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Adam and Eve36 articles

How Did Adam and Eve Die? Genesis Gives Adam’s Age, Not the Cause

Christian Pure Team

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Summary

  • Genesis gives Adam’s age at death, “nine hundred and thirty years”, and no cause (Genesis 5:5); it is the dust-to-dust sentence of Genesis 3:19 carried out.
  • The Bible never tells us when Eve died, how old she was or where she was buried.
  • In the Life of Adam and Eve, a retelling outside the Bible, Adam falls sick at 930, and Eve and Seth are turned away from the gates of Paradise without the oil of mercy.
  • That same book has Eve die six days after Adam, and it is the only old answer to who died first.
  • Many scholars date a lost Jewish original to the first century BC or AD, though some argue the book was Christian from the start; the Latin version probably dates from about the fourth century.
  • Christians square Genesis 2:17 with Adam’s 930 years in three ways: death began that day, the death was spiritual, or a day is a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8).
  • The skull at the foot of the cross in Orthodox icons stands for Adam’s, a pious tradition rather than a dogma.

Genesis says Adam died at 930 and gives no cause. The whole account is one line: “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died” (Genesis 5:5). Eve’s death is never recorded. Adam’s illness, and Eve dying six days after him, come from the Life of Adam and Eve, outside the Bible. Genesis does not need to tell us more, because it has already told us what his death would be. After the…

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Bibliography (Click to show)
  • Scripture is quoted from the King James Version (Genesis 2:17, 3:8, 3:19, 4:25, 5:3–5, 5:24; Psalm 90:4; 1 Corinthians 15:22; 2 Peter 3:8), via BibleGateway, and the Douay-Rheims Bible, 1899 American edition, for its wording of Genesis 2:17. https://www.biblegateway.com/
  • The Apocalypse of Moses (the Greek Life of Adam and Eve), chapters 5–43, in R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), Christian Classics Ethereal Library. https://ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/apcmose.htm
  • Vita Adae et Evae (the Latin Life of Adam and Eve), chapters 30–51, trans. L. S. A. Wells, in R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (1913), Christian Classics Ethereal Library. https://ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/adamnev.htm
  • The Slavonic Adam and Eve, in R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (1913), Christian Classics Ethereal Library. https://ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/slanev.htm
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Life of Adam and Eve” (2020), on the date of the original and the Christian origin of the surviving versions. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Life-of-Adam-and-Eve
  • James H. Charlesworth, The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1976), p. 74, as quoted by Early Jewish Writings. http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/lifeadameve.html
  • Mary Elizabeth Halford-Macleod, Lutwin’s Eva und Adam: A Study and Edition of the Poem from Codex Vindobonensis 2980 (PhD dissertation, University of Stirling, 1981), introduction, on the date of the Latin version and its manuscripts. https://www.storre.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/21439/1/Halford-MacLeod-thesis.pdf
  • Marinus de Jonge, “The Christian Origin of the Greek Life of Adam and Eve”, in G. Anderson, M. Stone and J. Tromp, eds., Literature on Adam and Eve (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 347–363; record at the Orion Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. https://orion-bibliography.huji.ac.il/node/63180
  • Marinus de Jonge and Johannes Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve and Related Literature (Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), on the Armenian and Georgian versions; record at the Orion Center. https://orion-bibliography.huji.ac.il/node/65775
  • The Book of Jubilees, chapter 4, trans. R. H. Charles (1913). https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/jubilees/4.htm
  • Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 81, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, New Advent. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01286.htm
  • Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, book 5, chapter 23, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, New Advent. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103523.htm
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible, on Genesis 2:17, Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/commentaries/gill/genesis/2.htm
  • Fr. John Shandra, “The Skull on the ‘Russian’ Orthodox Cross”, Pravmir.com, 20 November 2008. https://www.pravmir.com/?p=409

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