age of adam/eve when had kids?

[imind]

hello all,

i was speaking to a friend the other day about evolution (i do, admittedly, believe in evolution) and she said that, even with the help of the bible (geneologies) we cannot know the age of the earth because we don't know how old adam and eve were when they had cain and abel.

i've been looking through my bible and i can't find any reference to this. care to help me? please provide the passage if you're referencing scripture. thanks.

 

[luvrly]

The reference to Adam & Eve having children (the first child) is at the beginning of chapter 4 in Genesis. To be honest, I've never questioned the timing, but have always assumed that it was not long after the fall (after the Lord had administered the consequences of their sin, and had banished them from the garden.) Genesis 4:1 begins, "Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain..."

I believe that this is after they had left the garden, because it refers to an offering. Death came after sin entered creation. Prior to that, no living thing (apart from vegetation) would have had to die.

I also believe that it wasn't long after their departure from the Garden, because the Lord's curse on Adam was that he would toil - labor on the earth. Having offspring would be a natural course of events, and would allow for more "helpers" in the work of cultivating the land. Also... it would fit in the Lord's plan of populating the earth, and fulfilling His purpose in reconciliation.

Does anyone else know if this is true?

 

[onajourney87]

The only exact timetable we know is in relation to Seth:

Genesis 5:3-5
When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.

Apart from this though...

Geneologies are NOT an accurate measurement for the age of the earth. Reason being is that geneologies are to tell about important people in a family line, not the age of the earth. There are very likely gaps in the genologies.

osm

 

[Vance]

Even if you want to read the Scripture as strictly literal (which I don't), the question is how long Adam was IN the Garden. A few days? Billions of years?

 

[imind]

thanks for the input; all of what has been posted has helped.

 

[Calminian]

Even if you want to read the Scripture as strictly literal (which I don't), the question is how long Adam was IN the Garden. A few days? Billions of years?

Alright, what am I missing here? I hate when something seems so obvious to only me because it could also mean I'm missing something obvious that everyone else sees. But at any rate, taking this passage literally, how can Adam have been in the Garden a few billion years if he begat Seth at age 130 and died 800 years later?

Gen. 5:3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters.

Alright I give up. What in the world are you talking about?

And regarding the OP, what do Cain and Able have to do with anything? Adam’s line is traced through Seth.

 

[Vance]

Alright, what am I missing here? I hate when something seems so obvious to only me because it could also mean I'm missing something obvious that everyone else sees. But at any rate, taking this passage literally, how can Adam have been in the Garden a few billion years if he begat Seth at age 130 and died 800 years later?

Gen. 5:3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters.

Alright I give up. What in the world are you talking about?

And regarding the OP, what do Cain and Able have to do with anything? Adam’s line is traced through Seth.

Oh, I don't think he actually was in the Garden that long, if a single literal Adam was in a literal Garden at all. But think of it this way: when a person is not subject to death, when they are immortal, are they aging? Time passes, yes, but would Adam have been "getting older"? Could it not be that Adam's age was determined from the time of the Fall? After all, literalists do not think it had been a child anyway, he got a head start of a couple of decades, probably. So, the age issue is already a bit of a mix-up. When they say 130 years, do they consider that from when he was created? Do they add 20 years or so to have it conform to his "bodily" age? And if they did that, would it not be a bit "off", since his body was not actually aging before the Fall?

All speculation, of course and, to my mind, somewhat fruitless speculation.

 

[Calminian]

Oh, I don't think he actually was in the Garden that long, if a single literal Adam was in a literal Garden at all. But think of it this way: when a person is not subject to death, when they are immortal, are they aging? Time passes, yes, but would Adam have been "getting older"? Could it not be that Adam's age was determined from the time of the Fall? After all, literalists do not think it had been a child anyway, he got a head start of a couple of decades, probably. So, the age issue is already a bit of a mix-up. When they say 130 years, do they consider that from when he was created? Do they add 20 years or so to have it conform to his "bodily" age? And if they did that, would it not be a bit "off", since his body was not actually aging before the Fall?

This is one of the most bizarre arguments I've ever heard. It says Adam lived x amount of years. The text also says the day God created him He breathed the breath of life into his nostrils and Adam became a living soul. If you take the text literally there is no room for speculation. You have a starting point and an ending point. How much more explicit could the writer have been?

All speculation, of course and, to my mind, somewhat fruitless speculation.

When ones speculates in the manner you're doing above, I fully concur.

 

[Liberty Wing]

We are not told the age of Adam when Cain and Abel were born, nor is it important. We may assume that Adam was only a few years old (he was created as a mature and fully functioning human being) when he and Eve had Cain and Abel. Obviously, they had other children around this time, as Genesis 4:14 states just shortly after God announces Cain's punishment, "I will be a homeless wanderer on the earth, and anyone who finds me will kill me."

Genesis 5:4 also supports this assertion, "... He [Adam] had other children".
The Bible then ignores Cain after briefly describing his descendants, and continues on in the descendants of Adam. The differences in translation between Hebrew and English may mean that son could mean immediate descendant - what we refer to today - or it could mean grandson, or it could even be used to represent other descendants, e.g. great grandson. Regardless of this, the ages of the father (or ancestor) is given when the son or descendant is given, hence making up for this uncertainity. These geneologies are located right through the Bible and finish at Jesus Christ.

Hence, we can feel fairly confident that the age of the earth, and hence the universe, is around 6,000 years E.S.T (Earth Standard Time). I hope that this helps in anyway.

 

[theotherguy]

Hence, we can feel fairly confident that the age of the earth, and hence the universe, is around 6,000 years E.S.T (Earth Standard Time). I hope that this helps in anyway.

Got to pull you up there mate. Genesis does not anywhere give a timeline between the creation of Earth and the creation of man. It just says the spirit of God was floating above the waters at the begining.

 

[Liberty Wing]

One the first day of the creation week God made the earth out of liquid water, and on the sixth day, God made man. Therefore, age of Adam (approx) = age of earth.

I know that you don't take Genesis literally all the way through, but IF you were God, how would you write the Genesis account to say that you DID make everything in six literal days??

 

[bainecaileag86]

If it wasn't in six literal days, wouldn't the vegetation have a little trouble surviving until He created the sun? Also, if you add up the geneologies you see the flood happened about 1,656 years into the time of the world. It tells us how many generations went from Adam to Jesus in the gospels. That limits time also, I'll say 2,000 years. We know Jesus came about 2,000 years ago, so I'm adding up to around 6,000 years.

 

[Vance]

The problem is that the date of the flood, by those chronologies, lands smack-dab in the middle of at least three solid ancient cultures that exist before and after the proposed flood date without seeming to have noticed the earth was just destroyed.

 

[TwinCrier]

The problem with this whole thread is that evolutionists do not believe the book of Genesis is literal or that any of the peple being mentioned here existed in the form of one individual. What the bible says doesn't pose a problem because the bible doesn't say what it says.

 

[Vance]

Oh, the Bible says what it says, it just doesn't say what you think it says.

 

[bainecaileag86]

I think we're talking different civilizations. The dates in the textbooks aren't going by the Bible...which I trust first. Egypt was of the seed of Ham I think. Sumeria had ziggurats much like the tower of Babel. Pre-flood civilization was advanced, but it was diffferent than post-flood. The Epic of Gilgamesh has an account of a world wide flood in it I believe. I think that belonged to one of those ancient civilizations you mentioned?

 

[hildigga]

i say this with respect, but, i think you're trying to force things out of the Bible that it did not intend to answer. sure it says how old Adam was when he had children, but what does it mean by that - does it mean how old he was, period, or does it mean how old he was after he left the garden? when does it start counting?
also there is evidence (and if you want me to prove that to you give me a few days to look some things up) that geneologies in Biblical times commonly did skip generations, and no one at the time found that unusual or unfactual.
the Bible is not trying to tell you how old the earth is... so let's not jump to too many conclusions from what it does say.

 

[Calminian]

...sure it says how old Adam was when he had children, but what does it mean by that - does it mean how old he was, period, or does it mean how old he was after he left the garden? when does it start counting?

On the day God created Adam He breathed into his nostrils and Adam became a living soul. So when did the living start? The day he was created. Then it says he lived 130 years and begot Seth. So it basically means "how old he was period." There are no qualifications offered. The writer meant it just as it reads. End of debate.

 

[Vance]

"End of debate."

The key concept for fundamentalism, literalism and YEC'ism.

 

[Calminian]

Come on guys, there are many good points to debate about but this isn't one of them. It's a no brainer that if Genesis is taken literally, Adam was 130 years old when be begot Seth. We have a starting point for when Adam started living—day six. To deny this would render language meaningless. Whoever thought of this objection obviously didn't research the text carefully. There truly is nothing left to debate.