42. Primitive life of human beings and the mark of Cain

From the sermon on September 24, 2006

As science and technology have been developing, it has been revealed that human beings have lived on earth for quite a long time. Scientists can accurately estimate the age of relics. Therefore, it seems to be wrong that Christianity calculates human history as six thousand years according to the Bible.

After God expelled Adam and Eve, he resumed communication with human beings six thousand years ago when human intelligence had been developed enough. That is not the whole history of humanity. Therefore, if we insist that human history be just six thousand years, it would not be matched with the evidence of human history that scientists

have found so far.

There are some problems for Christians to claim only six thousand years for human history, because there are some phrases in scriptures that do not support their claim. One example is in Gen. 4:14-15. “‘Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.’ But the LORD said to him, ‘Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.’ Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.”

According to the descriptions in the Bible, there should be only Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel at that time. After Cain killed Abel, there should remain only three people. But Cain was worried about being killed by others and God gave him a mark so that no one would kill him. Therefore, those scriptures contradict the assertion of a six thousand year history.

God created Adam and let him live in the Garden of Eden. But his appearance changed after he ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge that God prohibited him from eating.