Since no human knows how old Adam was before he sinned, why do some say humanity is 6000 years old?

Question

I hear "believers" fall into the trap of humans only being here for 6000+ years due to biblical ages (more bad teaching from TV evangelists).

As there is no record of Adam's or Eve's age prior to eating the forbidden fruit, man could have been here for ten million years before they sinned. Your thoughts please?

elaine30 (below) Why do you say shortly there after? Is it because the passages are in close proximity? No one knows the time that elaspes between man's creation, and the first sin.

Rove (below) I have no idea. They were probably getting busy all day and night while enjoying the view. This is not a sin between couples that God has given to one another.

Answer 1

I've always said that lol

It explains why God made a garden with walls ... to keep the world out. It explains evolution occuring at the same time. It explains where Cain got a wife.

EDIT: Okay, I can see some remained unconvinced. Then what did God mean when He said "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."? Seems obvious to me that before they ate of it, they would not die. From the Bible itself we can see that neither one dropped dead after eating the fruit, in fact lived very long lives.

God made us in His image, yet His image has nothing to do with death. Obviously the sin committed in the Garden was that from that moment on, Adam and Eve were complete mortals physically. The Lost Books of the Bible explain that very thing. Given that before they sinned, Adam and Eve were not aging, how long DID they live in the Garden?

Answer 2

You shouldn't blame TV evangelists; this predates television by a millenia and a half, to the time of Hillel II.

The year number on the Jewish calendar represents the number of years since creation, calculated by adding up the ages of people in the Bible back to the time of creation.

However, this does not necessarily mean that the universe has existed for only 5700 years as we understand years. Many Orthodox Jews will readily acknowledge that the first six "days" of creation are not necessarily 24-hour days (indeed, a 24-hour day would be meaningless until the creation of the sun on the fourth "day").

And there's more information on Adam and Eve than you find in the book of Genesis. The Book of Adam & Eve, found in some canons of the Bible, although not the Protestant or Roman Catholic canons, provides a lot more information.

For instance, the existance of Adam's first wife is mentioned in Genesis 1:27, but not her name. Eve came later, in Genesis 2:21-22. We only know that her name was Lilith from the Book of Adam & Eve. From that book, we also learn the names of Abel's twin sister, who married Cain after Cain slew Abel, and the name of Seth's twin sister, who married Seth.

Answer 3

Let's see Adam and Eve were made as recorded in Genesis chapters one and two.

In Genesis chapter 3, we read about the fall, the first sin. That first sin had nothing to do with an apple in a tree but rather it had to do with the pair on the ground.

In Genesis chapter 4 we read that Cain was born.

Therefore, I would conclude that Adam and Eve were together in the Garden of Eden, before the first sin, for something less than about nine months.

Perhaps a year at most.

Pastor Art

Answer 4

First off, the Bible states clearly that Adam and Eve were the first humans created, so there were no other humans alive before then.
Second, the dating of the earth was done by Bishop Ussher.

"One of Ussher’s many projects was to write a complete history of the world in Latin, covering every major event from the time of creation to AD 70. He published this 1,600-page volume in 1650. An English translation entitled The Annals of the World was first published in 1658, two years after his death. (The complete work is fascinating. It has recently been translated into modern English and republished.1)

In preparing this work, Ussher first made the assumption that the Bible is the only reliable source of chronological information for the time periods covered therein. In fact, before the Persian Empire (approximately the sixth to third centuries BC) very little is known from any source about Greek, Roman and Egyptian history or the history of other nations; much rests on speculation and myths. Dates in secular history become more certain with the founding of the Medo-Persian Empire.

For events before this time, Ussher relied solely on data from the Bible to erect his historical framework. He chose the death of King Nebuchadnezzar as a reliable date upon which to anchor all the earlier biblical dates. Working meticulously backward from there, he ended up with his date for creation of October 23, 4004 BC."

For an expanded explanation of Bishop Ussher and his work, see this link:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/world-born-4004-bc

Answer 5

Im sorry maybe i dont quite get your question and i dont know anything about the tv evangalist as i dont watch any personally, but Genesis 5:5 says that ALL the days of Adam that he lived amounted to 930yrs then he died.
The book of Genesis written by Moses covered the years from....... "The beginning to 1657 b.c.e & count from there to now i guess...
so i guess a person could count from there but only as an estimate..... Gen. 5 covers a lot of the ages of earlier men Noah being the 2nd oldest man of history 950. So it could be done and it would be a pretty close estimate.(I dont know if its 6000 or not i havent checked as of now)

Answer 6

Well, you could argue that Adam wasn't human in the sense we are until after he ate of the tree of knowledge. Before that, he was just an animal shaped something like God. Also, as Adam & Even did not eat from the tree of life, they were mortal. Though the bible does give it's characters absurdly long lifespans in some cases, millions of years would probably be pushing it.

Answer 7

Agree...I don't say that humanity is 6,000 years old but I do think that we've been on earth as we know it for about that amount of time (since Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden).

Adam and Eve could have been in the garden for thousands or even millions of years before they sinned. Death didn't enter the world until that time. We don't even know how long Adam was alone with God before God made Eve for him.

Answer 8

Genesis 5
3And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
4And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
5And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died

Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born and he died at the age of 930. He was definately in the garden for less than 130.

Answer 9

God created man and woman and placed them on the earth. Adam and Eve were the first. Science is way off base. The earth is only 6000 years old. There were dinosaurs on the earth at this time and they where actually reptiles. Not bad creatures either.

Answer 10

Adam was 130 when he had Seth his son, Adam and eve where the only humans in the garden. they did not have kids until after they sinned, or not everyone would have been born into sin