Where do people come from?

You came from your parents. Your parents came from your grandparents. Your grandparents came from your great-grandparents. Your great-grandparents came from your great-great-grandparents. Your great-great-grandparents came from your great- great-great-grandparents.

There is a pattern here. Everyone comes from their parents. People come from their parents – they don’t create themselves. They inherit their genetic makeup from their parents. Can this pattern go on forever into the past? No, because according to science and the Bible, the universe had a beginning. Do you know how many generations there have been since the beginning of mankind?

How many generations?

The Bible says that Abraham was the 20^th generation on earth (Adam and Eve were the first generation). And Abraham lived about 2000 BC, which is about 4025 years ago. Genealogists and historians traditionally use 25 years as a standard length for a single generation. This gives a total of about 180 generations of humanity on earth, which is an approximate number.

Where did Adam and Eve come from?

God made Adam and Eve, the original couple (Gen. 1:26-29; 2:7, 21-22; 5:1-2), who were perfect human beings – they were “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Later God said, “It is I [God] who made the earth and created mankind on it” (Isa 45:12NIV).

As Adam and Eve were commanded to reproduce, they were created mature and didn’t go through the prenatal, infancy, childhood and adolescence stages of life. Instead, they were instant adults! And they were different to everyone else as they didn’t have human parents and weren’t born into the world like everyone else. So, they probably didn’t have a umbilicus (navel, or belly-button).

Other animals were made “according to their kinds” (Gen. 1:21, 24-25). This means that there were many different kinds of animals. But there is no mention of different kinds of people, which means they are all the same kind. This is consistent with the statement that “from one man [Adam] He [God] made all the nations” (Acts 17:26). This also means that people have always been distinct from animal’s – they didn’t evolve from animals.

Adam and Eve were given the original genetic information which has been passed through about 180 generations to help create everyone else. This genetic information has been used for thousands of years to create boys and girls who grow up into men and women.

God designed every part of a human being. David said, “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it” (Ps. 139:14NLT). And we all have a unique DNA code. But it’s more than a biological process!

We are designed to be an emotional, creative, and spiritual being as well – each person has a “spirit, soul and body” (1 Th. 5:23). The “spirit” is the capacity to relate to God. The “soul” is the mind (what we imagine), emotions (what we feel), and will (what we want). The “body” is the material part, which carries the immaterial spirit and soul. Some believe that the words “soul” and “spirit” are interchangeable (Sarfati, 2015). Anyhow, the non-material aspect of humanity is present right from the beginning of life.

What have been the main events across the 180 generations of mankind?

Significant events in the history of humanity

Adam and Eve’s disobedience destroyed the harmony between God and people (Gen. 3:7-24). It was the origin of our rebellious nature (sin), suffering, pain, sadness, mutations, disease, and death. Childbirth became painful, there was conflict in marriage, and hard work was needed to harvest food. And people now wore clothes. The Earth became imperfect, and was no longer like the original paradise. Paul personified this by saying that creation is suffering pain like a mother in childbirth who looks forward to the day when it will be released from death and decay (Rom. 8:19-22).

God’s judgment of the global flood caused widespread death (only eight people in Noah’s family survived). This was a genetic and population bottle-neck, which was like a new creation. The accumulation of mutations after the bottleneck reduced human life spans by an order of magnitude (a factor of ten).

There was a loss of human genetic information and diversity at the flood. The male genome was reduced to mainly one man (Noah) and the female genome was reduced to four women. But this diversity was still sufficient to produce all the nations across the world. Since then, the human genome has degraded further by new mutations occurring in each generation. So, the human genome is degrading with time, which is opposite to the improvements with time required by the idea of biological evolution.

God’s judgment after the tower of Babel was to cause different people groups to scatter across the earth because they spoke different languages (Genesis 11:8–9). It was the origin of these languages and nations.

The flood caused the ice age, and God used the ice age to help these people groups migrate across the earth. As there would have been no ice caps after the Flood, the sea level would have been about 70 m above today’s level. During the Ice Age the sea level dropped about 130 m (to 60 m below today’s level) forming a land bridge between Asia and North America and Asia and Australia. This allowed people to spread across the earth.

Later God rescued people from their rebellious nature (sin), pain, sadness and death by sending Jesus to the earth. Jesus took God’s judgment of mankind for those who accept that He died on their behalf.

Jesus Christ was also different from everyone else. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and was fully divine (the Son of God) and fully human. That’s why He could be a mediator between God and humanity.

Conclusion

Every person comes from someone else. They come from their parents. But when that is traced back in history, people come from God – He designed and created them thousands of years ago. Because of this and the historical and ongoing degradation of the human genome, people didn’t evolve from animals.

Adam, Eve and Jesus Christ were unique people.

Reference

Sarfati, 2015, The Genesis account, Creation Book Publishers, p 308-309.

Posted, September 2026

Also see: The historical Adam
Genetics doesn’t support the idea of biological evolution
Where do animals come from?