Ima_realist

Hi all, i'm new to this site. It's great to be able to see so many like-minded people and I look forward to some really good debates here.

Anyway, the thing that initially brought me here was an exchange I was having with a fundamentalist Christian on another forum. I proposed that the main problem behind the Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark storys is the idea of in-breeding. Surely the offspring resulting from Adam and Eve's children's copulation with the only other available humans, each other, would be crippled by physical and mental deficiencies. If not in the first few generations then soon after. I doubt we could have lasted longer than a hundred years or so, nevermind however long believers think we have been around.

He didn't really have answer other than that they might have been 'perfect genes' and that there was no mention of it here. I was just curious as to why it hasn't been mentioned before, or has been mentioned that much that no-one bothers to talk about it?

Toto

If you search this forum for "Cain wife" you will find that practically every possible issue around that fable has been discussed, including the genetic problem. I think that the Christian solution is that genes were somehow hardier in those days, less likely to mutate. Plus God helped things out, I'm sure.

Welcome to the forums!

Ima_realist

Aha! Thanks for that. From the incredibly deep philosphical debates i've seen so far I knew something so obvious must have been done to death.

Hardier genes, aah yes, of course, I should have known...

And thanks for the welcome.

hatsoff

I do believe incest between siblings could have been avoided, but sex necessarily occurred between first cousins, aunts-nephews or uncles-nieces. Would eight humans be sufficient to repopulate the earth? Maybe, maybe not. Christians would argue that obviously the eight were enough, since that's what the Bible says happened. Although such inbreeding would certainly threaten the survival of the human race, it wouldn't dash all hopes. And since we can't prove it's absolutely impossible, Christians allow themselves to believe it.

Ima_realist

I don't believe sex between siblings could be avoided in the case of Adam and Eve. Its just brother/sister, father/daughter or mother/son. Lovely stuff. They would have three arms and gills after about four generations!

WishboneDawn

Actually, this christian and many more would argue that the ones who think we came from a literal Adam and Eve are terminally anal.

Amaleq13

IIRC, population genetics suggests a minimum of around 200 humans is required to provide the necessary variation to ensure the survival of the species.

EssEff

Adam & Eve were just the first inbred family. Lot's daughters got him drunk and had sex with him, since they'd fled to some remote mountain and couldn't have children otherwise. Not having children was apparently not an option.

And don't forget Noah's family and the pairs they rescued. All land-dwelling species are supposedly descended from randomly selected M-F pairs.

Vicki

Adam and Eve aren't really the issue since according to the bible, all life was wiped out during the "Great Flood".

The arguments that refer to the "perfect genetics" of Adam and Eve do not "hold water" (sorry for the pun) because Noah and his descendents are the ones who populated the earth after the flood. Since they were born "after the fall" of humankind, the perfect gene argument is not valid.

djrafikie

Nicely done, I wish I had thought of that one!