Who recorded Adam & Eve? (question from my son)

[whatevergirl]

My son has a question:

We were chatting about space tonight at the dinner table, and Genesis. My son asked…“who knew Adam and Eve existed to record what happened?” Does it say in the Bible, who recorded this? He enjoys the Gospel readings, as there are clear cut ‘reporters’ of the story. He is an analytical thinker…much like my husband, he questions things that require shear faith…belief without clearcut facts. My dh and I explained that there are aspects of our faith that are a mystery. My son said that there were dinosaurs, which have been proven by scientists, there were cavemen–proven as well–but there are no ‘historical’ accounts of Adam and Eve. My husband and I continued to explain the Bible, but the conversation ended pretty much the same as it began.

Can any of you help us to explain this better to our son? Thanks!

 

[cascherman]

Aside from the story being passed down from Adam and Eve all the way to Moses, I suppose the rest of the details were supplied to Moses by way of revelation from God.

Doesn’t sound too good to a teenager who wants clear cut answers though.

 

[whatevergirl]

Aside from the story being passed down from Adam and Eve all the way to Moses, I suppose the rest of the details were supplied to Moses by way of revelation from God.

Doesn’t sound too good to a teenager who wants clear cut answers though.

Yeah, I know…and it could just be where he is at with his faith journey. When I was 15, I had a very different perspective of God. I believed that the faith was something I ‘had’ to believe, and I feared God more than I loved Him…or even understood that. I mean, I loved God–but, had a different grasp of my faith then. But, as time went on…I grew to have a love for the Lord, completely unexplainable. With the tangible society that we live in,meaning…we need to see, touch and feel our ‘realities,’ it is no wonder our youth grapples with intangible peace. My husband said that as the generations were born…they eventually told the stories of their ancestors…and thus going back to Adam and Eve.

Come to think of it, there is a section of the Bible…(numbers?) that talks about the various families leading back to Adam and Eve…going right up to Jesus. I wish I could find my Catholic Bible…any Bible! We have three BIbles…and all are still packed somewhere I guess???..M.I.A., since our move.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[gdavis]

I agree with cascherman. Remember, God is an Eyewitness to what happened, so anyone doubting the account would need to supply evidence that the eyewitness was wrong [impossible in the case of God]. I would suggest that your son explore the answersingenesis.org website. It has a lot of good information on origin from both a Biblical and scientic point of view.

 

[whatevergirl]

I agree with cascherman. Remember, God is an Eyewitness to what happened, so anyone doubting the account would need to supply evidence that the eyewitness was wrong [impossible in the case of God]. I would suggest that your son explore the answersingenesis.org website. It has a lot of good information on origin from both a Biblical and scientic point of view.

thank you–I will tell him about that! I hope it helps. One of my concerns, is that my son, being more of an analytical, logical thinker…will some day leave his faith, because it’s not “factual” enough. I think it is factual, I mean…even many historians believe that Jesus was crucified, for example–by the sheer history of things. Now, the diety aspect of Jesus a historian cannot prove, but that is where our faith comes in. But, the event can be proven.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Aside from the story being passed down from Adam and Eve all the way to Moses, I suppose the rest of the details were supplied to Moses by way of revelation from God.
. . .quote] Oral tradition has been shown to provide rather accurate histories. I think it was C. S. Lewis who said when written and oral histories conflict take the oral one. The oral one is generated and corrected by the community. [Consider the outcry if you change a word of a favorite bedtime story for a small child.] The written one is just the biases of one author, and maybe his editor.

Since Moses had God as his editor, that took care of his biases.

 

[Sagefrakrobatik]

You guys didnt know? Archaeologist excavated the bodies of Adam and Even in Antartica. They concluded it was them because they didnt have any belly buttons

 

[whatevergirl]

You guys didnt know? Archaeologist excavated the bodies of Adam and Even in Antartica. They concluded it was them because they didnt have any belly buttons

Adam and Even?

 

[SacredHeartFan]

The Church teaches that all the storys up to Abram are fictonal. They were created by the Jews to represent how sin came into the world, etc. This does not mean that God did not create the world or that we did not come from one set of parents. Hope this helps!

 

[whatevergirl]

The Church teaches that all the storys up to Abram are fictonal. They were created by the Jews to represent how sin came into the world, etc. This does not mean that God did not create the world or that we did not come from one set of parents. Hope this helps!

really???

 

[Joe_Kelley]

The Church teaches that all the storys up to Abram are fictonal. They were created by the Jews to represent how sin came into the world, etc. This does not mean that God did not create the world or that we did not come from one set of parents. Hope this helps!

Source?

1. Just as in the biological and anthropological sciences, so also in the historical sciences there are those who boldly transgress the limits and safeguards established by the Church. In a particular way must be deplored a certain too free interpretation of the historical books of the Old Testament. Those who favor this system, in order to defend their cause, wrongly refer to the Letter which was sent not long ago to the Archbishop of Paris by the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Studies.[13] This letter, in fact, clearly points out that the first eleven chapters of Genesis, although properly speaking not conforming to the historical method used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense, which however must be further studied and determined by exegetes; the same chapters, (the Letter points out), in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.
2. Therefore, whatever of the popular narrations have been inserted into the Sacred Scriptures must in no way be considered on a par with myths or other such things, which are more the product of an extravagant imagination than of that striving for truth and simplicity which in the Sacred Books, also of the Old Testament, is so apparent that our ancient sacred writers must be admitted to be clearly superior to the ancient profane writers.

Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII 12 August 1950

 

[Ron_Conte]

The Fathers and Doctors of the Church have always treated Adam and Eve as two real persons. And so did Christ:

[Matthew]
{19:4} And he said to them in response, “Have you not read that he who made man from the beginning, made them male and female?” And he said:
{19:5} “For this reason, a man shall separate from father and mother, and he shall cling to his wife, and these two shall become one flesh.

And the Epistles:

[Romans]
{5:14} Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses, even in those who have not sinned, in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a figure of him who was to come.

[1 Corinthians]
{15:21} For certainly, death came through a man. And so, the resurrection of the dead came through a man
{15:22} And just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be brought to life,

[1 Timothy]
{2:13} For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
{2:14} And Adam was not seduced, but the woman, having been seduced, was in transgression.

[Jude]
{1:14} And about these, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied, saying: "Behold, the Lord is arriving with thousands of his saints,

So it is not a tenable position to claim that there was never an Adam and an Eve, at the beginning of the human race.

 

[Tim_Kirchoff]

really???

At the very worst, the Genesis stories can be regarded as complex metaphors.

 

[whatevergirl]

The Fathers and Doctors of the Church have always treated Adam and Eve as two real persons. And so did Christ:

[Matthew]
{19:4} And he said to them in response, “Have you not read that he who made man from the beginning, made them male and female?” And he said:
{19:5} “For this reason, a man shall separate from father and mother, and he shall cling to his wife, and these two shall become one flesh.

And the Epistles:

[Romans]
{5:14} Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses, even in those who have not sinned, in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a figure of him who was to come.

[1 Corinthians]
{15:21} For certainly, death came through a man. And so, the resurrection of the dead came through a man
{15:22} And just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be brought to life,

[1 Timothy]
{2:13} For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
{2:14} And Adam was not seduced, but the woman, having been seduced, was in transgression.

[Jude]
{1:14} And about these, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied, saying: "Behold, the Lord is arriving with thousands of his saints,

So it is not a tenable position to claim that there was never an Adam and an Eve, at the beginning of the human race.

Thank you for your time and effort to post this…I am going to show this to my son later today. God bless.

 

[juliamajor]

I think it was the RCA Victor Dog Who recorded Genesis!!

 

[BibleSteve]

Here are 3 possibilities…

Since all the information contained in the book of Genesis relates to events that took place prior to Moses’ birth, it could have been received directly by divine revelation. It is obvious that someone had to receive the information relating to the events prior to man’s creation in that way, whether Moses or someone prior to him. (Ge 1:1-27; 2:7,*8) This information and the remaining details, however, could have been transmitted to Moses by means of oral tradition. Because of the long life span of men of that period, the information could have been passed from Adam to Moses through just five human links, namely, Methuselah, Shem, Isaac, Levi, and Amram. A third possibility is that Moses obtained much of the information for Genesis from already existing writings or documents. As far back as the 18th century, the Dutch scholar Campegius Vitringa held this view, basing his conclusion upon the frequent occurrence in Genesis (ten times) of the expression (in KJ) “these are the generations of,” and once “this is the book of the generations of.” (Ge 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10,*27; 25:12,*19; 36:1,*9; 37:2) In this expression the Hebrew word for “generations” is toh·le·dhohth′, and it is better rendered “histories” or “origins.” For example, “generations of the heavens and of the earth” would hardly be fitting, whereas “history of the heavens and the earth” is meaningful. (Ge 2:4) In harmony with this, the German Elberfelder, the French Crampon, and the Spanish Bover-Cantera all use the term “history". There is no doubt that even as men today are interested in an accurate historical record, so they have been from the start.

For these reasons, Vitringa and others since have understood each use of toh·le·dhohth′ in Genesis to refer to an already existing written historical document that Moses had in his possession and that he relied upon for the majority of the information recorded in Genesis. They believe that the persons named in direct connection with such ‘histories’ (Adam, Noah, Noah’s sons, Shem, Terah, Ishmael, Isaac, Esau, and Jacob) were either the writers or original possessors of those written documents. This, of course, would still leave unexplained how all such documents came to be in the possession of Moses. It also leaves unexplained why documents obtained from men who were not distinguished as faithful worshipers of YHWH (such as Ishmael and Esau) should be the source of much of the information used. It is entirely possible that the expression “This is the history of” is simply an introductory phrase serving conveniently to divide off the various sections of the long overall history. Compare Matthew’s use of a similar expression to introduce his Gospel account.—Mt 1:1

No definite conclusion can be arrived at, therefore, as to the immediate source from which Moses obtained the information he recorded. Rather than just by one of the methods discussed, the information may have been received by all three, some through direct revelation, some through oral transmission, some by written records. The important point is that YHWH guided the prophet Moses so that he wrote by divine inspiration.—2Pe 1:21.

 

[peary]

My son has a question:

We were chatting about space tonight at the dinner table, and Genesis. My son asked…“who knew Adam and Eve existed to record what happened?” Does it say in the Bible, who recorded this? He enjoys the Gospel readings, as there are clear cut ‘reporters’ of the story. He is an analytical thinker…much like my husband, he questions things that require shear faith…belief without clearcut facts. My dh and I explained that there are aspects of our faith that are a mystery. My son said that there were dinosaurs, which have been proven by scientists, there were cavemen–proven as well–but there are no ‘historical’ accounts of Adam and Eve. My husband and I continued to explain the Bible, but the conversation ended pretty much the same as it began.

Can any of you help us to explain this better to our son? Thanks!

The story of Adam & Eve was passed down by oral tradition first before being recorded in Genesis, as were most biblical events. Adam means “of the earth” and Eve means “helpmate”. What matters in the entire story is that God created the first human beings and gave them something of Himself - immortality in the form of a soul. There are many ways of looking at the story and from many angles. But the main thrust is that they were created by God and that they sinned. Hence, an explanation as to why we are considered a “fallen race” through sin, but ‘saved’ by the entrance of Christ into the world.

 

[cascherman]

The Church teaches that all the storys up to Abram are fictonal. They were created by the Jews to represent how sin came into the world, etc. This does not mean that God did not create the world or that we did not come from one set of parents. Hope this helps!

nope…

 

[mercygate]

The rabbinic tradition is that Moses received the gift or retrospective prophecy.

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

The Church teaches that all the storys up to Abram are fictonal. They were created by the Jews to represent how sin came into the world, etc. This does not mean that God did not create the world or that we did not come from one set of parents. Hope this helps!

I have had (a) priest state that as well, but find no where that that is in fact a Church stance. I would be had pressed to call any thing in the Bible fictions. Jesus often spoke in parables but that is another story. Unless G D himself states that these are just stories made up to explain what happened I’m going to go with the happened as stated.

Peace in the Lord

Scott