Stephen M. Miller – Monday, 30 December 2013 “Did incest
populate the planet?”
Childless King Charles II of Spain (1661-1700), disabled from
birth perhaps by genetic disorders, was the last of the royal Habsburgs—a
family famous for keeping it all in the family…consolidating their power by
marrying close relatives: first cousins, uncles to nieces, that sort of lovin’.
The family became recognized for the Habsburg Lip, with its protruding jaw.
IT’S THE BIBLE QUESTION OF THE WEEK.
It comes from Debbie Baker Coffman, a redheaded friend of mine
from long before gray hair started sprouting on our heads. She gets a free book
for asking the question politely.
Here’s her question:
How was the earth populated in the beginning? Do you think God
created more people than just Adam & Eve after they sinned? Otherwise, how
could God expect brothers and sisters to reproduce?
My answer, up front, is I don’t know and I don’t much care. But
I’ll tell you what the Bible experts say.
I don’t mean to be mean, certainly not to a friend. But as far
as I’m concerned, this is one of those multitude of Bible questions that Bible
experts wrangle over. When the dust finally settles and they’re sitting
dirty-faced and spent from all the tussling with each other, all they’ve got is
thin air and theory.
When incest was a good thing
Wrangling for the thin air of the tradition-minded are Bible
experts who say the story of Adam and Eve is a news report from long ago: In
the beginning, there was one family.
Brothers loved their sisters and sisters loved their brothers.
Naked. And in ways that would pop the top off a yuck meter.
If we guys could measure gross by the bucket of dog vomit, on a
scale of 1 to 5 buckets, having a kid with our sister or with our daughter
would require an extra bucket—which we would personally fill.
Besides, inbreeding with someone as close as a brother or sister
makes more sick kids than outsourcing.
It’s a gene thing.
Like most of you, I have two sets of 23 chromosomes, I’m told.
One set from Mom. One set from Dad.
I may have gotten a broken gene from Mom that leaves me
vulnerable to skin cancer, as an example. But Dad’s version of that gene was in
good shape. So all I am is a carrier.
If I marry someone from outside the family who has both sets of
skin genes in good shape, our kids have a good chance of getting two sets of
healthy skin genes.
But if I have kids with my sister, who also has Mom’s busted
gene, our kids would have a 50-50 chance of getting two sets of busted skin
genes. That’s bad news.
Tradition-minded scholars argue that this wasn’t a problem with
the family of Adam and Eve because God don’t make junky genes.
“Adam and Eve, coming from the creative hand of God, had no such
mutant genes. Therefore, marriages between brothers and sisters, or nieces and
nephews in the first and second generations following Adam and Eve would not
have been dangerous,” Dr. Charles C.
Ryrie, Basic Theology.
The Bible doesn’t say if God created other Adams and Eves. It
does say they had more children. “After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another
800 years, and he had other sons and daughters,” (Genesis 5:4 NLT).
Some of the reasons tradition-minded folks take the story
literally is because New Testament writers seemed to do it.
Luke traced the family tree of Jesus all the way back to
“Adam…the son of God,” (Luke 3:38).
Paul wrote about Adam as though he was a real man, not a myth:
“When Adam sinned, sin entered the world,” (Romans 5:12).
Evolution trumps incest
Some progressive-minded scholars read the Creation story as a
myth.
Think “parable.” That might make this pill easier to swallow.
As this thin-air theory goes, the Genesis writer—whoever it was;
this is an anonymous book—lived in a day when there were lots of creation
stories getting pitched over campfires. The most famous stories credited gods
from Egypt or Iraq with making the world.
With all this going on, the Genesis writer crafted a story to
help people wrap their heads around an otherwise inconceivable package: the
idea that God created everything that exists.
For Christians on this side of the wrangling, evolution is no
deal-breaker. It’s quite the possibility—just another theory about how God did
what only God could do: make a lot of something out of nothing or less.
Debbie, pick your poison.
Then go to church, drink the cup and heaven’s kindness, and
trust in Jesus.
—
PS. For those interested, here’s a short interview I did at the
annual Christian Booksellers conference.
The post Did incest populate the planet? appeared first on
Stephen M. Miller.
“Ghostly escort to world of the dead” by Stephen M. Miller
What did Jesus’ disciples mistake him for when they saw him
walking on the water during a storm at night?
“It’s a ghost!” (Matthew 14:26). They may have thought he was
coming to escort them to the place of the dead after they drowned in the storm.
The post Ghostly escort to world of the dead appeared first on
Stephen M. Miller.
More to read:
It’s a boy: Jesus
Manger, baby-safe
Who messed up Matthew’s Jesus quote?
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