From Adam to Noah

Adam was 130 when he fathered Seth and lived another 800 years after fathering Seth (Genesis 5:1-5).  We either believe that or not.  For my part, the idea of 900-year old people is still one of the things I struggle with.  The best explanation I’ve seen is that these people were formed by God’s own hand and walked with him daily and so had long lives.  After Seth was born, Genesis tells us, Adam had many other sons and daughters.  The pattern set throughout Genesis 5 is that each man gets to be so old, then has their first child, then lived so many more years and had “many other sons and daughters.”  The Bible does not say how old Adam and Eve were when Cain or Abel were born, but it is clear that Seth was born after Abel’s murder.  

If we read the Bible with this understanding, Adam, Eve and Cain were the only three people still alive after Cain killed his brother.  Who was Cain afraid would take vengeance on him?  Who did he marry and build a city with?  This is in addition to the question of the different order of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 (with Adam being made before plants and land animals).  Most scholars believe Adam and Eve must have had their other children while Abel was still alive, but that is not how Genesis reads.

These inconsistencies and contradictions disappear if we read Genesis just as it is written.  In Genesis 1, God creates Mankind.  In Genesis 2, he next creates a specific man, Adam, and a specific woman, Eve.  I believe the Nephilim in Genesis 6 and following are “the ancient ones, men of renown”, meaning the peoples created in Genesis 1.  A people would have to be ancient indeed to be called that by Moses.  

Genesis 4:26 reads, “When Seth grew up, he had a son and named him Enosh. At that time people first began to worship the Lord by name.”  Genesis 5 details the sons of Adam and Eve down to Noah.  I believe these are “the Sons of God”.  Luke’s genealogy in chapter 3 starts with Jesus’ baptism and God saying “You are my dearly loved Son”.  His list of ancestors ends with “Seth was the son of Adam.  Adam was the son of God.”  These men were the faithful ones, including Noah, David and his son Nathan (not Solomon the next king of Israel, as in Matthew's lineage of Christ, which follows the Kings of Israel).  

Genesis 6:1-2 and 4 says, “Then the people began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them. 2 The sons of God saw the daughters of men and took any they wanted as their wives. 4 In those days, and for some time after, Nephilim lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of men, they gave birth to children who became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times.”

I believe God was displeased with Seth’s line intermarrying with the races of mankind he created before Adam, knowing that these marriages often destroy their faith, as still happens today when two people of different religions marry - their children follow neither faith. I don’t think it’s the fact of people of different faiths marrying, but when doing so takes them or their children away from Him.  

There are, of course, spiritual implications if Adam was not the first man: what was “Original Sin”?  I will explore that next.  After that, I want to go through some amazing discoveries I’ve just made that connect Noah to Jesus.  Hope you’ll enjoy it!