Confused about the first humans, creation theory help please?

Question

Okay so I was reading Genesis today, and I got to chapter 11 but kept going back to the first two chapters. All my life I've thought that Adam and Eve were the first humans, but the way my bible reads (it's a nasb) it's as though God created humans "male and female he created them". Then had his day of rest THEN after this made a garden, made Adam, made beast to be suitable helpers for Adam but none was found and finally made Eve.. If this is the fact it would explain a lot of the "who did cain marry" questions. It seems as though God made people and set them in motion, but then made Adam and Eve to establish a relationship with them and to set a precedent for what that would be like. Any thoughts on this, esp. from people who've studied the bible and/or gone to seminary would be greatly appreciated.

I've always assumed that chapter 2 was simply giving more detail on the events of chapter one, but things aren't in the right order. I'm really trusting of the bible, and that it's in the order it's in for a very good reason. I also believe that where the bible is silent, I don't make assumptions. The bible doesn't say (that I can find) that ADam and eve are the first. It does say , after the flood, that all creation came from Noahs 2 sons, but it never says this about Adam and Eve. I know this is a bit confusing. I was just wondering if anyone else had noticed this and dug deeper and what they may have found.

sorry that should read noahs 3 sons

Okay chapter 1:9-13= gathering of waters, and plants, third day
1:14-19 the sun moon stars etc, fourth day
1:20-23 air creatures and water creatures, 5th day
1:24-31 the beast of the land and v27=and God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Now fast forward to the day of rest, the 7th day in caphter 2:1-3 and THEN it either A) goes into detail about Adam and Eves beginnings OR gives you a secondary bit of info. The reason I'm leaning towards the latter is the order. In chapter 2:5 it says no shrub of the field was yet in the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprouted but 1:12 says "and the earth brought forth begetation, plants yeilding seed after thei r kind etc etc..." go back to 2:7 and it gives detail of God forming Adam, planting a garden and growing trees that are good to eat and pretty to look at. Vs 19 has God making the beast to give Adam companionship, vs. 21 has the making of Eve. It feels disjointed.

Answer 1

The Holy Bible Douay-Rheims Version

With Challoner Revisions 1749-52
1899 Edition of the John Murphy Company

IMPRIMATUR:
James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, September 1, 1899.

Pope Damasus assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Roman Council in 382 A.D. He commissioned St. Jerome to translate the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, which became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official version, in 1546.

The DR New Testament was first published by the English College at Rheims in 1582 A.D. The DR Old Testament was first published by the English College at Douay in 1609 A.D. The first King James Version was not published until 1611. This online DRV contains all 73 books, including the seven Deutero-Canonical books (erroneously called Apocrypha by Protestants). These seven books were included in the 1611 KJV, but not in later KJV Bibles.

The whole Douay-Rheims Bible was revised and diligently compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner in 1749-1752 A.D. The notes included in the text were written by Dr. Challoner.

The DR Bible was photographically reproduced from the 1899 edition of the John Murphy Company, Baltimore, Maryland, by Tan Books in 1971. Eventually, this edition was optically scanned to produce a large text file which this publisher used for creating this website, with the aid of text-processing software.

One important goal of this project was to preserve the original text "as is", without making any changes in the wording, because the original text had the Imprimatur of James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, dated Sept 1st 1899.

The text file was checked quite thoroughly by software written by the publisher for punctuation errors and verses out of order. The index was humanly checked for misspelled words and the corrections were made to the text. However, some spelling errors may still be present in the text. Many verses were out of order in the original file. These have been corrected.

Every effort was made to ensure that this online version is an exact match to the original printed version. No words were added or ommitted from the text, except for correcting errors caused by the scanning process. No words were rearranged. No verse numbers were changed, except in the case of Psalm 9.

Psalm 9 originally contained 21 verses and there were 2 versions of Psalm 10, numbering 1-18 and 1-8. This obviously caused a conflict, so it was decided to make the first Psalm 10 as the last part of Psalm 9 and renumber the verses 22-39. This retains the same numbering as all the Douay Rheims. Note, in the Protestant Bibles the numbering of Psalms 10 through 146 differs by one.

Answer 2

Adam and Eve were the first, everybody else came from them.
Cain more than likely married some distant cousin. After Adam and Eve started having children and they moved off the gene pool got separated so there were no deformities or retardation due to incest. How ever (and science proves this) if the gene pool would have been closer then those things would have occured.

For instance, let's say Adam and Eve had 8 children.
4 move off. and for many generations don't see the other 4 kids. Then all of the sudden a child from the first 4 is interested in a child from the second 4, the gene pool would have had enough diversity to not produce a deformity or the such.


I Think your problem lies between chapter 1 and 2, am I right?
Let me see if I can help. In chapter 1 it talks about the creation, but it also talks about it in chapter 2 only in more detail.
Well in chapter 1 it is more of a rough over view, then in chapter 2 it is a review with more details. Hope this helps....

Answer 3

The only contradictions are in your unbelieving minds. Chapter 1 of Genesis gives a brief history of creation as not all of what God did could be contained in any book. Chapter 2 gives a little more detail reflecting back on Chapter 1. There was no 2 sessions of creating man as your are thinking, God created Adam then Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve a little later on had Cain then Abel but also had other sons and daughters, it's from these daughters that Cain took a wife and so on with all their children. Man was close to but not perfect when they had children which made it possible for brothers to take sisters as wives, but by the time of the Israelites came under God's rulership as their King the need had arisen for Him to put a stop to it and the fact that there were now plenty of people on the earth.

Answer 4

The Bible tells only of Adam being created, and Eve was made from Adams rib. There is no other reference to God creating any other humans. It also says that Eve is the mother of all living. This rules out any other humans. Adam and Eve lived a long time and had many children who also lived on average about 912 years. Think of how many children a woman like Eve could possible deliver in 600-700 years. Cain obviously married one of his sisters. It was not illegal for another 2500 years. the gene pool was pure-no mutations.
I think you may be misreading your Bible. Thee is no reference to male and female being created before Adam and Eve, or after.
If you could be specific about which verse(s) are problematic- I would be glad to try and explain.

Answer 5

Also check he 4th Chapter, verse 11, "You are herby banished from this ground which you have defiled with your brother's blood. 12 No longer will it yield crops for you, even if you toil on it forever! From now on you will be a fugitive and a tramp upon the earth, wandering from place to place." 13 Cain replied to the Lord, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 For you have banished me from my farm and from you, and made me a fugitive and a tramp; and EVERYONE who sees me will try to kill me." 15 The Lord replied, "THEY won't kill you, for I will give seven times your punishment to anyone who does."

So, as you see, the were other people already outside of the Garden of Eden when Cain was thrown out. In my opinion these other people were Neanderthals, a species evolved from apes and who had migrated out of Africa thousands of years before. Cain would eventually take a wife from this species. The popular belief is that the Neanderthals eventually dissapeared because they either blended in with or were killed off by the ever growing number of Cro-magnon, or in my choice of names, the new breed of men, Cain-magnon.
I am neither a Bible scholar nor have a attended a seminary, but that is my belief, therefore I think I fall into a group who might be called God fearing evolutionists.

Answer 6

No. Adam and Eve were the first. Cain married a sister, which at that time wouldn't have mattered since intermarrying was only dangerous genetically after the Flood.

Answer 7

The story is an allegory. Its the message behind the Bible that counts, not the accuracy of the historical details. Kind wishes....

Answer 8

Cain married his sister.

I know, your jumping right now about incest.

Well it happened, but God outlawed it before it became a problem

Abraham married his half sister by the way.

BRB with verse support

Answer 9

GENEALOGY OF JESUS Abraham is son #20 Matt.1:1-17

Adam~~~~~~~ 0,930 Gen.5:3,5;
Seth~~~~~~~
Enos~~~~~~~
Cainan~~~~~
Mahalaleel~~~
Enoch~~~~~~
Methusaleh~~~
Lamech~~~~~ 0,056 Adam Dies
Lamech~~~~~ 0,070 Noah born
Noah~~~~~~` 0,600 Gen.7:6;
Flood~~~~~~ 1,656
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After Flood
Noah~~~~~~ 0,350 Gen.9:28,29
Shem~~~~~ 0,502 Gen.11:10,11
Arphaxad~~~

Salah~~~~~
Eber~~~~~
Peleg~~~~~
Rue~~~~~~
Serug~~~~~
Nahor~~~~~
Terah~~~~~
Abraham~~~ 0,352
Abraham~~~ 0,427 to 0,527 Gen.12: 4; 25:7
Ishmael~~~~ 0,438 to 0,575 Gen.16:16; 25:17;
Isaac~~~~~` 0,452 to 0,632 Gen.21: 5; 35:28,29;
Jacob~~~~~` 0,512 to 0,659 Gen.25:26; 47:28;
Joseph~~~~~ 0,602 to 0,712 Gen.30:24; 50:26;
Job~~~~~~~ 0,637 to 0,777 Gen.46:13; Job 42:16;
Moses~~~~~ 0,777 to 0,859 Exo. 7: 7; Acts 13:20 450 = 1309 Samuel.
EXODUS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Exo.12:40,41 [430 + 427 = ] 858
Moses~~~~~ 0,859 to 0,897 Deut.34:7 [ 897 + 301 Judges 11:26 ];
Joshua~~~~~ 0,897 to 0,898 Josh,5:6,10,12 Judges 11:26 300 years
Judges~~~~~ 0,898 to 1,198 + 89 Judges + 16 Samuel + 70 David + 4 1Ki.6:1
1Ki.6:1 480 + 0,897 to 1,377 1Ki.11:42 [ Solomon 36 [of 40 ] dies.
Solomon 36 ~ 1,377 to 1,413 + flood years 1,656 = 3069 is 997 BCE.
Judah Kings ~ 1,413 + 391 years 1,804 Babylon captivity. 606 BCE.
2Chr.36:20-23 [ 606 + 1,804 after flood + 1,656 flood year = 4066 after Adam.
Dan.9:2
Jer.25:12; Cyrus 536 BCE, Greece 336 BCE, Maccabees 164, Rome 62 BCE. Temple. 4066 Jesus in Rome world Empire #6 [ #7 and into 8th to go ], 2006 years ago.

Answer 10

As you have a valid point of confusion.. (and as I have study metaphysics, I think the best person to answer your question is to contact the bibical study department at a christian university to fully understand your question,,,, you can probally just email it to one of them, and have a better understand it than me cowboying with the question...)