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Hi Arthur,
If you have time, could you help me with a question?
I've been asked this question twice, once by my friend & now
again by my roommate. They both asked me if Adam and Eve's
children committed incest with each other, and I told them,
"Yes," and so then they follow up with, "Doesn't that conflict
with God's commands not to lay with close kin?" I want to
say to them, "God didn't lay down those commands until later,"
but I didn't because it didn't make sense to me. Just because
God didn't lay down the direct command yet doesn't make it
okay for them to commit those sins, sort of like how it isn't
okay for Cain to murder Abel even though God didn't send down
his ten commandments yet.
So whenever you have time, could you help me reconcile
the incest problem and also why God let them commit incest
but not murder even though he forbid both later.
Thank You!
It's so good to hear from you! I hope you are able to
draw upon the Lord and are able to be faithful to Him by worshipping
Him in both spirit and truth.
Now, on to your question. On the surface, it seems a bit
thorny but I think if you let the question settle upon you
for a little while and you carefully think through God's management
(and His options in managing) of the human race, it actually
isn't that shocking or that difficult at all (at least not
for me).
First, we have to distinguish between commands rooted in
creation and those rooted for societal good. I think you are
only partially correct in stating that Adam and Eve's children
committed incest. Yes, they married each other and had sexual
relations with each other. However, it wasn't incest as we
know it or think of it today.
As you are aware, God didn't give the prohibition against
incest until He was setting up Israel as its own nation. You
may say, "Yeah, but brothers were still married to their sisters
or cousins or something!" I would respond by saying, "How
else do you think the earth got populated?" Since Adam and
Eve were the parents of the entire human race, the only way
the human race could multiply would be for close relatives
to marry each other. The fact is, the entire human race is
related.
Is there a moral law written in Scripture (or anywhere else)
that makes marrying a 6th cousin morally acceptable but a
5th cousin not (I'm just throwing those #'s out as examples)?
Is there something inherently morally evil in the 5th or less
and not in the 6th? Not that I'm aware of.
As I said, without the marrying of close kin, the human
race would have died out long ago. So, for the continuing
of humanity, that was the only choice. It wasn't like there
were other options of people. All that existed were each other!
Now, we also must remember why the human race would have
died out Ï sin; sin not only brought death into the world;
not immediate death but the process of it Ï decay, disease,
and the disruption of genes, etc.
When Adam and Eve were around, their genes were still pure
enough to where marrying close relatives didn't cause the
same genetic dysfunction that it does today:
1. It's probably safe to assume that the earth's population
was fairly substantial by the time God gave Israel those prohibitions
in Leviticus; there were now generations far removed from
one's own family line.
2. The genes had also probably deteriorated sufficiently
(due to sin) to pose real physical health threats to those
who married too close to each other.
Thus, the same primary reason that God allowed closely related
marriages in the first place Ï human propagation Ï is also
a key reason that God dis-allowed it many, many generations
later Ï human propagation.
I think the answer has more to do originally with practical
and pragmatic reasons, which then gives it the moral framework.
When you're talking about morality, you're talking about right
and wrong. Why is incest morally wrong? 1) Because God prohibits
it (that alone is enough); 2) because God wants us to procreate
and branch out rather than be ingrown; and 3) because it jeopardizes
the lives of future human beings.
Now, as for your murder question, there are many commands
God gave to His people when establishing them as a nation
that were not sin before He gave them, but murder is a sin
that is rooted in creation, not in revelation. The sanctity
of human life is already intuitively "built in" to who we
are at the outset of our creation. Life is sacred and is for
God to determine.
We see that when Adam and Eve were originally created, death
was not intended. Death resulted from sin and was a consequence
of sin. God was very clear about that. Adam and Eve knew that
to take life was to play God, which, incidentally, was what
got them in trouble in the first place. That's why Cain already
knew that he had done a grievously sinful thing when he murdered
Abel, even thought the Ten Commandments hadn't been given
yet.
I don't know if that confused you even more. I hope not.
Let me know what you think.
Blessings,
Arthur
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