Origins TheologyForum for the discussion of Creation Science (Young/Old) vs Theistic Evolution. Discussion of Atheistic Evolution should be taken to the Discussion and Debate forums.
To be honest...no one really knows...but the marrying to their sisters is possible and probable.
It's nice to see that you don't know.
However, if the Bible is literally inerrant, as you suppose, then the time line has to be accurate too, doesn't it? And the Bible says that daughters were not born until after it says Cain and Seth took wives. So, unless the Bible is not an accurate time line, then the daughters weren't even born yet to be wives to Cain and Seth.
Now, if God isn't changeable, then incest is always a sin. Yet here (and after the Flood) you are happy to have incest. Isn't that saying morals are relative?
__________________ "If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437
"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." Rev. James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, 1890
No, the bible says Adam and Eve were the first Humans...Now it doesn't say that directly, but the context surely says it.
God made "man" from the dust..his name was Adam.
The context surely says that Adam and Eve didn't have daughters until after Cain and Seth took wives. Sauce for the goose.
__________________ "If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437
"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." Rev. James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, 1890
There is a lot we don't know about. The question is, is it feasable? Is it possible? Could ithave happened this way?
Evos like to present this kind of nonsense as if it's impossible....like this issue, the evos stand corrected rather quickly.
If you take a literal, inerrant Bible and an unchanging God, Cain and Seth marrying their sisters is impossible.
Now, if you give up that literal, inerrant Bible, then there is no reason not to accept a non-literal reading that will allow you to accept evolution.
Sorry to present what may appear to be a cruel choice to you, but there it is.
__________________ "If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437
"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." Rev. James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, 1890
This is one of those topics we can probably discuss and debate as long as we wish without ever coming up with an authoritative and satisfying answer. Since Cain was outside the line of promise, the Bible apparently did not consider this issue important enough to tell us the answer. We are therefore left to our speculations.
Thus far, the responses given on this thread tend to fall into two groups: (1) those that think Cain married a relative (i.e., a sister, niece, or other descendent of Adam and/or Eve), and (2) those that think he married a non-relative (i.e., someone not related to Adam and Eve. Sure, that’s an oversimplification, it’s patently obvious, and it pretty well takes in the entire realm of possibilities of Biblical choices.
At first glance, it would appear that only the first of those possibilities could be consistent with what the Bible says. After all, doesn’t the Bible say that Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth? Therefore, they and their children would comprise all of mankind, wouldn’t they?
Although we would be justified in reaching that conclusion from a literal reading of our English versions of the Bible, that is not necessarily what the Bible says. The original Hebrew text and passages from the Talmud (the collection of writings constituting the Jewish civil and religious law) and from ancient Jewish commentators indicate that the Bible does not close the door on the possibility that there were other people—including men before Adam—but that Adam was the first human being to be created with an eternal soul.
Hebrew has two words for soul, nefesh (or nephesh) and neshama (or nishmath), and both come into play in the first two chapters of Genesis. When Genesis 1:21 tells us that “God created…every living creature,” it signifies that all animals (humans included) are infused with the nefesh or soul of life--i.e., they are living creatures. When humans are mentioned a few verses later (Genesis 1:27 and 2:7), the text tells of a further creation that distinguishes humans from lower animals: The third “creation” mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis is of our human soul (or God's spirit or God's breath of life or the capacity to fellowship with God), our neshama (the first two “creations” were of the universe and of life).
The closing of Genesis 2:7 has a subtlety lost in the English: It is usually translated as: “…and [God] breathed into his nostrils the neshama of life and the adam became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). Dr. Gerald Schroeder has noted that the Hebrew text actually states: “…and the adam became to a living soul.” Nahmanides, seven hundred years ago, wrote that the “to” (the Hebrew letter lamed prefixed to the word “soul” in the verse) is superfluous from a grammatical stance and so must be there to teach something. Lamed, he noted, indicates a change in form and may have been placed there to describe mankind as progressing through stages of mineral, plant, fish, and animal. Finally, upon receiving the neshama, that creature which had already been formed became a human. He concludes his extensive commentary on the implications of this lamed as “Or it may be that the verse is stating that [prior to receiving the neshama] it was a completely living being and [by the neshama] it was transformed into another man.”
Because God doesn't change and what is sin doesn't change. If later incest is described as a sin, then it was always a sin. The concept that "humans were different so the rules were different" is all just backfill to avoid this problem. There is nothing to indicate that the rules were different then.
Yes, I know that a whole little theory has built up around the state of immediately post-fall Man being somehow "closer" to Man's perfect state, so they lived longer, etc, etc, etc, but there is nothing at all in the Scripture to directly support this concept. When Man fell, he fell and was in sin. Proximity in time to the Garden would have nothing to do with anything. Did the pain in childbirth *increase* to its current level? Did the soil *gradually* cause more sweat on the brow? No, I don't see any of this supported in Scripture. It is simply a theory based on the need to explain long lives and the "right" for Cain to marry a sister. The problem is that these little pet theories begin to be taught like Gospel truth. And you complain about the instutionalizing of evolution!
See, that is the point. I am not sure at all how it happened, and do not think it is possible to be sure. Thus, unlike the YEC position, I refuse to be dogmatic about such issues. I think it is best to teach that there are various views on all these issues, that they are not salvation issues, and that a belief different than the early, traditional reading does not mean you have to disbelieve the Bible.
If all Christians did this, then there would be a LOT fewer people losing their Faith over these issues. And, yes, it does happen all the time. A couple of people on this board said they came very close to abandoning Christianity because they were taught that to believe in an old earth or in evolution was the equivalent of disbelieving the Bible.
And, as for where they are taught as being wholly and, without doubt, the true and proper reading, that is easy. I grew up in a variety of fundamentalist churches (my father was an Assembly of God minister) and I have visited dozens over my lifetime. I have been in and around the fundamentalist movement and they do, indeed, teach all these issues as if there were only one correct way to read them.
Last edited by Vance; 7th September 2003 at 12:56 AM.
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