Table of Contents
I read Men before Adam in the London printing. It is the English translation of Isaac La Peyrère’s Latin Praeadamitae. The quotes below are verbatim from that copy, with the old spelling kept. I write the long s as a normal s. The page numbers are the printed numbers in the book.
For the Latin original, see my review of Praeadamitae. For the wider subject, see Who Are the Pre-Adamites?.
The book at a glance
| Item | What the copy shows |
|---|---|
| Title | Men before Adam. Or a Discourse upon the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth Verses of the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans. By which are prov'd, That the first Men were created before Adam. |
| Author | Isaac La Peyrère (c. 1596 to 1676). His name is not on the title page. |
| Second part | A Theological Systeme upon that Presupposition, That Men were before Adam. The first Part. |
| Date | The Systeme title page reads "LONDON, Printed in the Year, 1655." Library catalogues date the book 1656. |
| Copy I read | A copy with the bookplate of John Hughes, on the Internet Archive |
The claim, in his words
Chapter 8 of the Discourse states the whole idea and its defence:
To say, that the first men were created before Adam, doth neither derogate from Christianity, nor the history of Genesis; nay, that it gives light to both. And that it every way agrees with the monuments and histories of Nations.
Isaac La Peyrère, A Discourse, Chapter 8 heading, p. 18
“Derogate from” means “take away from”. He is saying that his idea does not harm the faith or the Bible. He says it explains both. The last sentence matters most to me. He wants the Bible to agree with the old records of other nations.
Cain was afraid of judges
The best known part of his case is Cain. In Genesis 4, Cain fears that someone will kill him. La Peyrère asks who that someone could be, if only Adam’s family was alive:
Whom did Cain fear after he knew that his slaying of his brother was blown abroad? When he said to God, Whosoever finds me, shall slay me; for he was afraid of his Judges and the Laws, by which he was to suffer death.
Isaac La Peyrère, A Theological Systeme, Book 3, p. 150
On the same page he reads Cain’s flight “to the East of Eden” as a flight out of the Holy Land, into “the earth of the Gentiles”. For him, the land of Nod already had people, laws and courts. I use the same Genesis details on the Pre-Adamites page.
The 470,000 years of the Chaldeans
In Book 3 he brings in the long records of the old nations. He takes this number from Diodorus of Sicily:
You will hardly believe the number of years, that the College of Chaldæans affirm'd that they had spent in the consideration of the world, sayes Diodorus. For, til the expedition of Alexander into Asia, they reckon'd four hundred and seventy thousand years, since the time they had begun to observe the stars.
Isaac La Peyrère, A Theological Systeme, Book 3, p. 166
He does not take the number as exact. He says Diodorus thought it “hard to be believ’d, but not impossible.” His point is that such records are far older than any timeline that starts with Adam. I compare the long Babylonian numbers in The Numbers Before the Flood. There Berossus gives 432,000 years for ten kings.
A flood over the land of the Jews
Book 4 limits the flood of Noah. The heading of chapter 7 says it plainly:
That the Flood of Noah was not upon the whole earth, but only upon the Land of the Jews. Not to destroy all men, but only the Jews.
Isaac La Peyrère, A Theological Systeme, Book 4, Chapter 7 heading, p. 239
“The Jews” here means Adam’s line, which he sees as the people God made in Adam. Later in Book 4 he lists other floods to show that floods can be local:
The Chinensians boast also of their deluge. The Americans of theirs: Both of them, according to their accompt, far distant from the Floud of Noah, and why should we not grant to Palestine their particular deluge?
Isaac La Peyrère, A Theological Systeme, Book 4, p. 255
“Chinensians” means the Chinese. “Accompt” means account, here their count of years. On the same page he names the floods of Ogyges in Boeotia and of Deucalion in Thessaly, and the floods the Egyptian priest told Plato about in the Timaeus. This fits what I find on this site. There was not one flood. There were many.
What I take from the English book
| Claim | Where | Kind of source |
|---|---|---|
| The first men were created before Adam | Title page; Discourse, p. 18 | Bible reading |
| Cain feared judges and laws in another land | Systeme, Book 3, p. 150 | Bible reading |
| The Chaldeans counted 470,000 years of star records | Systeme, Book 3, p. 166, after Diodorus | Ancient history, as reported |
| Noah's flood covered only the land of the Jews | Systeme, Book 4, p. 239 | Bible reading |
| Other nations had their own floods | Systeme, Book 4, p. 255 | Ancient history, as reported |
Related on this site
- Who Are the Pre-Adamites?: the wider subject, from early Islam to Bailly and Oahspe.
- Praeadamitae (1655): my review of the Latin original.
- Utnapishtim, Ziusudra, and Noah: flood survivors in other traditions.
- The Nephilim: giants and other beings beside the Adamite line.
