Four Things you may not know about the Biblical Adam and Eve

“Detail of a stained glass window form 1887 of the church Siant Aignan, Chartres. The window is made by Charles Lorin (1874 – 1940) the owner of a famous stained glass company. The window shows scenes of the old testament. In this part of the window are Adam and Eve banished from the Garden of Eden.”

The first mention of the gospel was directed to Adam and Eve. After the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, God said to Adam and Eve, “I will put enmity between you (serpent) and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring: he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15). This is called the protoevangelium or “first gospel.” Eve learns that she will have an offspring (descendant) who would crush the head of the serpent (Satan) and thus defeat or reverse the curse of death.

It appears Eve may have thought she had given birth to this promised Redeemer, when she says at the birth of Cain, I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” The Hebrew has Eve literally saying, “I have the Man, the Lord.” It appears she thinks “the Man” she has just given birth to is the

promised Redeemer. However, Cain was not the one. Jesus Christ came to bruise the serpent’s head, dying on the cross, so that the curse of death which God had pronounced on mankind can be removed for those who believe in him.

Adam may have written the first few chapters of Genesis himself. It used to be thought that writing did not happen until after 2000 BC. However, with the discovery of huge libraries of cuneiform tablets at excavations in Mesopotamia, it is now agreed that writing happened very early, before 3000 BC. PJ Wiseman, author of Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis, writes that in studying cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia he saw that signature lines occurred at the end of tablets. It appeared that the translators of our current Old Testament did not recognize signature lines and instead of placing them at the end, put them at the beginning of a section. We have in Genesis 5:1, “This is the book of the generations (history) of Adam.” Was the preceding part a tablet written by Adam himself (and later edited by Moses)? It seems possible and note the word “book”.

In the time of Adam it is recorded that Jubal was the father of those who play the lyre and pipe, and Tubal-cain was a forger of implements of bronze and iron. So it appears that civilization began very early.

I wrote a book which follows the symbolism flowing from the protoevangelium, the “first gospel” –the prediction of a Redeemer who would bruise the head of the serpent but be bruised in the heel. It is called Sacred Strands, the Story of a Redeemer Woven Through History. You can purchase it here.