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The ONLY two created in the beginning?

The Duke Of Marshall

The Duke Of Marshall

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Ok,
So people were proposing theories in another thread and it got me to remembering a theory I have had and wanted to get everyone's opinion on.

The Scriptures are pretty much centered around the Hebrew people from start to finish. As such, could it be that Adam and Eve WEREN'T the only two people created in the beginning, but rather they are the only two people mentioned in Scripture because they were the beginning of the Hebrew race? This would help to answer the question of where Seth and Cain found wives without subjecting themselves to incest. Maybe others were created right after Adam and Eve that were the ancestors of other lineages.

Thoughts?
 
I believe Cain and Seth married their sisters, since that was not considered sinful until the Law was given to Moses.
Abraham married his step sister, something forbidden in the Law of Moses.
 
The Duke Of Marshall said:
Ok,
So people were proposing theories in another thread and it got me to remembering a theory I have had and wanted to get everyone's opinion on.

The Scriptures are pretty much centered around the Hebrew people from start to finish. As such, could it be that Adam and Eve WEREN'T the only two people created in the beginning, but rather they are the only two people mentioned in Scripture because they were the beginning of the Hebrew race? ...

Thoughts?
Click to expand...


This is what I think it implies also.
*whew* not entirely alone on something... :mrgreen:

x
 
Relatively few of the offspring of any individual in the early days are mentioned. With the lifespans what they were it is very possible a single man and woman pair could have produced 120 children even if they only had one every 5 years for the first 600 years of their 900 year lifespan. We often think of things as they are now, and with the genetic purity that existed with the early individuals on the earth it is highly likely that they intermarried between siblings and we have no evidence whatsoever to conclude that God made a separate group for Adam's children to marry into.

To believe that God made others for Adam's descendants to marry with opens a whole new can of worms...or three or four...the scriptures do not address the issues this scenario would bring into play because this scenario didn't happen. It is fun to think about though.
 
I believe Cain and Seth married their sisters
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Forgive me, unlearned heathen that I am, but I don't see any evidence for incest here. Just because something is not considered sinful, doesn't mean that they actually DO it does it?

Why would Cain need protection by being slain by any who shall find him if he is the only other bloke on the earth besides his dad? No other sons are born until Seth. We don't hear anything of Cain being married until he went out to the land of Nod which was a land east of Eden. It is only then that a wife is mentioned. He builds a city (who for if it was just his wife and son? ) His great, great grandson took two wives, where did he get those ones from? He had slain a man too, who was that but another kinsman?
So they were either killing and sleeping with relatives left, right and centre or you'll have to assume that it means what it says, that there are people outside the garden. In Gen 1:27 God makes people to live on the earth and told them to be fruitful and multiply. Than he rests, than he makes Adam because he noticed that the land had not been tilled (oooh, subtle nod to Hunter-gatherers there) and he makes the garden and puts Adam in that to till the land (Agriculture).

I don't understand why lots of you keep pressing on about how you should not add or subtract the Bible and than don't bother to read what it says properly.

B
x
 
The issue that causes the most difficulty is that we are operating without a precise time line and an incomplete genealogy.

Considering that lifespans were about 10 times our own, things happened in a completely different way then they do now (time wise). Cain may have been 100...200...300 years old by the time he needed protection...plenty of time for other descendants of Adam to become mature adults and seek vengeance for the blood of a relative that was spilled.

Since we do not have an actual concise time line and we also lack a complete genealogy it is proper to assume the status quo (Dr. Allen will probably write 5 to 10 paragraphs on this alone in his comments) knowing of only Adam and Eve and that they had children; and also having no mention of God creating others besides Adam.
 
Scarecrow, did you miss that bit when I said that in the chapter before God created Adam, he created men and women. He rested then. The rest came after the creation of humans, that IS the status quo. They are not named and the genealogy is not shown because it isn't THEIR story, it is the story of the descendants of Adam and Eve.

It isn't the Bible that is unclear, it is the status quo which is at much a fault as the assumption that monogamy is correct just because Eve didn't come along with a sisterwife!

B
 
First creation account

Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Second creation account

Gen 2:7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Gen 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Gen 2:18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."
Gen 2:21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
Gen 2:22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Gen 2:23 Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

From the first account:
"let them have dominion" future tense meaning mankind...God knew that He would create Eve for Adam and they would have many offspring.
"in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them"...him is singular, then alluding to Eve it is stated "them" plural.

From the second account:
"God formed the man" singular...again
"It is not good that the man should be alone" last time I checked "alone" meant by yourself with no one else. How could Adam be "alone" if all these other people were running around all over the planet?
"the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man" why not just have Adam log in to his laptop and browse through all the available women roaming around and let him pick one? Surgery seems like an extreme measure if Adam could have just gone down to the corner bar and taken one home for the night...
 
Isabella said:
Scarecrow, did you miss that bit when I said that in the chapter before God created Adam, he created men and women. He rested then. The rest came after the creation of humans, that IS the status quo. They are not named and the genealogy is not shown because it isn't THEIR story, it is the story of the descendants of Adam and Eve.
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Are you referring to Genesis 1:26-27 ? I believe the word "them" refers to both Adam and Eve, as the word "them" is repeated at the end of the last sentence in the verse. I think it would be a huge stretch to try and suggest it referred to other people....just my opinion.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
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Blessings,
Fairlight
 
I am rather shocked that there is all this presumption going on about what God meant!!

Much divine mind reading going on here methinks!

So, even though the creation of Eve was in response to realising that Adam would be lonely, it was, in fact, totally anticipated in the chapter beforehand and it was all about Adam and Eve?

I am sorry, that makes as much sense as a hair sandwich.

All this is written as time progressing, the boring hunter gatherers came first, God created Adam to cultivate and created a pretty garden because the world was a bit boring at that point, Adam was alone, he was alone in the garden....it is in the text, you just have to stop thinking that you know a bit better about what was meant than the person who wrote it!

B

PS Mind you, what do I know eh???
 
Oh wait, reading this again Adam actually SAYS he has no one to help him. Which would make the creation of Eve a compassionate response to someone (Adam) who expressed pain. However, instead it was just part of the plan all along? Adam needn't have said anything then really.

Now if you accept that
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it He rested from all His work which God in creating had made. {P}

4 These are the generations of the heaven and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven. 5 No shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground; 6 but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
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God rested on the seventh day, was happy with his creation and THEN seemed to notice that there was not a man to 'till the ground' There was nothing seeded, nothing planted, all was on the surface but there was no agriculture, all humans could do was gather and hunt.

Also, it is quite clear that God tells the humans he created that the fruits and the herbs are there to eat, he doesn't tell them to grow their own! He doesn't instruct them how to do it either, that was what he gave to Adam.

Adam is the introduction of agriculture if you ask me, but again...what do I know? I only just read it, rather than trying to anticipate why God seems so confused about what day of the week he creates things.

B
 
Isn't theorizing fun!!! It allows our imaginations to run wild and develop ideas from a starting point of truth and end up somewhere close to reality or maybe out in left field. It is a blessing from God to be able to do this and we can enjoy it as long as we do not forget the difference between theory and fact. Sadly, there are and always will be those things and events that will always hover just above our mental grasp, remaining mysteries to us. It is alright that this is so, for we are finite men delving into the realm of the infinite God. We can expect no less.
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I posted this on another thread, but it seems relevant here as well. Let's be kind to each other in our theories and let's take each one to it's conclusion and see where it ends up, before we tear them to shreds. We do enjoy our theories.
Personally, I doubt that there were other people created, but I can't prove they weren't. My doubt is based upon the idea that the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 is simply an exploded view of the events of day 6 in chapter 1. Remember chapter and verses are not a part of the divine text. Also, there is the issue of the imputation of sin on the entire human race because of Adam, as dealt with in the NT scripture. I know there are holes in these statements, some you could throw a cow through, but we are just theorizing.
 
As far as God creating more than A & E, we did have a short thread last year that touched upon the testimony of scripture being that sin entered through one man, and that man is the Adam of the Genesis account. If we want to say that He did or could have created more men than Adam, then we have a problem with resolving this with scripture because we would have a line of men not from Adam and Eve, and outside the realm of sin that brings death through Adam. This is why there were no people before Adam and Eve, why God did not create any other beings beside Adam and Eve, and why there was no earth with no living beings in that earth before Genesis.
 
There are a few very short and simple reasons why that would be true, i.e. Adam and Eve were the first and only two original people:

1. The Hebrew term Adam means human race. He was the head of the human race. This is confirmed by Romans 5:12, the ole compare Scripture with Scripture rule in hermeneutics.

2. The actual literary structure of Genesis. there are specific toledot sections set forth that explain specific heads of families. Adam's line, Noah's line. Abraham's line., Jacob's line, etc. This runs throughout all of Genesis.

3. We do not know how much time transpired from the command to Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit until he did. But in light of Eve's surprise when she brought forth a man, who she thought was the Lord (fulfillment of the divine promise by God) it is an implication that she had never seen a child birth before and this was something new to her (Gen. 4:1).

4. The contextual point in literary analysis shows us that Moses' edited this book and composed it for a purpose. What was it? He wanted to explain the lineage as to how things began and how it developed down to the ethnic Jewish line that began specifically by the man named Jacob, the father of Israel. He wanted to trace all things back historically for the people he was leading so they could understand their origins, hence the book name Genesis was appropriate. The original pair, Adam and Eve, were listed by Moses because from that point all life developed. This too aligns with Acts 17:26 where we find God saying all people came forth from Adam.


That verse in Acts is appropriate for discussion here: "From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live."
 
Paul not the apostle said:
As far as God creating more than A & E, we did have a short thread last year that touched upon the testimony of scripture being that sin entered through one man, and that man is the Adam of the Genesis account. If we want to say that He did or could have created more men than Adam, then we have a problem with resolving this with scripture because we would have a line of men not from Adam and Eve, and outside the realm of sin
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Can you explain where it says this? I don't think I see 'sin' mentioned anywhere. I read
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return
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No mention of sin.

However, I still fail to see the problem here, it seems death came to Adam and his line a lot slower than the rest of us, perhaps there IS something genetically different in his line and that is why no one else lives to those great ages, because everyone else has inherited the genes of the Nod people?

However, I hear it said by people who know far more than I on the matter that the descendants of Adam prevailed during the flood and this is why there are no other people on earth except those descendants of Noah, himself a descendant of Adam.

Still I wonder how the Kangeroos faced getting to the Ark all the way from Australia?

B
 
Isabella said:
Can you explain where it says this? I don't think I see 'sin' mentioned anywhere. I read
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return
Click to expand...
No mention of sin.

I would refer you to the above post by Dr. Allen in response to your question.

However, I still fail to see the problem here, it seems death came to Adam and his line a lot slower than the rest of us, perhaps there IS something genetically different in his line and that is why no one else lives to those great ages, because everyone else has inherited the genes of the Nod people?

I would suggest that the issue is not genetics as much as it is environment. The canopy surrounding the earth is gone, causing the oxygen level and pressure to be less, as well as more exposure to the sun's radiation. The type of food and exercise today is very different from then as well. These alone are important enough to cause severe life span changes.

However, I hear it said by people who know far more than I on the matter that the descendants of Adam prevailed during the flood and this is why there are no other people on earth except those descendants of Noah, himself a descendant of Adam.

I don't quite understand this statement, other than to mean that some of Adam's descendants stayed alive during the flood, which I agree with. They survived the flood in the ark floating on the water that covered the entire face of the earth.

Still I wonder how the Kangeroos faced getting to the Ark all the way from Australia?

The entire earth or most of it was crust, not divided by vast waters like it is today. As God is the creator of all things, He also could have had influenced any and all animals to gather toward the ark, just like He influenced animals at other times in the historical record.

B
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Sorry, I am not good at quoting and pasting and fonts and colors, I tried to make it easy and it looks like I am mad and yelling, which I am not. At least I did not use caps by mistake. :shock:
 
I read Dr. Allen's post, unfortunately it all went over my head so I am afraid it makes little sense to me. Like I said, I am not very versed in this, I was just going by the text.

We know from archaeology that people did not live that long, I don't understand how you can say that when the evidence disprove a super long life span but well....I suppose it is up to you what you believe.

Thanks for replying though.

regards,
Bels
 
This is a fun topic!
I am pretty sure I know how the kangaroos got to the ark. They hopped. ;) Now whether or not they originated in Australia or not is still guess work. Actually, we don't even know if Australia was a continent alone before the flood.
More speculation, perhaps all ethnic diversity was found in the diversity of the wives of Noah and his sons. Could have been quite a mix. Would be interesting to have pre-flood video tape to answer our questions.

Even more speculation, could continental drift after the flood have the effect of isolating certain ethnic groups?
 
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