My personal opinion: I think that at one time incest may not have been a sin. God may have used it to create the first few generations of people after Adam and Eve. Gen 20:12 seems to indicate that Sarah was Abraham's 1/2 sister. Also, I don't see any law indicating cousin marriage is a sin. Though it does double your risk for birth defects (but that is only up to 4% from 2% according to the National Society for Genetic Counslers). While I may personally find cousin marriage icky, it is not faith shaking.
Likewise, if Adam and Eve had children that married and reproduced before God made incest a sin, then it does not bother me. The marriages would have only been for a generation before they no longer had to marry brothers and sisters anyway.

Eve was the mother of all living according to Genesis 3:20. According to the Bible Cain took a wife in Genesis 4:17. No where does it say that Adam and Eve had daughters but the only conclusion we can draw is they did, and Cain took her as his wife. I agree with Mom96 incest was not a prohibition in the early does of the human race, if it was there would be no way for mankind to replenish the earth.

I am no bible scholar but didnt the great flood of Noah's time remove everything(human and animal) from the planet(Gen.6:17) Arent we decendants of Noah? I could be wrong but if Noah's daughters married outside of the family then we are not born of incest for they would have re-populated the land. Tell me what you think.

Genesis 9: 1.God blessed Noah and his sons and told them " Multiply and fill the earth" 7. now you must have many children and repopulate the earth. Yes, multiply and fill the earth.

If we are incestual, then its a more direct link to Noah, then Adam.

Noah took his 3 sons and their wives with him. They were already married. So I think their kids would have had cousin marriage. Adam and Eve's kids on the other hand......


Genesis 6--->
10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the arkâ??you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.


Also, meat eating got introduced after the flood, since the lion will lay down with the lamb, I wonder if we'll all be vegetarians in heaven?

Thank you for the topic and the fact that I said Noah's daughter instead of sons.

Wouldnt that be something to be a vegetarian in heaven as I like a good steak now and again!!

I had a freind that didn't beleive in God cause she said that b/c of what viet is asking.If incest was against God law then why did adam and eve children have relationship with there bro and sis. At the time i didn't have an answer for her. She is dead now and i wish i knew these answer back then so i could have explain this to her.It is true what the bible says My people parish for lack of knowledge.It hurts me and bothers me that she might not be in heaven.She was a good person and would do anything to help anyone,but that is not what is going to us into heaven.It's a realtionship with God.Something she didn't have.

i think people try to take the bible to literally. they want to disect every little part of it. here is one theologist take on it:
As the women at this period seem to be myths, no one takes the trouble to tell from whence they came. It is sufficient that their husbands know, and it is not necessary that the casual reader should. The question is often asked, whom did Cain marry? Some expositors say that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters living in different parts of the planet, and that they married each other.
so there you go you, for all any on knows, God put them on the earth for them to marry. it doesnt say he didnt. it doesnt say eve had daughters either, just that she had 2 sons, cain and abel. why even ask a question such as this?

I use to listen to the Shepard's Chapel on TV every morning before I went to work. I love this pastor's no nonsense way of explaining things. I hope I can get this right...........NO, we did not come from incest. The 6th day creation of "man" or Adam, was God created Adam, a farmer, red hair, ruddy complexion, to tend to the earth. But, "man" as we know him,(the population) was created with all the animals were created. So, in essence, God populated different parts of the world, outside of Eden with people, but "MaN" or Adam was created on the 6th day. Adam and Eve's children went out and found mates among the other people. As for being decedents of Noah, well, Noah, in essence was a descendant of Adam, so, we still would be a descendant of Adam. And, if I have this part right, that blood line leads to the Christ birth line.

I use to listen to the Shepard's Chapel on TV every morning before I went to work. I love this pastor's no nonsense way of explaining things. I hope I can get this right...........NO, we did not come from incest. The 6th day creation of "man" or Adam, was God created Adam, a farmer, red hair, ruddy complexion, to tend to the earth. But, "man" as we know him,(the population) was created with all the animals were created. So, in essence, God populated different parts of the world, outside of Eden with people, but "MaN" or Adam was created on the 6th day. Adam and Eve's children went out and found mates among the other people. As for being decedents of Noah, well, Noah, in essence was a descendant of Adam, so, we still would be a descendant of Adam. And, if I have this part right, that blood line leads to the Christ birth line.

First of all, I don't understand why people would consider Adam and Eve to be brother and sister... they were two of one flesh... married, not brethren. Although they both share the same Father God, so don't we all... and therefore wouldn't everyone who marries be then considered to be marrying incestuously if we deem it by these terms? I have heard it said, though, that the brother and sister issue was one where unrecorded sisters were born from adam and eve, and that cain and abel married their sisters, whose names were not recorded. Considering the intensity of the detail with which God put forth His word, I would hesitate to believe that adam and eve had more children who were not regarded in scripture.

I have also heard, as the shepherds chapel account suggests, that the adam and eve story of origin isn't intended to be the full account of the beginning of the inhabitation of the earth, but rather, the beginning of the ancestry of the Jewish people, Gods chosen, and that among the animals of the earth were also human animals, living outside of the garden... and that when cain and abel found wives, they came from other camps outside of the garden. Actually, this could support the theory of people developing from other primates, and wouldn't conflict with biblical creation, but would have just taken place independantly of the perfect garden of Eden.

One other thing which I just have to point on out in the interest of pure logic is this...

If Noah was a descendant of Adam and Eve.... then to say that we would only be descendants of Noah is to misunderstand HIS origin.... The notion that all of his descendants were destroyed by the flood (less those whom he took with him) doesn't change the notion that he was descended from Adam and Eve, and therefore, so is anyone who follows in his geneology. The only way that we could logically say that a descendant of Noah would trace only back TO Noah would be if Noah had been created by some means other than a direct geneological link to Adam and Eve.

In short, the suggestion is that Adam and Eve were not the first and only man and woman... but that they were the first of the chosen people who would come to be known as Jews.

Some things aren't meant to be taken so literally that common sense is pushed aside in favor of legalistic and/or fanatical beliefs based on far-fetched guesses about the origin of life on Earth.

Biblical writings use a wide variety of literary devices, elements and techniques. When studying the Scriptures, readers need to be aware of the different ways in which the writings are being presented.
http://mrbraiman.home.att.net/lit.htm or google "literary devices". (Metaphor, allegory, imagery, figurative
language, context... )

Be careful treading on shaky ground w.r.t. the idea that only the "Jews" are to be understood as descendants of "Adam and Eve". Jews traditionally attribute our ancestry and/or origin to the 2nd milleniun BCE at the time of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Issac and Jacob). A lot of "begetting" happened between the time of Adam and Eve's three sons and the nomadic life of Abraham.