nt, on
the other hand, which is introductory to the narrative of man's
sin and expulsion from Eden, takes no notice of the order of
creation in its several parts. In this, man is the _central_
object, and other things are mentioned incidentally in their
relation to man. The writer has no occasion to speak of trees
good for food till a _home_ is sought for Adam; nor of beasts
and birds till a _companion_ is needed for him. Then each of
these things is mentioned in connection with him. No candid
interpreter can infer from this that the second account means to
give, as the veritable order of creation--man, the garden of
Eden, beasts and birds!

A difficulty has been alleged, also, in regard to _Cain's wife_.
But this grows simply out of the brevity of the sacred
narrative. The children of Adam must have intermarried, brothers
and sisters. The fact that no daughter is mentioned as born to
Adam before Seth, is no evidence against the birth of daughters
long before. In the fourth chapter no individuals are mentioned
except for special reasons--Cain and Abel, with a genealogical
list of Cain's family to Lamech, because he was the head of one
branch of the human race before the deluge. In the fifth chapter
none are named but _sons in the line of Noah_, with the standing
formula of "sons and daughters" born afterwards. We are not to
infer from this that no sons or daughters were born before;
otherwise we should exclude Cain and Abel themselves. At the
time of the murder of Abel, the two brothers were adult men.
What was their age we cannot tell. It may have been a hundred
years or more; for our first parents were created not infants,
but in the maturity of their powers, and Adam was one hundred
and thirty years old when the next son after Abel's murder was
born. Gen. 4:25. At all events, the interval between Abel's
birth and death must have been long, and we cannot reasonably
suppose that during this period no daughters were born to Adam.

(C.) The _chronology_ of the book of Genesis involves, as is
well known, some difficult questions. In the genealogical tables
contained in the fifth and eleventh chapters, the texts of the
Masoretic Hebrew (which is followed in our version),
Hebrew-Samaritan, and Septuagint, differ in a remarkable manner.

(1.) _Antediluvian Genealogy._ Acc