How is it possible that Adam and Eve created a population so large?

edited August 2006 in Faith Issues
Hey everyone,

I'm sort of confused on how it is possible for 6 billion people to come from only 2 people, Adam and Eve.
In order for this to happen, Adam and Eve's sons and daughters would have had to have relations with each other. However, I was taught that the more related the parents are, the greater the chances that the offspring will be deformed. So, wouldn't the fact that brothers and sisters had relations with each other mean that their offspring were really deformed?

Comments

  • [quote author=esakla23 link=board=1;threadid=4364;start=0#msg60005 date=1157001285]
    Hey everyone,

    I'm sort of confused on how it is possible for 6 billion people to come from only 2 people, Adam and Eve.
    In order for this to happen, Adam and Eve's sons and daughters would have had to have relations with each other. However, I was taught that the more related the parents are, the greater the chances that the offspring will be deformed. So, wouldn't the fact that brothers and sisters had relations with each other mean that their offspring were really deformed?


    well you are right in the deformed right but it didn't apply hundreds of years ago. same as sicknesses didn't appear as much as now. the oldest man alive lived 969 years, if he was deformed would he have been there for all these years.
  • well esamla..

    u have to remember humans have been on the earth for MILLIONS OF YEARS!!! MILLIONS...

    this is how so many people came to be...

    secondly..dont underestimate GOD power..as if he obviously didnt want adam and eves grandshildren not to be deformed..so he didnt..

    there is no debate to that..

    and lastly..it was okaiie for them to have a realtionship..God allowed it..just like the way God allowed this girl in the bible (dunno her name) to get her father drunk and have a BABY with him (and i dont remmeber why)
  • Why, it couldn't have been possible for humankind to have lived for millions of years. In the gospel of Saint Matthew, the geneology (list of descendants) of Christ is listed from Adam straight to him. In total the amount of generations is 42. Now, theoritcally, if you estimated each generation to be 100 years old each, it would only amount to 4200 years.
    Nothing in the millions. From what youve said, i assume that you think that humans were actually created near the beginning of the creation of the world. This is not entirely true, since we were created after time (The days of the sun and the seasons) was invented while the earth was not limited by a geological time scale (since the sun was created after). Hence why scientists get wacky scales saying the earth is millions of years old...

    In reference to the topic question, Adam and Eve had more children than just Cain and Abel. But remember, the human race was killed off by the flood and so Noah's family had to repopulate the world. This still wouldn't matter, since four pairs of spouses would have helped revive the population. Now, Noah and his children reached ages beyond what humans these days could ever achieve and so they had the potential to have far more children (God had not put age restrictions yet on humans). As a result, the human population would have increased exponentially, until 6 billion people now exist...

    Hope that clears up some of the issues

    +CD+
  • ohh thanks heaps CD i assumed with the earth being 'millions of years old' that so too would humans...


    very insitefull..

    so yes hopefully that answers a bit of ur question esakla
  • Coptic Dragon

    when u say each generation was 100 yrs i dont think that to be true. in the OT people lived to hundreds of yrs old

    your reasoning is neither logical nor scientific i think u need to do more research


    kristina123
  • Hey People

    Multiplication by two is something amazing.

    Take a look at this example

    If i owned a fruit shop and i wanted someone to work for 1 month (31 days), i could offer them two salaries.

    1) $ 1 000 000 up front or

    2) I would give them 1 cent on the first day and double it on the next and so on ....ie.1, 2, 4.... etc

    Now you being smart people which salary would u choose?

    ps....option 2 is better to the tune of 10 times!!!

    From this i think if there was a mathematician amongst us they could work out from the time of noah till now how many people in the world there should be..........im no genius but i can tell u it is todays population, ofcourse this isnt plausible because we dont know how many people died.

    Further Esakla23 God created Adam and Eve perfect......now to imply that they would have "deformed" kids is implying that the creation of God isnt perfect. I HOPE U ARE NOT IMPLYING THIS!!!. My friend Science is tangible it looks for patterns and observable facts, the problem is God isnt tangible, therefore lets not apply science to God.

    Pray 4 me!!!!!!
  • just like the way God allowed this girl in the bible (dunno her name) to get her father drunk and have a BABY with him (and i dont remmeber why)

    I am sorry for going off topic, but I have to say something about this... The girl who got her father drunk and got pregnant from him was Lot's daughter... However that does not mean this was right, in fact in many sermons I have heard this action is condemned and might even be considered adultry...

    eskala, as minagir said, things thousands of years ago differed much more than today. There are certain factors in the human body today that increase the factors of a deformed baby between relatives. These factors didn't exist in the second generation... In fact people's health in those days was so good that they lived to be hundreds of years old, nothing that can happen in the current generation (or the ones to come)...

  • [quote author=minagir link=board=1;threadid=4364;start=0#msg60006 date=1157003024]

    the oldest man alive lived 969 years

    is that possible i dont think so... :D like i believe u but WOW
  • Coptic Dragon

    when u say each generation was 100 yrs i dont think that to be true. in the OT people lived to hundreds of yrs old

    Kristina123, Im aware that humans lived far greater than that in the Old Testament, but i wasnt trying to be scientific, i was trying to be reasonable. It doesnt really matter if the human race was 4200 years old or even 8000 years old; the point i was trying to make was to compare the 'millions' of years that why had stated with the 'thousands' of years mentioned in the bible. Millions compared with thousands is a huge difference.

    your reasoning is neither logical nor scientific i think u need to do more research

    I did do research on this. I used a book Pope Shenouda had published. The book answered common questions that were difficult. One of them was about the creation of the world, so i looked at the Bible then compared it with his answer.

    There are certain factors in the human body today that increase the factors of a deformed baby between relatives. These factors didn't exist in the second generation... In fact people's health in those days was so good that they lived to be hundreds of years old, nothing that can happen in the current generation (or the ones to come)...

    Christ4life, you are correct. Back in the Old Testament, God did not allow deformities in children since males could only married their sisters. Cain/Seth/Abel would have had to marry their sisters to have children. Eventually, when humans were committing sin (During the time of the flood), God may have introduced this formation of deformities to show that Males would have to respect their sisters alot more.
  • [quote author=marmara327 link=board=1;threadid=4364;start=0#msg60035 date=1157063009]
    [quote author=minagir link=board=1;threadid=4364;start=0#msg60006 date=1157003024]

    the oldest man alive lived 969 years

    is that possible i dont think so... :D like i believe u but WOW


    can anyone plz explain this? ty :D
  • [quote author=marmara327 link=board=1;threadid=4364;start=0#msg60069 date=1157132395]
    [quote author=marmara327 link=board=1;threadid=4364;start=0#msg60035 date=1157063009]
    [quote author=minagir link=board=1;threadid=4364;start=0#msg60006 date=1157003024]

    the oldest man alive lived 969 years

    is that possible i dont think so... :D like i believe u but WOW


    can anyone plz explain this? ty :D


    minagir is correct. Genesis 5:27 states, "Altogether, Methuselah lived 969 years and then he died.
  • Methusalah lived until 969 because God allowed it. He never put an age restriction on humans until some point in Genesis (Forgot the verse but i know its there). This age restriction became 120 years, hence why humans these days can rarely exceed this. The reason Methusalah died was probably because his body grew weary eventually from the wear and tear of his muscles, bones, cells, etc. Thats just a hunch though...
  • yes soo many ppl in the old testiment that i have read lived for more than 600 yrs!
    and yes it is a suprise!
    and i have also read in the old tes. that 2 girls went to bed with their father! cuz they wanted offsprings!
    it is wrong now, but back then generation and how big it is! is all that mattered back then!
  • I don't think science comes into play when God doesn't want it to..now, that's called incest..back in the day, that's the only way God could create more people..so no, they were not deformed and brother and sister simply got married..don't meditate on it too much :)
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