Proposition: Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden are a special creation within the Creation
I believe God created Adam and Eve from scratch, just as is described in Genesis 2. There was a real, literal Garden of Eden, just as is described in Genesis 2. The rest of this is admittedly speculation, but speculation with a purpose — to demonstrate that there is at least one way, perhaps more, to reconcile the archaeology of early man with Genesis 4-9.
Little of what follows is provable, but I can at least show that the traditional reading isn’t the only responsible reading. In fact, other readings may be more responsible.
“Souls”?
Adam was the first follower of Yahweh. He was the first human created in God’s image. But he was not made unique by possession of a “soul.” The Old Testament considers a person to be a soul, not to possess a soul.
There is no suggestion in the OT of the transmigration of the soul as an immaterial, immortal entity. Man is a unity of body and soul—terms which describe not so much two separate entities in man as the one man from different standpoints. Hence, in the description of man’s creation in Genesis 2:7, the phrase “a living soul” (kjv) is better translated as “a living being.” The thought is not that man became a “soul,” for clearly he had a body. The use of the word in the original draws attention to the vital aspect of man as “a living being.”
Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (1988). Even animals can be referred to as “souls” with no implication of immortality.
(Gen 1:20 NASB) Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures [nephesh = souls], and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.”
The idea that a “soul” is the intangible, innately immortal part of a human comes from Plato, not the Holy Spirit. In the scriptures, humans have the opportunity to become immortal because of their relationship with God, who is innately immortal, not because they were conceived immortal.
(Gen 2:7 KJV) And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Hence, Adam and Eve should not be thought of as the first humans with a soul. Adam became a soul when God gave him life. Thus, Adam and Eve are, rather, the first humans granted the function of serving as God’s image. They were created in the image of God to show the world the nature of God and to serve as priests in his temple, the cosmos.
But if Walton is right and the male and female created by God were granted the task of being God’s image to the world, there must have been other people. We’ve already seen that the account of Cain and Abel strongly implies the presence of others.
The Garden
And so I figure there were other humans in the vicinity, but not in the Garden. The Garden was divinely created to demonstrate what life with Yahweh should be: a demonstration of the beauty and perfection and innocence of a relationship with God as well as the opportunity for others to join in that relationship with Yahweh. Just as the church should be today, Eden created an alternative society, community, and culture that should draw the lost toward God by showing the glory of God among his people.
The fact that the Garden was a limited part of the planet shows that it was different from the rest of the planet. Vegetables were entirely sufficient because the Tree of Life was there. Animals enjoyed the special nature of Eden as well. It’s not unreasonable to suppose that the animals in the Garden were all herbivores. The point of eating only vegetables was the special nature of the Garden, a place without death – not even the death of animals.
Adam and Eve sinned, lost their immortality, and were cast out of Eden to live like the other humans. However, the vicinity of Eden continued to have a special presence of God because God was worshiped there, but not by all humans. This is strongly suggested by the account of Cain.
Immortality
Immortality only existed in the Garden, where the Tree of Life was found. How did Adam introduce death when many people had already died? Adam took away the chance for immortality. He and Eve were immortal due to their relationship with God. Their descendants and anyone else who would become a God worshiper would have been immortal too had God’s images drawn people toward God. But they failed, and so death reigned from Adam until Moses (with very limited exceptions).
Nonetheless, how did they become the parents of all humanity? Perhaps this was early enough that there was enough intermarriage between “the sons of God” and “the daughters of men” that in a very few generations, Adam and Eve became the ancestors of all humans then living.
The line of Seth
Cain and Abel were worshippers of Yahweh. Despite being cast from the Garden, they served God. But Cain killed Abel — out of jealousy — and Cain left “the presence of God” — the land where God was served by his people — took a wife from among non-God worshipers and built a walled city away from the other descendants of Adam and Eve.
(Gen 4:25-26 ESV) 25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” 26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.
Abel was killed before he fathered children. Cain fled from God’s presence — the part of the earth where God was worshiped. Seth had a son and “at that time, people began to call upon the name of the LORD.” Until Seth fathered a son, the worship of God had been neglected, but it was renewed.
I’ll confess that I don’t quite understand how the worship of God had been neglected unless Adam and Eve had died or else lost their faith. Adam lived 930 years per Genesis 5:5, meaning he must have stopped calling on the name of the LORD before Enosh was born (or that the account skips generations). Perhaps Adam doubted that their lineage and relationship with could continue with Abel dead and Cain in exile. The son of Seth demonstrated that their lineage would continue and that God was blessing them despite their sin. And then they responded with worship. (“Seth” means “compensation”!)
And this confirms the theory that Adam was created to serve as God’s image, to serve God in his Creation. The biblical story is about how well Adam’s descendants managed to call the people toward God. Evidently Seth did pretty well, but only for a few generations.
(Gen 5:22-24 ESV) 22 Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
Seth’s descendent Enoch was also a God-fearer, letting us know that the lineage up to this point kept the memory of God. In fact, Enoch shows how very close to God it’s possible to be.
But his son Methuselah appears to have died in the Flood, versions of the text vary, but most translators accept the version that has Methuselah’s date of death correspond with the year of the Flood [1].
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[1] The ages in early Genesis vary a lot among the various texts, being the Masoretic text, the Septuagint, and the Samaritan text. The Samaritans, of course, only recognized the Torah as inspired, and so they maintained their own Torah scrolls, which they copied and recopied apart from the Jewish rabbinic tradition.
The Masoretic text and Samaritan text have Methuselah dying the year of the Flood, although by differing ages, but as one site explains, “The Lucianic text of the Septuagint has Methuselah surviving the Flood by 100 years … .” In the Third Century AD, Christian elder Lucian compared the available texts of the Septuagint and attempted to prepare a definitive version of the text. (Textual criticism is nearly as old as Christianity.) Therefore, his version reflects a version much older than the Torah manuscripts that we have today.
The usual rule of textual criticism is to accept the more difficult reading, because in many cases, the only apparent reason for a difficult reading is that it was original. Copyists and scribes were much more inclined to edit to clear up “problems” than to create problems. Moreover, readings are preferred that explain how the other readings came about. If the Lucian version was original, it’s easy to see how the Masoretes or Samaritans would figure that Methuselah surely did not live beyond the Flood.
It’s an interesting study, but best not to build theologies on uncertain readings.
🙂
thanks
Jay
too much fun
Great Study
blessings
Rich
This is the best explanation I have seen.
My family, ancestors believe there were other humans but not in the perfect garden. Also they were in other places of this world. All peoples did not come from the Mid east.
To assume that other people existed prior to or at the same time that God created Adam is to doubt that the Genesis account of creation is correct, slant it however we might. Since we know that fertile families can generate a new child or twins or triplets or quadruplets in less than a year, and since prior to the flood, people lived long lives, it should be no problem for us to figure that the original one pair were soon joined by progeny. And each couple could continue to have more children, and soon there were many scattered throughout the habitable world.
The same situation occurred after the world-wide flood, of course except that there were four couples rather than only one, and lifetimes were shortened. The Bible is true. We do not do well to doubt or want to rewrite it.
Are you suggesting that Methuselah might’ve lived 1069 years(a bimillenial)? But regarding his death, don’t forget the literary/genealogical gap theory.
Ray,
You steadfastly refuse to address that that line of thinking requires God to approve of — no, to REQUIRE incest; that the only thing wrong with incest is that as we move farther from Adam and Eve, incest becomes unhealthy.
Or maybe, in the same way that the death brought by sin is spiritual, the “ancestry of the living” is also spiritual — Adam and Eve were the parents of all who truly live, rather than the parents of all who exist.
Jay, how would you relate Gen 1:27 God “created” man in His image….and Gen 2:7 where God “formed” man from the dust of the ground ? How can a man be created from nothing and formed from dirt at the same time ?
We in my business create some recognizable structure out of steel that was formed from the dust of the ground. Same with a mud pie.
The difference in me and God is He breathed life into His formed creation and I can’t.
Price asked,
Price, I’m not aware of any argument that “create” means “create from nothing.” I believe God made the heavens and earth from nothing, but not based on the definition of create.
“Create in me a clean heart, O Lord,” does not mean give me a new blood pump but to renew and even repurpose the heart that I already have. (It’s the same Hebrew word.)
Nick wrote,
There’s a decent argument, going back centuries, that Adam and Eve were the progenitors of the Semitic people through whom God intended to save the world. I’ve not pursued that theory here because I don’t know that it’s necessary to go that far — unless you want to insist on a 6,000 year old world. If we just have to have Adam and Eve in 4004 BC, then they are clearly not the genetic parents of us all, because the Americas were settled long before then.
I prefer to stretch the genealogies to allow Adam and Eve to be the earliest humans, not just the first humans to know God. But it’s a worthwhile approach to consider.
I trust you’re following the similar discussions at Jesus Creed.
RJ,
Regarding Methuselah, the LXX has Methuselah outliving the Flood by 100 years, but he was also born later than in the Masoretic text.
Ray,
I believe the Bible to be true — and therefore I take seriously every word of the story of Cain. And Leviticus 18 that bans in severe terms sex with a family member. And I’m waiting for an explanation for how the Nephilim survived the Flood. And for all the other questions I asked. Maybe I’ll find some answers as I sort through the comments.
I don’t know. I just feel dirty declaring myself wise enough to treat incest as perfectly ok.
AJ wrote,
You made my day. I’m going to treat myself to an ice cream sandwich!
I even encounter here that most all of the blog readers must believe that Cain was the first male child of Adam and Eve. I don’t remember anyone even questioning that fact, but the text does not authenticate the idea. This concept about where Cain obtained his wife has been part of the issue in many communications about the Bible account. When we read the account, the age of Cain or Abel is never reviled. We do know that they were old enough to offer sacrifice and that they had each developed occupations and that Cain killed Abel before Seth was born, which was when Adam was 130 years old. We also believe that Abel was not married.
We also know that Adam and Eve were given the responsibility to be fruitful and multiply in Gen 1:28 even prior to a description of the garden they were occupying. There is no evidence that there were offspring being banned from the garden with them, and there is no time frame identified as to the extent of time that passed from them being placed into the garden till their removal. The flow of the scriptures placing that event very early in the story, prior to a more complete description of the garden and the blessings and benefits that were available to them while there, suggests to me that it was a very short time that they were there.
We know that all of the children of Bible characters were not identified or even numbered. Now Seth was identified as a replacement for Abel, at 130 years into Adams life, would you not believe that it was only a short time between the death of Abel and the procurement of a replacement?
If we considered that Cain and Abel were the first children of Adam and eve year one, would it seem reasonable for the replacement for Abel to be born 100+ years later, with the expression implied by the parents?
Seeing as to the fact that there is no mention of how or where Cain obtained his wife, it is totally possible that Cain was already married prior to his killing Abel. We do know that Cain had no children at the time God punished him. Has any one considered that the communication about the birth of Cain and Abel, the possibility of them being twins? Read the text carefully.
Isn’t it very possible and very likely that Cain killed Abel when their ages were close to 15-25 years old considering the events of their life? Can anyone prove an age that humans became reproductive during this part of history? The only evidence that I can find is that Adam and Eve were fully capable in year one of their life. As we look through scriptures identity of the children that were to used by God in the generations leading to Jesus were the only children of these men identified. All had many other offspring that are not even mentioned. Considering the ideas presented here, would anyone venture a educated number of children, grand children, great grand children, great great grand children and as far as a possible this could be carried within a guesstimate of 100 years of production by Adam and Eve? As far as incest is concerned. notice the number of years into the generations of the account of man that transpired prior to God describing a sin of incest. It would appear to me it would just as improper use of God’s Word to attempt to make that law retroactive into a time period of the creation as it is to attempt to apply the Jewish Law into Christianity. Let us not forget, how about all of the generations of Noah’s families. All prior to issuing the Law on incest.
Remember, also there is record of twins born into families in scriptures.
Can someone better at math than I am create a pyramid graft displaying the possibilities of the population of the earth in year 130 of Adam’s life, if Adam was the first and only man on earth at creation?
Adam was the first man created according to the bible. It does not say he was the only man created.
The Bible clearly says that Adam was the first man (I Cor 15:45). Therefore, if any people existed outside the garden, they logically had to be Abraham’s descendents. So it appears that Jay is saying that Adam was living in perfection in the Garden with no sin but his children were already outside the garden with sin.
Perhaps we should get back to talking about Bible topics instead of meandering into this hybrid science/Bible humanistic morass.
Sorry I said Abraham’s descendents, I meant “Adam’s descendents”