Bible question?

Question

Ok can someone please explain why it says in the bible adam and eve were made by god and lived in the garden of eden, and they made other people and civilization.
Now if all life came from adam and eve does this mean that eve's children had sex with each other etc etc....is this not incest and if this is what happened why is this in the bible as incest is a sin....Im confused!

Answer 1

Yes, it does mean that Eve's children had sex with one another (a concept I used to struggle with). One of the reasons God says in His word that incest is wrong is because many medical problems arise from sexual relationships between those who are blood related. If you look at cultures where intermarriage is practiced, you find a high percentage of medical problems e.g. disabled children. The Bible teaches that Adam and Eve were created perfect, in a perfect world. The diseases, genetic disorders, unhealthy lifestyles etc which plague our world today, did not exist then. So, sleeping with a family member back then did not result in the health problems that result today.

In response to a previous answer posted, the Bible does say that incest is a sin, see Leviticus 18

Here is a snippit of that chapter. From verse 6-12 "...No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD. Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her. Do not have sexual relations with your father's wife; that would dishonor your father. Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere. Do not have sexual relations with your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter; that would dishonor you. Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father's wife, born to your father; she is your sister. Do not have sexual relations with your father's sister; she is your father's close relative...."

Answer 2

The Bible is very clear that all other people are descended from Adam (Acts 17:26), and Adam is called ‘the first man’ in 1 Cor. 15:45. Eve was so named because she was ‘the mother of all living’ (Gen. 3:20). Therefore there couldn’t possibly have been any other solution consistent with Scripture.

Laws against incest exist today. However, incest is a modern word describing a variety of actions, some of which have always been sinful. The Biblical laws against brother-sister marriage were first instituted for the Israelites around 2000 years after Adam—during the time of Moses (Leviticus 18).

Serious genetic defects can occur in offspring of close relatives today. However, in the beginning, because Adam and Eve were created perfectly, the genetic mutations were non-existent, and only began accumulating after his disobedience.

Answer 3

Yes, Adam and Eve's children would have had to start populating the world. However, laws against Incest did not come about until much later.

Answer 4

All human life came from Adam and Eve, it wasn't incest because there was no law forbidding it at the time, Adam and Eve were specially blessed (as their offspring were) and enabled by God to reproduce and fill the earth with their species, as were all the creatures that God created. After the earth was populated, incest forbidden and that's when it became a sin.

Answer 5

The creation story in Genesis is an allegory.

Nobody knows when the 1st 2 people arrived, what they looked like or what they called each other.

The guys who wrote Genesis and the Old Testament didn't look at history the way we do: supposedly objectively and fact by fact.

Their idea of writing about history included poetry, numerology, lots and lots of allegory, fables, etc. They'd have a good laugh if they could hear us talking about it today like it happened verbatim in Genesis. They didn't think that way.

That doesn't mean it's false. The bible can be true without being a documentary or a history book. The truth is that God made people, the earth, animals, everything.

The Creation stories were a very primative people's attempt at explaining God and creation to themselves. The stories are true, and Adam/Eve/Eden/their immediate offspring were symbols.

Answer 6

That is only one worrisome aspect of the bible for fundamentalists. The story of Adam and Eve is only one account as written by a man or a collection of men. Don't get so wrapped up in the claims of men (i.e., the bible) that you get confused. To doubt the bible means you are only doubting the claims of man. There is nothing wrong with doubting the claims of man. There is certainly nothing wrong with doubting that only two people begat the world. I doubt that we are a bunch of inbreds. If you take the fundies too seriously, you discover that across the continent people were brewing beer 1000 years before the so called beginning of the world with Adam and Eve.

Answer 7

Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden before they started to have children... and yes... the children had to "get togeather" in order to start the population growing... that was part of God's plan. At that time the gene pool had not been corrupted as it would later become. So there was no problem in that area... sin is any act against the Word and Will of God... so at that time it was the Will of God for the world to be populated and that was the way he allowed... no sin.

Answer 8

Laws having to do with Incest didn't come about till years after Moses. In the book of Genesis, sexual relations between children and parents is condemned, but nowhere is it found to prohibit a man from marrying his sister or niece.

Answer 9

Incest was not against the law back then. After some generations and more people available to choose from incest was prohibited.

Answer 10

The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis is a love story. If you try to take it literally you're going to run in to problems like this. There are many profound spiritual truths within it, but the author who wrote Gensis did not mean for it to be taken literally.