In the Beginning: Creation, Adam and the First Family
The first inches of the chart: Adams’ note on his dates, Adam’s band starting at 4004, and two families branching from it, one with years and one without.
Where Adam’s Years Begin to Count
Most people who unroll the Adams chart look first for something famous, a pyramid or a king, and skip the first few inches. Go back. At the far left edge of pp. 16–17 a man and a woman stand under a tree in a green garden, with the words 4004.B.C. printed beside them, and just above the picture one band runs out of the margin toward the right: ADAM (AND EVE) 930 years. Husband and wife share a single line. Every king and empire still to come grows out of it, and the few habits Adams uses here are the ones he keeps using all the way to 1881.
Before Adam there is a note. In the top left corner Adams tells you that Moses assigns the Creation no date, and that he will build on the system of “Archbishop Usher,” because most of the histories of his day rested on it. Genesis 1 to 3, the six days, the garden, the one command and the fall, he sets out chapter by chapter in a block of italic type, but he draws none of it as a length of time. For Adams the history of man begins when Adam’s 930 years begin to be counted.
Then the family grows. Two thin bands peel away from Adam’s at the very edge of the chart. The upper one is Cain, “the firstborn.” The lower one is Abel, “the first Martyr,” and it stops almost at once. Genesis gives no year for his death, so Adams ends the band with a question mark and the words “(date unknown),” then prints his own guess just to the right with its label still attached: “About 129 A.M.-perhaps.”
Seth is drawn differently. Where his band leaves Adam’s, Adams writes two numbers, 3874 B.C. and 130 A.M. One counts down toward Christ, the other counts up from Adam, and together they make 4004, as every dated birth on the chart will. Eve named this son, Genesis says, because God had “appointed me another seed instead of Abel.” From Seth the bands climb like a staircase, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, each step with its year. Cain’s family climbs too, higher on the page, with names and nothing else.
Now drop your eyes beneath the stream of time. The same men come back on one thin line with small numbers beside them: ADAM 130, SETH 105, ENOS 90, CAINAN 70. Each is a father’s age when the next son was born, taken straight from Genesis 5, and Adams labels the line without hedging: “These lines show the genealogy of CHRIST.” Put a finger on Seth’s 130 A.M. above the stream and slide straight down. The same 130 A.M. is waiting below.
Why should that matter to someone who reads the Bible? Because Adams has turned a difference inside Scripture into something your eye can catch. Genesis 5 counts one family by the calendar, and that family leads, under the stream, toward Christ. Genesis 4 remembers the other family by its names and its work. Adams adds no year that Genesis does not give and hides nothing it leaves open. Where Scripture gives a number, he draws it; where it is silent, he prints a question mark. That is the first reason you can trust the rest of the chart.
“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;”Genesis 5:1 · KJV
The pins, in order
This is one of the two stretches we show in full on the site, exactly as the book walks it. Click a pin on the chart or a line below.
Think it through
Keep your Bible open. There are no wrong answers here; the worksheet in the free Companion gives you room to write.
- Adams starts counting with Adam’s life, not with Genesis 1:1. What can each passage date, and what does it leave open? (Genesis 1:1; 5:1–5)
- Cain’s line has names and no years; Seth’s line has both. Why might Scripture keep the years for one family and not the other? (Genesis 4:17–22; 5:6–20)
- Eve called Seth “another seed instead of Abel.” Follow the line Adams labels “the genealogy of CHRIST”: where does that promise lead? (Genesis 4:25; Luke 3:38)
- Adam “talked with” Seth, Enos and Cainan for centuries. What would it mean to hear about Eden from the man who lived there? (Genesis 5:4)
- Adams prints six dates for the Creation and openly chooses one. How does seeing his reasons change the way you trust the rest of the chart?
- Abel’s band ends with “? (date unknown),” and then Adams adds “About 129 A.M.-perhaps.” Why is it honest to print both, and what does the “?” promise you?
Find the place where Cainan’s band leaves Enos’s band, near the top right of pp. 16–17. Which keys tell you what the two numbers there mean, and what do they say?
Show the answer
Key 1 · Dates ride the stream of time: the fork is Cainan’s birth, 3679 B.C. and 325 A.M. (together, 4004). Key 6 · Same column, same moment: straight below, “325 A.M.” stands again beside “CAINAN 70.”
Another Seed: The Line That Keeps Its Years
The first promise of the gospel comes before the first birth. In the garden, speaking to the serpent, God says that the woman’s seed “shall bruise thy head” (Genesis 3:15). Read Genesis 4 with that sentence in your ears and the chapter takes a different shape. Eve’s firstborn is Cain, and the first death on the chart is his brother’s. Abel’s band, which Adams marks “the first Martyr,” ends almost as soon as it starts.
Then comes Seth, and Eve says why she named him: God “hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel” (Genesis 4:25). She reaches for the word of the promise. On Adams’ chart this is where the dates begin. Seth’s band carries 3874 B.C. and 130 A.M., and so does every son after him in that line, because Genesis 5 gives each father’s age at the birth and the length of every life. Cain’s family, higher on the page, keeps its names and has no years.
Adams makes the meaning plain beneath the stream. The same men return on one thin line, each with his age at his son’s birth, and the label reads: “These lines show the genealogy of CHRIST.” Luke closes his genealogy of Jesus by walking the same line backward, “which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God” (Luke 3:38). The thin line on pp. 16–17 is Luke’s line read from the other end.
None of this makes Cain’s family unimportant. Genesis records its city, its herds, its harps and its tools, and Adams prints every name it gives. But Scripture follows one family by the calendar because the promise travels down it, and Adams, by refusing to invent years where Genesis is silent, lets you see that choice for yourself. When you study these first inches alone, read Genesis 3:15, 4:25 and Luke 3:38 together with a finger on Seth’s fork. Everything to the right of it is that promise being kept, year after year.
Read and reflect
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
Where on pp. 16–17 does Adams begin to follow the line through which this seed will come?
“…she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.”
What does Eve’s choice of the word “seed” tell you about what she remembered from Eden?
“Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.”
Why might Luke carry the line of Jesus all the way back to Adam, and then to God?
Quiz: ten questions
Pick an answer to see whether it is right and why. Each explanation names the page of the book.
Read the whole chart, stretch by stretch
This site lets you wander; the book walks you through. All seventeen stretches on full spreads at 75% of the real chart, numbered pins explained in order, Adams' Six Keys on every page and a study page for every stretch. Large format, full color.