Q: #474. Who are the oldest men in the Bible?
A: Following is list containing the name of every man in the Bible I could find who lived to be at least 200 years old. I will list them from oldest to youngest.
Man And His Age Verses
Methuselah (969 years old) (Gen 5:27)
Jared (962 years old) (Gen 5:20)
Noah (950 years old) (Gen 9:29)
Adam (930 years old) (Gen 5:5)
Seth (912 years old) (Gen 5:8)
Cainan (Kenan) (910 years old) (Gen 5:14)
Enos (905 years old) (Gen 5:11)
Mahalaleel (Mahalalel) (895 years old) (Gen 5:17)
Lamech (777 years old)
(Gen 5:31)
Shem (600 years old) (Gen 11:10-11)
Eber (464 years old) (Gen 11:16-17)
Arphaxad (438 years old) (Gen 11:12-13)
Salah (433 years old) (Gen 11:14-15)
** Enoch (365 years old) (Gen 5:21-24)
Peleg (239 years old) (Gen 11:18-19)
Reu (239 years old) (Gen 11:20-21)
Serug (230 years old) (Gen 11:22-23)
Terah (205 years old) (Gen 11:32)
** Enoch was taken off Earth by God while he was still alive.
*** There is evidence that Job may have lived to be 210. (See: Q: #177.)
It should be noted that after the flood (Genesis Ch. 6-9), the life spans of people began to decrease significantly. (Notice the downward trend in Genesis Chapter 11.) However, well after the flood, and into the book of Exodus, most well-known men (i.e. Isaac, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Aaron, Moses, Joshua) still lived to between 100 – 200 years old.
We do not know how old the women of Genesis and Exodus were when they died. The Bible tells us the age of only one woman when she died, and that is Sarah (Gen 23:1 / 127 years old). However, it seems obvious that the wives of the men listed on the chart above also lived to be quite old. For example, (Gen 5:32) says, “Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” It is safe to assume that Noah’s wife would have been around the same age when she gave birth to them.
Based upon (Ps 90:10), written by Moses, it appears the average life span was around 70 – 80 years by the time of Moses. Later, Isaiah also points to the 70 year life span (Isa 23:15).