Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Blossom]

I was told yesterday that God created a man (Adam) and a woman (Eve). They had three children, all boys, Cain, Abel, and Seth. Who did they marry? How come they produced children?

[pugachevV]

Oddly enough, no religion that believes this, seems to have an answer.
So, it's either all a flight of fancy, or there is incest involved.

[RedRose]

all boys? then God could create some girls for them.

Adam and Eve had sex always, right? then they could give birth to baby girls.

however, that's pretty weird that marriage takes place among siblings. that would reproduce freak offsprings.

[damienlittre]

This is a very common question about Christianity.
To make it simple, the Bible mentions only Cain and Abel, but never states that, after they had been born, Adam and Eve didn't have other children (they're just not mentioned by name because the focus of Genesis 4 is on the first murder ever).
RedRose is right in saying that, since Adam and Eve clearly had intercourse more than twice in about 20 years - don't forget Genesis 1:28 " be fruitful and multiply" (so God is willing to give them offsprings and, besides abstinence, they didn't have many contraceptive methods), they must have had other children, including girls (and, after Seth was born, Adam and Eve also had other sons and daughters).

So that leaves the question of "freak offsprings", which is basically a non-issue. Remember, genetic defects are only more likely in the case of consanguineous marriages because of the higher probability that both parents have the same genetic anomalies. However, since Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, they didn't have any severe ones (except maybe that, as a result of sin, they now had to die).

Don't you also think that Moses would have realized that there was something wrong with the story when he wrote it if Adam and Eve didn't have any female children ? The ancients weren't any stupider than us and, if it looks strange to you, it probably also looked strange to him.
He probably just knew that there were other children but didn't care to talk about them because of their irrelevance to the story being told.

I hope you now have a clearer picture of what Christianity teaches about Adam and Eve.

[pugachevV]

So - incest is the answer.

[RedRose]

[damienlittre]

Actually no.
Take a look at your dictionary and you will find out that incest is "sexual intercourse between persons so closely related that they are forbidden by law to marry", which is not the case here.
God didn't forbid incest until, if I remember correctly, Leviticus.

[advoca]

I am not an expert on the bible but I have no recollection of incest between two brothers (or two sisters, come to that) being mentioned.

However, in Deuteronomy 27:22 its says:

"Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of this mother..."

And in Leviticus 20:17 it says:

"And if a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter...it is a wicked thing...."


Curiously, Abraham marries his father's daughter and yet he remains God's favorite:

"And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife's sake. And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife."
Genesis 20:11-12

And there is a mention of daughters having sex with their father.

Genesis 19:32-36 says:

"Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father."

[trueblue]

If we are to take the Bible literally, and not metaphorically, IMO we have to accept that incest was rampant in the beginning. Obviously, there is no other possible alternative.

[clonc]

Whoa! Hold your horses. The story of Adam and Eve is only part of what happened

It is said that that God created man and woman in His own image on the Sixth Day, giving them charge over the world. However, when Adam was first created from pure dust Eve did not yet exist. God set Adam to name every beast, bird and other living thing. When they passed before him in pairs, male and female, Adam-being already like a twenty-year-old man-felt jealous of their pairing and their love for each other. He tried sexual intercourse with each female beast in turn, but found no satisfaction in the act. He therefore cried: 'Every creature but I has a proper mate', and prayed that God would remedy this injustice.

God then formed Lilith, the first woman, just as He had formed Adam, except that He used filth and sediment instead of pure dust. But he created other women, one named Naamah. From Adam�s union with this female, and with another like her, came Asmodeus and innumerable other children.

Adam and Lilith never found peace together; for when he wished to have sexual intercourse with her, she took offence at the position he demanded (Underneath him in what is known today as the missionary position) �Why must I lie beneath you?� she asked. �I too was made from dust, and am therefore your equal.� Adam tried to compel her obedience by force, but Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic name of God, rose into the air and left him.

Adam complained to God: �I have been deserted by my helpmeet�
God at once sent three angels, Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof to fetch Lilith back. They found her beside the Red Sea, a region abounding in lascivious demons. Lilith was giving birth at the rate of more than one hundred children a day.

�Return to Adam without delay,� the angels said, �or we will drown you!�
Lilith asked: �How can I return to Adam and live like an honest wife after my stay beside the Red Sea?�

�It will be death to refuse!� they answered.

�How can I die,� Lilith asked again, �when God has ordered me to take charge of all newborn children: boys up to the eighth day of their life, that of circumcision, and girls up to the twentieth day of their life? None the less, if ever I see your three names or likenesses displayed in an amulet above a newborn child, I promise to spare it.�

To this they agreed; but God punished Lilith by making one hundred of her demon children perish daily.

If Lilith could not destroy a human infant, because of the angelic amulet, she would spitefully turn against her own children.

Undismayed by His failure to give Adam a suitable helpmeet, God tried again, and let him watch while he built up a woman�s anatomy using bones, tissues, muscles, blood and glandular secretions, then covering the whole with skin and adding tufts of hair in certain places. The sight caused Adam such disgust that even when this woman, Eve, stood there in her full naked beauty, he felt an invincible repugnance. God knew that He had failed once more, and took Eve away. Where she went, nobody knows for certain.

God tried a third time, and acted more circumspectly. He took a rib from Adam's side in his sleep, He formed it into a woman; then plaited her hair and adorned her, like a bride, with twenty-four pieces of jewellery, before waking him. Adam looked on this woman and was entranced.

This information is taken from The Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York: Doubleday, 1964),

[pugachevV]

OK, so now we add, bestiality, attempted rape, promiscuity, infanticide, sexual disfunction and the fact that god is not infallible to the mix.
Curiouser and curiouser.

[advoca]

You can find it all in the bible.