshua is ten years less than that of Moses, and that has a meaning in its context. In the same way, the concept of a Messiah descended from Joseph could be expressed by pointing out the similarity of Joseph’s work and Joshua’s as secondary agents of wellbeing, with Joshua secondary to Moses and Joseph secondary to Jacob. The Jewish concept of a lifespan of 120 years for the Messiah is meant to correspond to Moses’s lifespan, but he is not equal to Moses because he really does die.

You might have heard of a certain Joshua son of Joseph who manages to combine the two figures. He also manages to be son of Levi through his mother, and son of Judah through his father. This made him the Messiah son of Joseph, the Messiah son of Judah, the Messiah son of Levi, and the equivalent of Joshua. He is also said to be the second Adam. This takes care of nearly every eschatological expectation. The obvious question now is, what about Moses? The opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews says he is greater than Moses, but it still addresses the question. Note also the appearance of Moses in a position secondary to Jesus at the Transfiguration.