2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

1 Peter 3:15But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

http://www.evidenceforchristianity.org/efc/default.nsf/Section?OpenForm


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Hi bro,;I'm a disciple from Singapore and come of know of this site when you came here. I tried googling but can't find any great answers so I came to your great site. :);I've been trying to study bible with my friend and he's asking me some questions about adam. If Adam and Eve were the first human alive, so who did their son marry to populate the earth? If they did marry their own brother and sister (which I feel is the case because the bible say adam had other sons and daughters), science say the offspring from marrying your own physical brother or sister will high chance be abnormal. So why do I explain this? I know you must have this somewhere in your website but I can't find it. :);Thanks bro,;Love,;Dewey

Dewey;

You are right that an answer to this question is found at my web site. I am cutting and pasting to save you time.


Go to the bottom for some additional comments.

J. O.

Friday, May 6, 2005
Where did Cain's wife come from in Genesis 4?


Where did Cain's wife come from in Genesis 4?

This is a fairly common question. I have only seen only one reasonable explanation which does not require bending the biblical text. That is to assume that Adam and Eve had a great number of children and that Cain married one of them. Clearly if there were only one man and woman created by God, then their children would have to intermarry.

This explanation may bother a person who is used to the idea that incest (which would clearly include sex with a sibling) is bad. Attempts to explain why God does what he does can cause one to skate on thin ice, but let me speculate why God "changed his mind" on the incest issue. The fact is that there is a significantly increased risk of a great number of genetically-linked diseases for children of closely related parents. This may explain God's admonition that incest is a sin. God is protecting us from serious disease. One can assume that Adam and Eve were created without genetic defects, which would allow their children to intermarry without fear of inducing genetic-related diseases in their children. Over the thousands of years since the original couple, a good number of mutations which have led to genetic diseases have entered the human population, making it quite dangerous to marry close relatives.

So the answer to the question you ask is that Cain married one of his sisters. One possible answer to the question you did not ask, but which you surely have in mind is that what applies to us did not apply to the children of Adam and Eve. Incest is dangerous for us but was not for them.

John Oakes, PhD


Here is another relevant Q & A:



Who was Cain afraid of? What about giants and cherubim?




In the opening chapters of Genesis, the Bible says that Cain was afraid of others who might take vengeance upon him. Where did these people come from??? They could not have been his brothers for there is hardly enough time for procreation to have resulted in a population large enough for Cain to be concerned of this. Also, the same chapters make reference to cherubim and giants and other mythical beings. Doesn't this show that the Bible is wrong if it is referencing creatures that did not exist?

You ask at least three questions here, so let me take one on at a time. First, the Bible describes each of the early generations of descendents of Adam and Eve living for several hundreds of years. If one can assume that this is true, then Adam and Eve could have had dozens of children, each of whom could have had dozens of children and so forth. Doing a little math based on this assumptions leads to the possibility that by the time Cain and Abel were, say, three hundred years old, there might have been thousands of direct descendants of Adam and Eve. Of course, you will have to decide on the inspiration of the Bible for yourself, but for one who simply accepts the accuracy of the statements in the Bible concerning the age of the early humans, the question is answered fairly easily.

Some have proposed as an alternative explanation that Adam and Eve were not the first people, but were the first ones to have a soul and spirit, and therefore to be the first humans in the spiritual sense. That would explain the statements in Genesis about Cain you ask. In my opinion, this is not likely to be an accurate interpretation of Genesis, as it seems, at least on the face of it, to be a contradiction of the obvious literal sense of Genesis, but I do not absolutely rule it out, trying to remain open-minded.

Cherubim, as described by the Bible are angels, not people. They are spiritual beings. To be honest, I cannot prove the existence of angels as a scientist, but I accept their reality simply because they are described in the Bible which I have accepted, based on extremely solid evidence, to be the inspired word of God. I believe in angels, basically, on faith in the Bible. The giants described in Genesis may simply be very large people. Goliath was about eight or nine feet tall, and is described as a giant in 1 Samuel. It is possible that "giants" in the book of Genesis are a separate race of peoples, but I personally do not believe this is the case. I certainly do not believe that Genesis is a myth. It meets several criteria for being inspired scripture based on my personal study. I will leave it to you to look at the evidence for inspiration of the Bible, and especially of the book of Genesis. At this web site, you will find a lot of that. I suggest you go to the section of articles labeled "Bible" as a beginning point for discussing the evidence for inspiration. I believe that, contrary to many intellectuals beliefs. the Bible is the Word of God and is definitely not myth. Of course, it is your right and privledge to reach your own conclusion on this particular question, but that is how I see it.

John Oakes, PhD

Dewey;

Like I say above, I do not believe that incest is inherently sinful, but that there are two reasons God outlawed it in the OT. 1. Because for us genetically mutated people, marriage with very close relatives is dangerous to health. 2. Incest is very closely associated with sexual abuse in a large percentage of cases.

So, it is not unreasonable that for very early man, God did not outlaw incest.

I cannot absolutely rule out the alternative alluded to above. I cannot disprove beyond a doubt that Adam and Ever were created as people with a soul, in God's image, etc... in a world which already had intelligent, evolved, non-accountable homo sapiens. This is not the explanation I personally prefer, but I feel I cannot exclude it from possibility. In other words, when God breathed his nature--his image--into people it transformed rather than created human beings. This is certainly not a salvation issue. You ought to reach your own conclusion.



John Oakes