Mordy

The same goes for evolution too dont forget, either way incest under both worldviews is an unavoidable fact of life at some point. Since the definition of species is one that can breed 'within the family'. No one has taken it upon themselves to prove 'true' interspecies sex (man and ape for example) can occur in viable births, since we dont fully understand what a species 'really' is.

Agemegos

The Bible never says that God did not create other men and women aside from Adam and Eve. In fact, it doesn't even say that He created them first.

Genesis 1:27 says that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" on the sixth day of creation. Several men and women, created on the same day.

Adam is not created until Genesis 2:7. And then he has time to name a lot of animals before Eve is created at Gen 2:22.

The most obvious construction to place upon this is that the planting of the garden and the creation of Adam and Eve took place after the seven days, and that Adam's and Eve's children intermarried with the descendants of the men and women created on the sixth day.

Furthermore, the Bible does not say that God forbade incest until sometime in Leviticus, which was much later.

Agemegos

Yeah, but reality often refuses to conform to human definitions.

deltin7

You quoted that " in Gen1:27 God created man in his own image......... several men and women, created on the same day."

Ok i'm going to give you that,
let say he created several men & women like you said, but what happends to the other "Men & Women" after Adam and eve were kicked out of the garden of eden?
were they purnished too, :huh: even though they were not involved in the fruit issue?

Mordy

Just what are you insinuating, if you have something to say can you be a little more specific? If you are quibbling about what we understand or dont understand, unless you can actually provide an actual scientific example of what you were thinking about you have no basis to say such a thing other then from your own personal opinion.

Anat

From a Jewish POV it wouldn't have made sense for God to create other humans other than A&E since one of the messages of the creation stories is that all humans are related, and a single couple has the potential of populating the world. This message was used to dissuade witnesses trials for capital offenses from bearing false witness. It was also seen as evidence for God's greatness - the ability to create such human variety from a single model.

From a Christian POV - what becomes of Original Sin if some humans were descended from humans created independently of A&E? Of course the flood introduces a bottleneck, since Noah was descended from Adam through his paternal line, but what about his wife and the wives of his sons? And what about Noah's other ancestors? (And if Original Sin is inherited paternally, what becomes of immaculate conception?)

The prohibition against incest is considered in Jewish tradition one of the Noachide laws that were given to all of humanity when Noah et al emerged from the ark (though I don't see how it is derived from Genesis 9). Before that the prohibition isn't supposed to have existed.

(Another Cain question: The first time murder is explicitly forbidden is in Genesis 9. Was Cain supposed to know murder was wrong on his own? If he didn't, what does that tell us about the 'fruit of knowledge of good and evil'?)

Magdlyn

Yes, yes they were. Indeed, the entire planet and the whole cosmos were affected (cursed) by one little bite of magic fruit. Amazing, huh?

Monad

One persons "curse" is another's liberation. Eve is the biblical Prometheus - what she did was right (metaphorically speaking of course).

Agemegos

Sure. The definition of 'species' by interbreeding runs afoul of several real-world biological phenomena. Most obviously, there is asexual reproduction--by this definition no organism that reproduces asexually would be a member of any species. Rather less obviously, there are clines, also known as 'ring species'.

In a cline, we find that the ability to interbreed is not transitive. If members of group A can interbreed with members of group B, and B can interbreed with C, it is not necessarily the case that A can interbreed with C. Counter-examples are common, particularly among birds. There is even one tern with circumpolar distribution, the two ends of which overlap as visible different and non-interfertile 'species' in the UK.

If it really were the case that there existed only distinct species incapable of interbreeding, then individuals would have to jump by sudden mutation from their parent's species into a new species. We would expect that only a very small number would do so at any time, and that there would necessarily be small numbers and therefore intense inbreeding in the new species.

But in fact the species are not so distinct, and it is possible for an entire population to gradually change so much that it is worth classifying its members at one time as a different species from their distant ancestors. Even though in some models such changes are expected to be faster in small populations than in large ones, there is no special point anywhere through the process at which the population changes from one species to another (except from the artificial viewpoint of taxonomic convenience). A population can evolve over many generations from one 'species' to another undergoing any sudden change, wihtout at any stage passing through a population bottleneck, and without inbreeding being any more prevalent at any time than any other.

It is quite true that speciation often does occur in an isolated and inbred sub-population. The 'Founder Effect' resulting from this type of speciation is well studied. But in this case the intense interbreeding occurs before, not after, the evolution of the populatino into a new species.

The situation is analogous to that with languages. We recognise mostly languages that are not mutually intelligible, such as German and French, and define distinct languages that way. But reality confounds our definitions when we find a continuous chain of local dialects from Copenhagen to Trondheim, with each intelligable to the speakers of its neighbours. But the Norwegian of Trondheim is a different language from the Danish of Copenhagen.

Anyway, the formal definition of species by interbreeding is suitable only for multiplying paradoxes.

exile

Exactly. Eve exercised free will. What she did was not knowingly evil - after all did not know good from evil until AFTER eating the fruit. Like a child she was testing the limits of obedience - and why did God create the serpent if not to allow these limits to be tested.

Any being that created Human beings with free will, and then provided temptation, should not have been surprised at the consequences. Defences against the Argument from Evil depend on a free existence with the ability to commit sin as being superior to life as an obedient robot or slave. If we are to accept this then surely Eve was merely doing God's will and did us all a favour
by giving us existence (if Adam and Eve had obeyed God they would still be alone in Eden).

Can any Christian on here explain what exactly was Eve's sin? I really can't understand that she did anything that justified condemning humanity to thousands of years of pain, suffering and death.