Inbreeding/Incest, Adam and Eve, etc.?

Question

I had an interesting thought today while my english class was discussing Paradise Lost. Someone brought up the whole incest issue...how Adam and Eve's children would have had to interbreed to create more people, and then said that those children should have been retarded or deformed or something. Then I suddenly had a light bulb go off. From my understanding of inbreeding, what makes the children have all those defects is because they are essentially amplifying defects already genetically present in the two parents who are related. However, if Adam and Even were created to be "perfect", then their children would have no such defects that would have been amplified by inbreeding, at least until several generations later when mutations started to arise. I don't necessarily *believe* the creation story, but could this be a plausible explanation to naysayers who bring up the inbreeding issue?

Some of you seem to be taking this too seriously. You have to use suspension of disbelief for a moment to make a useful response (frankly you have to do that anytime religion comes up).

Anyway, some of the comments so far are pretty interesting.

Answer 1

You are absolutely correct. Adam and Eve would have had no "family history" of genetically inherited illnesses or deformities.

This is because they were created genetically pure and there would have not been any genes damaged by past history of illness, drugs, radiation, etc.

After several generations, however, God's word did forbid sexual relations with close relatives.

This pure genetic make-up, as well as the clean and unpolluted environment and natural foods, would also explain why the early generations recorded in the Bible had people who lived so long, many over 900 years!

If you want some documentation to take with you to class, or for further study, you may wish to print out the articles at the links below. (Bert Thompson, the writer of two of these, has a Ph.D. from Texas A & M in the field of microbiology.)

Answer 2

There are two problems with your theory. The first is that Adam and Eve didn't procreate until they sinned and lost the perfection of Eden. So, they had imperfections to pass on to their progeny.

The other problem is assuming that Adam and Eve are meant to be the first and only first parents of present day humans. I think it would be fair to say that such might be the case for the Jewish people, and that other cultures had their "first" parents as well. For if you read a few chapters into Genesis you'll find Adam and Eve's children meeting other people not related to them - so where did they come from?

We can't read the Adam and Eve story too literally. It is designed to teach a spiritual lesson, which is that God created humans good and humans defaced that goodness by using their gifts in the wrong way. Yet God promised to restore what was lost.

Answer 3

That part of the Bible may actualy be edited and vague versions of much older texts such as the Akkadian Enuma Elish a.k.a. The Seven Tablets of Creation. It does seem that the specific Adam in the Bible was preceded by many more adamu ("primitive workers") fashioned by the elohim. Cain found a wife among other tribes. Incest though was a Sumerian tradition related to the choice of heirs. A son born to a half-sister, an aunt, a daughter or granddaughter was more likely to succeed the father than a son born to a legal wife.

Answer 4

Well, even if inbreeding somehow wasn't a problem for Adam and Eve, it certainly was for Noah and company. According to the bible, the world was populated in this way, with mass inbreeding, not once, but twice. So the "perfect genes" excuse doesn't solve the problems that would be involved in this system. Nowhere in the Bible does it say Noah or anyone else on the Ark was perfect.

Answer 5

If humans were designed to be perfect from the getgo, then when two perfect people get together they should have perfect children. But when Adam and Eve became sinful, over time to do the same thing would cause birth defects and whatnot. In fact, there were laws against inbreeding (The law of Moses). That's what I always thought.

Answer 6

One must keep in mind that in the early years of the human race there were no genetic defects that had yet developed as a result of the fall of man. By the time of Abraham, God had not yet declared this kind of marriage to be contrary to His will (see Genesis 20:12). Laws governing incest apparently did not become enacted until the time of Moses (Lev 18:7-17; 20:11,12,14,17,20,21).

Answer 7

Adam and Eve are irrelevant. God wiped out everyone with the Great Flood, with the following exceptions:

Noah and his wife
Their three sons
Their sons' wives

That's 8 people, 5 of whom are related by blood, to re-populate the Earth. Which means that someone, somewhere was sleeping with first cousins (at the farthest) in order to get to where we are today.

But of course apologetics will tell you that humans were "perfect" in that day (which, of course, is why God had to wipe them all out) and genetically pure, and it wasn't until the time of Moses that inbreeding was outlawed.

Answer 8

I don't know but in the Bible, God created mankind then he created Adam and Eve. I think Adam and Eve were just the first religious people, not necessarily the first man and woman, therefore their children would have had other people to be with.

Answer 9

In the catholic religion we know that Adam & Eve is simply a mythical story, man was created by a life source from a inteligence energy from the spiritual world, and that inteligent energy was man the creator of the heavens and the earth, and it was from there that mankind evolved to what he is today.

Answer 10

That is my understanding. Adam and Eve were perfect, so it was ok for their children to interbreed. We today are so far removed from perfection that the genetic defects are much more pronounced. Your explanation is right on.