The Generations of Adam Genesis 5

I want to say that before I studied this chapter, I almost passed over it. I thought it's just numbers, years, a genealogy. Surely there can be nothing new to learn from this. And then I turned the pages in prayer. 

I am always amazed at how patiently truth waits.... for the searching souls. 

The Generations of Adam

Adam, in Hebrew, is a common noun. It means man or mankind.

In Genesis 5 we are given the "generations of Adam" or the Generations of mankind. Why?

Why is it important to remember these men's lives? The years they lived? The faith they passed on?

Think for a moment if this information had been lost? What if there was no connection back to Adam? Would we be less likely to believe his testimony? How is faith nurtured? Who do we depend on to nurture our faith? 

The Priesthood

The men in my family have the Priesthood of God. (My brothers, my son, my father and my husband, my son-in-laws)The Priesthood is the Power of God on earth. It gives men the power to Act for God as they serve, heal, and organize God's Kingdom. The Priesthood was given to Adam after he was cast from the Garden. Adam remembered the Garden, walking with God, having all of his needs met, etc. But would Adam's children remember God? Thus began the journey of faith for the generations of man. 

It is within the generations of Adam that we see the Power of the Priesthood transferred from one righteous priesthood holder to another.

45  God called upon Cainan in the wilderness in the fortieth year of his age; and he met Adam in journeying to the place Shedolamak. He was eighty-seven years old when he received his ordination.
D&C 107:44-45

This book is meant to not only give us a timeline of the days of earth, (Adam's birth represented the first day of man's life on earth and his death marked the 930th year of the world) but to also give us a lineage (history) of the priesthood. 

I found this quote from "Lectures on Faith. 

 "Lectures On Faith".

 36. For instance, Abel, before he received the assurance from heaven that his offerings were acceptable unto God, had received the important information of his father that such a Being did exist, who had created and who did uphold all things. Neither can there be a doubt existing on the mind of any person, that Adam was the first who did communicate the knowledge of the existence of a God to his posterity; and that the whole faith of the world, form that time down to the present, is in a certain degree dependent on the knowledge first communicated to them by their common progenitor; and it has been handed down to the day and generation in which we live, as we shall show from the face of the sacred records.
Lectures on Faith, Lecture Second

You can play with the numbers and figure out fun things like Noah's father, Lamech was 56 when Adam died. And you might realize that when Adam's testimony was not alone:  Adam, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah all lived on the earth at the same time. Also it can be pointed out that Enos, Cainan, Mahaleleel, Jared, Methuselah and Lamech all knew Adam and Noah.

The 5th book of Genesis then shows us not only that the knowledge and faith of God came into the world through the Lord's Holy Priesthood first given to Adam, but that it was preserved, "it was retained in the minds of righteous men,"(Lectures) and it was communicated in righteousness down through "the generations of man." From the time of Adam's creation the truth of man's creation and the existence of God, a true and living God,  has been taught by and through the power of God's Priesthood first given to Adam.

23  And they were preachers of righteousness, and spake and prophesied, and called upon all men, everywhere, to repent; and faith was taught unto the children of men.
Moses 6:23
Adam.