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Adam & Eve - Page 4

So many Christians "read" facts into the Bible to make the word fit their idea of how it "really" was.

The words, "spiritual death" are not used in Genesis 2:17

If you believe the Bible exactly as it was written, Adam and Eve were not necessarily the first people on earth. They certainly were not alone as you will soon see.

When rejection showed on Cain's face, he got a lecture on sin and doing a better job, then he was driven from the soil and told he would be a fugitive and a wanderer. Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is too great to bear. ...from your face I shall be hidden. ...whoever finds me will kill me." But the Lord said to him, "Not so! Whoever kills Cain shall be punished sevenfold." (Genesis 4:13) At this point in the Bible story, supposedly there are only two other people on the face of this new earth. Neither Adam nor Eve would be referred to by Cain, or God, as "WHOEVER," indicating there were other people on the earth. Cain traveled to a distant land, married, and had grandchildren. Cain and the descendants of Adam and Cain married eight women and Cain founded the city of Henoch. (Genesis 4:16-26)

The Bible is explicit in its genealogy, always mentioning brothers and sisters married into the same family. None of the women Adam's descendants married are named as sisters, so let's do some simple multiplication. Each of the eight wives had a mother, a father and, being careful not to exaggerate, let's say at least one sibling. Eight wives times a family of four suddenly becomes at least thirty two people plus Adam, Eve, and Cain. Now we are up to thirty five. Adam, Eve, and Cain were definitely not alone when they were created. There were other mothers giving birth to daughters for Cain and Seth to marry at about the same time Cain and Seth were born.

Edited: mousetrails on 5th Jun, 2006 - 6:48pm

Eve and Adam

I'll try to answer the original questions:

Was it an apple? Anyway, Eve would have been cast out of Eden and Adam left alone. They would not be able to fulfill the commandment of multiplying and replenishing the earth.

My personal opinion is that God knew what was going to happen. He gave them the commandment so they would know what to do after they would be cast out of Eden and become mortal (I assume they were immortal in the Garden of Eden, hence they didn't need to multiply and replenish the earth when being immortal). I believe in other scriptures that teach they weren't even able to procreate before they became immortal.

I think I know too little about this, but if we assume that the serpent symbolizes good then it definitely makes sense how he (Satan) could deceive Eve.

I can only assume they married eachother, brother to sister and vice versa.

Adam & Eve Revealed Bible The

I can only assume you didn't read the post just before yours, or totally ignored it.

Page 4 Eve and Adam

Mousetrails, those are your assumptions. The Bible doesn't tell how much time had passed between Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden. Nor does it tell how many children they had. Nor does it explicitly indicate who Adam's eldest son was. We assume that Abel was the eldest, and that Seth was the eldest righteous son, as that is where the genealogy goes down through. However, the Bible does not explicitly state that there were other people around either.

Remember, Genesis was written by Moses, many centuries after Adam and Eve. There was also the flood that came in between. So, just because the Bible doesn't state things about Adam's and Eve's children, doesn't mean that they didn't happen, nor that they did.

When people come at the question with the assumption that the story of Adam and Eve is true, that Adam and Eve were the first humans on the planet, then of course we see it that their sons married their daughters.

When people come at the question as you appear to, with the assumption that the story of Adam and Eve NOT being necessarily the very first people, then you will see it that their sons and daughters probably did NOT marry each other.

Remember, the prohibitions against brothers marrying sisters is relatively recent in origin, and comes from the fact that if families are inbred over generations, that serious defects can occur. If, as the Bible implies, Adam, Eve, and their children (up until the time of Noah) were incredibly robust and genetically clean specimens, then even generations of inbreeding would not have caused defects. Therefore, there would not have been any prohibitions against them marrying each other.

So, consider this scenario. This is purely fiction, as far as I know.

Abel was born a year or two after Adam and Eve left the Garden. Cain was born not too long after that. As they grew up, Eve continued to have many children. Maybe she even bore a few sets of twins or triplets. When Abel was about 21, Cain killed him. So, lets assume for the scenario, Cain was 18.

As Cain was driven away, he took one of his younger sisters with him. Maybe she was 14 at the time. They went on to raise up many children.

Now, consider another little scenario. Maybe Cain was in his 50s when he killed Abel. Maybe he had multiple wives. Maybe Abel was married, and had children. Maybe when Seth was born, he already had nieces and nephews by the score. Heck, he could have married one of Adam's great granddaughters for all we know.

The point is, there is so much we DON'T know about the stories of that time, that your assumptions don't carry all that much weight. They are your opinions, not facts.

Several of us come in with vastly different assumptions. I believe that that is where Valla was coming from. Please respect that difference of opinion.

Offtopic but, While your message wasn't really constructive, I left it in order to provide a foundation for my little essay here. Please don't post a whole bunch of quotes, with no addition to the discussion.

Eve and Adam

Mousetrails said:

I sense a bit of bitterness in your argument. I thought I made myself clear when I said I would try to answer the original questions. The answers were meant to be my opinions on the questions asked in the first post.

So, yes I totally ignored the post before mine....

Adam & Eve

I do my best to read the Bible exactly as written. I try not to assume anything. The Bible is very specific about the order of the births of Cain and Abel.

Now if I were going to assume, I would assume that since the very next verse says the man knew his wife, not much time had elapsed, but you're right, it's an assumption.

I believe it is very clear which child was born first without assuming anything.

Offtopic but, While your message wasn't really constructive, I left it in order to provide a foundation for my little essay here. Please don't post a whole bunch of quotes, with no addition to the discussion.

Offtopic but, If I were to list all your assumptions and refute them with actual quotes from the Bible it would take more of my time than I want to spend, so I'll take your advice and not bore you with quotes.

Adam & Eve - Page 4

I agree that the Bible is very specific about the birth order of Cain and Abel. What I meant about assumptions is that since Cain is the first mentioned in the Bible, that therefore he was necessarily the first born to Adam and Eve. I recognize both possible arguments, that Cain was the firstborn child, or that he wasn't the firstborn child. Without more information, both arguments are equally valid. Likewise, it is entirely possible that Eve bore one or more daughters before the birth of Cain. The Bible does not give us any information, one way or another concerning any of these possibilities.

I apologize for getting the birth order mixed up in my previous message. The message of the Cain and Abel story is more important to me than the details, and I just forgot who was first born among the two of them.

Adam & Eve The Bible Revealed - Page 4

As, I said before...

Even with this topic on Adam & Eve.

Message Edited! JB@Trinidad: You cannot just put quote boxes alone. I edited this so that you explain the reason for your quote.