Adam
1 Chronicles 1:1
1:1 Adam. The Adam-to-Abraham genealogy listed in I Chronicles 1:1–27 at the beginning of I Chronicles is the same as that in Genesis 5, but both omit the name of Cainan found in the genealogy of Luke 3:36. Cainan is also found in the Septuagint. It seems likely that the name “Cainan” was accidentally added by some Greek-Septuagint copyist, possibly by careless insertion of the antediluvian Cainan in the post-diluvian chronology (Genesis 5:9-14). The other alternative—that the second “Cainan” was inadvertently omitted by an ancient Hebrew copyist, in both Genesis and I Chronicles, seems less likely, both in view of the doctrine of verbal inspiration and also in view of the meticulous copying accuracy of the ancient Hebrew scribes who preserved the Old Testament Scriptures. In either case, a copying mistake seems to have been involved. Nevertheless, it seems probable that the original compiler of the genealogy presented it as a complete record, and all later copyists regarded it as such, including the inspired writer of I Chronicles. However, the chronological data included in either the Genesis genealogy or the others has posed a difficulty, since it seems to be much too short to correlate with the generally accepted secular chronology of ancient history, which assumes at least several hundred thousand years for the history of mankind. This fact has led many Christian apologists to propose arbitrary large gaps in the three genealogies of Genesis, I Chronicles and Luke. This expedient, however, is without warrant in either the context or the obvious intent of the writers. It seems more consistent with the Biblical doctrine of inerrancy to focus instead on the false assumptions in the evolutionary chronologies developed by secular writers—assumptions centered in naturalism and uniformitarianism.
