Adam

According to Genesis, Adam (Hebrew אָדָם) was the first human being. The Lord made him in His own image and loved him even after he disobeyed Him. His wife was Eve.

Adam lived for 930 years. The Bible mentions that Adam and Eve had two children called Cain and Abel. According to Jewish tradition they had 56 children fulfilling God's command to be fruitful and to multiply throughout the earth The Bible does not mention any specific number of children of Adam—only that he "had other sons and daughters"—but does say that Adam and Eve did have another son named Seth, when Adam was 130 years old. He is mentioned as taking the place of Abel who had been murdered by Cain.

Traditional Christian thought considers Adam and Eve to be the father and mother of the human race and as such the first marriages originally occurred between brothers and sisters. It is believed this would not cause a difficulty from a genetic standpoint because it would take many generations for mutations degrading the human genetic code from God's perfect creation to accumulate sufficiently to be a problem. It was not until the time of Moses that the Bible records any prohibition on close relatives marrying.

Adam and Eve originally lived in the Garden of Eden, a virtual paradise on earth, but after Eve had eaten of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and had Adam eat as well, they were banished from the garden. Adam toiled the land thereafter. Little else is known of Adam's life.

Generations of Adam from the Biblical Account

The generations of Adam are the two lines of descent from Adam, which are given in Genesis. One line goes from Adam's son Cain, and the other goes via a son of Adam named Seth. The lines are:

Cain

• Enoch
  • Irad
    • Mehujael
      • Methusael
        • Lamech the Murderer

Seth

• Enos
  • Cainan
    • Mehalaleel
      • Jared
        • Enoch
          • Methuselah
            • Lamech
              • Noah