Acording to the Bible there were only Two humans in the begining:Adam and Eve.
Now in order for this to be true and the world to be as populated as it is, there would have to be incest and acording to the Bible thats a sin.(thank God)So whats the deal with the gross contradiction?

A lot of people agree that the Adam and Eve story is only metaphorical.

Incest, by definition, was not made unacceptable untill the law was laid down by Moses, a couple thousand years later.

There is speculation that Adam and Eve, being perfectly and personally wroght from the hand of God, also had certain physical attributes that have been slowly lost and/or decaying since sin was introduced to the world. These physicall attributes would have prevented genetic disorders that we see from incest today.

By the way, there are stories of incest in the Bible. For example Lot and his daughters. The girl lost their husbands when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorah and they decide to have sex with their father while he is asleep. I guess it was a way to ensure them to have descendants for sure...but it's rather insane.

And as for Adam and Eve: When their son Cain killed Abel and was cursed by God, he claims that he is scared that "whoever finds me will kill me" and so God gives him a sign to prevent people from killing Cain.
But that means that there are other people in the world. Which logically means that Adam and Eve are not the "origin" of the whole human race.

And to note another thing. Adam had a wife before Eve. But he asked God for a more diligent wife and that's why Eve was created. His first wife left him afterwards. It is said that she (often called Lilith) is originally a mesopotamian goddess. She had magical powers -> which is one of the reason why she is considered a she-devil by the christians.

The two pairs in the garden of Eden is interesting Adam-Lilith (goddess or a she-devil)/ Eve-serpent (or the guardian Dragon=Cherubim). The confusion, I believe comes from mixing several different mythologies into one story.

It doesn't say "Lilith" specifically in the Bible (although there is mention of a "demon" that people equate to Lilith. It's another name, but that escapes me now)
And you're right about there being other people. Where did Cain's wife come from, etc? Adam and Eve to me, is metaphorical. Some say they are representative of the birth of a tribe of people, and not the actual first humans.

Yeah.. Can went off to Nod... to which he found the "Other peope" which people equate to the early before judaic religion and the single god that came from such, pagans.

Another one of Adam's sons went and found the same people for his wife as well.. then so on.

There were about several other threads on this topic if I can remember, but yes, it is a metaphor story. Modern man when evolved I have no doubt that they had mated with eachother though - some people do it even today *shivers* ...

Yes we are! Can i call you unkle, I assume you are a human? Lilith is a cool name. But don, t take it seriously, its from a 10th century novel "The Alphabet Of Ben Sira", its a total riot some of its stuff.

Once again some people here aren't seeing the big picture. Does anyone realize that in Hebrew, words similiar to Adam and Eve mean man and woman, respectively- and that those words could be plural; meaning that God created more than one man and more than one woman?

Adam is "of the Red Earth", so that could easily describe a group of people.

However it goes all beings in the universe are related.

TeraLink Was Here!

Actualy, it was Kain's sister.



Also the bible goes on to say the names of the kids adam had, are you saying this means that all mankind had those kids?

Jude 14: "The seventh one in line from Adam, Enoch, prophesied."(Enoch was not the seventh in line from all early mankind).

Luke 3:23-38: "Jesus himself, when he commenced his work, was about thirty years old,being the...son of Adam."(David and Abraham are well-known historical persons. So is it not reasonable to conclude that Adam was a real person?).

If you look through out the entire bible, it makes it self clear as to what other verses mean. As you read, the more clear things become.

I don't knowif anyone else saw it , but I recently watched a show on NGC that was talking about precisely this subject. It claimed that this one group of theirs did a geneology study and found pretty much every man on Earth has a specific chromasome mutation that can be traced back to one man that supposedly lived around 40000 years ago.

I agree with Adam and Eve being real people. I think the Bible speaks for itself. One thing people seemed to have overlooked, is that if God created a wife for Adam, why not create wives for Adam's children???

Genesis 4:13-14 - Cain said to the Lord "You are driving me off the land and away from your presence. And I will be a homeless wanderer upon the earth, and anyone who finds me will kill me."

If there were only Abel, Eve and Adam, who is going to kill Cain??

Question: "Who was Cain afraid of after he killed Abel?"



Answer: In Genesis 4:13-14, shortly after he killed his brother Abel, “Cain said to the LORD, ‘My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.’” Who exactly was Cain afraid of? The only people the book of Genesis had mentioned to this point are Adam and Eve (Cain’s parents) and Abel (who was now dead). Who would possibly be a threat to Cain?



It is important to recognize that Cain and Abel were both full-grown adults at the time that Cain killed Abel. Both Cain and Abel were farmers, who tended to their own lands and flocks (Genesis 4:2-4). The Bible does not tell us how old Cain and Abel were, but they very likely could have been in their 30’s or 40’s, or older. The Bible does not specifically mention Adam and Eve having any children between Abel and Seth (Genesis 4:25). However, it is highly unlikely that the two most perfect human beings in the history of the world, Adam and Eve, would not have any children over several decades. Adam and Eve had many children after Seth (Genesis 5:4), so why would they not also have had other children between Abel and Seth? The Bible does not say that Seth was Adam and Eve’s first child, or even first son, after Abel was killed. Rather, it states that Seth was born as a “replacement” for Abel. Genesis chapter 5 traces the genealogy of Seth. Prior to his death, Abel was likely the “chosen” son that would eventually produce the Messiah (Genesis 3:15). It is in this sense that Seth “replaced” Abel.



So, who was Cain afraid of? Cain was afraid of his own brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces, who were already born and would be capable of seeking revenge. The fact that Cain had a wife (Genesis 4:17) is a further evidence that Adam and Eve had other children after Cain and Abel, but before Seth.


http://www.gotquestions.org/Cain-afraid.html

So by that logic, Cain obviously married his sister...

I wonder if Cain was afraid of the creators, whoever they were, but that is another story...

Yup, the person he went out and married was his sister.

...who was one of the people he was frightened would murder him??

Yes....even Noah's parents were brother and sister. Sick to think of, but alas it is the only way to begin a new race. Were not almost the ENTIRE LINE of Egyptians brother and sister incestuous marriages? Indeed so. No one sudders at Egyptians.

I do. Tut looked pretty androgynous. Androgynous bad, not androgynous good.

I tend to disagree there, men wearing eyeliner (and women) has some appeal. LOL

I wasn't talking about the eyeliner.

This guy has Marilyn Manson in his signature and you're talking about eyeliner XD.

XD
The post above you speaks for itself.

O.K can you stop at the daughter having sex with the father while he was asleep thing for a second?How do you have sex when your asleep?
That is insanity to start with.

read your bible. Its in there...........

It was Lot right? Or was it someone else. Hmmm.

There is a reason why it is there. I may be unaware as to why. If it is there to relate to one person so be it.

Gosh it all sounds a bit creepy to me.

Logically there were people other than Adam and Eve and Cain. Like Lilith from Mesopotamia.

So Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden after Mesopotamian people were created?

Genesis 4:16 And Cain went away from the Lord's presence and lived in a land called "Wandering", which is east of Eden. 17 Cain and his wife had a son....

It looks like Cain met is wife in the land called "Wandering".

But Lilith wasn't in Genesis.

Also called the Land of Nod, East of Eden. Personally I don't think it's clear enough to determine who Cain's wife is. But it's usually argued that is was his sister.

If Eden was in Mesopotamia (Iraq) then East of there seems to be desert. I think that the word Wandering (Nod in Hebrew, meaning 'to wander') implied there were nomadic people there.

Right, it's just like the Egyptian story of Seth. After he killed Osiris he had to wander in the desert.

I wonder if Jesus killed someone before he wandered in the desert???

He wasn't in exile, Ro. Seth and Cain were (like a curse).

I didn't say exile. Now that you mention it was Jesus in exile? Or Cain?

Cain, he was cursed.

He couldn't have been in disfavour with God for too long, considering that he built a city called Enoch after his son, and Enoch was a prophet who also write a book.

The descendants of Cain: Genesis 4:20 Adah gave birth to Jabal, who was the ancestor of those who raise livestock and live in tents.

That is the answer to the previous question about the nomads.

There were at least two Enochs though. The Book of Enoch wasn't the one written by Cain's son.

Oh thanks for clearing that up

It's actually a woman (200,000 years ago in central Africa) that is thought to be the most recent common ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today.................. anthropologists and others have arrived at this theory by using matrilineal descent - tracing ancestry lineage by using mitochondrial DNA (mitochondrial DNA can only be found in females).

Somehow I don't think that our Eve would be this woman from 200,000 years ago

It makes perfect sense that Adam and Eve were amongst other people, or the story adapted from another culture's.

(coughs) Inspired by the Mesopotamian story.

Thanks I couldn't remember where it came from.

Hmmm, not sure. The Garden of Eden story was handed down by word of mouth for over a thousand years before it was written in a permanent form in approximately 1500 BC. The variations that could have taken place while this story was being passed down through the generations is mind-boggling. Also, in the ancient Hebrew texts they used the word "scroll" not day, so it read something like "from scroll to scroll" or on the "seventh scroll God rested". Scrolls were the papyrus scrolls that were used in that time to record words. When the Talmud was translated years later, the word day was used interchangeably, which leads me to believe that perhaps a 24 hour day was not what the original author had intended to say. Also, many ancient peoples world wide worshiped the define feminine, which has since been vilified by a form of sexism perpetuated through some of the monotheistic religions. I also wonder if the original story of the creation of humans has been changed in a way that changes the true nature of the beginnings of humans - wouldn't blow everyone's mind to find out that the story of Eden puts Adam as the bad guy?

Eve made the choice apparently yet if she gave us Free-Choice, then it was a good thing IMO.

yes were related

----HELLO COUSINS BROTHERS SISTERS!