When Did Adam Live?

[crochet1949]

+DBowling

The covenant being with Noah and his descents -- well -- the world started over with only Noah and his family -- so his descents would Be everyone else in the world -- mankind.

All living flesh on the face of the earth -- kind of self-explanatory -- the 'face' would indicate land -- the fish of the waters would survive very nicely in a flood -- lots of water.

Included in the ark were at least two birds -- doves -- cause that was the kind of bird that he let out to find dry ground. The first time - it came back -- the next time it brought back a leaf / something that indicated the presence of dry land.

[crochet1949]

A person could also consider the rainbow that God gave as a sign to promise He'd never again destroy the entire earth with another flood. The entire earth -- Genesis 9:11 - 13.

[RickD]

It doesn't have to mean "entire earth", as in entire planet.

As you can see from the meaning of 'erets, it can also mean:
Land
Nations
People of the land

I'd refer you to this article from the home site.

[kowalskil]

Did Adam and Eve live? Yes, they did (and they still live), as spiritual entities.

[crochet1949]

RickD.
Referring to the article -- then what about Genesis 6:5 - 7 "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

So the Lord said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

Vs 11 -- The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

That sounds pretty global.

[abelcainsbrother]

A person could also consider the rainbow that God gave as a sign to promise He'd never again destroy the entire earth with another flood. The entire earth -- Genesis 9:11 - 13.

I agree but also a promise that God will never again destroy all flesh off the face of the earth again too.Genesis 9:16-17 "And the bow shall be in the cloud;and I will look upon it,that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth."Verse 17 And God said unto Noah,This is the token of the covenant,which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth."

[RickD]

RickD.
Referring to the article -- then what about Genesis 6:5 - 7 "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

So the Lord said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

Vs 11 -- The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

That sounds pretty global.

Sure, if you just look at it in English. But substitute "land" for "earth", and see how it sounds now.

"Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the land, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the land, and He was grieved in His heart.

So the Lord said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the land, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

Vs 11 -- The land also was corrupt before God, and the land was filled with violence.

[crochet1949]

Referring back to the use of the word 'earth' -- according to Strong's Exhaustive concordance / Heb / Greek.

The word used in Genesis 6 is 'erets' as you stated -- other meanings for that word are = common, country, earth, fluid, ground, land, == nations, == wilderness -- world.

[DBowling]

I am following this and I have a question.
Sorry if it's off topic or perhaps a silly question
I understand that Mesopotamia was located in between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers but why would every animal need to on the ark? Was it mainly his livestock, like cattle, sheep, goats ect, unclean animals like pigs, birds ect?
Scripture says in Genesis 'two of every kind'.
It's difficult to imagine that to be possible or even necessary in a localised flood.
Not to mention that birds can fly, quite long distances, so I'm not sure why birds would need to be included at all?

I can give you my personal opinion at the moment, but to do your question justice I would need to take a closer look at the wildlife and domesticated animals that lived in the 'land' of Mesopotamia around 3000 BC.

If we look at the scope of the Flood, the 'cradle of human civilization' (Mesopotamia) and natural wildlife habitats in Mesopotamia were totally devastated by the Flood. The deluge itself lasted for 40 days, It took 5 months for the ark to come to rest in the mountain range of Ararat, and it took 1 year and 10 days for the land to dry enough for Noah to exit the ark.
That tells me that there was incredible devastation to the wildlife habitat in Mesopotamia, and many animals including birds would not have been able to survive that level of destruction to their habitat.

So I'm inclined to believe that Noah was tasked with preserving the native Mesopotamian wildlife (birds included) in addition to preserving the domesticated animals that they would need to survive after the Flood.

Thats my .02

In Christ

[DBowling]

I am following this and I have a question.
Sorry if it's off topic or perhaps a silly question
I understand that Mesopotamia was located in between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers but why would every animal need to on the ark? Was it mainly his livestock, like cattle, sheep, goats ect, unclean animals like pigs, birds ect?
Scripture says in Genesis 'two of every kind'.
It's difficult to imagine that to be possible or even necessary in a localised flood.
Not to mention that birds can fly, quite long distances, so I'm not sure why birds would need to be included at all?

I can give you my personal opinion at the moment, but to do your question justice I would need to take a closer look at the wildlife and domesticated animals that lived in the 'land' of Mesopotamia around 3000 BC.

If we look at the scope of the Flood, the 'cradle of human civilization' (Mesopotamia) and natural wildlife habitats in Mesopotamia were totally devastated by the Flood. The deluge itself lasted for 40 days, It took 5 months for the ark to come to rest in the mountain range of Ararat, and it took 1 year and 10 days for the land to dry enough for Noah to exit the ark.
That tells me that there was incredible devastation to the wildlife habitat in Mesopotamia, and many animals including birds would not have been able to survive that level of destruction to their habitat.

So I'm inclined to believe that Noah was tasked with preserving the native Mesopotamian wildlife (birds included) in addition to preserving the domesticated animals that they would need to survive after the Flood.

Thats my .02

In Christ

[Philip]

One problem I see with trying to assert there were other men and populations outside of the flood zone, is that they aren't commented on as such. And are we to believe that ONLY those men in proximity to Noah were exceedingly sinful - that other men were either not so sinful OR God wasn't concerned with punishing them or otherwise - His concerns only lying with those in Adam's line. Same with the lost world nonsense - you have to base it on conjecture/read it (VERY) obscurely into the text. And, BTW, this issue should have nothing to do with the age of the earth. A lot of things could harmonize the two creation sequences that we might be missing. As usual, my question is, why does this really matter. We know about humanity God dealt with from Adam on, that's all I can see that truly matters.

[crochet1949]

Actually it didn't need to be every animal on the land -- only a male and female of it's kind. And animals needed for sacrifice once they got resettled. And if they were young animals, they wouldn't take as much room as adults. And we really don't know what all kinds of animals were existing at that time. They were generally speaking --not specific. We DO know what kinds of things we have Now and Can trace back to a certain extent. And People have been doing in-breeding of livestock and dogs and cats and lots of things for a Long time. There are names used in the Old Testament that people Still don't know exactly what they were.

Since God saw fit to destroy All of mankind because of gregious sinfulness -- violence -- and Noah and his family were the Only people 'saved' in the ark because they were the Only righteous people Left who Were righteous. That sort of 'says it all'. All of mankind is sort of definite.

[DBowling]

Where does the text say that the covenant with Noah was a covenant with all mankind?
The Biblical text explicitly says that the covenant is with Noah and his descendants. Nothing more, nothing less.

All mankind are descendants of Noah. Chapter 10 records the genealogies of his descendants and ends with this sentence: "These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood."

The text you quote does not state that "all mankind are descendants of Noah". That is a presumption that you are bringing to the text. It is not what the text says.
The text you quote does not state that the nations that descended from Noah constitute all mankind. That is a presumption that you are bringing to the text. It is not what the text says.

The primary issue here involves what is the correct interpretation of "and from these the nations spread abroad on the 'erets' after the flood"
You interpret 'erets' to mean 'the planet'
I interpret 'erets' to mean 'the land'
I don't need to repeat what RickD has already said about the meaning of the word 'erets' within the context of the Flood account, but your position is based solidly on the presumption that 'erets' refers to planet earth, and that is an assertion that the Biblical text does not make.

The following chapter describes the construction of the tower of Babel and includes this statement: " So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth."

We again have to deal with the scope of the word 'erets' here as well.
If erets means 'the whole planet it means one thing
If erets means 'the land' it means something quite different.
... but we've been there done that already.

I do want to point out one thing about the Babel incident (and I haven't had the opportunity to fully follow through on this yet)
Noah's sons begin to spread out at the end of Genesis 10. (Genesis 10:32)
The Babel incident occurs in the next chapter (Genesis 11) to a group of people who had already traveled east to Shinar (Genesis 11:2).

I haven't come to any conclusions here yet, but the 'traditional' Babel narrative has a sequence of events problem in addition to the ongoing presumption regarding the use of the word 'erets'.

If nothing else... hopefully this generates some thoughts and questions

In Christ

[DBowling]

One problem I see with trying to assert there were other men and populations outside of the flood zone, is that they aren't commented on as such.

The Bible may not explicitly comment on humanity outside the 'flood zone' but we do know they existed.
The Biblical timeline places Noah's Flood at around 3,000 BC, which lines up with the timeframe of the great Mesopotamian Flood of Sumerian history.

By 20,000 BC human beings had already migrated to the Americas, Australia, Asia, and Europe, and the land bridge to the Americas was gone which prevented any further migration of humans to the Americas.
So mankind had already populated the whole globe over 15,000 years before the Bible's stated timeframe for Noah's Flood.
The Bible may be focused on the history of 'God's people', but history clearly shows that humans populated the planet prior to 3000 BC.

This is not a situation of history vs the Bible.
I think history does an excellent job of supporting the Biblical record.
However, history does come into conflict with some extraScriptural traditions, and in those cases I will side with the historical record over extraScriptural traditions.

And are we to believe that ONLY those men in proximity to Noah were exceedingly sinful - that other men were either not so sinful OR God wasn't concerned with punishing them or otherwise - His concerns only lying with those in Adam's line.

Tell me if this narrative sounds familiar.
God chooses a special people (let's say Adam's family line) to reveal his truth to a sinful mankind.
However, instead of following God, God's chosen people rebel against God, adopting the wicked ways of sinful man, and even marrying into their families.
God chooses to judge his chosen people who rebelled against him as well as the sinful culture that corrupted his chosen people, with the exception of a righteous faithful remnant (let's call him Noah) who survives God's judgment and is tasked with the carrying the message of God to all mankind through his descendants.

This is not a unique pattern. In fact it is one that we see repeated throughout Scripture.

In Christ

[abelcainsbrother]

One problem I see with trying to assert there were other men and populations outside of the flood zone, is that they aren't commented on as such. And are we to believe that ONLY those men in proximity to Noah were exceedingly sinful - that other men were either not so sinful OR God wasn't concerned with punishing them or otherwise - His concerns only lying with those in Adam's line. Same with the lost world nonsense - you have to base it on conjecture/read it (VERY) obscurely into the text. And, BTW, this issue should have nothing to do with the age of the earth. A lot of things could harmonize the two creation sequences that we might be missing. As usual, my question is, why does this really matter. We know about humanity God dealt with from Adam on, that's all I can see that truly matters.

I don't think anybody is asserting that there were other men and populations outside the flood zone.however if the flood was global and not localized it would'nt matter much.However we must also remember that the human bloodline had been contaminated by angels which was also why God flooded the earth,there were half-breeds of angel and man that God killed off.It matters because it is important to know the truth,if there was a former world,a lost world we should know about it.And since we are old earth creationists we are going back way before Adam and Eve,the question is were the 6 days of creation long days to accomodate the big bang or was there a former world that perished? I think it is important we know the truth.