How did Adam and Eve populate the world without having sex with their own children?

Question

Or their children having sex with one another. And they only had two sons. Kind of tricky, no?

So, let me get this straight, of the answers so far, most Christians are advocating/excusing/justifying incest? Come on, you can do better than that! Are you really saying that you have faith in a doctrine that advocated incest? Would you have sex with your brother or sister? And these phony genetic arguments you are coming up with are just wrong - there would have been no genetic variation, so all the sons/grandsons/etc would have all turned out pretty much the same as one another. There would have been no variation for eye/hair/skin color as a small example. If you admit then that there was genetic variation, you are admiting the possibility of evolution, which I thought you were all against. Mind you, I thought you were against incest up till now...

Answer 1

Heh....ev'body knows the answer to that'n. Spontaneous human generation. It had sump'n to do with a snake 'n some unicorns 'n sumpin' else. And Eve did some kinda dance with veils and Adam went around the world with a boatload of animals or sumpin'. That's my fav'rit bedtime story.

Answer 2

It is a fairy tale to explain the origin of people, and the creation of the earth, just like the one about the turtle who carries the earth around on his shell and the river god who threw up and vomit turned into animals.
Imagine trying to explain to uneducated and very curious people, how everything works. The one with the best answer got to be the leader. Or, more likely, the one who could beat up everyone else, got to tell it his way.
Tribes from the beginning of time had to inter-mingle to propagate their tribe. Fnding out that sex had any relation to the arrival of babies was a long time coming. It was a brave one that went outside his tribe, by abduction or battle, to bring home a stray woman. Some of them didn't even think other tribes had real women; often they thought others were "animals."
Marriage and any kind of moral code against incest was much later in our development . There was no such thing as rape, or abuse since a man could take any woman, if he was big enough to take her away from her "owner."
I'm talking about pre-biblical days, although there are some tribal/ownership ideas in the bible.
You can't measure our society with their rules or their society with our rules.
Hopefully, we have changed a lot since then. Not enough.

Answer 3

Adam and Eve went on to live for 800 more years, I think is what it says. And, two people can have a lot of children in 800 years, and there children can have a lot of children. There was no law against incest at that time, and even if there was, who are you going to turn them into.

That's pretty much a paraphrase of a quote from this guy, I forgot his name, but he is pretty big with debating evolution and creation.

Answer 4

It's quite evident that the writers of the OT were into the whole incest thing.

Witness Lot and his daughters, or the question of just what happened in that tent with Ham and his dad when Noah got hammered and passed out.

The question of incest, ironically, is probably the least ludicrous aspect of Genesis, given all its other claims. Nevertheless, it seems to me that this whole thing is pretty consistent with the other incest parts of the OT, and probably just reflects the odd fetish of a writer who lived about 2,800 years ago.

Answer 5

Their children had to have sex with each other. There was no one else on earth. I mean Jesus is the only one in the Bible that was born thru emaculate conception. That is probably why later in the Bible he made laws that incest was forbidden because things turned out so bad.(Cain killed Abel, the Israelites were so hard headed, disobedience, etc.) May God Bless

Answer 6

The Bible says that Adam and Eve had many children, following Cain, Abel and Seth.

Presumably it was safe for brothers and siblings to marry and have children back then. Perhaps mutations in human genes crept in later, making it inadvisable for brothers and sisters to procreate due to the risk of birth defects and so on.

Answer 7

Yes, that is a tricky question. The point is, God reveals only the information we need to trust and obey Him. He's not obligated to cross every "t" and dot every "i." A cursory study of scripture will show this.

Most scholars believe that Adam and Eve had other children, and yes, in order to populate the earth, they would have to mate with each other.

Answer 8

OK, Adam and Eve had a lot more sons and daughters than just Able, Cain, and Seth. And it was OK for the sons and daughters to procreate because their bodies were still relatively perfect, not polluted with disease and imperfection like our bodies are now.

Study up a little.

Answer 9

Adam and Eve were the FIRST people God created, not the ONLY people. And even if their children had inbred, Adam and Eve were perfect and therefore free of mutation. They didn't have to worry about their children getting genetic disorders.

Answer 10

As Adam and Eve had children their children entered into the COVENANT of MARRIAGE. This marriage formed a partnership between HUSBAND, WIFE & GOD. We are all brothers and sisters spiritually. In the early days of creation it was necessary for blood brothers and sisters to inter marry in order to fulfill the commandement of God to procreate and fill the earth. This work was sacred.