New Genesis question

[nmorton]

OK everyone, Here is another question I need a good answer for.
What about the wives of Adam and Eve’s kids. Where did they come from? Do you go with the be fruitful and multiply one. (brothers marrying sisters) or do you go by the longer more complicated answer about there being other people around?

Nancy

 

[Melchior]

nmorton:

OK everyone, Here is another question I need a good answer for.
What about the wives of Adam and Eve’s kids. Where did they come from? Do you go with the be fruitful and multiply one. (brothers marrying sisters) or do you go by the longer more complicated answer about there being other people around?

Nancy

Adam and Eve lived for centuries and produced many children. And since the laws against incest did not exist, as well as any possibilty of genetic corruption from close relatives reproducing, which is a problem that would take generations to make, then it would seem very plausible that second generation of humanity were in fact siblings. But since they were the first people there was no cultural or legal icky-ness involved.

That’s how I see it anyway.

Mel

 

[mkw]

The way it was explained to me was, siblings HAD to marry, God allowed this to continue until a sufficiant number of people had populated the earth, thinning out the dna strains if you will. Then after a period of time, incest was forbidden.

 

[Steve_M]

Cain’s wife came from the land of Nod. That’s all the Bible says about it. There’s a book called The Genisis Question that shows that by the Biblical age of Adam, he and Eve and their offspring would have produced enough people in the world, technically they would have all been relatives, to populate other areas. This question gets into whether or not Genesis is to be taken literally or just as a story. Remember that the Bible was written by Eastern People. For the ancient history, they aren’t really concerned with getting all the details right, but they were interested in telling a story that teaches the following:

God created everything
God’s relationship with man
Man’s relationship with man
Man’s relationship with nature

Getting the exact details of history is a very western way of thinking that didn’t come about until well after the Bible was compiled.

Depending on which view you take will determine where the other people come from.

Hope that helps

 

[larryo]

Melchior:

Adam and Eve lived for centuries and produced many children. And since the laws against incest did not exist, as well as any possibilty of genetic corruption from close relatives reproducing, which is a problem that would take generations to make, then it would seem very plausible that second generation of humanity were in fact siblings. But since they were the first people there was no cultural or legal icky-ness involved.

That’s how I see it anyway.

Mel

Me too. Adam and Eve were perfect human beings and, as such, their genes were in pristine condition, as God intended, not watered down down by millenia of disease, cell degeneration or mutation, and mental aberrations caused by the effects of original sin.

 

[Fidelis]

Steve M:

Cain’s wife came from the land of Nod. That’s all the Bible says about it. There’s a book called The Genisis Question that shows that by the Biblical age of Adam, he and Eve and their offspring would have produced enough people in the world, technically they would have all been relatives, to populate other areas. This question gets into whether or not Genesis is to be taken literally or just as a story. Remember that the Bible was written by Eastern People. For the ancient history, they aren’t really concerned with getting all the details right, but they were interested in telling a story that teaches the following:

God created everything
God’s relationship with man
Man’s relationship with man
Man’s relationship with nature

Getting the exact details of history is a very western way of thinking that didn’t come about until well after the Bible was compiled.

Depending on which view you take will determine where the other people come from.

Hope that helps

Also important to keep in mind is the Church’s prohibition against teaching polygenism, the notion that we are descended from multiple sets of parents:

It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. The human race really did descend from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) rather than a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

This was made clear by Pope Pius XII: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (*Humani Generis * 37).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “‘St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and Christ.’ . . . Because of its common origin the human race forms a unity, for ‘from one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth’” (CCC 359–360, citing Peter Chrysologus and Acts 17:26).

The story of the creation and fall of man is, therefore, a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).

From the Catholic Answers tract: Adam, Eve, and Evolution. To see the whole tract click here:

catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

 

[nmorton]

Thanks everyone, this is exactly what I needed!

God Bless You,
Nancy

 

[BayCityRickL]

The Catholic Church cautions people to avoid pure fundamentalism. The Pontifical Biblical Commission defines fundamentalism partially as a “naive literalism” about interpreting the Bible.

Looking for the Bible to answer every question is to try to bend it in ways that it does not ‘give.’

You might as well ask where fire came from, as that is not explained in early Genesis, but it is there, isn’t it? I sort of have a mental image of Abel making a burnt offering, but the verses do not explain where the fire came from. I don’t have to be skeptical about Abel offering a burnt sacrifice, just because Genesis doesn’t explain where fire came from, do I?

 

[SCTA-1]

larryo:

Me too. Adam and Eve were perfect human beings and, as such, their genes were in pristine condition, as God intended, not watered down down by millenia of disease, cell degeneration or mutation, and mental aberrations caused by the effects of original sin.

Adam and Eve were not perfect after the fall and their genes were tainted by original sin.Correct?

 

[BayCityRickL]

I can’t locate the spot where God says this, but in looking back at the sins people committed, He says that He looked away (or words to that effect) from the sins that people had committed.

In His sovereignty, God could permit the children of Adam and Eve to intermarry, for a period of time, also.

In addition to the previous post of mine above, it just seems we don’t run out of questions about Genesis. For example, why did God allow the serpent into the Garden of Eden, in the first place?

How did Cain and Abel know to make offerings to God of an animal and some harvest of the field? Did Cain anticipate that Abel would die? How did he know how to attack Abel? etc.
Why did God reject the offering of Cain? etc.

God focuses us on the story line and we don’t get a lot of detail. If we had the Jewish Talmud, we might find an explanation of some of these things, as the Jewish scholars scoured the sacred writings for their meaning.