DB: Archaeology and genetics both tell us that biologically modern humans (species homo sapiens sapiens - ie us) existed 150,000 to 200,000 years before the Biblically established timeframe for Adam and Eve (5,000 - 6,000 BC).
The interesting thing here is that the Scriptural sequence of events in Genesis 1 and 2 is consistent with the premise that God created mankind (Genesis 1:26-27) sometime before the time of Adam and Eve (later in Genesis 2).
This all begs some interesting questions - the most curious of which is, when did sin enter the creation.
The passage SEEMS to indicate that Adam, at the time of Abel's killing, only had one offspring, which was Cain. True - obviously, not necessarily? Silence doesn't equal fact.
Then, after Cain is banished to wandering (Genesis 4): "14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
So, WHO, exactly, would Cain have feared might kill him, IF, at that time, there were yet no other men on the earth?
Genesis 4: "17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch."
Um, where did the wife come from - was she an unnamed sister (Incest not yet having been an established sin)? That's entirely possible.
Then, while Adam is still fathering children, in Genesis 4: "25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “
God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” 26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh.
At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord."
Sometime after Abel's killing, the text APPEARS to indicate that God blessed Adam with a replacement for Abel, with Seth - and though it doesn't say so, it would appear that Seth would only have been Adam's third offspring And "people" began to call upon the Lord around the time of Seth - WHAT people? Just whatever offspring of Adam?
Romans 5: 12 Therefore, just as
sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and
so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for
sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
The Apostle Paul indicates sin AND thus death came into the world through just one man (Adam). And he says sin was not counted where there was NO law - but this can't be the Law of Moses - because, clearly, God was giving instructions to Adam's line and noting sin well before Moses' time - and from the time of Adam's creation. And so why does Paul frame the time death reigned - which was tied to sin - to within a specific time frame (Adam to Moses)? So WHAT men would sin not have been counted toward (as in a time where there were yet no laws of God - presumably, from the time of Adam?) - and why even note that if there was NEVER a time in which men didn't have ANY instructions (laws) of God?
I know many of these have been mentioned on the forum long ago - but it's good to refresh some of these questions for those not around long.