Generations of Adam

The Generations of Adam are the first ten major generations listed in. This chapter of Genesis is significant for two reasons. While the first reason often becomes a target for skeptics of the Bible, the second suffers from lack of appreciation, mainly because few people bother to learn (or to teach properly) the true meanings of proper names, especially names of Biblical personages. In point of fact, Genesis chapter 5 not only sets forth a chronology of the First Age of Man, but also sets forth a direct comment on the human condition and a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

The Chronology
Genesis 5 follows a virtually unbroken pattern: "When Person A had lived X number of years, he begat Person B. And after he begat Person B he lived Y number of years and begat sons and daughters. Altogether the years of Person A were X + Y number of years, and then he died."

From the death years quoted above, one can readily see that Methuselah died in the very year of the global flood. The meaning of his name, "his death shall bring," suggests that he died shortly before, or on the day that, Noah received his orders to enter the Ark.

More to the point, this genealogical record combines with:


 * 1) Further genealogies up to and through the line of Abraham,
 * 2) The length of the Sojourn in Egypt,
 * 3) The time span given from the Exodus of Israel to the groundbreaking of the Temple of Jerusalem,
 * 4) The interlocking histories of the Divided Kingdoms Northern and Southern, and
 * 5) Recorded history from Nebuchadnezzar II to the present day, to give an accurate derivative age of the earth.

Skeptics frequently attack these numbers, and especially the life spans, as physically impossible. In so doing, however, they make the same mistake that the uniformitarians make: they assume without warrant that present-day conditions applied six thousand years ago. Multiple flood models suggest that conditions on the antediluvian earth were vastly different from modern conditions. (The canopy theory, for example, calls for a water-vapor canopy that covered the earth and might have shielded it from ionizing radiation.) In any case, the Bible records show that mankind's life span dropped by more than ninety percent in roughly the same number of generations that had passed before the global flood.

While increased radiation and poorer nutrition may have played some role, the rate at which the patriarchs' ages drop off after the Flood resembles a natural-log decay curve, consistent with the hypothesis that the main cause of their Antediluvian vitality would have been superior genetics. Having the human population reduced to 6 (Noah and his wife had no more children after the Flood) would undoubtedly result in inbreeding, with harmful genetic effects propagating very quickly during the first few centuries after the Flood, until the effects leveled out due to the higher population.

Meaning of the Names
Bible characters, by and large, did not receive their names entirely by accident, or because the person's parents thought those names would sound attractive. The Bible is replete with demonstrations that Bible characters received their names to serve a symbolic purpose, and often God Himself dictated that purpose.

The names of the ten members of the Generations of Adam illustrate this point. Most laypeople do not appreciate this fact, unless they own Bibles having good marginalia, and have the presence of mind to consult them. In this case, the names of the ten listed patriarchs, when one translates them properly and sets them down in birth order, make a paragraph that could read: "Man is appointed mortal, frail, and unto sorrow. The Blessed God shall come down to teach. His death shall bring to the despairing rest."

Jesus Christ, of course, is the Blessed God. Moreover, He did come down to teach. And upon His death&mdash;as He Himself assured His disciples&mdash;the Holy Spirit came to man to bring him comfort.