In the Beginning...Let There Be Inbreeding? (Part 2)

 

Adriaen de Vries (1550/60-1626): Cain killing Abel, 1622, KMS5492

In the Beginning…Let There Be Inbreeding? – Part 2

Post #5 of the “Eleven Toes” Series

 

 

This article isa continuation of Post #4, giving presuppositions for the purpose of these posts, as well as the beginning. Big presupposition: The Bible is true and Genesis is a literal historical narrative. If you don’t believe that, I’m probably going to lose you.

 

Genesis 4 – The first and second male children of Adam and Eve were Cain and Abel. Of course, Abel did not have any children, since Cain murdered him. This brought Cain into a precarious position with God and his family, becoming “a fugitive and a vagabond…in the earth” and going “out from the presence of the Lord” (verses 14 & 16). However, he still got married and began a family line that continued up to the Deluge.

 

Now the questions begin: Who did Cain marry? Countless armchair theologians have insisted that Cain could not have married a sister or close relative, but as you can see from the presuppositions and Biblical truth extrapolated from Gen. 1:26-28, I would say Cain married a sister. Why would these armchair theologians insist something so dogmatically? (By the way, I haven’t a single issue with the existence of armchair theologians. Keep reading, studying, making your presuppositions, etc. You don’t need a seminary degree for that or be considered a scholar. I consider myself an armchair theologian.)

·       Incest is gross, and marrying siblings and parents is both immoral and unhealthy.

·       The Levitical laws of Leviticus 18 & 20 prohibit incest. Because “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), the law must have been as valid then as when delivered through Moses.

 

However, for there to be non-relatives for Cain (and his brothers and sisters) to marry, we must draw these conclusions:

      ·       The ONLY reason every human being today is a direct descendant of Adam and Eve is because of Noah and his descendants. But…

      ·       Not everyone prior to Noah would have been a direct descendant of Adam and Eve.

·       Other people would have been created by God much like Adam and Eve instead of being born of a woman. Thus, Adam and Eve weren’t the only humans without belly buttons! Unless…

      ·       Darwinian evolution is true to some extent (Gap theory, Day/Age, etc.), and true enough to make humanity existent before the days of Adam and Eve.

      ·       Also, meaning death would have occurred before the original sin of Adam and Eve (recorded in Genesis 3).

      ·       Further, if the Mosaic Law is immutable, what does that say about today? Are we still under the law and not under grace?

 

I reject these possibilities, due to Unapologetic Proposition #7! Therefore, I firmly believe Cain married his full sister.

As an aside, the first polygamy relationship recorded in Scripture occurs in this chapter, within the family of Cain. Genesis 4:19 states, “And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.” I have no idea how these two women would fit in this family line outside of marrying Lamech, but I do find it interesting that the first recorded case of polygamy didn’t occur until Generation 7 of humanity (particularly given how long they lived prior to the flood – Yep, I believe the years are literal too! 😉). Doesn’t mean it didn’t occur before, and the two wives play a role in Lamech’s lament in v. 23-24 (about killing a man in self-defense).

 

Genesis 5 – God provided Adam and Eve with “another seed instead of Abel” (Gen. 4:25), in Seth. He is described as “a son in [Adam’s] own likeness, and after his image” (5:3). Then we see that Adam and his sons lived an incredibly long time (930 years for Adam. If he had died the year I was born, he would have potentially remembered the East-West split of the Church or William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings).

 

Even though I’ve made presuppositions about Adam and his children not necessarily doing this, these men (and others if these lengths of life were normative) could have married women within a span of several generations.

 

If the First Gospel means much of anything (Genesis 3:15), clearly a lot of inbreeding happened in the early centuries of mankind. I won’t address much about the health and vitality of this consequence (if interested, look up this kind of info with Answers in Genesis). If we choose to declare the inerrancy of Scripture, we must come to grips with this truth. The next post will be a bit more technical (but hopefully the fun sort of technical, and I’ll post it Monday since it won’t be a biblical post), then the next two posts will tackle the “Reset” of Genesis 6-11. Until then…

 

Questions to consider:

1.     What is your view about the validity of the Mosaic Law before the revelation to the Israelites through Moses? Is there something true about the theory of its immutability (much like the triune God)?

2.     What do you think of my thoughts that the First Gospel could be in jeopardy without the inbreeding of early generations descended from Adam and Eve? Are they reasonable?