GENESIS 5:1-31 A HIDDEN MESSAGE?

The internet teacher Scott Barkly states that if you look at the original meaning of all the proper names 

given in Genesis 5:1-31 in their order of appearance, the following sentences arise:

 

“Man is appointed mortal sorrow. Blessed God shall come down teaching and his death shall bring the 

despairing rest and comfort.” 

 

I would not discount the possibility that there are hidden messages in the biblical text, but there 

are a few problems with Barkly's statement:

 

    1. To get this sentence, one must add verbs not present.

    2. To get this sentence you have to change some nouns into adjectives or verbs. 

    3. In addition, in most cases (other than the bolded examples below) the names have entirely 

different original meanings than Barkly assigns to gives them, according to Strong’s Concordance 

(used by Scott as a primary source elsewhere),

 

Adam                     man

Seth                        compensation, sprout

Enosh                     mortal

Kenan                     one acquired or begotten

Mahalalel                God is splendor

Jared                       contender or avenger

Enoch                      tuition, teacher

Methuselah             man of the spear

Lamech                   overthrower, wild man

Noah                       rest, comfort

The lesson to be learned from this is that no one should accept a biblical teaching from an unaccredited 

source (and that certainly includes myself) without first checking it out for yourself. And the more 

sensational it is, the less likely to be true it will be. When I asked Mr. Barkly why he included so many 

similarly dubious statements in his presentaions, his reply was that he felt it would draw the interest of 

non-believers and they would then stick around to hear the Gospel being taught. I will leave it to you to 

judge the appropriateness of such a policy.