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First of all, I want to start off by saying that Adam and Eve are mythical characters made up by primitive people trying to create an origin story. That much is clear to anyone who is not enamored with Christianity. Eve has the name Eve because people like to put meaning in names they give people. It's very romantic. Every good myth puts meaning into character names. But, let's pretend for a second that Adam and Eve were real people.

According to the story, Eve was not the mother of all living. These are the living beings she was not the mother of:

God
Satan
Angels
Demons
Adam
Eve
Animals, insects, etc.
Plants (if you consider these living)

So, at face value, Adam was wrong. He should not have named her Eve. Her name is a misnomer if Eve really means the mother of all living.

But, let's give Adam some leeway. He was just trying to give his wife a cute name with meaning (because that's what people do), so he called her a name that implied a beginning, a starting point. He probably really meant that she would give birth to the rest of humanity, and so he wanted to name her as such. I doubt he intended that she was truly the mother of all living beings. I've never met the guy, but hopefully he was a little more clued-in than that, since god used his behavior to judge the rest of humanity.

But was Adam really the one making the mistake here? We have to remember that Genesis was written long after Adam's death. It's not like the writer(s) of Genesis could interview him. The writer is the one relating the story. How did the writer know that Adam called her eve because he believed her to be the mother of all living? If Adam intended to call her Eve because she would be the mother of the rest of humanity, why did the writer not make this clear? It could be that the writer is the one making the error. So, don't be too quick to throw blame on Adam.

Of course, for us skeptics, we wonder why the "word of god" would not be perfectly clear on these matters. Why would god have people write "mother of all living" if that was not his intent? Isn't god the one making the error here if it is his word? Or, perhaps this strangity exists because the story is a myth created by less-than-sophisticated myth makers who didn't think it through very well when they decided to write it. Or they were just lazy.

So, let's gve Adam a break here. He probably meant that she would be the mother of all humanity. That's cool.

So, what of Hebrews 7:3? Now, I have read that verse over and over, in muliple translations. IN CONTEXT. I have read the two places in the OT where this guy's name shows up AND other references in the NT.

It seems to me that the writer intended to make Melchisidek the priest out to be some sort of super human, the way Jesus was a super human, that he was not born and did not have a physical death, but like Christ, is still in bodily form in heaven (or wherever). It's seems that the writer is saying that he literally had no parents, not that he just didn't have an documented geneology. The king James says he had no descent, not that he had no geneology. It is only later translations of the passage that make this distinction. The King James uses the word geneology all over the place. Why not here if that was the intent? (why such confusion in the word of god?)

So, if Melshisidek was a living human, and had no parents, like Christ had no father, then Eve was NOT the mother of the rest of humanity. So we do have a contradiction even with giving Adam the benefit of the doubt. Eve was NOT the mother of all living.

Perhaps Adam meant that Eve would be the mother of all humans born to other humans. Then there would be no contradiction, but by this time I've lost inteterest in Adam and his silly naming process completely.

So what can we SAFELY conclude here? As far as I am concerned, we run into the same problem we run into with all biblical discrepancies: There is no way of knowing the actual intent of the writers, no way of verifying the accuracy of the translations, no way of confirming that this is NOT a contradiction. It might be, it might not be.

However, going through this process makes me doubt even more strongly that this holy book came from a single rational, intelligent being. The more I read this thing, the less impressed I am with it (can it get any worse?). And, the more I see people like BB and WR just kind of guessing in order to make everything right, the less confidence I have in believers in general.

As a side question: Why is Melchisedec spelled with a z in the OT and an s in the NT in the same translation?

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I think there's a level where one can be skeptical not just that the Bible can be understood well, but at all!

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It is evident that if the Bible and it's translations were intended to comunicate clearly, it has been a dismal failure. One of the many reasons I doubt that the bible was written by a god, as many believe, is that it is an imperfect medium of communication. It simply makes no sense for a god to write a book to comunicate when he can supposedly speak directly to anyone at anytime and could conceivably be able to tailor his communications to each person so that the person could not get the message wrong.

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I personally like the NIV

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The NIV is a dishonest translation. It's authors translated it specifially to support their belief system.

Example:

Ezekiel 6:10 (King James Version)

And they shall know that I am the LORD, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.


Ezekiel 6:10 (1917 Jewish Publication Society of America Version)

And they shall know that I am HaShem; I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.


Ezekiel 6:10 (New International Version)

And they will know that I am the LORD; I did not threaten in vain to bring this calamity on them.


As you can see the NIV translators decided to translate the same hebrew word for 'evil' that they have translated elsewhere as 'evil' as 'calamity' instead. Yet there is no indication in the Hebrew that this word should be translated as anything other than 'evil'. I think the hebrew word is 'rah', although I can't remember for sure. (I can't find the hebrew bible pronunciation site I used to use. )

Now why would they do this? 'Calamity' and 'evil' have very different meanings. I think they did this because they believe that god cannot be the source of any evil. They figure he means that he will send a bad sitation, not evil. Sending evil would make him an agent of evil. But the hebrew text says 'evil'. This is pure dishonesty. They are translating in their OWN views of what the text should say, not what it actually says.

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You're quite right, the author of Hebrews seems to be at the very least hinting something supernatural about Melchisedec. I question the KJV's word choice, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it outright wrong. It's just iffy.

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But the KJV may be right. The greek word, regardless of how we classify its roots today, might have been intended to mean that he literally had no ancestors, like Adam.

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And if you believe that the story of Adam and Eve is a myth (as actually some Christians do) then there's no problem at all. You've got a man named "Man" and a woman named "Life", and the world begins with them. It is very romantic.

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I think much of the entire bible is myth. I have no problem with this assessment of the Adam and Eve story. Unfortuantely, there are many people who believe that Adam and Eve were real people.

Also, if the story of Adam and Eve that is presented as a non-fiction is really a fiction, how trustworthy are the rest of the storires in the bible that are presented as non-fiction, especially ones about gods becoming human and pretending to die?

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These folks aren't "living beings" in the usual sense, though.

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The "usual" sense? What sense is that? You mean the breathing, meat bag sense?

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If Christians and Jews believe that there is one being (God) that was not created and had no beginning, then why not more than one?

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It's fun to imagine, isn't it? I've never understood why Christians believe that there is onl god and then all he created. Couldn't there be other universes and beings that the Christian god doesn't know about? Christians think their god knows everything, but does he? As you can see, I don't just buy traditional religious doctrine.

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But the point is, while Adam calls Eve "the mother of all living", it's clear it was not intended to be taken literally. Even though Adam was technically wrong, he also didn't likely mean what a strict reading would imply.

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Or probably more likely, the writer of genesis who was concocting the origin story just didn't really think things through very carefully.

Regardless, taken at face value, the character of Eve was NOT the mother of all living. So this is a contradiction, especially with regards to that supernatual priest Melchie.

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I take any quotes from the book of Genesis (and a few other places) with a grain of salt.

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And I take them ALL with a grain of salt! Or perhaps a shaker of salt. A bucket?

Look, these books were written by people we really know nothing about. They are CLEARLY intended to SELL a specific set of beliefs. Whether the people were intentionally lying or repeating things they really believed, the fact is that we can't know if ANY of the quotes are valid. Just as I don't trust a single thing that Joseph Smith wrote that the ancient Americans said in the Book of Mormon, I do not trust the bible. Both works look like delusional fantasy to me.

By the way, you never addressed the no mother and father thing...