In this week’s Life of Jesus class, somebody asked whether Jesus, at 33 years old, was already at an advanced age, for his place and time.
Answerbag.com provides a response:
“The average life expectancy at the start of the Roman Empire was 28 years of age. According to mythological tradition, Jesus died at the age of 33. However, due to a very high infant mortality rate, it is more accurate to look at the life expectancy of someone of that era who has made it to the age of 15. That person would have probably survived another 25 years, or to about the age of 40. I believe Caesar Augustus lived to about the age of 72. It wasn’t until about 100 years ago that human life expectancy began to greatly increase…”
A related question is: “Why did some people in the Bible live so much longer than people do now?”
I’m not certain that the Bible gives a direct answer, but pastor and writer Jack Wellman attributes humanity’s shortening life expectancy to the effects of sin:
The first few humans recorded in the Bible, in particular the Old Testament, lived an exceedingly long number of years. Adam lived to the age of 930 years, his son Seth lived 912, his son Lamech lived 777 years, Lamech’s son Noah lived to 950 years, his son Shem lived 600 years. There is a pattern that shows up. Progressively, each generation lived shorter and shorter lives. Adam was the first human created and must have been nearly perfect. They were more perfect in health, size, and stature. Perhaps the first generations of humans lived such long lives because they were so close to the man that God created and what God creates was perfect from the beginning. That is until sin entered the human race. Sin is destructive and the continuing sin through the generations had a cumulative effect. By the time Abraham was born, the life spans had shrunk considerably.
Even though Abraham lived to 175 years, Moses lived only 120 years. The effects of the fall of man, which happened in the Garden of Eden, had an effect. The creation had fallen with the fall of man. God cursed the land after Adam and Eve sinned. No longer would the environment be perfect. Even nature itself would be feeling the effects of sin.
Ken Ham’s web site speculates that the earth, before the Flood, had a tropical environment that could have contributed to longer lifespans. The site also offers an interesting graph, showing the decline in the patriarchs’ lifespans:
