HELP? How Do I Explain Adam/Eve, Where We Came From?

Someone mentioned Answers in Genesis. They have an article on this very question. It's a little long, but well worth the read: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/who-was-cain...

I personally think you are doing your son a disservice. This is wonderful creation story - but it is not the only one. Remember that even if you take the bible completely literally as God's word that it was written by humans (who are not perfect nor able to perfectly understand anything) and translated many times. Thus, each story can be taken as a way to understand something - but we should not get stuck on the details, because it is almost impossible that those details are the same as the details that were in God's mind.

In my opinion, you should tell your son that there are many creation stories, each of which are different. Find some and share those with your son, as well. Ask him what is the same and different about each one. Get him thinking - he's going to think anyway, so you might as well foster that rather than simply feeding him the answer that you want.

Secondly, it's important that you reconcile creation stories with evolution, which is as fundamental as gravity. If you believe in gravity, you should also believe in evolution - because evolution has just as much evidence behind it as does gravity. You can present evolution as just another creation story if you like, but it's also important to note that this is a creation story that is supported by evidence, whereas the others are not.

Wow, congratulations on raising a really intelligent, inquisitive young man!!!
I have had these types of questions over the years from my own children and from children that I taught in Sunday School. My general answer has always been that the Bible is not a COMPLETE story of history, in other words, just because God chose to have Adam and Eve included in the accounts of the beginning of the earth does not mean that they were the ONLY two that He created. Also tell him that a really large part of being a Christian is FAITH...and that means we don't have all of the answers because if we had all of the answers then there would be no need for Faith.

I asked my dad the same question when I was about 10 or so. His answer was great, he said: "The bible says that Adam and Eve were the first created in his image. The bible doesn't specify that the Lord did not create more in his image after that."

I thought it was a great, logical answer at the time. Now I see that it was simple and truthful.
I am not a Christian anymore, but I still appreciate my dad's commonsense approach to all my youthful inquiries.

If you really take a look at incest theories, they are not really that accurate if you are basing the incest family line from two sons that took their wives from distant cities.(That is what caught my attention when I was 10 and reading the bible, where did these cities come from that the sons took their wives from:)

Good luck and it sounds like you have an early critical thinker, which is a wonderful thing:)

The way I have always looked at it was, the bible explains that God created Adam and Eve and tells their story but he does not elaborate whether or not he created others. The main point of the bible is for the message, although I take the stories literally I also understand that there are great pieces of information that are missing. When it really comes down to it, those missing pieces are not really relative to the message, we are told what we need to know. It is called Faith, that is why some of us have it and some of us don't.

You can even apply this concept to so many things, e.g. how old the earth is, why doesn't the bible mention dinosaurs, evolution, etc. These pieces of information really do not teach us anything about love, faith, eternal life, etc. They are just missing facts that one day we will learn I am sure.

Good luck and congrats on a super smart little boy.

That kind of approach to answering truly normal and appropriate questions was part of what finally drove me from being willing to accept any particular dogma at completely face value.

What did you tell yourself when you wondered about this? And does your religion allow for any possibility that "THE" Bible is really the end product of multiple translations of multiple works that were written at multiple times by multiple authors in multiple languages and multiple settings? Is it possible at all that any of what you find in YOUR Bible is different than what someone else might find in THEIR Bible--perhaps the one 200 years ago that was translated from some other language until it ended up in your hands?

I can only see the Bible as a vast and wonderful metaphorical story which attempts to explain where we came from and who we are, with various ideas from various ruling parties and conquerors trying to also present their point of view. None of the writers were "Christian" in the Old Testament--it was long before Christ was born. Many of the stories are amazingly similar in every detail to ancient stories from India, Egypt, Africa, and Tibet. Is it possible that all the rich travelling between these cultures impacted every culture?

Ultimately, if you truly believe that this is how Adam (translated means "First Man" ) and Eve (translated means "First Woman") came about--literally, then why cannot you believe that at the beginning it was ok with God that they interact with one another until there were a few cousins around?

Hi--
It sounds to me as if your son is not the only one questioning. Truthfully, all the answers you've received below offer good suggestions for your dilemma. I think the real thing to focus on here is that you are having a dilemma. It is good for your son to come to his belief system through his own questioning so he knows why he believes what he does. It is also good for you to go through this same process. All beliefs are just that, beliefs. They cannot be proven and therefore none of them are right or wrong. So what is important is not that we simply have faith, but that we know why we believe what we believe and have faith based on something more than because your parents or your pastor said you should. The answers that you and your son find on this journey of questioning will lead you further into knowing yourself and your unique purpose here in the world. What a gift. I would suggest that you use the answers below to help you search: look at other religions, other creation stories, logic, science, further writings on your own religion. What a wonderful adventure. Good luck!
J.

Look for a church with an open minded leader, maybe they can help answer questions. I would say some version of we don't know every detail of things that happened in the distant past, not everything got written down.

Honestly, I am similar in personality and was a kid who always asked a lot of questions. Asking questions about religion was frequently not encouraged to the point that I do not even want to be bothered with christianity or most other religions (too frustrating to be asked to believe something that did not make sense to me). That is just me and I was not raised in a family where religion is important. I do think there are some famous writings regarding doubts leading to greater faith (maybe Thomas Aquinas or some other medieval scholar?) but I am not too well informed in this subject area.

Yup... the technical answer IS incest. Incest was also a popular concept throughout Christendom for almost 2000 years. The whole "keeping lines pure"... although the Egyptians also had incest in their royal houses, as did and do many others. Even commoners practiced incest. Halfbrothers would often wed half sisters in order to cement their position (whether the inheritance was a family farm or an estate). Of course, it's why so many royal lines died out, or went mad and were replaced. And although commonly practiced... not it wasn't (obviously) what most people did. Kind of like 100,000 sports cars or a yugo car... anyone CAN buy one, but few do.

But back to incest. It wasn't really frowned upon as an institution until people started rebelling against monarchies. Then it was one more thing that was a slur against them, and the process naturally died out amongst the people who ridiculed it. Kissing Cousins was the closest we commoners could stomach.

Once science took off though... and studies were made about incest (both genetically & psychologically)... is when incest REALLY got a bad name. So only in the past 100 years or so. A lot really has changed in the past 2 centuries. I get to vote, children are schooled by age in isolation, we've walked on the moon, carry phones in our pockets. It's not surprising that the church hasn't really gotten around to the whole incest question.

My personal feeling is that if *I* were colonizing a planet, and *I* had unlimited resources, what *I* would do it smash hundreds, thousands of bits of genetic code into each and every individual. So that the species would be as different individual to individual (sibs or not) as people could be. Furthermore *I* would make it a failsafe to not allow duplicates until the megastrand of DNA had been exhausted. But that's me. I also think such heretical things as the whole missing rib is the missing leg on XY chromosomes. But that's the fun of turning things around in your own mind. You can come up will all sorts of possibilities. If I ever meet my maker, I'll ask just what was up.

Best,
R

If you are religious and want to teach to the Bible, I assume you speak about faith. That is how we were taught as children in the Catholic Church. You have faith that there is an Almighty God who created earth and then humans.

In our Episcopal Church we were taught that the Bible was a book written by men to teach law and the love of God. But we were taught the scientific principals of how life on earth has been studied.

Your son sounds very intelligent, may be good thing to explore together as a family, especially over the summer. Study different religions and beliefs as well as what science has to say about it.

The bible tells us God created Adam & Eve and that they had increase and doesn't explain the rest. Therefore, there are many different theories - as you can see from your answers - that are plausible. I have always believed that their children then paired up & procreated. I have never looked at is as "incest" in the way we look at it, however. When Adam & Eve were created, their gene pool was pure. The mutations that make incest and marrying close relatives a problem today due to birth defects and weakening of the gene pool did not exist. It was all they knew and was therefore not a problem or something I have a problem with. I would definitely have a problem with it today. I think this is an excellent opportunity to explain to your son that different people think differently about things in different time periods and different regions of the world. What seems strange to us is perfectly normal under different circumstances. It's also a great opportunity to show that God's laws apply under all of these times and circumstances and serve to make us happy when we follow them. The more things change - the more certain parts of human experience remain the same. The way of life in the Bible was so different from how we live today, yet the stories and lessons can be applied to our own daily lives in wonderful ways and can be so useful to us today.

T.,

I found myself asking some questions about my own beliefs for the same reason. My kids were wanting information, and the amorphous blob of stories, teachings and facts floating around in my head needed some clarification. My one best suggestion is to read "When God was a woman" by Merlin Stone. I have also been told that "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" is good, but I haven't read it yet.

This really brought up some lurking questions--and strangely, a lot of the answers came from the Bible.

Best wishes and blessings

There is a Christian based company out there called Answers in Genesis that tries to help people answer that and other interesting questions I'm sure your son will come up with eventually, you can find them at http://www.answersingenesis.org/
I have found some of their books and videos at my local library written by the founder, Ken Ham.

No matter how old we are, there are things we do not understand. Sometimes there's a more technical answer but we go with a more age appropriate version till we're a bit older. And other times, we just don't know and we may never know. When they say it's God's word - they are saying they don't know, but they think God knows and he'll give us a more technical answer when we're ready for it.

The Spirituality of Parenting was the June 17, 2010 topic on a wonderful public radio program called Speaking of Faith. You can listen to this on the website (http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2010/spir..., or get an mp3 or podcast of the program.

It offers thoughtful insights into how children process the great religious questions, and how parents can best enrich their natural search for meaning. Enjoy!

oops! this is not the question I meant to respond too...sorry
You got some good answers though!!

Hi,

I think I have the answer. If you look in the Old Testament, look at the ages of people when they died. Back in Adam's day, they lived hundreds of years before they died, having children for hundreds of years. Read Genesis 5 with your son.

For example, Adam lived to be 930 years old before he died. The entire time, as read in Genesis 5, he had sons of daughters who were having sons and daughters. There was no need for incest like we know it. Adam and Even probably had hundreds of children. Of their first kids that grew up together, they didn't need to marry each other. Their life spans were all so long their were plenty of people to choose from. It's not like they got married when they were 20 to their sister that they grew up with and had kids. Genesis 5:9 says, "And Enos lived 90 years and begat Cainan. So obviously their fertility and life spans were way longer spans than ours. They were marrying 3rd and 4th cousins easily.

We believe that Adam and Eve had lots of children. There is no account for them having children in the Garden of Eden, but God did say that he would greatly increase her pains in childbearing. Back in the days of the Bible and even later humans didn't have an "understanding" of incest as we do today. And you can find cousins marrying cousins and so forth throughout history. To keep bloodlines pure and to keep certain valuables in the family that is what families did. They married their own family. Today we think it is something that is disgusting and wrong, but that is just what happened. You can find, still today, that going on in certain cultures. Hope this has helped you.

T.,

I hope you find a great answer to this!! But as far as I understand it, it would have to be an 'incest' thing. BUT the major flaw with that idea is the gross out factor... our gene pool was perfect then and wouldn't have had any terrible consequences or results. We are LDS and I can't recall a really great answer being given in Sunday School either... but there has to be an answer... right?? :)

Good luck with that inquisitive understanding little boy!!
V.

I would answer him honestly with I don't know. We don't know the answer and we will not know the answer until we go to heaven. Everything else is just speculation, what we, with our limited knowledge, create so that we have some way of understanding of it. I would be honest and tell him to talk to God about it because only He has the answer. Some things we just have to take by faith. We cannot understand it all, but must trust God. Hope this helps a little.