David M. Payne

I find it interesting that these two accounts of the rise of humanity, as contained in the bible, (OT) would have two things in common by necessity; incest, and inbreeding. Now I’m sure some of the biblical scholars here like Nomad/BT and Bede etc can straighten out this seeming illogical basis of all humanity, yes? This must be an old question, but I’m unfamiliar with how it is resolved by biblical scholars. Here are the references I used below, perhaps there is some error in them that can be easly explained away by our resident experts on biblical lore.

Adam and Eve, in the Bible, the first man and woman, progenitors of the human race. The biblical account of the creation of human beings occurs twice: in Genesis 1:26-27 and in Genesis 2:18-24. Marked differences in vocabulary, thought, and style between these accounts have led to the scholarly consensus that these creation stories reflect two distinct sources (see Bible: The Development of the Old Testament). In the first account, the Hebrew common noun adam is used as a generic term for all human beings, regardless of gender; Eve is not mentioned at all. In the second account, Adam is created from the dust of the earth, whereas Eve is created from Adam's rib and given to him by God to be his wife.
Before the beginning of the 19th century, it was commonly assumed that every species of life, human beings included, had descended from a pair of aboriginal ancestors created directly by God. In this respect the biblical story of Adam and Eve differs only in details from many other myths of the ancient Middle East and elsewhere. Similar motifs also appear in such ancient Mesopotamian sources as the Gilgamesh epic from about 2000BC, for example.
In some respects, however, the story of Adam and Eve is unique. The early chapters of the Book of Genesis underwent considerable editorial work, and what began as a straightforward narrative of the beginning of the human species in general was converted into a more sophisticated exploration of the situation of men and women in relation to one another and to their environment. This is evident in the introduction of the theme of a separate creation of woman in Genesis 2:18-24, which, among other things, argues for the complementarity of the two sexes. The impulse to provide explanations can also be seen in the way the story is used to attribute the imperfections of the world to human error: It is a consequence of primordial disobedience that the earth yields its fruits grudgingly (Genesis 3:17-19) and that woman's social position is inferior to that of man (3:16). Christian interpreters have traditionally associated this dimension of the story with the doctrine of original sin.
It is the ethical concern pervading the biblical story of human origins that constitutes the story's primary claim to consideration as a religious classic. Before the emergence of higher criticism in biblical scholarship in the 19th century, it was taken for granted that the story was nothing less than sober history. This is the position still maintained by some religious conservatives who view the divine influence (inspiration) on the production of the biblical narratives as a guarantee that everything in them must be accepted as literal fact (see Fundamentalism). Most present-day biblical scholars, however, accept the story of Adam and Eve for what it appears to be: a Hebrew story of human origins having much in common with the myths of other ancient peoples as well as a good deal that is distinctive. Far from diminishing the value of the biblical story, this realization serves to underscore the unique elements in ancient Hebrew religion.

Contributed By:
Rev. Bruce Vawter

Noah, in the Old Testament, son of Lamech, tenth in descent from Adam, and, as survivor with his family of the flood (see Deluge), the father of all humanity (see Genesis 6-9). According to the biblical account, Noah was spared for his piety when God, angered at the corruption of the world, destroyed it with a flood lasting 40 days and 40 nights. Noah had been warned to build the ark, a great ship, and to take on board with him his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, his sons' wives, and two mated specimens of every species of animal on earth. In an episode after the flood, Noah is portrayed as having discovered winemaking and becoming helplessly drunk (see Genesis 9:20-27). Noah is said to have lived 950 years (see Genesis 9:29). Similar heroes of flood stories are found in Babylonian, Greek, and other cultures (see Deucalion).

"Adam and Eve," And "Noah" Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000. © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

hal9000

I think the short answer would be GOD could do what ever he wanted to as far as populating the earth, he's GOD and he don't need your stinking logic. But the reality is Adam and Eve are just another in a long line of fairy tales that make up the bible. It's pretty hard to defend incest and inbreeding as logical and valid ways of populating the earth. The story is so incredible that it's unbelievable to me, and most other rational atheist-agnostic people I suspect.
But I didn't know Noah was a wino and lived for 950 years. Must’ve been real good wine he was making wish he'd saved me some!

Bill

Hey, haven't you heard? We Are the Other People (by Oberon Zell) relates the fact that Yahweh was really a local god there in Mesopotamia, and so most of the people on Earth at that time didn't worship Him. In any case, there were all these "other people" around for the children of Adam and Eve to marry. Zell backs up his assertions with quotes from Genesis, such as this one: Note that sometime between Genesis 4:16 and 4:17 Cain acquires a wife from some unmentioned source of wives. I suppose that if you really have faith, you can believe that, even though Cain had left "the presence of the Lord" that somehow God still managed to take pity on Cain and build Cain a wife. On the other hand, Zell's theory would seem to be more probable since, after all, we all know that Judaism really was just a local backwater religion......

As for Noah, the geological evidence proves that there wasn't any "worldwide" flood. Instead, we have some fairly slow flooding of the Black Sea. But religious books are full of exagerations, aren't they?

== Bill

offa

Noah was the father of humanity. In case you
have not figured it out the Old Testament
was written by the Hebrews of olde. They do not exist
any more. The bible was their book and they wrote it
their way. If your mother was not a descendant of Eve
through her mother you were not a member of humanity,
you were an animal.
The book of Jubilees is as authentic and
as ancient as the Old Testament and in Jubilees
Adam takes a wife and she (JUB 04:01) bore 'Awan,
his daughter.**
-----------------------------------------------------
offa;
** I am not sure who his daughter refers to.
It would be assumed that she belonged to Adam and
thus "his daughter" is ambiguous. Kind of like "ALL"
in "All men are created Equal". The "ALL" specifies
a certain sect of men, i.e., it does not mean "Men are
Created Equal".

Cain slays Abel and Jubilees tells you that
Abel was old enough to have a wife and children
so one would wonder, "What happened to her (them).
Did Cain take Awan from Abel?
-------------------------------------------------------
JUB 04:08 And in the sixth week he begat 'Azura, his daughter.
JUB 04:10 And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she bore him nine more
children.

--------------------------------------------------------
Offa;
So, you see, Eve probably had 13 children. If the Catholic
Church knew the whereabouts of the Dead Sea Scrolls
prior to their discovery Jubilees would be a heresy
written by a spurious author long after the birth of Christ.
(The church would have rewritten them and destroyed the
originals). With it's discovery at Qumran the church has to
acknowledge its existence prior to the birth of Christ.
What we have is a Catch-22. The church wants us to believe
that "all" the scrolls were dated from the Maccabean era.
Eisenman tells us that the carbon-dating is flawed, but,
as a Jew, he is trying to dispel the existence of Christ.
The reason this is important is because Jesus was
the wicked priest and John the Baptist was the Teacher of
Righteousness.

Getting back to this thread, the Hebrews of antiquity tried
to prove that they were before the other civilizations
and thus they gave their patriarchs long lifespans. It
appears to me that Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Esau, Saul,
David, Solomon etc. are a mixture of the same stories retold
and that this "in the beginning" bullcrap began after 1000
b.c.e.

About incest and inbreeding the Jews did enough of that.
You have to realize that Cleopatra was a result of over
250 years of brother-sister inbreeding. She was a Greek with
a little bit of Persian thrown in. Incest is a bit overblown.


thanks, Offa

Marduk

"Getting back to this thread, the Hebrews of antiquity tried
to prove that they were before the other civilizations
and thus they gave their patriarchs long lifespans. "


This was a common game in ancient times, who was around the longest, the Egyptians & Sumerians played it well, check out the "Sumerian King List" it goes back over 40,000 years, with some guys living or reining for 2500 years or more, beats Noah by a long shot.

David M. Payne

Thanks for the input guys, the bible sure is a confusing source of information isn’t it? I’m not a biblical scholar like Nomad/BT, Bede, Metacrock etc, so I find it amusing that a neophyte in biblical lore like myself can find so many contradictions in a cursory look into the book.
So Bill, we may be “other people”? I read that link, I may have to change my approach to greeting fundies at the door.
Yoo-hoo, Nomad, Bede, Metacrock, etc, don’t you guys want to come out and play? It’s such a simple little question, are we (Mankind) the product if incest and inbreeding or not? Surely you guys can come up with a clear, concise, God inspired biblical answer to it, right?

[ July 29, 2001: Message edited by: David Payne ]

penface70

I've wondered about the question of incest in "early Genesis", too. I've been informed by JWs on my doorstep that incest was OK at the start as there was no other way of "going forth and multiplying", but it was later banned by the Mosaic Law (I can't give you a reference at the moment) when there were a sufficient number of partners available outside immediate kin. Seems to me like a trashy cop-out. Couldn't Yahweh have just magicked a few more sexual partners into existence from the start!?

xoc

Where did the wife come from? Of course it's not stated.

Did Cain get a wife on his journey? It doesn't say. "And Cain knew his wife" is all that is written. Which wife? Sister-wife? Foreign wife? There is no statement as to who this wife was. The only reason she is mentioned is when she gives birth to Cain's son. The only reason Cain and Abel were mentioned in Genesis 4 is because it is about the story of the first fratricide. Does that mean Cain and Abel were A&E's only children at the time? No reason to assume it does. Gen 4 is the story of Cain and Abel, not a genealogy.

It could as easily be argued that Cain must have been married prior to his exile since there is no mention of him finding her anywhere else.

As for the inherent immorality of incest, could someone argue why that is inherently evil? It's hard to imagine why something that is so disgusting to our minds could be OK in any situation, but people who grew up in a different culture may not feel the same way.
null

Kosh

I think it's pretty obvious why incest is
a bad thing from a procreation standpoint.
You tend to get these funny looking kids,
right? Hey it's as if somebody back then
understood genetics... (am I starting to
sound like Les?).

It's always seemed to me that a lot of
the "laws" had common sense reasons behind
them.

Incest == bad offspring == bad idea
Sexual promiscuity == STDs == bad idea

But hey, if you're going to try to get
people to follow common sense dictates,
you need a bigger stick to enforce it
with.

Oh hey, GOD said this is bad. And he'll
punish you if you do this, and there's
no getting away from him!

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

xoc

Good. So incest is bad because of inbreeding genetic problems. This can be detrimental to survival I suppose.

The usual response to that has something to do with the great initial conditions of A&E and the lack of development of diseases and genetic problems. Isn't the problem with inbreeding have to do with the double dose inheritence of certain genes that lead to problems, less likely to be a problem when combining more diverse gene pools?

So is there a problem with the initial procreative incest if no genetic problems come from them?

The human race had one directive at this point. Be fruitful and multiply. At this stage there are only so many ways to achieve such a result. The state of the world has changed since and different directives have come since. Different rules apply because it is a different world.

[ July 31, 2001: Message edited by: a_theistnotatheist ]