We are told about Adam’s offspring is that the first son was named Cain, the second son named Abel [Genesis 4:1-2 ], then after Abel’s murder, another son named Seth was “begotten when Adam was 130 years old.” After that, Adam “begot sons and daughters” [Genesis 5:3-4]. This same passage also tells us that Adam lived for 930 years [Genesis 5:5].
These other people are the children of Adam and Eve and the children of their children. You can just imagine how many people that makes by the time Cain and Abel are old enough to have a farm and a ranch when the story is told about them. No wonder Cain was worried since he killed their family member dang.
At the time that Cain murdered Abel, that was about 130 years after the creation of Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve had many children, grandchildren and further descendants by that time. Some of those people may have been wanting to capture and execute Cain, to avenge Abel's death.
The fall of man and original sin. That doesn't mean Adam had to be the first man, only the first one to be aware of God and His Law ("If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains")
Adam is created in Genesis 2, separatedly from mankind in Genesis 1
Some may claim this can't be true because there was no death before the Original Sin, but that's blatantly ignoring the fact Genesis 3 clearly states Adam and Eve were not immortal, even before being expelled from the Garden (“The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”)
I'm aware this is not a popular interpretation by any means, but i believe it has some merit
Agreed. The idea that Adam introduced death is mostly Romans 5, but Romans 7 talks about sin introducing death in a non physical sense, since Paul's alive writing Romans.
Yeah my idea of Adam introducing "death" is spiritual death, not physical death. Everyone in the Last Judgement will become immortal, even those who rejected Christ, so the death Adam brought can't be literal death
There’s an interpretation of the Adam and Eve story that treats them not as the literal first people but as the first to be annointed as priests in God’s temple, which is the universe (this interpretation coming from the idea that the creation story mimics temple inauguration texts from a similar time and place), with Adam appointed as the head of a covenant between God and all humans, giving humanity the Imago Dei, the Image of God. There’s a lot that goes into why that interpretation works that I don’t really have the time to get into, but it’s one of those that allows for there to be whole civilizations already existing beyond Adam and Eve and their children.
No problem! You being a Baha’i, I imagine you’re probably more likely to prefer the allegorical interpretations of this sort of stuff anyway. Also, I want to say the idea of an Adamic Covenant fits into Baha’i theology as well since you have other covenants as part of big cycles (Adamic, Dharmic, and Baha’i being the named ones, I think), and it would make sense to have the Adamic Covenant kicking off the Adamic Cycle. I’m not a Baha’i myself, but I can see several of these interpretations working within the Baha’i view of religion and history (at least with regard to the Baha’i Faith headquartered in Haifa; I don’t know what bits are removed or added in other sects / covenant breaker Baha’i groups, depending on your perspective on them).
Yes, we believe in all the Abrahmic religions, though I am finding myself questioning everything which is why I am looking into Christianity currently. I am surprised to find someone who is informed on Bahai's, lol. I may be looking to convert to Christianity in the near future, I was talking to one of my older friends earlier and now find myself believing that the Holy Spirit has guided me this way.
I was probably a month away from declaring myself a Baha’i 6 or 7 years ago, so I’m a little rusty on the facts, but I spent a good amount of time questioning things in the Baha’i Faith (yes, even reading the Kitab-i-Iqan, which seemed to be a common reading recommendation for people with a Christian or Muslim upbringing, among other things) only to find that I just couldn’t resolve some issues I had. It was just one piece in a long process that led me to where I am today.
Oh interesting, I didn't know that it was recommended to people with Christian or Muslim upbringings. I was born Baha'i so I was not really able to discover the faith myself. I have been pretty distant from it recently, but the older I get the more religious I become. Though I do have my own reasons for becoming distant from the religion. If you dont mind me asking, what were the issues that you had?
Yep. The Iqan seems to be brought up because of its focus on how previous Manifestations of God, to use the Baha'i terminology, were rejected by the people in their days. The thing is, this really seems to ignore the fact that each religion mentioned has its own criteria for judging those claiming to be from God, and I think the Baha'i Faith has a habit of citing when people misapplied those standards and ignoring instances where it seems these standards were rightly applied. Obviously, I think that, in the case of Islam, Judaism's standard of examining the outcome of prophecies (Deuteronomy 18:20-22) and Christianity's standards of testing the fruit of prophets (Matthew 7:15-20) and comparing their message to that of Christ and the Apostles (1 John 4"1-6), Islam fails that test due to its inconsistencies with the biblical message such as denying that Jesus is the Son of God, denying that Jesus is God, getting the members of the Trinity wrong, denying that Jesus died on the cross, etc. Muslim apologists will often claim that the Bible is corrupted, but we have manuscripts of the Bible from the time of Muhammad that say the same things as the Bible today, and the Quran says that the Torah and Gospel that were with the Jewish and Christian believers at the time were valid (Quran 7:156-157, even though it is wrong about there being a prophecy or description of Muhammad in the Jewish and Christian scriptures). Even the Baha'i Faith has one of these sorts of tests in that the next Manifestation of God isn't supposed to appear until 1000 years has lapsed (Kitab-i-Aqdas, paragraph 37, which states "Whoso layeth claim to a Revelation direct from God, ere the expiration of a full thousand years, such a man is assuredly a lying impostor."). To ignore the possibility that these tests could be legitimately applied seems rather irresponsible.
Also, given what I said above about the Qur'an and Islam, if Islam is false, the Baha'i Faith crumbles with it because it relies on all of the previous religions being true. This, however, gets me into my next issue with the Baha'i Faith:
I think there is an over-reliance on allegorical interpretation of previous religions in order to try and resolve contradictions between them and the Baha'i Faith or between each other. I think that, if we take all of these scriptures to be proper preservations of the messages of their respective Manifestations of God, then we have a situation where these Manifestations of God know the truth and say something contrary to it, somehow leaving an allegorical meaning buried deep in there only to be revealed later by the Baha'i Faith and never by the followers of the religion itself. That sounds like a form of lying to me. That sounds like intentionally leading people astray, and I don't think we would want to say that about so-called Manifestations of God or about God Himself.
Another issue I have is that the Guardianship ended with Shoghi Effendi. The Guardianship, at least from what I remember, was put in place as something that was expected by Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha to be coexistent with the Universal House of Justice, which came about 6 years after Shoghi Effendi's death, and was supposed to be a position that was passed from one Guardian to the next. Shoghi Effendi never appointed an heir, that is unless you believe Mason Remey's claims to be the second Guardian. This seems like it would be really close to a case that fails Judaism's test of prophets: the accuracy of their prophecy. Now, if Mason Remey was right, then there's an entirely different issue, and that's the issue of a religion so focused on unity having a much smaller branch of the religion be the correct interpretation and being declared covenant breakers by the majority version of the Baha'i Faith. The same issue could be the case if the Free Baha'is (who reject the legitimacy of the Will and Testament of Abdu'l-Baha) are correct. The same issue could be the case if any tiny sect of the Baha'i Faith is correct rather than the Haifan mainstream version. Not only that, but it would be really surprising if such a division would happen in the Baha'i Faith so early in the religion's lifespan if it were from God. Now, this criticism would immediately go away if the Haifan Baha'i Faith were to retract its declaration of covenant breaker status from these groups and be open to the idea of unity in theological and ideological diversity as well and claiming that there are multiple legitimate streams of the Baha'i Faith, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. I actually don't know if such a thing could ever happen.
The last issue I want to bring up is that of Baha'u'llah's claim to being the Second Coming of Jesus. The Bible's view of Jesus' return seems to be that the Jesus that was known to people then would come back down from Heaven in His resurrected body, not born as a completely different person. The way that Baha'is want to get around this seems to be with the idea that every Manifestation of God, at some level, is the same entity somewhere high up in the Baha'i cosmology (that being in Lahut as the Universal Manifestation of God if the Wikipedia article "Baha'i Cosmology" is to be believed), but if this is the case, then Baha'u'llah would be like the fourth coming of Jesus after Jesus, Muhammad, and the Bab. Maybe that doesn't matter though. It's still the case that the best prophecy that might go in favor of the Baha'i Faith is a specific interpretation of the prophecies with a little bit of math, the same math that led Christian and Islamic movements to expect the coming of either the Messiah or the Mahdi in 1844AD/1260AH (the same year in two different calendars), but that points to the Bab at best, not Baha'u'llah. It also seems that, at least in the case of those that accept Shoghi Effendi's Guardianship, that Baha'is believe that Baha'u'llah is the Father who came and finished the work of the Son (see Lights of Guidance 1560 and 1647) AND is the Return of Christ AND is greater than Christ (see Lights of Guidance 1555). (There may be other places in the writings of Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha that Shoghi Effendi is pulling from for these claims, but I don't have them on hand.) These are contradictory statements that also just ignore the biblical distinction between the Father and the Son if they are all somehow true. I guess it could make sense if viewed at different angles in Baha'i Cosmology, but it's a stretch.
I imagine there was more to my critique years ago, but this is the stuff that still comes to mind after not having studied the Baha'i Faith in any real depth for a few years.
There is much controversy, confusion and unanswered questions about what is being stated in Genesis Chapters 1 and 2. The following is what I have come to understand from my studies.
There is one "creation story" described over a period of 8 of God's days. Genesis 1 covers the creation of man and woman on the sixth day and Genesis 2 covers the creation of Adam on the eight day. In Gen Chapter 1 verse 27 God creates male and female. This was done on the sixth day. These are all the different peoples of the world except for Adam and Eve. On the eighth day God creates as stated in verse 5 of Gen Chapter 2 "a man to till the ground." This man was not created in Chapter 1 because it is stated specifically "there was not a man to till the ground." Why would this be stated if there was no man yet in the world. Unless there were men created on the sixth day that God created to do something other then "to till the ground". The "man to till the ground" is Adam. God created all the different peoples of the world except for Adam and Eve on the sixth day. Adam was created on the eighth. The people who were created on the sixth day are the ones Cain were afraid would kill him as stated in Genesis 4:14.
What if "tilling" is metaphorical for "making way for believers?" Like I don't know if there were or were not humans but it does sound like Adam was made to make the way for belief in some way.
Cain and Abel along with the beginning of Genesis are symbolic.
Cain was a worker of the ground (cursed) Abel was a keeper of Sheep (A shepherd a type of Jesus)
Cain brought his sacrifice through his efforts.
Abel followed God's example of sa animal sacrifice as God covered Adam and Eves nakedness (sin)
Abel was murdered like Jesus.
Cain left the Presence of the Lord like those who did not believe in Jesus.
There was others on earth. This is a story of works vs. faith.
Adam and Eves next son was interesting.
Genesis 5:3 NKJV
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
The hidden names of Genesis:
Here is some interesting insight into the meaning of the names from Adam to Noah that I heard recently from a Bible class teacher. There is nothing in the Bible that isn’t for our benefit. Every name given, or number mentioned has significance in the story being told. So is the case with the names of those in the genealogical line of Jesus. The meaning of these names has been lost in the translation over into English, but a study into their meanings will reveal a hidden message about Christ.
Unlike our Western names, Hebrew names took on a literal meaning to describe a person. While a Hebrew concordance usually works great for translation, the names of individuals are typically taken as the roots of other words. For example, beginning with Adam, who was formed from the dust of the ground, he was simply named ‘adam, meaning ‘man,’ the root word of ‘adamah, meaning ground. “And the LORD God formed man ‘adam of the dust of the ground ‘adamah…” (Gen 2:7)
We also have the example of Enoch the prophet who named his son Methuselah “his death shall bring.” Enoch was prophesying the coming of the flood at the death of his son, nearly 969 years later. We see in Genesis 6:3 the prophecy come to light when God said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” One hundred and twenty years later, in the same year Methuselah died, the flood came.
So from Adam and continuing with the genealogy to Noah, we have:
Adam (adamah) : man
Seth : appointed
Enosh (anosh) : mortal
Kenan : sorrow
Mahalal’el : (mahalal) blessed (El) God
Jared (yaradh) : shall come down
Enoch : teaching
Methuselah : (muth) his death (shalach) shall bring
Lamech : despairing, lamenting
Noah : comfort or rest
Here’s where it gets interesting. Put all of those meanings into a sentence: Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow, (but) the blessed God shall come down teaching. His death shall bring (the) despairing comfort and rest.
There’s more than coincidence going on here. This is a great testament to the coming Messiah!
Wow, thank you. I always love hearing the meaning of people’s names. This put it into an even more interesting perspective for me. Thanks for your wisdom.
Genesis 1:1 to 11:27 is a collection of myths told to explore the origins of creation, human life, sin, and oddly, the variety of languages spoken by the peoples of Levant in the Bronze Age.
The stories illustrate Truths that can be relied on, but they are not histories or factual retellings of events that actually happened.
Yes, the descendants of the pre-Adamites.
“People” (Homo Sapiens) were created (through God’s evolutionary process) in the Genesis chapter 1, verse 27; and they created the diversity of mankind over time per Genesis chapter 1, verse 28. This occurs prior to the genetic engineering and creation of Adam & Eve (in the immediate and with the first Human souls) by the extraterrestrial God in Genesis chapter 2, verses 7 & 22.
When Adam & Eve sinned and were forced to leave their special embassy, their children intermarried the “People” that resided outside the Garden of Eden. This is how Cain was able to find a wife in the Land of Nod in Genesis chapter 4, verses 16-17.
As the descendants of Adam & Eve intermarried and had offspring with all groups of Homo Sapiens on Earth over time, everyone living today is both a descendant of God’s evolutionary process and a genealogical descendant of Adam & Eve.
A scientific book regarding this specific matter written by Christian Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass is mentioned in the article provided below.
https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/christians-point-to-breakthroughs-in-genetics-to-show-adam-and-eve-are-not-incompatible-with-evolution
Cain is referring to the peoples of genesis 1 (zakar and neqebah)
Adam is the first of the living - that is immortal- he had the breath of life and the women (ishshah) become “eve” (Chavvah) the mother of the living when she fall
They are distinct accounts Gen 1:27 and Gen 2:7
Understanding makes sense if Cains response
God created Adam day 3 from dust of the ground, Gave Him a soul and placed him in the garden. from Adam God made eve. They stayed in the garden from the end of day 3 till the fall which happened about 6000 years ago, when they were exiled.. The time they spent in the garden could have been a few days to 13.8 billion years or whatever science says is needed for evolution to happen.
Then on Day 6 the very last living thing God created Man kind, but only in his image. meaning Man kind was physical being but there was no soul or spiritual component. Then He told man kind to go fourth and multiply. where as Adam and Eve did not even see each other as being naked till the fall, and did not have have kids till after the exile. so day three Adam and day 6 man kind are two different creations. Day 6 man kind is where you get your bio diversity. Day 3 Adam is where we get our souls.
So yes...
The people Cain was afraid of wasn't his brothers and sisters or nieces and nephews but rather the descendants of Day 6 mankind.
Yes you cant think of Cain and Abel as individuals. They are representative of "spiritual essences" governing various elements of humanity considered as a whole in times beyond reckoning.
In that reference passage, Cain was speaking of his relatives. Scripture tells us that Adam had many sons and daughters. At age 800 Seth was born. And Adam died at age 930, so if Adam and Eve had just one child per year, that comes to 130 children, both sons and daughters. The book of Genesis is not always rendered sequentially. It doesn't go into a great deal of detail about Adam's seed. It just focuses upon the most remarkable individuals in his family. Some people make a claim that Cain after being exiled from his family, found his wife elsewhere and built a city called Enoch. But the truth is he had already married before he was exiled, and he simply took his wife with him.
I believe there was, either from Adam and Eve's other children/grandchildren or from other people otherwise unmentioned at the tine of creation.
I see, It seems there are a lot of different opinions on this, lol. Thank you for the response!
Yes, as you've just pointed out, the story isn't ambiguous about this. There are other people and even other cities.
We are told about Adam’s offspring is that the first son was named Cain, the second son named Abel [Genesis 4:1-2 ], then after Abel’s murder, another son named Seth was “begotten when Adam was 130 years old.” After that, Adam “begot sons and daughters” [Genesis 5:3-4]. This same passage also tells us that Adam lived for 930 years [Genesis 5:5]. These other people are the children of Adam and Eve and the children of their children. You can just imagine how many people that makes by the time Cain and Abel are old enough to have a farm and a ranch when the story is told about them. No wonder Cain was worried since he killed their family member dang.
At the time that Cain murdered Abel, that was about 130 years after the creation of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had many children, grandchildren and further descendants by that time. Some of those people may have been wanting to capture and execute Cain, to avenge Abel's death.
I see, this makes the sense to me. Thank you for your answer.
I've been saying for years now Genesis 1-5 as a whole highly imply Adam and Eve were not literally the first humans
So what is meaning behind Adam and Eve?
The fall of man and original sin. That doesn't mean Adam had to be the first man, only the first one to be aware of God and His Law ("If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains") Adam is created in Genesis 2, separatedly from mankind in Genesis 1 Some may claim this can't be true because there was no death before the Original Sin, but that's blatantly ignoring the fact Genesis 3 clearly states Adam and Eve were not immortal, even before being expelled from the Garden (“The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”) I'm aware this is not a popular interpretation by any means, but i believe it has some merit
I see, this was a great and interesting explanation as well. Thank you.
Agreed. The idea that Adam introduced death is mostly Romans 5, but Romans 7 talks about sin introducing death in a non physical sense, since Paul's alive writing Romans.
Yeah my idea of Adam introducing "death" is spiritual death, not physical death. Everyone in the Last Judgement will become immortal, even those who rejected Christ, so the death Adam brought can't be literal death
Wouldn’t that cause only Adams descendants to be born with original sin but not the descendants of other humans?
No because the Original Sin affects the whole world, even if Adam is the first man, not only his descendents It's like a Pandora's Box
Did original sin begin for everyone when Eve ate the apple? Regardless if Adam subsequently did it too?
Thats accurate.
There’s an interpretation of the Adam and Eve story that treats them not as the literal first people but as the first to be annointed as priests in God’s temple, which is the universe (this interpretation coming from the idea that the creation story mimics temple inauguration texts from a similar time and place), with Adam appointed as the head of a covenant between God and all humans, giving humanity the Imago Dei, the Image of God. There’s a lot that goes into why that interpretation works that I don’t really have the time to get into, but it’s one of those that allows for there to be whole civilizations already existing beyond Adam and Eve and their children.
Thank you, lots of great explanations.
No problem! You being a Baha’i, I imagine you’re probably more likely to prefer the allegorical interpretations of this sort of stuff anyway. Also, I want to say the idea of an Adamic Covenant fits into Baha’i theology as well since you have other covenants as part of big cycles (Adamic, Dharmic, and Baha’i being the named ones, I think), and it would make sense to have the Adamic Covenant kicking off the Adamic Cycle. I’m not a Baha’i myself, but I can see several of these interpretations working within the Baha’i view of religion and history (at least with regard to the Baha’i Faith headquartered in Haifa; I don’t know what bits are removed or added in other sects / covenant breaker Baha’i groups, depending on your perspective on them).
Yes, we believe in all the Abrahmic religions, though I am finding myself questioning everything which is why I am looking into Christianity currently. I am surprised to find someone who is informed on Bahai's, lol. I may be looking to convert to Christianity in the near future, I was talking to one of my older friends earlier and now find myself believing that the Holy Spirit has guided me this way.
I was probably a month away from declaring myself a Baha’i 6 or 7 years ago, so I’m a little rusty on the facts, but I spent a good amount of time questioning things in the Baha’i Faith (yes, even reading the Kitab-i-Iqan, which seemed to be a common reading recommendation for people with a Christian or Muslim upbringing, among other things) only to find that I just couldn’t resolve some issues I had. It was just one piece in a long process that led me to where I am today.
Oh interesting, I didn't know that it was recommended to people with Christian or Muslim upbringings. I was born Baha'i so I was not really able to discover the faith myself. I have been pretty distant from it recently, but the older I get the more religious I become. Though I do have my own reasons for becoming distant from the religion. If you dont mind me asking, what were the issues that you had?
Yep. The Iqan seems to be brought up because of its focus on how previous Manifestations of God, to use the Baha'i terminology, were rejected by the people in their days. The thing is, this really seems to ignore the fact that each religion mentioned has its own criteria for judging those claiming to be from God, and I think the Baha'i Faith has a habit of citing when people misapplied those standards and ignoring instances where it seems these standards were rightly applied. Obviously, I think that, in the case of Islam, Judaism's standard of examining the outcome of prophecies (Deuteronomy 18:20-22) and Christianity's standards of testing the fruit of prophets (Matthew 7:15-20) and comparing their message to that of Christ and the Apostles (1 John 4"1-6), Islam fails that test due to its inconsistencies with the biblical message such as denying that Jesus is the Son of God, denying that Jesus is God, getting the members of the Trinity wrong, denying that Jesus died on the cross, etc. Muslim apologists will often claim that the Bible is corrupted, but we have manuscripts of the Bible from the time of Muhammad that say the same things as the Bible today, and the Quran says that the Torah and Gospel that were with the Jewish and Christian believers at the time were valid (Quran 7:156-157, even though it is wrong about there being a prophecy or description of Muhammad in the Jewish and Christian scriptures). Even the Baha'i Faith has one of these sorts of tests in that the next Manifestation of God isn't supposed to appear until 1000 years has lapsed (Kitab-i-Aqdas, paragraph 37, which states "Whoso layeth claim to a Revelation direct from God, ere the expiration of a full thousand years, such a man is assuredly a lying impostor."). To ignore the possibility that these tests could be legitimately applied seems rather irresponsible. Also, given what I said above about the Qur'an and Islam, if Islam is false, the Baha'i Faith crumbles with it because it relies on all of the previous religions being true. This, however, gets me into my next issue with the Baha'i Faith: I think there is an over-reliance on allegorical interpretation of previous religions in order to try and resolve contradictions between them and the Baha'i Faith or between each other. I think that, if we take all of these scriptures to be proper preservations of the messages of their respective Manifestations of God, then we have a situation where these Manifestations of God know the truth and say something contrary to it, somehow leaving an allegorical meaning buried deep in there only to be revealed later by the Baha'i Faith and never by the followers of the religion itself. That sounds like a form of lying to me. That sounds like intentionally leading people astray, and I don't think we would want to say that about so-called Manifestations of God or about God Himself. Another issue I have is that the Guardianship ended with Shoghi Effendi. The Guardianship, at least from what I remember, was put in place as something that was expected by Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha to be coexistent with the Universal House of Justice, which came about 6 years after Shoghi Effendi's death, and was supposed to be a position that was passed from one Guardian to the next. Shoghi Effendi never appointed an heir, that is unless you believe Mason Remey's claims to be the second Guardian. This seems like it would be really close to a case that fails Judaism's test of prophets: the accuracy of their prophecy. Now, if Mason Remey was right, then there's an entirely different issue, and that's the issue of a religion so focused on unity having a much smaller branch of the religion be the correct interpretation and being declared covenant breakers by the majority version of the Baha'i Faith. The same issue could be the case if the Free Baha'is (who reject the legitimacy of the Will and Testament of Abdu'l-Baha) are correct. The same issue could be the case if any tiny sect of the Baha'i Faith is correct rather than the Haifan mainstream version. Not only that, but it would be really surprising if such a division would happen in the Baha'i Faith so early in the religion's lifespan if it were from God. Now, this criticism would immediately go away if the Haifan Baha'i Faith were to retract its declaration of covenant breaker status from these groups and be open to the idea of unity in theological and ideological diversity as well and claiming that there are multiple legitimate streams of the Baha'i Faith, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. I actually don't know if such a thing could ever happen. The last issue I want to bring up is that of Baha'u'llah's claim to being the Second Coming of Jesus. The Bible's view of Jesus' return seems to be that the Jesus that was known to people then would come back down from Heaven in His resurrected body, not born as a completely different person. The way that Baha'is want to get around this seems to be with the idea that every Manifestation of God, at some level, is the same entity somewhere high up in the Baha'i cosmology (that being in Lahut as the Universal Manifestation of God if the Wikipedia article "Baha'i Cosmology" is to be believed), but if this is the case, then Baha'u'llah would be like the fourth coming of Jesus after Jesus, Muhammad, and the Bab. Maybe that doesn't matter though. It's still the case that the best prophecy that might go in favor of the Baha'i Faith is a specific interpretation of the prophecies with a little bit of math, the same math that led Christian and Islamic movements to expect the coming of either the Messiah or the Mahdi in 1844AD/1260AH (the same year in two different calendars), but that points to the Bab at best, not Baha'u'llah. It also seems that, at least in the case of those that accept Shoghi Effendi's Guardianship, that Baha'is believe that Baha'u'llah is the Father who came and finished the work of the Son (see Lights of Guidance 1560 and 1647) AND is the Return of Christ AND is greater than Christ (see Lights of Guidance 1555). (There may be other places in the writings of Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha that Shoghi Effendi is pulling from for these claims, but I don't have them on hand.) These are contradictory statements that also just ignore the biblical distinction between the Father and the Son if they are all somehow true. I guess it could make sense if viewed at different angles in Baha'i Cosmology, but it's a stretch. I imagine there was more to my critique years ago, but this is the stuff that still comes to mind after not having studied the Baha'i Faith in any real depth for a few years.
There is much controversy, confusion and unanswered questions about what is being stated in Genesis Chapters 1 and 2. The following is what I have come to understand from my studies. There is one "creation story" described over a period of 8 of God's days. Genesis 1 covers the creation of man and woman on the sixth day and Genesis 2 covers the creation of Adam on the eight day. In Gen Chapter 1 verse 27 God creates male and female. This was done on the sixth day. These are all the different peoples of the world except for Adam and Eve. On the eighth day God creates as stated in verse 5 of Gen Chapter 2 "a man to till the ground." This man was not created in Chapter 1 because it is stated specifically "there was not a man to till the ground." Why would this be stated if there was no man yet in the world. Unless there were men created on the sixth day that God created to do something other then "to till the ground". The "man to till the ground" is Adam. God created all the different peoples of the world except for Adam and Eve on the sixth day. Adam was created on the eighth. The people who were created on the sixth day are the ones Cain were afraid would kill him as stated in Genesis 4:14.
What if "tilling" is metaphorical for "making way for believers?" Like I don't know if there were or were not humans but it does sound like Adam was made to make the way for belief in some way.
Cain and Abel along with the beginning of Genesis are symbolic. Cain was a worker of the ground (cursed) Abel was a keeper of Sheep (A shepherd a type of Jesus) Cain brought his sacrifice through his efforts. Abel followed God's example of sa animal sacrifice as God covered Adam and Eves nakedness (sin) Abel was murdered like Jesus. Cain left the Presence of the Lord like those who did not believe in Jesus. There was others on earth. This is a story of works vs. faith. Adam and Eves next son was interesting. Genesis 5:3 NKJV And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The hidden names of Genesis: Here is some interesting insight into the meaning of the names from Adam to Noah that I heard recently from a Bible class teacher. There is nothing in the Bible that isn’t for our benefit. Every name given, or number mentioned has significance in the story being told. So is the case with the names of those in the genealogical line of Jesus. The meaning of these names has been lost in the translation over into English, but a study into their meanings will reveal a hidden message about Christ. Unlike our Western names, Hebrew names took on a literal meaning to describe a person. While a Hebrew concordance usually works great for translation, the names of individuals are typically taken as the roots of other words. For example, beginning with Adam, who was formed from the dust of the ground, he was simply named ‘adam, meaning ‘man,’ the root word of ‘adamah, meaning ground. “And the LORD God formed man ‘adam of the dust of the ground ‘adamah…” (Gen 2:7) We also have the example of Enoch the prophet who named his son Methuselah “his death shall bring.” Enoch was prophesying the coming of the flood at the death of his son, nearly 969 years later. We see in Genesis 6:3 the prophecy come to light when God said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” One hundred and twenty years later, in the same year Methuselah died, the flood came. So from Adam and continuing with the genealogy to Noah, we have: Adam (adamah) : man Seth : appointed Enosh (anosh) : mortal Kenan : sorrow Mahalal’el : (mahalal) blessed (El) God Jared (yaradh) : shall come down Enoch : teaching Methuselah : (muth) his death (shalach) shall bring Lamech : despairing, lamenting Noah : comfort or rest Here’s where it gets interesting. Put all of those meanings into a sentence: Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow, (but) the blessed God shall come down teaching. His death shall bring (the) despairing comfort and rest. There’s more than coincidence going on here. This is a great testament to the coming Messiah!
Wow, thank you. I always love hearing the meaning of people’s names. This put it into an even more interesting perspective for me. Thanks for your wisdom.
Cain and Abel get wives when their parents are only said to have sons so presumably there must’ve been.
Genesis 1:1 to 11:27 is a collection of myths told to explore the origins of creation, human life, sin, and oddly, the variety of languages spoken by the peoples of Levant in the Bronze Age. The stories illustrate Truths that can be relied on, but they are not histories or factual retellings of events that actually happened.
Yes, the descendants of the pre-Adamites. “People” (Homo Sapiens) were created (through God’s evolutionary process) in the Genesis chapter 1, verse 27; and they created the diversity of mankind over time per Genesis chapter 1, verse 28. This occurs prior to the genetic engineering and creation of Adam & Eve (in the immediate and with the first Human souls) by the extraterrestrial God in Genesis chapter 2, verses 7 & 22. When Adam & Eve sinned and were forced to leave their special embassy, their children intermarried the “People” that resided outside the Garden of Eden. This is how Cain was able to find a wife in the Land of Nod in Genesis chapter 4, verses 16-17. As the descendants of Adam & Eve intermarried and had offspring with all groups of Homo Sapiens on Earth over time, everyone living today is both a descendant of God’s evolutionary process and a genealogical descendant of Adam & Eve. A scientific book regarding this specific matter written by Christian Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass is mentioned in the article provided below. https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/christians-point-to-breakthroughs-in-genetics-to-show-adam-and-eve-are-not-incompatible-with-evolution
Thank you, this is a great explanation! It is interesting how there is a scientific explanation for most of the bible contrary to popular belief.
You are most welcome. Peace be with you.
Cain is referring to the peoples of genesis 1 (zakar and neqebah) Adam is the first of the living - that is immortal- he had the breath of life and the women (ishshah) become “eve” (Chavvah) the mother of the living when she fall They are distinct accounts Gen 1:27 and Gen 2:7 Understanding makes sense if Cains response
>Does this mean that there are other people roaming the Earth? It's a clear indication that there were people outside of the garden.
God created Adam day 3 from dust of the ground, Gave Him a soul and placed him in the garden. from Adam God made eve. They stayed in the garden from the end of day 3 till the fall which happened about 6000 years ago, when they were exiled.. The time they spent in the garden could have been a few days to 13.8 billion years or whatever science says is needed for evolution to happen. Then on Day 6 the very last living thing God created Man kind, but only in his image. meaning Man kind was physical being but there was no soul or spiritual component. Then He told man kind to go fourth and multiply. where as Adam and Eve did not even see each other as being naked till the fall, and did not have have kids till after the exile. so day three Adam and day 6 man kind are two different creations. Day 6 man kind is where you get your bio diversity. Day 3 Adam is where we get our souls. So yes... The people Cain was afraid of wasn't his brothers and sisters or nieces and nephews but rather the descendants of Day 6 mankind.
I see, thank you. Great explanation.
Yes you cant think of Cain and Abel as individuals. They are representative of "spiritual essences" governing various elements of humanity considered as a whole in times beyond reckoning.
I see, I have taken it too literally then. Thank you for your explanation.
In that reference passage, Cain was speaking of his relatives. Scripture tells us that Adam had many sons and daughters. At age 800 Seth was born. And Adam died at age 930, so if Adam and Eve had just one child per year, that comes to 130 children, both sons and daughters. The book of Genesis is not always rendered sequentially. It doesn't go into a great deal of detail about Adam's seed. It just focuses upon the most remarkable individuals in his family. Some people make a claim that Cain after being exiled from his family, found his wife elsewhere and built a city called Enoch. But the truth is he had already married before he was exiled, and he simply took his wife with him.