World population

[Lamb]

Are you in the camp who believes we all come from Adam and Eve or do you believe that God created other people (which is not listed in scripture) to help populate the world?

And in that same vein, what about after the flood with Noah and his family?

 

[psalms 91]

I take it all literally

 

[Ruth]

I believe in Evolution but still am not sure of it or creation.

 

[Hammster]

Are you in the camp who believes we all come from Adam and Eve or do you believe that God created other people (which is not listed in scripture) to help populate the world?

And in that same vein, what about after the flood with Noah and his family?

I have no reason to doubt the biblical account.


Sent from my iPhone using my right thumb.

 

[BruceLeiter]

Are you in the camp who believes we all come from Adam and Eve or do you believe that God created other people (which is not listed in scripture) to help populate the world?

And in that same vein, what about after the flood with Noah and his family?

I'm "camping" with those who believe we are all descended from Adam and Eve through Noah. The problem some people have with the Bible's history is that the history doesn't seem to be long enough for billions of people to descend from Adam through Noah, which the Bible clearly says.

That problem can be solved with the understanding that the prophet Moses, who wrote Genesis, condensed the history to be God-centered and to bring praise to him for his creative power, love, and justice. It is condensed history to show truths about God, not like the chronological history that modern historians use. Thus, the time is probably a lot longer than Bishop Usher thought it was, when he put creation at 4,000 B.C.

 

[Lamb]

I'm "camping" with those who believe we are all descended from Adam and Eve through Noah. The problem some people have with the Bible's history is that the history doesn't seem to be long enough for billions of people to descend from Adam through Noah, which the Bible clearly says.

That problem can be solved with the understanding that the prophet Moses, who wrote Genesis, condensed the history to be God-centered and to bring praise to him for his creative power, love, and justice. It is condensed history to show truths about God, not like the chronological history that modern historians use. Thus, the time is probably a lot longer than Bishop Usher thought it was, when he put creation at 4,000 B.C.

I think what people like to avoid is that siblings reproduced and then cousins reproduced. That's why they say that other people were created to avoid that.

 

[Frankj]

I think what people like to avoid is that siblings reproduced and then cousins reproduced. That's why they say that other people were created to avoid that.

I think it should be considered that in the earliest days of man, the days of Adam, mankind was genetically perfect and there were no genetic reasons for close relatives to avoid having children with each other as they would be passing on perfect genetic traits without any negative ones involved.

As far as I can determine, the first prohibition against marriage and reproduction wasn't given until Leviticus 18, which was long after the flood and even longer after the fall of man from the perfection of the garden.

I think it is best to avoid viewing the original antediluvian world by the conditions and standards that are in use now, they are two entirely different situations with two entirely different standards and conditions.

Of course, I may be wrong and stand to be corrected if others have different Biblical references I am not considering.

 

[tango]

I think what people like to avoid is that siblings reproduced and then cousins reproduced. That's why they say that other people were created to avoid that.

It's not even so much about siblings reproducing. If Adam and Eve had two sons then unless there were other women around from somewhere it means one of the sons reproduced with Eve.

When Cain was sent away he found a wife, although who she was is unclear because until then there is no explicit record of any other females existing. So it doesn't seem like a huge stretch to figure there were other people around even if the text doesn't explicitly say where they came from.

 

[Uncle_Sol]

Some additional elements in my opinion are probably as follows.

1 ~ theologically this is a way of demonstrating that our "spiritual lineage" - people to whom revelation was revealed and who talked about it - was specific and providential amid contingencies. Besides A&E there is brief mention of revelation to Abel, Cain, Enosh and his contemporaries, Lamech, and many others. These revelations foreshadow the revelation that we have now received, if our churches are talking about it well enough!

2 ~ A&E and their circumstances were the furthest back piece of history that was being remembered. Thus the spiritual meaning of "first ancestors" could be hooked onto them as a sort of visual aid.

3 ~ The damage of sins (bad boundaries) and what is instrumentalised thereby, to relating, psychology and epigenetics is so universal, we cannot avoid it. That is what God's wrath is against which is why He foretells His way of saving Christ and, through dual-action Holy Spirit, us all from these effects.

4 ~ Anthropologists have taken to calling some actual hypothetical persons from (at one estimate) 80,000 y a or before, Y-Adam and Mito-Eve as a mnemonic for how various fields of knowledge have been unfolding together. This is not meant to convey specifically that the A&E in Genesis are necessarily the very same ones nor to actually disprove a range of ideas either.

 

[BruceLeiter]

I think it should be considered that in the earliest days of man, the days of Adam, mankind was genetically perfect and there were no genetic reasons for close relatives to avoid having children with each other as they would be passing on perfect genetic traits without any negative ones involved.

As far as I can determine, the first prohibition against marriage and reproduction wasn't given until Leviticus 18, which was long after the flood and even longer after the fall of man from the perfection of the garden.

I think it is best to avoid viewing the original antediluvian world by the conditions and standards that are in use now, they are two entirely different situations with two entirely different standards and conditions.

Of course, I may be wrong and stand to be corrected if others have different Biblical references I am not considering.

However, the fall of Adam and Eve affected them, the universe, and the whole human race so that even their genetics were affected by sin. The result is that we are conceived and born as slaves to Satan (Ephesians 2:1-3) and have to be taught that God should be the center of our lives, not ourselves.