Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: awmurray@eos.ncsu.edu (ALAN WAYNE MURRAY) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: no title given Message-ID: Date: 14 Mar 91 08:56:30 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: North Carolina State University Lines: 37 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , ta00est@unccvax.uncc.edu (elizabeth s tallant) writes: > [In a discussion of the plausibility of early accounts in Gen, > Alan Murray mentioned the fact that Cain would have had to > marry his sister. --clh] > > As the moderator pointed out, the Bible does not give birth records of > every person born in the first couple of years of civilization. Therefore, > it is quite possiable that Cain could have married an unrelated woman. How could Cain have married an unrelated woman when the first two people on earth were Adam and Eve? Are you saying that Adam and Eve were not the first two human beings to be put on the earth? That's not how the Bible reads to me. Does it not plainly state that Adam was the first human being and that Eve was created of/for Adam? > > Yet, even if he did not, it would have been perfectly alright for Cain to > marry his sister. He could not have married his mother because that would > have been adultery. > > The reason that Cain could have married his sister is that at that time, > God had not yet given people the law which forbade them to marry members > of their immediate family. This law was not given until some time after > Abraham (if you will recall, Sarah was Abraham's half sister). I find this very strange indeed. Why is it OK for Cain to commit incest or adultery? You say it is not yet a law. Why then was Cain punished for murder? Murder was not 'outlawed' at the time either...yet Cain was punished for it (by God Himself). Are not murder and adultery 'forbidden' in the same place (i.e. The Ten Commandments)? What you describe can be called by nothing short of total, complete anarchy. What of blasphemy? Of idol worship? There were NO laws at the time, by your own argument. Yet God holds people responsible for these future laws. How do you explain this? Why does God hold Cain to one law while allowing him to break another? Is it because it supports your argument and makes the Bible more believable?