Was Adam the First Man?
Was Adam the First Man?
Since 2008 when I wrote my book “The Five W’s of God”, I’ve been on a mission to solve the apparent contradictions between some scriptures and science.
I believe the Bible to be the infallible word of God. I believe that science doesn’t invent or create anything, it just confirms what God has already created. If God is real, and I believe He is, there can be no contradictions.
The contradictions or discrepancies between the two are usually created by traditions and misunderstandings of the Bible. I’m not saying science is perfect, far from that. I question various means of dating and the majority of the conclusions drawn in the theory of evolution amongst the many other constantly evolving theories in science, but most of the problems I encounter are simple misunderstandings of scripture.
The reason I feel compelled to spend the rest of my life essentially adjudicating the case for God is because more and more people are of the belief that the Bible is just a fairy tale or myth.
There are millions of people proclaiming the Gospel and bringing people to Jesus, which is exactly what He taught us to do. However, there is an ever growing group who refuse to even hear the Gospel because of some of the beliefs of the Judeo-Christian faith. These beliefs can easily be disproven in seconds by merely Goggling the science, I’m talking about real science and not the social media wasteland.
These are the people I want to reach.
When my book came out I was constantly attacked by atheists but as I deprived them of their misunderstandings of scripture, they were left with no ammunition to continue the argument. Of course they didn’t become Christians but they had to at least acknowledge that God was possible and that created an opening for the Gospel to finish the job.
Some Biblical traditions have become so entrenched over the centuries that they seem set in stone and above examination. My articles on the date of Jesus’ birth, the Good Friday tradition, the concept of hell and the definition of the Sabbath are just a few of the topics I’ve explored.
In this article, I will look at the traditional Judeo-Christian narrative concerning the origin of mankind and how it begins with the story of Adam and Eve.
I believe the first mistake Christians made was when we accepted the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we also accepted the history of Adam’s descendants as our story. I’m not discounting The Old Testament one iota, it’s one half of a two part story. But the story of the Adamic people is of their whole world not the whole world.
There are many examples of this in the Bible, here are just a few. Ezra 1:1-2:
1. Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,
2. Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
The Persian empire did not rule over the whole world, just the Jews whole world.
We see the Jewish view again in Jeremiah 51:49, “As Babylon hath caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the earth.” This phrase means the whole inhabitable world and it was not all slain in Babylon.
Two more examples are in the book of Daniel. Daniel 4:1, “Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you.” Again, Nebuchadnezzar was not king over the whole world but their whole world. Daniel 4:22, “It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong: for thy greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth.” The Babylonian empire did not cover the whole earth.
One more example but from The New Testament this time. Luke 2:1, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” The Romans never controlled the whole world, they taxed the Jews whole world.
Adam was their first man, not ours. The purpose of Adam and Eve was to place a chosen people on the earth in which God would work through for humanity. It was also to provide a genetically pure bloodline for Jesus to be born into.
A scripture that points to this is Galatians 3:16, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”
I’ll look at the science first and then more importantly what the scriptures have to say about whether Adam was the first man.
We have evidence of Neolithic villages in China at about 5,000 B.C. in the Yellow River valley. The same timeline applies to settlements in India. Just the sheer number of people in both China and India indicate very old civilizations. I don’t always agree with the accuracy of dating in antiquity, but these two civilizations along with the populations in Africa go back to at least near the time of Adam, if not before, which is generally agreed to be about 4,000 B.C.
Science tells us that modern man is about 200,000 years old. Neanderthals existed with modern humans for about 5,000 years before they disappeared but since they were the same species as us, they mated with modern humans. Only same species can mate with each other.
I bring up early humans and Neanderthals, regardless of the dating, because 1.7% to 1.8% of European and Asian genomes have Neanderthal DNA. Unlike dating, DNA is not subjective. It’s either there or it isn’t.
I have many Jewish friends who have zero Neanderthal DNA which means Adam and Eve could not have been Neanderthals or have mated with them or we wouldn’t have pure Adamic bloodlines in the Jewish population.
This means Neanderthals had to of mated with another group of humans in order to have their DNA make it all the way into the 21st century. Their DNA is proof of at least two other groups of people on the planet before Adam and Eve.
Now let’s look at the Biblical view on this.
Two questions I’ve heard asked hundreds of times is where Cain got his wife from and where the races came from.
Many Pastors explanation for where Cain got his wife is that he married one of his sisters.
Their explanation of where the races came from is that when God confounded the languages at the tower of Babel, this created the races.
No where in the Bible are these statements made. Changing ones language does not change ones race. To think that there were no Africans, Indians or Asians on the planet before the tower of Babel was constructed circa 2,200 B.C. can easily be proven to be false.
When confronted with facts like these, the default response by most Christians is that “God can do anything.” This is true, but you have to at least back up your statements with scripture or you’re just deflecting from the argument with no evidence.
All this brings us back to the story of the creation of man on the sixth day and the story of Adam.
Adam was formed circa 4,000 B.C. Because the story of creation immediately precedes the story of Adam, the false deduction is made that the earth is 6,000 years old and that all people, including all the races, magically came from these two Caucasians near Mesopotamia.
The problem comes from the tradition that the story of Adam is a recap of the story of the creation of mankind on the sixth day. However, every single element of these two stories are diametrically opposed to one another. Once these two stories are decoupled, everything else falls into a logical sequence.
Let's compare the elements given us in chapter one of Genesis and then compare them with the elements of the story of Adam and you can decide for yourself.
We are told in Genesis 1:11, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to it's kind". These are plants of the Earth that need no man to cultivate because they reproduce on their own with their own seed.
In the story of Adam in Genesis 2:5, “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.” Skip to verse 8, “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom He had formed.”
We can see in Adam’s story that these plants are plants of the field, or crops, not plants of the earth as in chapter one. Unlike the plants in chapter one. Adam’s plants needed tilling and a farmer to cultivate them.
Now let’s look at the animals in these two stories starting in Genesis 1:24-25:
24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Now let’s compare these animals to Adam’s animals as we read in Genesis 2:19-20:
19. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
The word cattle used in both stories is Strong’s Concordance #930 and is from the root word behemah, meaning large quadruped animal or beast. What makes these animals different in these two stories is that in chapter one they’re “beasts of the earth” as opposed to “beasts of the field” in Adam’s story. In other words, the beasts of the earth are all the various animals God created on Earth but Adam’s beast are of the field, farm animals. Just like the plants, they are completely different in each story.
Before we get to the creation of mankind let me point out an important distinction with the use of the word adam.
The word for mankind as used in Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:...”, is adam in Hebrew which is plural. When speaking of the person of Adam in chapter two the word has the article and particle in Hebrew making it the word eth-Ha adham meaning “this same man Adam” or “this man called Adam”, a very big distinction.
This brings us to the creation of mankind in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”
Let’s compare this with Adam in Genesis 2:7, “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.”
The first things that jumps out when comparing these two stories is that God “created” mankind on the sixth day but He “formed” Adam. The word “created” is Strong’s Concordance #1254 but the word “formed” is #3335. This very same unique word, formed, is used in The New Testament in I Timothy 2:13, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve.”
Moses wrote both of these chapters in Genesis as they were dictated to him by God. God could have used the same word for both of these processes but He choose different words as He often did to show a distinct difference for that topic.
The difference is also apparent in the fact that on the sixth day God “created” man and woman at the same time but Adam was “formed” alone. Eve doesn’t come into the picture until Adam needs a helper and when she does come she isn’t “created” like the women on the sixth day but is taken out of Adam’s flesh as we see in Genesis 2:20-22:
20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22. And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
For centuries it was thought that men had one less rib than women because of this translation. The word “rib” here is Strong’s Concordance #6763 and means “as curved, literally of the body.” The actual word for rib is #5967. Not until the 20th century would we understand this “curve”. It is a reference to the double helix, the physical structure of DNA. Eve was not created as the women on the sixth day but was cloned from Adam. This may sound crazy to some but if we mere humans can clone, certainly God can too. It explains verse 23 of Genesis chapter 2, “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Completely different processes altogether in these two stories.
One last difference to point out is that when God had created mankind on the sixth day He said in Genesis 1:28-30:
28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
In other words, God is telling them to be hunter-gatherers as opposed to Adam who was confined to a garden.
As you can see, these are two completely different stories. The story of Adam is not a recap but a tale of a completely different branch of the human family.
One last comment on Eve before we move on. Those who believe Adam and Eve to be the first humans often site Genesis 3:20, “And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.” This is obviously a metaphor because Eve didn’t actually give birth to everyone on the planet. Their interpretation is that she was the first woman and thus responsible for every one that came after. That would be one interpretation.
Another more likely interpretation would be that because of Eve and her bloodline, God would become flesh and would die on the cross enabling all of mankind to have an opportunity at eternal life.
As we read in Genesis chapter one, it’s on the sixth day that God created all the races and as He stated in verse 31, “And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” All races are good and no race is better than any other. God loves them all. There is no other place in the Bible that can explain where the the races came from except Genesis 1:26-31.
This brings us to what is called “The Gap Theory” in theology. Once the story of the creation of mankind is decoupled from the story of Adam, we now have an open ended time frame between the two stories.
In Genesis 2:2 it states, “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.” There is no time frame given for when this work was done and how long God rested before He formed Adam. It could have been a week, a year, 200,000 years, or even 500,000 years later. It just doesn't say. This is that gap.
This gap explains not only the discrepancy of the human time line between the Bible and science, but it also helps answer questions like where Cain, the son of Eve, got his wife.
It’s in this story of Cain that we find numerous suggestions of other people on the planet.
We’ll start with when Cain kills his brother in Genesis 4:8, “And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.”
We read in Genesis 4:13-15:
13. And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
14. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
15. And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
The obvious question here is who is Cain afraid of? Supposedly the only other people on the planet are his parents. Surely they aren’t going to kill him and who are they going to tell that requires God to mark Cain? Who does Cain think is going to kill him?
The Bible states that after Cain leaves the presence of Adam and Eve that he goes to the land of Nod and takes a wife.
The word “Nod” is where we get our word nomad. How could there be a land of anything, let alone nomads, if there was no one else on Earth?
It’s in the land of Nod that Cain takes a wife. Tradition states that Adam and Eve had more children and that Cain simply married one of his sisters.
It’s true that Eve had more children but Cain takes a wife before they have another child. When the Bible tells us that Eve does have another child, it’s a boy, Seth.
Cain then has a child as we read in Genesis 4:17, “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.” If you were the only three people in the land of Nod would you build an entire city or just a house?
The whole story of Cain implies that there are other people on the planet.
Adam and Eve were formed for the sole purpose of creating a specific genetic bloodline that God would work through and that Jesus would be born into. It’s why the earliest descendants of Adam lived to be nearly a thousand years old when the average life expectancy for man at that time wasn’t much more than thirty years. It’s also why Satan constantly attacked this bloodline from fallen angels to giants to destroy it.
God was adamant throughout the Bible for Adam’s descendants not to mix with anyone else. If everyone descended from Adam why was God stressing not to mix?
It’s also noteworthy that every person who begat someone else is recorded in the Bible until Jesus was born and then the Bible quits keeping record, why? It’s because the Adamic bloodline had fulfilled it’s purpose in bringing Jesus into the world and therefore it was no longer necessary to keep track of who begat who. All the nations of the earth would be blessed by this bloodline as God told Abraham in Genesis 22:18, “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”
All people do not come from Adam and Eve but are much older and were created on the sixth day where God blessed them and found them all to be "very good" as it states in Genesis 1:31.
Stubbornness in clinging to a misinterpreted tradition is keeping Christians from bringing more people into the fold. The more Christians try to bend science and reality to conform to these traditions only makes us look more foolish to non believers. God’s word never changes but our understanding of it has to as more facts come to light.