Adam and Eve, the only two people, how did the world become so populated?

Question

Some people answer that incest occurred at the beginning of time, but incest leads to physical and mental deformities. How would the human race have survived for this long and multiplied so greatly? Or maybe there is something else I don't know that would help explain. Seriously, I would like the input of religious people, although nonrelligious answerers are welcome as well.

First, how would incest not lead to deformities back then, but now it does? I don't understand that logic. Then- no medical understanding.Now - medical miracles.

And when I say populated, I don't mean why are there now 6 billion. I mean how did it expand from 2 people to say 20 or 100 or whatever. Wouldn't it all be incestuous?

Answer 1

As far as incest is concerned, the children of Adam and Eve just married their sisters. Some critics have said that the bible doesn't mention any sisters. Because the bible doesn't mention a sister, it doesn't follow logically that there wasn't a sister. If the bible mentioned everything that happen, it would take a book that went from here to the moon to record everything. Even the bible says "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written"(John 21:25). I'm sure Adam and Eve had many, many more sons and daughters. In a geneology, the bible never mentions the girls born anyway because that was a very male oriented culture. In general, their geneologies only mentioned the boys. It doesn't follow that their was no girls born.
To marry near of kin in the very ancient world was common. It was never forbidden in the bible until about 1500 BC where God does forbid it in Leviticus 18:6. Why did he all of a sudden forbid it after allowing it for the 2500 years? The reason is simple. The genetic mutations resulting from the curse on Adam and Eve and on the rest of the universe had a cumulative effect. Though Cain could marry his sister because the genetic pool was relatively pure at that time, by Moses' day the genetic errors had swelled. Today geneticists confirm that the risk of passing on a genetic abnormality to your child is much greater if you marry a close relative because relatives are more likely to carry the same defective gene. If they procreate, their off-spring are more apt to have this defect expressed. So God allowed incest until it was apparent to him that the gene pool was polluted enough where it was now dangerous to allow incest. There would be no problem getting 20 or 100 people just marrying close relatives.
As far as how did we get over 6 billion today? Mathematical progression will take care of that. Just start with one male and one female. Assume that they marry and have children and their children narry and have children and so on. Assume that the population doubles every 150 years. Therefore, after 450 years there will be only 16 people on earth. This is extremely conservative. In reality, even with disease, famine and natural castastrophe the world population doubles every 40 years. After 32 doublings, which is only 4800 years the world population would have reached 8.6 billion people. Evolutionists tell us that humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years and some even say millions of years. If we assume that humans have been around for just 50,000 years and we use the same calculations as above (which are extremely conservative) we would have 332 doublings and the world population would be 1 times 10 to the 100th. That number is 1 with 100 zero's behind it. That number is billions of times the number of atoms in the universe. Such a calculation makes nonsense of the claim that humans have been on the earth for tens of thousands of years.

Answer 2

At the onset of human life, blood lines were 100% pure. No infirmities, totally compatible, perfect, nothing mixed in. That being the case, no deformities would come of such blood lines. As time went on and on cross breeding as it were came about. The blood lines were no longer pure, opening the door for problems. At creation all was made to be pure...mankind defiled it. Population had to have a beginning. It had to start somewhere, with someone and that someone was Adam and Eve. Consider that America was not discovered till 1492. If there was population in America, it was limited. Look at the population of America now. Do you think the population of Earth is greater in 2007 than it was in 1907? Sure it is. That's just the way things progress.

Answer 3

This is my own conclusion I made based on what I read in the Bible and what I think is that these people are in the Bible because they pleased God, they believed in God and that is why we read about them. Nowhere in the Bible do you read that a man was rebellious and they didn't change from their evil ways. either they were righteous, God fearing people or they didn't love God and persecuted God's people and in the end God changed their hearts. And plus minus 95% of these people were Jews. In New Testament it let us know that the Gentiles exist.

So read Genesis 4 when Cain killed his brother Abel and God asked Him where his brother was and he told God He does not know.......God then told him that he will be a restless wanderer on earth. Cain thought the punishment was too harsh, Gen 4:13-14, "My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me". Verse 15, "But the Lord said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over".

Answer 4

First read in your Bible Gen. 3:20; Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she had become the mother of everyone living." (So all humans were to be the offspring of Adam and Eve. Now read Gen. 5:3-4; Adam lived on for a 130 years. Then he became father to a son in his likeness, in his image, and called his name Seth. And days of Adam after his fathering Seth came to be 800 years. Mean while he became father to sons and daughters. (One of Adam's sons was Cain, and one of Adman's daughters must have become Cain's wife. At that time in human history, vitality, as indicated by the length of their lives, the likelyhood of passing on defects as a result of marrying a close relative was not great. After some 2500 yrs. of humans history, however, when mankind's physical conditon had greatly deteriorated, Jehovah gave to Israel laws fobidding incest.)
Then, after the flood, the earth began to be repopulated by the 3 sons of Noah's. This is where all of mankind began after the Flood of Noah's day, and the earth began to be repopulated by them.

Answer 5

Incest leads to that now but not back than. Back than, that close to the creation, humans didn't have the genetic abnormalities that they do now. That is why God eventually have to stop the practice. As live got shorter, reproduction took place at an earlier time.

As for the size of the population, large portions of the population were killed off during the Black Plague and the Spanish Flu pandemics. How did it grow so fast to the current numbers after those events? Simple, people had a lot of sex.

Answer 6

2 make 2 & those 2 make 2 an so on & so on...Before Noah people used to live exceptionally long lives like 900 years, then when God was frustraited He said no more. And He said he wouldn't let humans live longer than 120-125 years.

Answer 7

If the Bible were true, then we were all born out of the incest of Adam and Eve's sons and daughters. Scary thought really...

Answer 8

Adam and Eve are the only two human in the bible. If there were others, we do not know about them. As for world being populated, Genesis gives us details.

Answer 9

Yes, Cain married his sister.

But that's incest!

Yes, but that was small potatoes compared to the fact Cain had just killed his brother because he was angry (angry because God didn't accept his (Cain's) newly invented religion). Cain was evil and remained evil. He did serve a purpose however. Thanks to him, Seth was only required to marry a niece, an incest not nearly as serious as sibling coupling.

Answer 10

and they say evolution is far fetched and full of holes??
as for the bloodlines becoming impure, thats not possible. perfect plus perfect would have led to perfect. to deteriorate there would have to have been mutation, and incest with mutation leads to major disabilities. plus mutation itself means evolution, not creationism.