Adam and Eve??

If anyone is interested there is a very good App you can get called the Bible Project, I listen to the podcasts, their series called The Creation Series has really helped me understand the creation story and especially the early parts of Genesis. It helps to understand that the Bible is ancient literature and it is helpful to read it as such, all parts of the Old and New Testament lead to Jesus. There is another series on Bible project on how to read the Bible. The Bible is not a rule book it is a revealing of God’s character and his love for us. There are some terrible stories in there but terrible things have always happened and will keep happening until Jesus returns.

Well I don’t Adam and Eve it.

Bluebelle I don't understand the old testament at all. I (try to) live by the teachings of Jesus.

Well if there were already tribes of people before Adam and eve pollinsworth where did they all come from ? and why then did eve have to come from a rib Adam would have had plenty of women to choose from
I don’t get any of it, it’s beyond me, anyone can make any interpretation of anything in it so what is the point of it all ?
Some people live by the bible so what do they live by ?

Cain and Able, Cain is the one that murdered his brother Able. Cain went East to the land of Nod and took a wife. Land of Nod was east of Eden. Eden was in the palimar plateau area which is western china there he took a wife of the oriental people already established there for 1,000s of years prior to Adam and Eve and Cain.

It's like a long drawn out fairy story. I'd take it with a large pinch of salt, as my mother used to say.

Well if the “older lady” can believe that Eve was made from one of Adams ribs, surely the question of further procreation is a mere technicality?

Well if you actually read the Bible Genesis 5:4 you will see that after Seth, Adam lived a further 800 years ‘and had other sons and daughters’.

More interestingly Genesis 6:2 tells us that “the sons of God*(the Nepholim) saw that the *daughters of men were beautiful and lay with them as those chose”.

Make of that what you will.

If you want to understand the creation myths literally, then there are three obvious possibliities :

Either Cain and Abel had sisters, whose names have not come down to us, and had children with them, or they had a child with their mother, or they were not acutally the only people on earth.

The first two possiblities later generations consider incestuous and wrong, but could be explained by them having no other way to obey the injunction to be fruitful and multiply!

The Creation story we read in the bible is the explanation given by one religious tradition originally. Presumably there were other people on earth at the time, with other traditions and Adam and Eve's sons, or at least Cain and Seth, as Cain had killed Abel probably before Abel married anyone, can have married women from another tribe.

In the book of Proverbs wisdom is personified as a woman . Just saying.

It's a myth, meant to be taken as a kind of poetry, and not analyzed literally. If we do that with the Bible, it's largely a lot of nonsense.

Example: Noah built a boat big enough to hold two of each animal on earth, and then God destroyed all the rest of the animals plus mankind, because the people had been "bad" and needed to be punished? And what about all the animals who live in the sea? Did they drown also?

It's kind of fun to estimate how many whoppers there are in that story! It sounds like something a 5-year-old would write!

The question about where did the women come from that Cain married is an old conundrum. Of course there's no answer. There was probably no Cain, and no Adam and Eve either. It's just a poetic fairy tale.

Going back to the OP - I heard another answer to where did the wife come from? In those days every birth produced 6 babies including some girls.
Also other nations were being created at the same time so some marriages were from outside of the family.
So God only knows - literally.

HolySox, Jesus of Nazareth is extremely credible because he lived what he preached all during his life and death.

And here's an article where there are many many more:

www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/ranked-10-paintings-of-judith-beheading-holofernes

Artemisia Gentileschi and Caravaggio both painted the Judith and Holofernes story.

(Just in case anyone from ages ago is interested)

Caleo always good to look at these issues.

Jesus said "I am the truth" so I guess we agree on God being the absolute truth.

I am glad to have been able to discuss this with you HolySox, and thanks for discussing it. I can understand your interpretation ' I was reared with that belief, and my dear father lived all his life in that belief.

I have come to believe that God is different from His creation only insofar as He is absolute truth whereas we are each of us only components of truth.

Caleo

Lillian, your informant was mistaken, God did not create the Cosmos; God is the Cosmos.

Old post but happy to respond if people are still interested.
Very first line of The Bible says " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". I think this means not just the physical universe but also the spiritual domains - He isn't 'the cosmos' (God in us). He is outside of His creation.

As a Christian I have to believe in the literal tale of Adam being created from dust with Eve created from Adam. They sinned and so are their descendants are in sin - separated from God (i.e. we no longer can 'know' him). The Bible also calls Jesus a 'second Adam' - we can be re-born through Jesus to know God. Basis of Christianity.

As for Cain's wife - Adam and Eve had other children, the Bible mentions Seth. I heard say their children were close to 'perfection' (newly created) so they could bear children without blemish. There is an ancient 'Book of Adam and Eve' that recalls them having 75 children but I don't know how reliable that book is.

Lillian, your informant was mistaken, God did not create the Cosmos; God is the Cosmos.

Bikergran, it is a pity the old lady does not extract some useful theme from the story in Genesis, instead of thinking of the story as historical fact.

I wonder is she has been taught every story in The Bible is historical fact.

Elegran loving your Biblical story of Judith, inspiring and powerful. Is it the stories themselves their literal interpretation, or whether they are fables mythologies or holy inspiration that’s important, or is it the meaning we choose to abstract from them, and so better understand our selves and others.

Probably because people like me - unused to Gransnet and newbies - comment on them having failed to notice THE DATE ?

I find it really interesting that so many old threads are being dug up at the moment !

As a Christian, I would normally get more involved, but the thread is ten years old!

The question about Adam and Eve has confused people for many years As it has been previously mentioned, it is not meant to be taken literally. The word EVE isn't a single women, it is Women and the word Adam is not meant as a Man, but Men. Most of the Bible has been misunderstood because of translation. If you Read Adam as men and Eve as Women, it then makes sense. To read the bible takes a lot of seeing beneath the words you are reading. I was told by a great scholar, a lady Physicist who became a priest and then went to teach in a University, Science and religion do go hand in hand when explained by an expert. God created the Cosmos.