Genesis Chapter Five: The Descendants of Adam, (and Persumably Eve)

¹This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

¹This is the book about Adam's descendants. Well, the first-born male descendants, anyway. And technically it's not so much about them as it is a list of their names. In fact, if you had to pick the most boring chapter in the King James Bible, this would be in the top five. So enjoy!

Just in case you forgot, God created man to look like him.

²Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

²God created man in two versions, male and female. And he called them Adam. Which means Eve's name was actually Adam until Adam named her something else. This was a good idea on his part because saying "Adam had sex with Adam and they had a son named Abel" would just be weird.

³And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:

³Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, which is when he had Seth. When he had Cain and Abel is not known, but it's good to know by the time he got to child number three he had the fatherhood thing a bit more worked out. No sibling slaying for the next batch of kids.

⁴And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:

⁴After he had Seth Adam lived for another eight hundred years, for a grand total of nine hundred and thirty years. This is a very long time to be a farmer. To relive the tedium he had lots and lots of kids, so apparently Eve was still around as well.

⁵And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

⁵And then, at the ripe old age of nine hundred and thirty years, Adam died. He was eaten by a tiger. Possibly.

⁶And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:

⁶And Seth lived a hundred and five years and had this kid that he called Enos.

⁷And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters:

⁷And Seth kept living after he sired Enos and sired lots of kids. Lots and lots.

⁸And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.

⁸And Seth lived a very, very long time and died.

⁹And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan:

⁹And Enos guy lived for awhile, had sex with his sister, and sired Cainan.

¹⁰And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters:

¹⁰Yadda yadda yadda Enos yaddda yadda, many sons and daughters.

¹¹And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.

¹¹And Enos died.

¹²And Cainan lived seventy years and begat Mahalaleel:

¹²And Cainan, who may or may not have been named after Cain, had a kid named Mahalaleel. This is a name that got him into a lot of fights, as you can imagine.

¹³And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters:

¹³And Cainan lived for a quite a while afterwards and had many sons and daughters.

¹⁴And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died.

¹⁴And then Cainan died. And there was much unhappiness.

¹⁵And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared:

¹⁵And Mahalaleel lived awhile and had a son named Jared. Note the short, simple name here. Kind of makes one think Mahalaleel may not have liked certain types of names, doesn't it?

¹⁶And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters:

¹⁶And Mahalaleel lived a VERY long time after he sired Jared and had sons and daughters. The one thing you can say about these early generations is that they certainly were fertile. And oversexed.

¹⁷And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died.

¹⁷And Mahalaleel lived a grand total of eight hundred and ninety five years. And then dropped dead.

¹⁸And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch:

¹⁸And Jared lived a hundred and sixty two years and had a son named Enoch. This Enoch should not be confused with the child of Cain named Enoch or the city named after him. On a side note, Jared naming his son Enoch was roughly the equivalent of naming your kid New York.

¹⁹And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

¹⁹Can you guess the story of Jared? If you guessed he lived a very long time and that he had many sons and daughters, you guessed right! If you were right, than feel free to name you child Jared, though I would avoid naming him Mahalaleel, it never works out.

²⁰And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died.

²⁰And Jared lived a very, very long time and died.

²¹And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah:

²¹And Enoch lived sixty-five years, and had a son named Methuselah.

²²And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

²² And Enoch lived another three hundred years after he sired Methuselah and had many sons and daughters. Careful readers may take note that Enoch didn't hang around nearly as long as several of his nigh-millennium old family members. What happened? Tiger attack? Farming accident? Eating the wrong apple? Stay tuned and find out!

²³And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:

²³And Enoch lived three hundred and sixty five years.. Another indication that something strange happened to Enoch! What was it?

²⁴And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

²⁴As it turns out, God really liked Enoch. In fact, given his general attitude towards the human race at this point, Enoch may be the first human being God did like. Enoch didn't lie, steal anything, or kill anybody, so that puts him above several family prominent family members right there. What other attributes he might have possessed, no one knows, but he apparently was a great conversationalist at the very least.

And God liked Enoch so much that rather than put Enoch through all that dreary getting old and dying in torment thing he cursed all the others Adamites with, he took Enoch to live with him in Paradise, which is what God called his house, and Enoch lived happily ever after.

Though having to be naked all the time took some getting used to, (See Chapter Two)

²⁵And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech.

²⁵And Methuselah lived a hundred eighty and seven years, and had a son he named Lamech, which continued the apparent family tradition of naming the children of the Adam family after the children of the Cain family. Note the tendency to name the children after fairly prominent members of the Cains; Cainian, (after Cain, the first murderer), Enoch, (after the first kid and first city), and Lamech, (the second murderer and producer of some very talented offspring).

²⁶And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters:

²⁶And Methuselah lived a long time after having sired Lamech and had many sons and daughters. Yes, we're back to this stuff again.

²⁷And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.

²⁷And Methuselah lived nine hundred sixty and nine years and died.

There is a popular theory that all this time spent detailing the names and lifespans of these Adamites was simply a means to show that a great deal of time passed between the creation of the world and the more interesting stuff that happens later. Many believe it would have been a good idea to condense the whole of Chapter Five to a line saying something like, "And Adams children had children and so on for about ten thousand years, give or take. Nothing much happened otherwise except a guy named Enoch got to take the express train to paradise, where he was naked". That covers everything!

²⁸And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:

²⁸And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and he had a son. To those who may be fading out, take heart! Things are about to pick up.

²⁹And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.

²⁹And Lamech gets the first speaking part in the story for about ten thousand years when he explains why he decides to name his kid Noah; "Listen to me! I shall call this child Noah because he's going to make us all feel better about all this eternal toiling we have to do just to live. You know, because the LORD cursed us all those years ago. But my son will make us feel better about it, perhaps by becoming a comedian. Or maybe he'll invent the plow or something like that. All right, I'm done now; you can all go back to your eternal toiling".

³⁰And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:

³⁰And Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years after he made this speech and had many sons and daughters. Whether or not he made speeches about them is unknown, but many suppose he did. He seems like that sort of person.

³¹And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.

³¹And he lived for many hundreds of years and then died. Which is usually what happens after a person lives for hundreds of years.

³²And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

³² As our story picks up again in Chapter Six, (after a very long detailing of the passage of time), our hero Noah is five hundred years old and has three sons. You can tell Noah is going to be an important fellow because all three of his sons actually have names. And they are Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

And thus ends Chapter Five, the one part of the bible most responsible from keeping people from reading the book. If you've read the whole chapter, you may congratulate yourself on your perseverance. If you skipped to the end, you may congratulate yourself on your intelligence, though you did miss the Enoch bits which were kind of interesting.