It is often assumed by biblical literalists that Adam and Eve were the first human beings to live on planet earth. This is highly unlikely. From the Torah’s listing of Adam’s progeny, their subsequent generations and how long they lived, one can estimate from classic rabbinic calculations preserved in the midrashic book Seder Olam Rabbah that biblical Adam was born in about 3,761 BCE. This is also the beginning of the dating of the Hebrew calendar. However, modern man, Homo sapiens, first appeared in the fossil record hundreds of thousands of years before this date.

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Rather than discarding this date as something ridiculous, it is possible to ask — what messages is the Bible trying to convey in telling us that Adam and Eve were born in about 3,761 BCE, and could not the Garden of Eden story have occurred later in human history, or even earlier?

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To try and answer these questions, it is helpful to look at the whole expanse of human development to attempt to figure out why the Bible chose this particular time in history to place Adam and Eve in this particular garden, accepting that these early biblical stories are highly allegorical.

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The first humanoid to arise was Homo erectus. He appeared in Africa 2½ million years ago, and spread from Africa to Asia and Europe. He continued in existence until about 143,00 years ago. Evidence of Homo erectus has been found in Israel, since this country functioned as a land bridge between Africa and Europe.

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Homo erectus gave rise to Neanderthal man about 500,000 years ago, and he lived in Europe and parts of Asia until approximately 40,000 years ago. Fossils of Neanderthal man have also been found in Israel, since Israel was the southern-most location that he reached.

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Neanderthal man was not dumb. He did not have the intellectual abilities of modern man, but he was smarter than say a guerilla. He could make flint and wooden tools, cook meat with fire, and prepare shelter and clothes for his family. He was smart enough to disperse throughout much of the habitable parts of the globe. Nevertheless, it is doubtful that it would have been possible to hold a penetrating conversation with him, even if one could understand his language. A discussion about virtue and evil would probably have drawn a blank.  

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Modern man, Homo sapiens, with fully modern physical traits arose in East Africa from Homo eructus about 200,000 years ago and spread throughout the world. Aborigines are members of homo sapiens and they reached Australia at least 40,000 years ago, and possibly earlier. Homo sapiens also migrated over the Bering Straits and appeared in North America between about 40,000 to 17,000 years ago. 

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Homo sapiens and Neanderthal man coexisted for some 30,000 to 50,000 years. The two can be distinguished by their skeletal structure. Nevertheless, Homo sapiens became the sole surviving human species about 13,000 years ago. He either interbred with Neanderthal man, and there is DNA evidence of this, or he was wiped out by homo sapiens.

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Homo sapiens lived initially as cavemen in small groups and supported themselves as gatherer-hunters. They are often described as hunter-gatherers, but in actuality early man spent most of his time gathering rather than hunting. Possessing only tools of flint, he did not have the tools to safely hunt big-game, although he would have trapped smaller animals such as rabbits. Homo sapiens was no different from us In terms of his intellect.

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Life underwent a radical change for homo sapiens when he began domesticating certain plants and animals and entered what is called the Agricultural Revolution. This was in the Neolithic period between about 8,300 to 4,500 BCE. It is not as if Homo sapiens suddenly decided to become farmers; rather it was a gradual process. Some time in history, he began cultivating small patches of grain that had fortuitously come his way. However, once firmly established, an agricultural existence spread throughout almost all the inhabited world.

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Why did early man decide to become a full-time agriculturalist? The life of a gatherer-hunter was not difficult. He had plenty of free time. His diet was a healthy one. There may have been conflicts between different cave groups, but they would not have been at the same level of intensity as modern conflicts, since no one had a home or much in the way of personal possessions to protect. However, it was not an easy life for women, especially if the clan moved frequently seeking new sources of food. Because of this, women had few children, which meant there was little increase in the world’s population.

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What an agricultural existence did offer to gatherer-hunters was the opportunity to have bigger families and to feed their families in permanent housing within small agricultural settlements. Once the farmer settled in one place, he could also own more “things.” It is, after all, human nature to wish to accumulate possessions and accumulate wealth. This may well be the basis of the Cain and Abel story. Cain or Cayin in Hebrew comes from the Hebrew word to acquire.  

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Nevertheless, agricultural man had entered a trap, since whatever he did to improve his life potentially made it more difficult.1 He was dependent on the weather for the success of his harvests. He could store some of his produce to protect himself from unfavorable harvests, but then had to safeguard these stores. His home also needed to be protected. The more children he had to ensure future workers, the more mouths he had to feed and the harder he had to work. It was backbreaking work — clearing stones, removing weeds and irrigating his crops. His diet was also nutritionally less healthy than that of cavemen, since much of his diet consisted of grains but few vegetables. Despite this, it would have been extremely difficult for him to give up on his agricultural life and return to a cave.

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We are now in a position to place the Garden of Eden story in its historic context. If we accept the date of 3,751 BCE for Adam and Eve, then both lived sometime after the Agricultural Revolution and at a time when agricultural man was living in small villages. Adam was driven from the Garden of Eden and became an agriculturalist. His children Cain and Abel were also agriculturalists, Cain becoming a farmer and Abel a shepherd.

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The Torah recognizes that in the early stages of the Agricultural Revolution the ground was extremely difficult to work with:

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To Adam he said: ” . . .  accursed is the ground because of you, through suffering shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you, and you shall eat of the herb of the field. By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread until you return to the ground from which you were taken. . . .” (Genesis 3:17-19).

 

We can surmise that the Garden of Eden story is discussing a time before the invention of the plough, although farmers were probably aware that the deeper they planted their grains the better they grew. Only when the plough was invented in Sumeria in the 4th century BCE were grains able to root deeper and have a competitive advantage over weeds.

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It is very possible that the plough was invented at around the time of Noah. Noah, or Noach in Hebrew, comes from the word to be easier. Hence, following the flood, YHWH, the aspect of God that had cursed the ground at the time of Adam and Eve, says:

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“I [YHWH] will not continue to curse again the ground because of man, since the design of man’s heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again continue to smite every living being, as I have done. Continuously, all the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:21-22].

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The next stage in the development of humanity was that agriculture became sufficiently advanced to be able to sustain large urban centers. This happened during the Early Bronze Age, which is usually dated to between about 3,300 to 2,200 BCE, although its precise dating and characteristics depended on the local cultural and technological trajectory. In this period, archaeologists see evidence of well-planned cities on what will eventually become tells. Society also becomes hierarchical. All this is intimated in the fourth chapter of Genesis when Cain is exiled:

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And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. He [Cain] became a city-builder, and he named the city like the name of his son Enoch (Genesis 4:17).

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These cities will coalesce for protection or aggression to form kingdoms and empires. The first great civilization, the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia, dates from approximately 5,300 BCE to 2,300 BCE. The first written document in the archeological record is from about 3,500 BCE (the Kish tablet): The development of kingdoms is discussed in the Bible after the Flood:

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And Cush [the son of Ham who was a son of Noah} begot Nimrod. He began to be a mighty man on earth. He was a mighty hunter before YHWH, therefore it is said: “Like Nimrod, mighty at trapping before YHWH”. The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh in the land of Shinar. From that land Ashur went forth and built Nineveh, Rehovoth-ir, Calah, that is the great city (Genesis 10:8-12),

 

There are a number of implications from our discussion so far.

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First, the type of dating I have employed is not a precise science. Moreover, the Torah was not written as a history book. Nevertheless, what comes out clearly is that the Torah is discussing individuals who lived at the beginnings of civilization. The Bible also recognizes that civilization is not static but is moving towards ever more advanced societies.

  

Second, Adam and Eve were not the first human beings on earth. One might speculate that Adam was the first human being capable of achieving a certain religious sensitivity in relation to God. But this also is unlikely. Throughout these periods there is considerable archeological evidence of Homo sapiens seeking religious expression through cultic activities within the framework of paganism.

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Third, the achievements of the Agricultural Revolution and its spread throughout the world are the reasons that the Torah could call upon humanity to procreate and multiply. Already in the first Creation Story, Elohim calls upon man to multiply:

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Elohim blessed them [male and female] and Elohim said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, the bird of the sky and every living thing that moves on the earth (Genesis 1:28).

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Identical wording is found in the Noah story, again through the name Elohim:

 

And Elohim blessed Noah and his sons, and He said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the land (Genesis 9:1).

 

Procreation and filling the world is considered to be of such importance that Elohim proceeded to make a covenant with Noah and all future humanity that there shall “never again be a flood to destroy all flesh.”

 

Finally, I would like to ask one further question, albeit it one that is not usually asked. Why do the early stories of Genesis focus specifically on these periods in history and not at times proceeding them? After all, Homo sapiens was in existence for hundreds of thousands of years before the biblical period. Did not early homo sapiens warrant the appearance of an Abraham and a Moses?

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The reason I believe is that the Torah is primarily a moral guide for advanced cultures. This society is to practice righteousness and justice, display love for each member of that society, and achieve individual holiness. This is to occur in one particular spot, namely the Land of Israel, which is at the center of the civilized world. This society will be a model for other societies to imitate. If they do this, this will bring in its wake material blessing. This type of model is needed for a world in which there are kingdoms and empires, but was not needed earlier in history when people lived in isolated hamlets and villages, such as in the Chalcolithic period.

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Furthermore, an involved Torah which contains more than just a few stories could not have spread only orally, but only when reading and writing had developed. This will be covered in a future essay (see the essay “With what script did God write the Ten Commandments?”).

 

References

1.  Part Two. The Agricultural Revolution in Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, p87. Penguin Random House UK, 2011.