How Long were Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden? (Part 2)
In How Long were Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden? I showed that it was reasonable to assume that Cain married a descendant of Adam and Eve. Using reasonable assumptions, I showed that there could easily have been over 20,000 people descended from Adam and Eve when Cain killed Abel. That is plenty from which to choose a wife, and then go to make a city for. This should be an easy argument for a Young Earther to adopt (except where I suggest that Adam was 18 years old when placed in the garden), and in fact I find elements of this kind of argument at AnswersInGenesis. However, in reading those arguments, there are aspects of their formulation that I find contradictory and dismissive of certain aspects of scripture. For example, I attempt to explain as much as I can about why Genesis is worded as it is, but these articles ignore many conspicuous aspects of scripture, explaining why only a few choice verses are worded so precisely!
In the article When Did Adam and Eve Rebel?, the author writes the following:
Looking back at the Creation Week, Adam and Eve couldn’t have sinned on Day 6 (the day Adam and the Woman were created), since God declared that everything was “very good.” Otherwise, sin would be very good. Day 7 is also unlikely, since God sanctified that day. Therefore, the Fall likely happened soon after this.
I agree with much of this statement, but to argue this from a young earth perspective forces one to accept that Adam named every animal, took a nap, then met Eve in one 24-hour day. In fact, less than that. He did it between sunrise and sunset. It makes me wonder how long did it took for God to see Adam was lonely. An hour? That doesn’t make sense to me. How long to name all of the animals? How long for God to see that none of the animals were good helpers? How long was Adam’s deep sleep? To assume this all happened within 12 hours seems very illogical to me, and discards the following verses about Day 6 in Genesis 1:28…
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
In other words, God created both man and woman (verse 27) and told them to be subdue the earth with their offspring. It means that God did not bless Adam until He made Eve… after Adam became lonely, named the animals, needed a helper, went to sleep, and woke up to meet Eve. And the creation of Eve was only because Adam needed a better helper than the animals. Was Adam only blessed because the animals made poor partners? I do not think so.
Now consider the blessing God gave. It was to fill the earth and rule all living things, including those that live on the ground, in the air, and in the sea. However, one cannot do that from a Garden. So Adam and Eve could not fulfill this role until they sinned. But as the author above argues, sin had not entered the world yet. So, by his own words, this particular author needs to explain God’s blessing. Why wait until after God made Eve? How were they to subdue the earth? How were they to fill it? Certainly God’s blessing would require sin.
These problems go away if Adam was not created on Day 6, but later. If Day 6 records the beginning of mankind, and Adam and Eve were created later, after Day 7, then it all makes sense. God created mankind, outside the garden, and blessed them to subdue the earth. And boy did they! Later on, God took Adam, breathed new life into him, and the remainder of Genesis 2 happened, most likely over several years. It explains everything.
In the article Cain’s Wife—Who Was She?, another author discusses the Hebrew word for wife, that it means a woman “from man”, and notes the use of that word for Cain’s wife as well. Therefore, the argument goes, Cain’s wife was descended from Adam. But, if it’s a reference to her birth, is it any less likely a simple reference to her own father? Why does it refer to Adam? But, even supposing his argument is true, there is an interesting omission in his explanation for Adam’s naming of Eve:
The word ishshah is the word for “woman,” and it means “from man.” It is a derivation of the Hebrew words ‘iysh (pronounced: eesh) and enowsh, which both mean “man.” This can be seen in Genesis 2:23 where the name “woman” (ishshah) is given to one who came from Adam.
And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman [ishshah], because she was taken out of Man [iysh]” (Genesis 2:23).
However, he previously says this:
In Genesis 3:20 we read, “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” In other words, all people other than Adam are descendants of Eve—she was the first woman.
I believe that the author misuses Adam’s rationale for naming his wife Eve. Not only is it a leap to say the name of Cain’s wife intentionally points back to Adam, it seems a leap for Eve’s name to specifically point forward to all of future mankind. After all, Adam named her before they had given birth to anyone, while they were in the Garden of Eden, expecting to live forever. But notice that Adam did not actually say that Eve was the mother “of all people who would ever live,” or even the mother “of all people”… but the mother “of all living”. There was plenty of life at the time… animals, trees, etc. Adam had been commissioned to care for them all, and Eve was his helper. Eve wasn’t the biological mother of all that was living then, but she was would be their mother in a very meaningful sense.
Now recall my assertion that Day 6 was the creation of mankind, Adam was born later, and Eve after that. Being aware of his own parents, and all of the people from Adam came, what might Adam have meant in Genesis 3:20? I believe he meant the same thing as if he were only talking of animals and trees. Huh? Well, Eve was the first spiritually alive woman, and I imagine Adam knew it. How could he not? I think Adam was fully aware of human reproduction, aware that he was the first person truly alive in God, and realized that Eve represented a new beginning for mankind. Adam did not know what would come, but Eve would be the mother of it all, as mankind took its last step out of the animal world.
If Adam were simply created directly from dust, and was not physically born of a womb, then he would have no understanding of mankind, no perspective, no basis for looking forward, and no reason to see Eve as the mother of anything, let alone all living, let alone all people who would ever live. I mean, having never seen a mother before that day, what meaning would there be in calling her Eve? But, with the interpretation I put forth, for me anyway, it explains it all.
With this said, I want to address one more verse the author uses to support his case:
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).
To interpret this as physical death ignores the fact that God let Eve believe that her death would be immediate… yet it wasn’t. Well, in fact, it was, because God wasn’t referring to physical death, but spiritual. This in fact makes sense when we consider Adam’s life in Genesis 2:7 to be the breathing in of Spiritual life. But even more than that, to use Romans 5:12 as evidence for physical death is to overlook Paul’s own explanation of it in verse 16, just a little further down:
16Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
As you can see, Paul describes the “death” Adam and Eve suffered as condemnation. Now people typically say, “Yeah. Adam and Eve were condemned to die.” But, Christ’s gift brought justification, and they still die. Now Paul does write elsewhere, “Death, where is thy sting?” As I write in http://www.geocreationism.com/2010/05/15/original-sin-romans-512-we-inherit-spiritual-death/, the sting of sin is not death, but the other way around. How could that be? Because without sin, death has no sting. Without sin, death is your entry to Heaven. Therefore, Adam was going to die all along. It was only a matter of time, as history proves. Therefore, Romans 5:12 either contradicts, or is referring to a different death… spiritual death. And it can only refer to spiritual death, if God was warning Adam and Eve of spiritual death, and if God’s breath into Adam gave him spiritual life.
November 11th, 2011 at 8:23 am
A correction: I said “After all, Adam named her before they had given birth to anyone, while they were in the Garden of Eden, expecting to live forever. ” This is not true. He named Eve after they sinned, God pronounced their punishments, but just before being pyhsically banished from the Garden.
However, note what else this timing also points to: If they had kids before sin, then those kids’ mother had no name!!