Exploring the Relationship Between Adam's Initial Immortality and the Age of the Earth

[davetaff]

Hi
Gen 28:14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

So Israel is as the dust of the earth and from Israel came the man in the image of God that man is Jesus Christ.

Love and Peace
Dave

 

[IoanC]

St. Cleopas of 'Sihastria' would say that Sts. Adam and Eve lived 700 years in Paradise. They cried for 100 years at the gates of Paradise, but they could not be let back in. Adam lived 930 years and Eve lived 950 years, in total.
This most likely comes from old traditional sources such as 'Synopsis historion' by George Kedrenos (and sources known by him, so on).

 

[Mystery Girl]

Eve didn't like what Lemech said, is that another name for the serpent?

No she didn't eat from the tree, God commanded them not to.

But it seems her desire be like God overwhelmed her. Who knows what feats Adam and Eve saw God performed, and she wanted to be as him, sounds sort of familiar.

There is an old saying:-

"It took Satan to make woman fall, but it only took a woman to make man fall."

There was a broad understanding that Eve thought that she would become like G

 

[linux.poet]

The Bible also speaks of God giving animals for mankind to have dominion over. And there is no reason to exclude consumption from that.

Then what is the point of these verses in Genesis 9?

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every animal of the earth and on every bird of the sky; on everything that crawls on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea. They are handed over to you. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I have given everything to you, as I gave the green plant. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. I certainly will require your lifeblood; from every animal I will require it. And from every person, from every man as his brother I will require the life of a person.

 

[Job 33:6]

Then what is the point of these verses in Genesis 9?

Verse 2:9?

Chapter 2 follows more of a Mesopotamian contextual background than Egyptian. It's essentially a second creation story. But if we were to uncomfortably squeeze them together, Adam was alone in the garden at that time. There were no plants nor animals.

Unless you have a different verse in mind.

Oh I see, chapter 9.

 

[Job 33:6]

Then what is the point of these verses in Genesis 9?

Chapter 9 follows a typical dietary prohibition syntax:

Genesis 9:3 states:

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
Genesis 9:3

Some people read this verse in scripture and think that this is the first time God sets a rule in which people can eat meat. However, if we read the verse right before and after it:

A. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
B. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
Genesis 9:2‭-‬4

And what we see is that God says that the fear of dread is on every animal, into your hand they're delivered, and Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. then afterwards it says "only you shall not eat flesh with it's life, that is, it's blood".

So now that we've read the full passage, now we can examine what it means.

Compare:
A. Any animal that divides the hoof and has the hoof cleft in two, and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat.
B. Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cleft you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not divide the hoof; they are unclean for you.
Deuteronomy 14:6‭-‬7

A Of all that live in water you may eat these: whatever has fins and scales you may eat.
B. And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.
Deuteronomy 14:9‭-‬10

A. You may eat any clean birds.
B. But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey,
Deuteronomy 14:11‭-‬12

A. These you shall eat, of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the streams—such you shall eat.
B. But anything in the seas or the streams that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and among all the other living creatures that are in the waters—they are detestable to you.
Leviticus 11:9‭-‬10

Notice the order in which the ancient Hebrews wrote out their dietary laws. A. Are things already approved and being consumed, B. Is a sub-specification that clarifies the ruling.

Any animals that divides the hoof, yet of those that chew the cud.

Of all that lives in water, and whatever does not have fins and scales.

All that are in the waters but not those without fins or scales.

You may eat any clean birds, but...these are the ones you shall not eat.

In every instance we see the dietary law starts out by describing what was already allowed and approved for eating, and then it follows with the updated ruling.

So now let's go back to the dietary ruling in Genesis and re-read it.

A. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
B. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
Genesis 9:2‭-‬4

We see the ruling in Genesis 9:4 (no animals with lifeblood), following that which was already allowed (The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered).

And so when we read the dietary law in context, we see that people didn't just randomly switch from vegans to eating meat. Rather, people always ate meat, going back to when God called on man to subdue fish and birds. When Abel gave God the fat portions in Gen 4:4, he likely ate the fresh meat. Rather than just leaving it out to rot. Just as people were already eating cows and fish and birds in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. God wasn't saying "you've never eaten fish before but now it's ok to eat them", God states that which was already approved first, which people in the times of Deuteronomy and Leviticus were already eating, and that people were already approved to eat fish, and then God clarifies on a new subset dietary ruling, that fish without scales is more specifically now what is not approved.

And the above versus are not exhaustive, there are at least a dozen dietary rulings that are all structured with the same Hebrew syntax in the Old testament.

And all this ties into the reality that there was always death, and it was acceptable to God, going back to the earliest days of creation.

 

[Job 33:6]

And here is a good simple example:
Deuteronomy 14:11-12 CEB
[11] You are allowed to eat any clean bird. [12] Here’s a list of those you are not allowed to eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey,

It's not as though the Isrealites had never eaten bird before.

Deuteronomy 14:9-10 CEB
[9] Here’s a list of the water animals you are allowed to eat: you can eat anything that has fins and scales. [10] But you aren’t allowed to eat anything that lacks scales or fins. These are off-limits for you.

And it's not as though they had never eaten fish before.

Rather, they had already been eating birds and fish, and God is taking a subcategory of that, and initiating a dietary prohibition.

Now we look again at Genesis 9:
I'll switch to the NET by comparison:

Genesis 9:3-4 NET
[3] You may eat any moving thing that lives. As I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. [4] But you must not eat meat with its life (that is, its blood) in it.

The prohibition is to stop eating animals that still have their blood in them (like if you ate the leg of a lamb but kept the lamb alive to keep the meat fresh for later). It's ok to eat animals, but a subcategory is identified as prohibited. God is informing the Isrealites to stop eating animals that still have blood in them

Or it may be related to draining blood first etc.

People have to remember that this is a 3,000 year old text. It's not written to counter Darwin nor is it written in a modern scientific context about animal origins and biology. This is an ancient text, so you have to be prepared for things that may not be readily obvious or intuitive in the text.

 

[Job 33:6]

And one more note too. It's interesting that the fall is in chapter 3, but that it would be assumed that no one had ever eaten meat until centuries later during the flood. Or that lions on the ark wouldn't be interested in eating goats or whatever else it is that YECs might believe were on the ark.

But in ancient near east flood narratives, the arks are more commonly made of bitumen coated reed grass. Like the ark of Moses (tebah, the same Hebrew word). And indeed this is precisely what the Bible tells us when it says that the ark is made of gopher and kopher. Kopher is an Akkadian loan word for a mud coated bitumen. And gopher is based on an Akkadian loan word for something akin to shepherds huts reeds. Or grass bounded to make huts.

And I'd be happy to work through the Hebrew on that if anyone is interested.

AiG depicts something like Titanic when they talk about the ark. But really we should be thinking more along the lines of the ark that Moses was put in along the Nile.

 

[linux.poet]

Thank you for clarifying your debate position. I appreciate the depth of scholarship you bring to this subject here.

 

[truthuprootsevil]

Dirt is formed from all sorts of living things.

The Bible is clear it doesn't mention the process of which God formed man. Man was not formed out of a dirt devil, whipped up like a presto man.

I thought I have already said that the Bible does not mention what process God used to form man, and if he did we wouldn't understand it. If not that's something I do often say.

Whatever the dirt devil is to you whipped up like presto man, let it be so for you.

 

[truthuprootsevil]

And Jesus is the last Adam or the second man, but this isn't about biology. Was Jesus temporally the second man to exist? No. Was Jesus the last man to exist? No. Not biologically.

1 Corinthians 15:45-48 ESV
[45] Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. [46] But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. [47] The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. [48] As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

Mice are living, is Eve the mother of mice too?

Genesis 4:20-21 ESV
[20] Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. [21] His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.

And Jubal was the father of all those who play the pipe. I play the pipe, is Jubal my father too? No, that's not the point.

This isn't a biology textbook. It's not about human origins. It is about their immediate family. It's not about humanity as a whole. Indeed, as noted before, Adam and Eve are never even mentioned in chapter 1 with the creation of humanity.


Their names are Hebrew words. Hebrew isn't a divine language. It was given to them by the Isrealites that spoke that language and wrote Genesis in that language.


The existence of the tree of life is only further evidence of the inherent mortality of humanity, otherwise there would be no reason for it.

I was reading what you said until I came to the point where you said mice is living too. You know exactly what it means when it says Eve is the mother of the living. And it's not talking about any form of animal other than the homo sapien the human man kind. Anyway after that I stopped reading whatever you had to say not interested goodbye.

 

[Jermayn]

Adam upon being created by GOD and was initially in a state of innocence and perfection in the Garden of Eden. He was created to live forever, which suggests that he was in a condition of immortality while in Eden.

However, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, both of them were punished with mortality when GOD tells Adam that he will return to the ground from which he was taken.

As a result, if we consider Adam's state of being in Eden as immortal, it is challenging to calculate how long he lived in the garden starting from the point when he was created to the time when he fell.

From scripture, Adam's genealogies provide a timeline that leads to the conclusion of a young Earth, typically around 6,000 years old. However, if one considers the possibility that Adam lived for a very long time in a perfect, immortal state before disobedience, this could imply a much longer timeline for humanity (and an older earth) before the onset of mortality and the experiences described later after the serpent deceives Eve.

Thoughts?

The Bible actually tells us how long Adam lived in Genesis 5:5.

"Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died."

 

[davetaff]

I thought I have already said that the Bible does not mention what process God used to form man, and if he did we wouldn't understand it. If not that's something I do often say.

Whatever the dirt devil is to you whipped up like presto man, let it be so for you.

Hi
Man in the image of God was created from the dust of the earth
Gen 13:16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

This is referring to Israel and from Israel came Christ from the dust of the earth.

Love and Peace
Dave