Bible Synapse
Was Enoch the sixth or the seventh from Adam?
Hard question · Genealogies · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Adam begets Seth, Seth Enos, Enos Cainan, Cainan Mahalaleel, Mahalaleel Jared, and “Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch”.
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died. …
The line from Adam is listed name by name: Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech.
Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech,
“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these”.
And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
Cain’s wife “bare Enoch”, and Cain names a city after his son Enoch.
And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
The objection
Genesis 5 and 1 Chronicles 1 list six generations from Adam to Enoch: Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared and then Enoch. Yet Jude 14 calls him “the seventh from Adam”. Critics say Jude has miscounted.
The answer
Jude counts the names in the line, with Adam as the first: Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch. Enoch is the seventh name in that list, exactly as 1 Chronicles 1:1–3 sets it out, where “Henoch” stands seventh. The critic counts the generations after Adam, which makes Enoch the sixth. Both counts are correct; they simply start in different places. Counting both ends was common in the ancient world, which is why, for instance, an event two days later could be ‘on the third day’. Jude’s Greek, hebdomos apo Adam, ‘seventh from Adam’, is an ordinal, a place in a list, and Adam is the first place.
Jewish writers counted Enoch in just this way. John Gill notes that they called him ‘the seventh generation’ from Adam, and the Book of Enoch, the Jewish writing from which Jude appears to quote the prophecy that follows (1 Enoch 1:9), uses the same phrase, ‘the seventh from Adam’ (1 Enoch 60:8 in R. H. Charles’s numbering), and has Enoch say that he was ‘born the seventh in the first week’ (93:3). The phrase also does a job: it marks this Enoch off from Cain’s son Enoch (Genesis 4:17), who was only the third from Adam. Adam Clarke makes this point, and Gill adds it as a reason for the title.
From the classic commentators
He was the seventh patriarch, and is distinguished thus from Enoch, son of Cain, who was but the third from Adam; this appears plainly from the genealogy, 1 Chronicles 1:1Adam Clarke, Commentary, on Jude 14 (1810–1826)