5:8 nine hundred and twelve years. These great ages have been questioned. However, a “king list” was excavated near Babel, which tells of ten kings who had lived to great ages before the Flood. Although these ages were first deciphered as thousands of years, improved translations have brought them more in line with those in the Bible record. The Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans also recorded a tradition that the ancient men lived to great ages.