www.ArgumentCenter.org - Where hard questions are answered

< STRONG We don't know, but most likely a short period of time.

Genesis 5:5 states clearly that “all the days that Adam lived were 930 years.”...Therefore, however long Adam and Eve may have been in the garden, one thing is certain: they were not there for any time period that exceeded Adam’s life span of 930 years. But there is additional information that must be considered as well. Genesis 4:25 explains that Seth was born after Cain slew Abel. Since the biblical account makes it clear that Seth was born outside the garden, and since Genesis 5:3 informs us that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, it is obvious that Adam and Eve could not have been in the Garden of Eden any longer than 130 years!

Second, surely it is not inconsequential that all the children of Adam and Eve mentioned in the Bible were born outside the Garden of Eden. Not one conception, or birth, is mentioned as having occurred while Adam and Eve lived in the garden (see Genesis 4:1 for the first mention of any conception or birth—only after the couple’s expulsion from Eden)...One of the commands given to Adam and Eve was that they “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the Earth” (Genesis 1:28)... In other words, Adam and Eve were commanded to reproduce...the only conceptions and births of which we have any record occurred outside the garden! In other words, apparently Adam and Eve were not even in the garden long enough for Eve to conceive, much less give birth.

Third, while the Bible does not provide a specific time regarding how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden, it could not have been very long because Christ Himself...announced that upon them [the Jews of his day] would come “the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world.”...He added: “from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah....” Jesus therefore placed the murder of Abel near the “foundation of the world.” Granted, Abel’s death occurred some years after the Creation, but it was close enough to that event for Jesus to state that it was associated with “the foundation of the world.” If vast spans of time—that is, enough to accommodate evolutionists and their sympathizers—occurred while Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, then how could the shedding of human blood be declared by the Son of God to extend back to the “foundation of the world”?

-http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=157

>> WEAK Not for a while. Mankind's beginning in the Garden was not a short time involving just Adam and Eve.

John N. Clayton suggests that Eve must have given birth to numerous children while in the garden in order for the curse God gave her to make sense. God told Eve that the pain she would experience in childbirth would be multiplied (Gen 3:16). The childbirth pain must have already been experienced in order for it to be "multiplied." Additionally, raising children takes a considerable amount of time, meaning that they would have been in the garden for an extended period before the Fall. 

Further, after they left, Cain built a city (Gen 4:17). You can't build an entire city with just a few family members. Therefore, Cain had to have a large family to help him, and it would have taken a long time.

-http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=157

< STRONG Eve didn't have to experience pain during childbirth in order for the curse to make sense.

Does a person have to “experience” something before that something can be “multiplied”? Suppose I said, “I’m going to give you $100.” You therefore stick out your hand to receive the $100 bill I am holding in mine. But I immediately pull back my hand and say, “No, I’ve changed my mind; I am going to give you $1,000 instead!” Did you actually have to possess or “experience” the $100 before I could increase it to $1,000? Of course not.

The fact God said He was going to “multiply” Eve’s pain in childbirth does not mean necessarily that Eve had to have experienced some pain prior to God’s decree that she would experience more pain. God’s point was merely this: “Eve, you were going to experience some pain in childbirth, but because of your sin, now you will experience even more pain.” The fact that Eve never had experienced any childbirth pain up to that point does not mean that she could not experience even more pain later as a part of her penalty for having sinned against God.

-http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=157

< STRONG Cain wasn't building a large metrocity, but a small village.

The Hebrew word for city is quite broad in its meaning. It may refer to anything from a sprawling village to a mere encampment. Literally, the term means “place of look-out, especially as it was fortified.” In commenting on Genesis 4:17, Old Testament commentator John Willis observed: “However, a ‘city’ is not necessarily a large, impressive metropolis, but may be a small unimposing village of relatively few inhabitants” (1979, p. 155). Again, apply some common sense here. What would it be more likely for the Bible to suggest that Cain and his wife constructed (considering who they were and where they were living)—a thriving, bustling, metropolis, or a Bedouin tent city? To ask is to answer, is it not? To this very day, Bedouin tent cities are quite commonplace in that particular area of the world. And—as everyone will admit—two boy scouts can erect a tent, so it hardly strains credulity to suggest that Cain and his wife would have been able to accomplish such a task as well.

-http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=157

< It fell on the 6th day, and overlapped on 7th.

So it happened when God was resting.

>> WEAK It fell on 6th period/day, but the 7th never happened.

So God never rested. 

< But then that's saying that God never rested!

That's misleading.