Genesis 5

 This week's Come Follow Me reading assignment is Genesis 5 and Moses 6.  I was kind of surprised that they didn't skip Genesis 5 because it is mostly a geneology of the descendants of Adam.  I think they included it because it mentions Enoch, and the story of Enoch in Moses 6 and 7 is an important story in the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I think I will talk more about Enoch next week, but for this week, I want to mention two things I found in and about Genesis 5.  

Genesis 5 is kind of wierd because it states that the descendants of Adam up until the flood lived crazy long lives.  In fact, if you do the math, Methuselah lived past the time of the flood. So, clearly, it isn't supposed to be a historical account of the descendants of Adam.  If that is the case, what is it supposed to be? What symbolic meanings can those long lives have?  One podcast I listened to this week gave the best answer I have heard on this question.  The "Talking Scripture" podcast with Mike Day and Bryce Dunford mentioned that the practice making long lists of kings that lead ulitmately back to deity existed in other cultures contemporary to the Old Testament.  These lists were meant to increase the prestige of a dynasty by portraying its founders as super-human and semi-divine.  That made a lot of sense to me.  If that was a "thing" amoung the peoples that the House of Israel interacted, it would be tempting to create their own version. 

Some interesting word translation things.  When it says in "This is the book of the generation of Adam.  In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him, "  The word for Adam in the first sentence, and the word for "man" in the second sentence are both the same word .  I don't know why they translated it as a proper noun in one place and as more general terms in the second. It could be translated "This is the book of the generation of humans. In the day that God made humans, in the likeness of God made he them." Of course, this is supported in the next verse when it says, that God "called their name Adam" meaning both the male and female, together, were Adam, or humans. 

Here is a chart of the descendants of Adam on the Christian Truth Center website.  They also list the Hewbrew meanings of each of the names.