The Narrow Path Ministries

Perhaps this is an easy question that has been answered in this forum or other places, but any feedback would help.

At the end of Genesis 2, there is the statement by Adam that about the woman, which essentially says that she is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He continues to say that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to the woman. My question is this - What basis does Adam have for knowing the family structure of father, mother and children? He had no father (only a Heavenly Father) and certainly no mother. Is he just "inspired" to understand the family structure that he and Eve would eventually establish? It just seems curious for him to say these things with no conceivable basis for knowing about the family structure which hadn't been revealed in mankind yet.

Maybe I am missing something. I'm sure there is a much better answer out there than mine, but I would be grateful for your thoughts. God Bless.



Jonathan

I don't think Adam said "A man should leave his father and mother, etc." This was the comment of Moses, the author of Genesis.

I don't know if it's much help, because it does not really adress your question where he learnt it.

Gen 3:20 "And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living."

Shows that Adam did have some knowledge about family structure...?

Gen 3:20 "And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living."

Shows that Adam did have some knowledge about family structure...?

Assuming this verse has been correctly translated, I can see why one would conclude that Adam "knew something about family structure."

However, the little Hebrew word "kiy" (kee, Strongs 03588)), here translated as "because" seems to have other meanings, among them "indeed" and "when."

Here are two verses in which the word means "indeed". In these verses, it wouldn't make sense to translate the word as "because":

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed , has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?"

Genesis 18:20 And the LORD said, "The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.


So if "indeed" is used to translate the word "kiy" in Gen 3:20, we have:

Genesis 3:20 Now the man called his wife’s name Eve ("living"). Indeed, she was the mother of all the living.

Thus the verse may in no way imply that Adam had any knowledge of family structure or offspring.

Prior to Gen 3:20, adam and eve had been given something of a crash course in the birds and the bees-- God told Eve that she would have pain in childbearing. either adam and eve knew implicitly that children would result from a sexual union, or God must have told them. otherwise, they would not have known what childbearing even meant. if we are talking about literal 24 hr creation days, adam had not yet seen any procreation going on among the animals. so, if they knew what childbearing meant before v. 20, they had to have known that eve would bear the children and adam would be the father. whether they used the actual terms mother (or whether Moses added it later as commentary) seems irrelevant. a rose by any other name still smells as sweet!

TK

JJR wrote:At the end of Genesis 2, there is the statement by Adam that about the woman, which essentially says that she is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He continues to say that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to the woman.

Matthew 19
3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

Unless the clause "and said" is referring to Jesus' words, then our Lord was saying that He who made them male and female also said "for this reason...." etc.