Most people, when asked about the children of Adam and Eve, can think of no more than two, if that many. Is this correct? Did Adam and Eve only have two kids? What’s a reasonable guess about the size of Adam’s and Eve’s immediate family? How many children did they have?
The Bible names only three of Adam and Eve’s children. Cain and Abel were probably the first two (Genesis 4:1-2). Their son Seth was born when Adam and Eve were 130 years old (Genesis 4:25; 5:3).
Genesis 5:4 explicitly says that Adam begat other sons and daughters. This means that in addition to Seth, Adam had at least two sons and two daughters for at least a total of five children.
It is likely there were many sons and daughters born to Adam and Eve both before and after Seth, because the first recorded command God gave to Adam and Eve was “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
If Adam and Eve had a child every two years, they could have had 65 children by the time Seth was born. Many of those children could have been married and having children of their own by the time of Seth’s birth. In fact, Seth probably didn’t need to marry a sister. He could have married a sister or a niece or a great-niece to bear his son Enosh and his other sons and daughters (Genesis 5:7).
The age at which each of the first ten patriarchs sired a named son ranged from 65 for Mahalalel to 500 for Noah. This named son was not necessarily the oldest or the youngest. Seth, for example, had at least 2 older brothers, Cain and Abel.
The average age of the ten Genesis 5 patriarchs at which the named son was born was 155. The pre-Flood patriarchs were continuing to beget children at much greater ages than men sire children today.
Genesis does not record the number of Adam’s children, so we do not know. But he could have had hundreds of kids since the patriarchs were capable of begetting children at least up to age 500. If Adam had a child every 2 or 3 years to age 600 (about 2/3 of his 930-year lifespan), he could easily have had well over 200 children. If Adam continued having children throughout his life, as men today can do, he could have had close to 500 children.
It is very possible that
Adam sired hundreds of children!
The Jewish historian Josephus of the first century A.D. cites an “old tradition” that Adam and Eve had 56 children — 33 sons and 23 daughters.
(Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 1, Chapter 2, Paragraph 2, Endnote 8.)
Josephus also reports that Lamech had 77 children by two wives. Lamech was the sixth generation after Adam through Cain; this was a different Lamech from the father of Noah through Cain’s brother Seth (Genesis 4:17-19).
(Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 1, Chapter 2, Paragraph 2.)
One of the judges of Israel some 2,000 years after Adam’s death was Gideon (aka Jerubbaal), son of Joash. Gideon had at least 72 sons by his wives and concubines (Judges 7:1; 8:29-32; 9:4-5, 16-19). Several hundred years later, King Rehoboam of Judah fathered 28 sons and 60 daughters for a total of 88 children (2 Chronicles 11:21). King Ahab of Israel had 70 sons some 2500 years after Adam (2 Kings 10:1). Assuming Gideon and Ahab had about as many daughters as sons, this means each had close to 150 children in a normal lifespan thousands of years after Adam.
Thus it is very possible, and I think highly likely, that Adam sired hundreds of children during his lifetime. Exactly how many we do not know, because the Bible does not tell us.
Soli Deo Gloria.
This is the 21st of a series of blog articles on Adam, the father of the human race.