In an
interesting book, The Genealogical Adam
and Eve, S. Joshua Swamidass offered the following in support of the thesis
that there were people outside the Garden of Eden:
Cain, Abel,
Seth, and Enoch
Were there people outside the Garden? Several
hints come from the story of Cain, Abel, Seth, and Enoch. Cain murders his
brother Abel. God exiles Cain, and Enoch is born to Cain in exile. Seth is
given to replace Cain. Then, Adam and Eve have many more children. The details
of this narrative trouble any theory that does not include people outside the
Garden that did not descend from Adam and Eve.
First, Cain is banished to the erets of Nod, way from the adamah near the Garden. He is fearful he
would be found and killed, God protects Cain with a mark, decreeing that anyone
who kills Cain would suffer judgment from him (Gen 4:14-16). With the mark, God
endorses the legitimacy of Cain’s fear. This suggests there really were people
in Nod that, perhaps, had a sense of morality in that they would want to bring
Cain to justice (Rom 2:15). Who were they and where did they come from?
Scripture does not tell us.
Second, after he is exiled, Cain suddenly has
a wife, who bears him a child named Enoch (Gen 4:17). From where did his wife
come? It is possible that Cain’s wife was his sister. When Cain was exiled, why
did his sister-wife go into exile with him? Perhaps, Cain found an unrelated
wife in the land into which he was exiled.
Third, Cain builds a city (Gen 4:17). From
whence came the inhabitants of this city? They seem like people outside the
Garden. Alternatively, some theorize a multicentury gap in Genesis 4,
reordering events in the narrative. For example, it is not only after Seth is
born, after Cain’s city is built, that the text reports Adam and Eve bear more
sons and daughters (Gen 5:4).
Fourth, the genealogies suggest that Abel,
Cain, Seth, and Enoch are the eldest sons of their lineages, and that Abel does
not have children. Cain’s genealogy is reported, starting from Enoch; Seth’s
genealogy is reported too, but Abel’s is not. This makes sense of Cain and
Enoch both being firstborn sons, and Seth was given to Eve, who was left
without a son.
Fifth, Eve’s son Seth is appointed by God to “replace”
(Abel Gen 4:25) when Adam is 130 years old (Gen 5:3). How does Seth “replace”
Abel? It seems that with one son murdered and the other exiled, Adam’s family
was left without a male heir. Seth replaces Abel as the heir of Adam’s lineage.
This is why Seth’s lineage is traced, even though Cain is the eldest and Abel
was next in line. If Adam or Abel already had other children, it is unclear how
Seth would “replace” Abel.
Gap theories to populate Cain’s city and the
land of Nod are troubled. For literalists who argue Scripture clearly teaches a
young earth, why is a gap in Genesis 3 acceptable, but unacceptable between
Genesis 1:1 and 1:2? All gap theories reorder events. For example, Adam and Eve’s
children must have come before the city, not after, even though Genesis only mentions
them after. Why is reordering of events permitted when interpreting Genesis
4-5? If a strict literal reading is important, these questions cannot be
ignored. It seems that gap theories for Cain stir up far more questions than
they answer.
Inferring people outside the Garden resolves
all these tensions, without creating new ones. Even if an imaginative gap
theory could answer these questions, it would not rule out people outside the Garden.
Either way, we are filling in the details not stated in the text. For this
reason, Scripture suggests there were people outside the Garden. (S. Joshua
Swamidass, The Genealogical Adam and Eve:
The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry [Downers Grove, Ill.: ICP
Academic, 2020], 143-44)
Elsewhere,
Swamidass answers some possible objections thusly:
Textual Objections
Not Definitive
There are several texts in Scripture put
forward to demonstrate that there are no people outside the Garden. None of
these texts are definitive demonstrations against people outside the Garden.
Some understand Genesis to describe several “first,”
and each of these is evidence that there were no other people in the world.
Adam was the first man, Eve was the first woman, they were the first farmers,
Cain built the first city, and his descendants were the first metal workers.
None of these events, however, are actually described as “firsts.” The claims
of being first is not directly substantiated by any words in the text of
Scripture itself. They were merely inferred. If we must make these inferences,
they are accommodated within the periscope of Scripture, which only speaks of
textual humans. In this pericope, Adam and Eve, for example, are the first biological
humans, and Cain’s city is the first city.
Some object that the genealogies of Jesus
demonstrate that there were no people outside the Garden. These genealogies
might be used to argue that Adam and Eve were a real people in a real past.
They do not, however, tell us that Adam and Eve’s lineage never interbred with
others. They, obviously, record only part of Jesus’ ancestry, and cannot
possibly list all of his ancestors. It is obvious, for example, that most of
the women and children are unstated in these genealogies. Scripture does not
identify most of the women, nor tell us where they came from, nor where most of
the children went.
Some object that Jesus states “at the
beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’” in Matthew 19:4 and Mark
10:6, which demonstrates, they argue, that the creation of Adam and Eve occurs
at the beginning. To which beginning is Jesus referring? The beginning of which
story? This cannot be a reference to the absolute beginning of all things in
Genesis 1:1. At the beginning of all the people outside the Garden, they are
made “male and female.” At the beginning of textual humans, Adam and Eve are
made male and female too. Through either periscope, that of the people outside
the Garden or that of Adam and Eve, God made them male and female.
Some object that Genesis 2:5 and 2:22 tells
us there was “no one to work the ground” and that Adam did not find anyone
suitable to be his wife. Does this tell us there were no biological humans
anywhere across the globe? Genesis 2 is narrated through the periscope of a
defined area where the Garden is planted by God (Gen 2:8-15); it is not
speaking about the whole globe, just this area. With this in mind, perhaps the
text teaches that there are no people near the adamah of the Garden, without saying anything about antipodeans in
Australia (Cain is banished to the erets
of Nod, away from the adamah where
his family lives [Gen 4:14]. This may hint that there were people living in erets, a larger area than the adamah of the Garden). In parallel with
this line of reasoning, perhaps the text means there was no one suitable to join God in the Garden, even
though there were biological humans around. The same reasoning applies to the
difficulty in finding a mate for Adam. There might have been women across the
globe, but perhaps no suitable woman
for Adam in the Garden. An archetypal or typological layer to the Genesis 2
narrative, also, would explain why the narrative is told in a manner that
suggests their solitary uniqueness. In a typological echo of the deeper past,
Adam and Eve’s story might resonate with the history of the people outside the
Garden too. In this way, Genesis 2 could be typologically teaching the
uniqueness of biological humans in all creation, even as it describes a single
historical couple within a larger population.
Some point to Acts 17:26, where Paul teaches
that “from one” God mad all the “nations” (not biological humans). Though
sometimes rendered “one blood” or “one man,” it is just “one” in Greek. The argument
goes, “from one” means that we all arise from a single couple, without any
interbreeding with others, even though a couple is not “one” person. If sole
progenitorship is connected to descent, however, it is indistinguishable from
the doctrine of monogenesis. Using the same phrase, all of Israel comes from “one”
man, Abraham (Heb 11:12), but the same passage notes his linage interbreeds
with others (Heb 11:31). The same could be true of how “one” Adam gives rise to
all of humanity to “the ends of the earth.”
Some point to Romans 5:12-14, where Paul
teaches that death comes to all humankind through Adam’s sin. The people
outside the Garden would be subject to death long before Adam’s sin. Scripture,
however, is bound to Adam, Eve, and their descendants, not speaking about
others. Through this periscope, there is no death, physical or spiritual, in
the humankind of Scripture until the Fall, just as Scripture teaches.
None of these texts, therefore, are
definitive evidence against people outside the Garden. Scripture does not tell
us for sure. In our “backward-looking” view of the narrative, even before
science, we do not know for sure. The traditional account includes this mystery
within it, and foreclosing this mystery presses other concerns on the text. (Ibid.,
145-47)