Events in the Life of Adam

A Supplement to "Adam's Account: The Creation and Fall of Man"

Events in the Life of Adam

Assuming Chapter One of Genesis gives us the Holy Spirit's account of creation week, then the Toledoth Model for the source documents of Genesis proposes that Chapter 2:4b through Chapter 5:1 was written by Adam. Adam gives a recapitulation of creation week, but Adam starts at Day 3 and moves immediately to Day 6. The word bara was used in Chapter 1 describing God's creation of man (generic) as male/female. It is Adam who fills in the details in Chapter Two by describing the building (yatsar) of his body after God had created Adam's soul and spirit. Some scholars suppose that Eve was taken out of Adam on the Sixth Day of creation week, but my view is that this came later. All of the creative work of God was finished in the six unique days of creation week, the formation of Eve is not a new work, but the fashioning of a body for Eve as she was being taken out of Adam's side. The Hebrew uses banah ("to construct") instead of yatsar in describing the formation of Eve's physical form. Eve is a work of art requiring care and attention, Adam was merely molded from the clay of the earth.

Chapter 2 tells us that God Himself built a garden for man and placed him there. It is likely the land inside the garden was covered with lush vegetation and soon populated with many animals, but outside the garden, the earth was unexplored and uncultivated. Adam had a big assignment in cataloging and managing the resources of the planet! In his work of naming the animals, Adam had to study each one carefully, since "naming" in the Bible is how identity is assigned and described.

In Chapter One God inspected His handiwork seven times, finding it "good" six times, and "very good" when it was completed. Seven is the number of completion and wholeness which is one reason why I think the "not good" appearing in Chapter 2:18 did not occur until after creation week, and after the naming of the animals by Adam. Adam may have had to learn to speak, and this may have been accomplished by long conversations with the LORD God in the garden day after day.

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit [suitable] for him." So out of the ground the LORD God [had] formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and {He now] brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. (2:18-20)

We have no clues in the Bible, as far as I know, about when the revolt of the angels took place. It was after creation week--and before Chapter 3 of Genesis. Adam and Eve were in the Garden in a state of innocence for a relatively brief period of time evidently (days, weeks, months?) since they had no children until after the Fall, and they had been commanded to be fruitful and to multiply. We have no way of knowing the length of time Satan tempted Eve before she succumbed to his deceptions. Chapter two reads as follows:

In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up --for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground--then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." So out of the ground the LORD God [had] formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him.

So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:4b-25)

One can not be certain that the sequence of events in Adam's life is exactly as depicted above. It is usually assumed that Adam was about thirty years of age when he was created. That is, he was created as a full grown adult man. He was not born of woman (and therefore had no navel). He did not experience childhood and adolescence as far as we know. The following chart shows some estimates of world population before the Flood of Noah. From the record of Genesis it seems that the average age of parents when they began to bring children into the world was about 100. The record of ten generations from Adam to Noah shows that each Antediluvian Patriarch had at least 5 children. More are likely. The curves below show the population which would result in either 1656 or 2256 years if parents brought 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 children into the world.

Note that by the time of Adam's death when he was 930 years old, he would have been surrounded by at least ten thousand descendants and 120,000 would not be unreasonable!

April 7, 2000, March 23, 2009 (CV).

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