2 Comments

1. gayle mcgee says:

   November 22, 2009 at 2:46 pm

   If Adam & Eve had Cain and Abel, how did they procreate from there?
2. by_grace says:

   November 23, 2009 at 4:33 pm

   Gayle,

   That’s a great question that has unfortunately confused many people over the years.

   Genesis 5:4 says that “After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.”

   These daughters married their brothers or nephews or great-nephews. With such long life-spans and large families, this would not have seemed strange. Actually, the law against close family marrying did not come until Leviticus 18. So, they would have had no reason to think it was weird at all. Even today, we do not have issues with marrying distant blood relatives because we are all blood relatives at some point, even if it’s back to Noah.

   As a side note, genetic defects would have been non-existent until the world was cursed and sin corrupted everything. So, the marrying of close relatives would not have been at all damaging originally.

   Thanks,
   William