According to the Bible
The bible is the only source of the facts concerning the origins of Planet Earth and Mankind that has been recorded in a reliable document that has managed to survive over thousands of years. Although the bible goes into much detail about a lot of people and events, this writing will not. What we will cover are those important and relative facts that will present to the reader, as much as possible, a chronology of events and those persons who were a part of those events as they happened. References to bible books, chapters and verses will not be included in this narrative, nor will theological theories or interpretations of what the bible literally addresses.In the beginning, if there even was a beginning, God existed in the World. The very first thing that we are told is that God created the Heavens and the Earth. Though we are all aware of what the Earth is, we should understand that the Heavens consist of all the space above the Earth which contains the Stars and other planetary objects which are called by various names such as moons, asteroids, meteors, other planets such as our Earth, etc.
After God had created the Universe and all that it consists of, He created other Heavenly beings like Himself. Supernatural Heavenly beings that became known as Angels, Arch Angels and Cherubims. Some of these Heavenly beings would later be seen as and called the children of God and a family of Heavenly beings known as “Elohiym” in the Hebrew language, a family of gods. As we also have learned later on because Jesus made the statement that He was with the Father God before He came to the Earth and was to return to His Father, Jesus was one of these “Elohiym”, a member of this heavenly family of gods.
We are told that God decided to develop the Earth to be a place for mankind to dwell on by giving it dry land, bodies of water, grass, trees, the fish of the Sea, fowl of the air, and land creatures such as beasts, cattle and other small creatures. After God had completed developing the Earth, it was then ready for Him to put mankind upon it.
The Beginning of Mankind
The bible then tells us that God then created mankind upon the Earth, both male and female and instructed them to fill the Earth with their offspring and take a position of domination over every other creature on Earth that He had created. An important note to be made here is that God instructed mankind to eat only of the fruit of the trees and the seed of the herbs of the ground and nothing was mentioned that they were to eat the meat of those that He had created, neither were they instructed to till the ground to grow crops.
The translation of the bible tells us that God had ended His creation on the sixth “day” and rested on the seventh “day”. This word “day” could have also been translated as a period of time and not just a literal day of 24 hours.
After all of this, God realized that there was not a man that He had created that had the knowledge to till the ground and be a farmer to grow food, so He proceeded to rectify and provide for that need.
So God made another man, not being created as the first were, but formed from the dust of the ground which was one man who became known as Adam. Then God planted a garden in a place called Eden and put the man Adam in it for the purpose of tilling the ground and taking care of everything that God caused to grow in the garden.
God then realized that Adam was alone in the Garden and needed something to keep him company and be a helper to him. So to provide that need for Adam, God formed from the ground, just like He formed Adam, different kinds of animals and fowl and gave them to Adam, but this did not provide the company or the help that Adam needed. So the next thing that God did was to remove from Adam the female DNA which was in Adam and made a woman to be Adam’s helper and mate.
Now before Adam was placed in the Garden, God told Adam that there was one tree in the Garden that Adam was not to eat of its fruit, for if he did he would die. This was the first law that God had given to man along with the warning of the consequence that he would face if He violated God’s commandment.
There was also a beast in the Garden that was more like a man than he was an animal and convinced Eve, Adams wife, that she would not die if she ate of the fruit on the forbidden tree. So when Eve ate of the fruit and didn’t die that caused Adam to disbelieve what God had told him and he also ate of the fruit.
When God found out that Adam had doubted His word and disobeyed Him, He banished Adam and Eve from the Garden and prevented them from ever returning there.
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden
After Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden there were two sons born of them, Cain and Abel. During the course of time Cain became jealous of his brother Abel because he found favor with God and killed him. Cain then left the house of Adam and found a wife in the land of Nod, who was of the first creation of mankind and made his home there.
(Just a note from the author: The people of the first creation of mankind were later referred to as the Gentile Nations. Cain by taking up residence with them could have introduced animal sacrifice to God to them since they were historically known for a lot of sacrifices including those of their own children to please their gods. Cain could also have introduced farming to them because of what he learned from Adam. Up until that time these Nations depended upon the fruit of trees and herbs of the fields for their food since they didn’t have the knowledge of growing food from the ground that Adam had.)
After Abel was killed and Cain left for another land, Adam and Eve produced another son who they named Seth. Following the birth of Seth there followed seven generations of their descendents before Noah was born. Men of these generations started to intermarry with the women who were part of the first creation of mankind. Because of this and the kind of lives these descendents of Adam were living with the people of these other Nations. Mankind had gotten so wicked that God repented having made this linage of man on the Earth and decided to destroy all of them. But since Noah had found favor with God, He instructed Noah to build a wooden Ark in which Noah and his family could escape the fate of what was going to happen to all of the others.
Then Came the Flood
So in the eleventh generation of the linage of Adam God brought on a flood of water that destroyed all of Adam’s descendents except for Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. After the flood had covered the Earth and Noah’s family had been in the Ark for about one year, the waters subsided and the Ark rested on a mountaintop. After Noah and his family left the Ark, God blessed them and commanded them to go forth and replenish the Earth with their offspring. The three sons of Noah then went out and their families spread across the lands of the Earth and many generations of their offspring were produced in the lands alongside of those in the Gentile Nations
The Call of Abraham
Shem, one of Noah’s sons after many years had passed had a descendent named Abraham who had found favor with God and God made a covenant with him that he would be the father of many nations if Abraham would obey Him in all that He would command him to do. So Abraham did what God commanded him to do and over the passage of time Abraham had two sons. One of his sons named Isaac was the father of Jacob, whose name was later changed by God to Israel and who took his family into Egypt because of a famine in their land.
A Journey into Egypt
When Israel took his family into the land of Egypt there were about fifty of them and 215 years later when the nation of Israel would be delivered from Egypt they numbered about two million.
While the Israelites were in Egypt a man named Moses was born who was destined to be the one that God chose to deliver the people out of Egypt and lead them to the land that God had promised to Abraham. Moses was raised in the house of the Pharaoh of Egypt, but when he learned that he was of the Nation of Israel, he took it upon himself to attempt to deliver his people before the time was right with God. Because of this, Moses was forced to leave Egypt and found refuge in the land of Midian and took a wife of Jethro who was a priest in that land.
As time passed by, God made himself known to Moses and sent him into Egypt to free the Israelites from the bondage they were in. After God performed many supernatural signs by Moses, Pharaoh consented to free the people and allow them to leave his land.
The Exodus from Egypt
Moses led the people through the desert to Mount Sinai where he received the ten commandments from God and the laws and ordnances they were to live by. As they were traveling through the desert and were about to cross over the River Jordan, the people rebelled against crossing into a land that they feared even though God had promised it to them. Because they disbelieved God’s word about their being able to take possession of the land across Jordan, God condemned them to wander in the wilderness until every one of them of age perished. The only ones of the Nation that survived the wilderness journey were those who were not of age when the rebellion occurred, along with two men who had been faithful to God’s word, Joshua and Caleb.
At the end of the wandering in the wilderness and they were ready to cross the River Jordan into the promise land, Moses turned the leadership of the Israelites over to Joshua. Moses was not allowed to take the people across the River because he had trespassed against God during the journey. According to the bible, Moses went up onto a mountain and died there, but even though the people searched for his body, they couldn’t find it.
Crossing the River Jordan
So Joshua led the people of Israel across the River Jordan into the land of Canaan that God had promised for Abraham and his descendents. Then Joshua and the Israelites defeated all of the Nations of the land and took possession according as Joshua had divided it among them.
After about 470 years in their new homeland and having been serving under many Judges over the people of Israel, they decided they wanted a King to rule over them the same as other Nations had. So against God did the people rebel and insisted that a man be placed over them as their King and God obliged them by having the Prophet Samuel anoint Saul to be their first of many Kings. So Saul ruled as King for forty years and was replaced by David and after him, David’s son Solomon.
The Israelites taken Captive
Then after about 370 years of being ruled by many different kinds of Kings, some good and some bad, Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon came into the land of the Israelites and defeated them and carried many of the people into captivity at Babylon.
After having been in captivity for 70 years the Israelites were released to return to their own land and spent the next almost 500 years being troubled by many other nations and rulers and culminated by the Romans taking possession of their lands in about the year of 37BC and remaining during the time of the life and ministry of Jesus.
Before the birth of Jesus there was a ruler over Israel by the name of Herod the Great who ruled from 37BC to 4AD and was the one who had young children slain in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill a boy who he was told was being born there that would grow up to be the King of the Jews.
The Roman rule over the Israelites continued through the life and ministry of Jesus up to the year of 70AD. Because of all the rebellion of the Israelites against the rule of Rome, the legions of Rome besieged Jerusalem and those Israelites who were not killed were taken captive and sent to other parts of the World as slaves to the Gentile Nations.
For about 1900 years these captive Israelites remained in these foreign lands before returning to their lands to begin new lives in the land that God had promised to Abraham. In the year of 1948 Israel then became a recognized Nation again under their own rule. There they will remain until the last day appointed by God has come according to the bible.
As for the Gentile Nations, unless they have been converted and accepted the Gospel of Christ, they will perish. In any case, this will mark the conclusion of mankind on the Earth.
