The Bible NETWork ~ Impacting the World for Christ one post at a time!

In genesis 2 it says that adam was the first man created and placed on the earth in the garden of edan. Eve was created from the rib of Adam and became the first woman placed on the earth in Edan. The wording of this in the scriptures has always brought a certain curiosity to my mind. It says they where the "first" not the last or only. Later on in genesis the family of Adam and Eve run into other nations without any explanation of where they came from. When the expulsion from the garden occured where other people then seeded on the earth? Or while they where in the garden did the natural history we now ascribe to occur. Evolution, dinosaurs... etc.

As we all know the Bible does not specify how long they where in the garden. They had perfect heavenly bodies unable to age or suffer from illness or disease as long as they where in the garden. They could have been in there for eons as far as we know.

To clarify I suscribe to this creation theory. ( I can't remember what it was called in the post above in this section) That the earth and heavens where not created in 6 24hour literal blocks. Instead in 6 Distinct stages. Each stage taking place across epochs or millenia. When moses wrote Genesis, He wrote in according to his understanding of what he had witnessed or been shown in vision. Or possibly that a day in heaven is not as a day on earth, and he did witness it in 6 days, but in 6 heavenly days.

I look forward to the following discussion.

_________________
Matthew 5:14-16

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candelstick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.

I am not sure what translation of the bible you are using, but it is not accurate. The text of Genesis 1-3 does not contain the word "first" in it; the text doesn't even use the word first (ראשון) when describing the first day of creation.



In the bible they were commanded to be fruitful and multiply, and yet they were expelled from the garden before the birth of their first child so they could not have been in the garden been in the garden for very long.



It is called the day age theory.

some speculate that the 1st sin caused not only Adam & Eve to age/decay but the Creation itself -- perhaps entropy began @ that moment -- who knows

Genesis 3:20 says that Eve was "the mother of all living," which apparently contradicts the idea that other people who were not descended from Eve were "seeded" on the earth. And in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that death came through Adam and that "in Adam all die" (v. 22). The logic Paul employed is that Adam transmitted death to all mankind because we were all "in him" or in his loins and therefore originating in him. Again, this seems to preclude the possibility you've suggested.

_________________
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!

Forum Code of Conduct
The Bible NETWork Doctrinal Statement
The NET Bible Study Environment
Pastors Pro-Life Resource Center
Biblical Eldership

Thanks for your responses. Like i said its just a thought i had and thought i would ask others, its not a beliefe i have or something i have ever been taught. Thanks for the references. I use the King James version of the bible, and after posting this i reread the passages and you where right it does not say the first.

_________________
Matthew 5:14-16

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candelstick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.

Who knows? We know.

Entropy is a byproduct of physical processes necessary for the creation story to have taken place: the sun beaming light & heat to the earth, the conversion of food into energy, the friction between Adam's feet and the ground, etc.

Answers in Genesis lists this among their Arguments creationists should not use.

Regardless, I don't see how entropy factored into the discussion in the first place.

-Dan.

Dan -- you're entitled to your opinion

last time i looked, you, me & good ol' Tommy were not around pre-Fall -- so best any of us can all do is speculate about that time

for me, it's a provocative mystery -- for you, it's something else -- so be it

That's not correct. Heat flow from a hot region to a cold region is part of the definition of increasing entropy. Even if you accept the YEC viewpoint (I don't, but for the sake of argument, let's roll with it), heat transfer existed from the very beginning of time; er go, so did entropy. This is not a matter of "opinion" or blind speculation. This is a matter of understanding the terminology and how it applies to the real world. You might as well argue that gravity didn't exist prior to the fall, despite the stars and planets all being in their orbits and Adam & Eve being firmly stuck to the ground.

Some reading



In this case, there is only mystery for those who don't seek an answer. Did you read the (explicitly creationist) article I linked?

-Dan.

As an addendum, entropy is not "decay" in the way that some Young-Earth Creationists have portrayed it. It's much more detailed and far-reaching than the subjective, nebulous notion of "things breaking down." It may take a couple readings to wrap your head around, but the wikipedia page I linked to has a pretty good summary.

-Dan.

Dan,

It isn't necessary that the universe conforrmed to the same physical model before the fall that it conforms to now. The same can even be said about the flood.

_________________
Not all those who wander are lost.

We can test that by looking at the material evidence left behind by those events and seeing how they match up with what we observe going on today to see if anything actually has changed. Astronomy provides us an extremely convenient opportunity to peer into the past to test these hypotheses by looking at events that took place in distant galaxies a long, long time ago whose light is only now reaching us.

Ya know what we find?

Nothing's changed. If it had changed, we would be able to see evidence of it, but we don't. Creationists can throw up canards like this all day long, but that doesn't mean there's any merit to them.

I challenge that anyone who says that entropy didn't increase pre-fall doesn't actually know what entropy is. We have descriptions from the Bible of processes happening pre-fall that are perfectly 100% consistent with our current understanding of entropy. These processes happen BECAUSE entropy increases.

I am no fan of AIG, their intellectual honesty, or the validity of their scholarship, but if this argument is so poor and baseless that they warn others against using it, shouldn't that say something?

-Dan.

Dan,

That's not quite true. The laws of nature could have been operating differently than they do now, and yet have left behind exactly the traces that you observe.

The theory that the laws of nature operated differently in the past is one that can ultimately never be falsified by observation. By the same token, it can never be verified by observation either. For this reason it isn't really a theory at all. That is why scientists do not spend time trying to come up with such theories. It doesn't lead in any useful direction, from a scientific point of view.

However, the same conundrum about the undecidability of the past does not necessarily apply to revealed truth, unlike observed truth. There are other problems that arise with revealed truth. Like how does one decide which assertion of claimed revealed truth is to be taken as authoritative. And specifically with regard to Genesis 1, whether it was intended to be taken literally or figuratively.

_________________
Not all those who wander are lost.

How? Do you have any examples? If light and/or nuclear decay had operated differently, we'd be able to see it. Gravity might be a little tougher to tweeze out, but I'd imagine someone (smarter than me) would know how to do it.

That's not correct. The past behavior of the universe is one of the core components of the study of physical cosmology. Scientists do spend time trying to come up with such theories and, in fact, this area has received a fair amount of attention in the last few years due to some relatively recent discoveries and mathematical models put forward (as well as there being some scientists now who are gifted on camera).

-Dan.

Interesting. Can you be specific?

The sun was shining, transferring heat from a hot region (the sun) to a cold region (the earth).

Adam & Eve were breathing thanks to the pressure constantly re-equalizing between their lungs and the outside air.

They were eating and digesting their food, which causes a chemical reaction that releases energy (including heat energy).

They were walking, which was made possible by the friction between their feet and the ground, which, again, causes heat to be generated and released into the environment.

-Dan.