Were Adam and Eve's children incestuous?

Answer 1

Other opinions from contributors:

No they weren't, Eve gave birth -each time- to twins: a male and a female. So, she gave birth first to Cain (Qaabeel) and his sister 'Iqleemaa' then Abel (Haabeel) and his sister 'Labodaa'.

Opinion: If The Bible is read literally (which it ought to be because if God didn't literally create us, love us and die for us, then the Bible doesn't help us at all), Adam and Eve are the only two humans, so yes their children did have to commit incest to continue growing the population. Adam lived over 900 years and had many, many children one can assume (be fruitful and multiply and all that). Even his children could have had children! This means that by the time Cain leaves he may have had a number of relatives, and the fact that a woman left with him seems very plausible. Long lifespans create the possibility for population explosions unlike anything we can imagine.

The fact that God used incest is not necessarily a contradiction to the law he later gives not to do it. If Adam and Eve were created to live forever (death entered the world for them after sin) then they would be thought to have perfect genetic compositions. If that is the case incest wouldn't be of any harm. Only later, after sin and disease and bad recessive genes come about would incest be capable of hurting the offspring. Exactly how long would it take before people could be harmed by incest? I would guess right around the time God forbade it to his people. A similar thing was done when God told the Israelites not to eat pork, as pork was hard to cook properly and made many people sick. Later, Jesus says that he fulfills that portion of the law and we can eat pork now that it was being cooked in a way that is not harmful. God watches out for us with his Word, its one way he shows he loves us.

Opinion:

It is not really true. The biblical story of Adam and Eve is considered by some to be mythical, and was not intended to be analysed too carefully. Our true early ancestors arose in Africa hundreds of thousand of years ago.

Opinion: If you hold the Bible to be true, then Adam was the first man (see 1 Corinthians 15:45) and since he is listed in the geneology of Jesus (see Luke 3:38), we can assume he is not mythical. That being the case, then yes, Adam and Eve's grandchildren would be the product of their sons and daughters marrying, which today would be considered incestuous, but back then it was not since the laws were different at that time, because early on there were no genetic defects to worry about. How else could mankind fulfill the command to be fruitful and multiply? (Gen. 1:28)

Opinion:

Notice that it states in the Bible that "...Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch." (Gen. 4:16-17)

Now, how can there be a city if there are no people to live in it other than one man, his wife and their son? One household a city does not make. How could it be possible that there were no others in the world when Adam, Eve and their two sons, Cain and Abel, were driven from the Garden of Eden -- yet Cain finds his wife, who he "knew" before Eve gave birth to another child (Gen. 4:25)?

Well, the answer may lie in this: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." (Gen. 6:1-2)

It seems the Garden of Eden was not the only place where people lived. Yet, strangely, the Bible never reveals exactly where the wives of Cain, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, etc, etc, etc, actually came from. If the wives of Cain and Seth were the daughters of Adam and Eve, why not say so, instead of saying "the sons of God took the daughters of men as their wives"? So far, the only clue is that Cain ended up in the land of Nod, where he "knew his wife". But there is at least one more clue, and it occurs before Adam and Eve "know" each other again.

"And Cain said unto the Lord, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from Thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me'. And the Lord said unto him, 'Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.' And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." (Gen. 4:13-15)

The final clue is the fact that there is always such genetic mutation within three generations of the type of incest which must have been occurring between Adam's sons and his daughters. Therefore, had all humans alive today actually descended directly from Adam and Eve, we would all have severe mental and physical disabilities, all 6.8 Billion of us on this planet we call Earth (Office of Population Research, Princeton University) -- unless the Scientifically proven fact that such genetic mutations are the direct result of father-daughter/mother-son incest is something which came about only after the time of Adam and Eve. If that is the case, one has to wonder why the resulting mutation is not mentioned in the Bible as some form of punishment, as the suffering through the sweat of the brow is. (Gen. 3:17-19)

Given all the Scientific facts, and the clues provided in the Bible, as well as using logical reasoning, it can not be true that Adam and Eve's grandchildren were really the product of incest.

Opinion

This issue is only one of many contradictions in the Bible. There are only two possible explanations. Either Adam and Eve and their children had incestuous relationships in order to procreate, or, the creation story whereby a god created the first two humans on Earth is not true. Of course, that casts doubt on the basic Christian belief that a god created the first "marriage" and that it was between a man and a woman.

The contradictions in the Bible, especially this issue regarding Adam and Eve and the human race, provide compelling evidence that it was compiled as a collection of creation myths, moral lessons and monotheistic religious teachings written and rewritten by many authors over a very long period of time.

Answer 2

In the Bible, if read literally, Cain was married before Adam had yet had a daughter. So this would seem to rule out incest. It is only at Genesis 5:4 that we read of Adam having daughters, after the birth of Seth. However, we could say that there were earlier daughters whose births were simply not recorded.
An alternative to incest can be found at Genesis 5:1-2, which has been inserted out of context into the story of Adam's children: "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created."

Remembering that Adam in Hebrew can also be simply 'man', this could be seen as a repetition of the first creation account of man in Genesis 1:27. In the first creation account, we don't know how many males and females God made, nor do we know at 5:1-2. He simply made man, both male and female, and named them all 'Adam'.

However, many scholars believe that the stories of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel are myths. S. H. Hooke (Middle Eastern Mythology) shows a clear parallel between the biblical account and an older middle eastern myth in which Tammuz had to choose between the shepherd-god and the farmer-god. The stories of Adam and Eve's children are simply myths that are not meant to be understood literally or rationally. Thus, we need not wonder whether they were incestuous or whether God created more than 2 persons.

Answer 3

Yes, according to the Bible, Adam and Eve's children married their siblings. This was necessary in order to populate the Earth since they were the first humans.