How long does man live. Genesis 6:3 says 120 years but Psalm 90:10 says 70 years; yet in Genesis 11 we see that people lived hundreds of years.
120 years:
Gen 6:3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
70 years:
Ps 90:10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
The skeptic/atheist has made several assumptions of which aren’t true since they don’t read the Bible. In Genesis 6, God is not telling how long man will live. Remember, in Genesis 5 we saw some very impressive years of age, with many over 900 years old! They assumed that this meant that long of life would not be obtainable anymore after the flood. The fact is, God was saying that it would be only 120 more years before He would destroy the world due to its wickedness. Noah used this time to both build the ark and preach repentance to a world that did not listen.
In the verse in Psalm, God reveals an estimation by which we can all expect to live, for the most part. The idea is that men would not live 900+ years as they had before. But in reading the whole verse, we see David says it is around 70 years, but even if it is 80 it is still short.
In the context of Genesis 6:3, Moses wrote about the tremendous evil in the world during the time of Noah. He highlighted the sinfulness of the people in very strong terms.
Gen 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
The severity of the people’s sin would result in global judgment from God. Because of their depravity, God destroyed every human being and even the animals. In this context, we can see that Genesis 6:3 does not deal with the length of time a human will live. Rather, it indicates the longsuffering nature of God in the midst of His wrath. He was allowing even the most evil people of Noah’s time 120 years to repent of their sin before he would judge them with a global flood. Genesis 6:8 says, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” During this time, Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and he also built an Ark for his family and himself.
