The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Free Willism or God's Soeveignty in Salvation of All

Evangelical Universalism
#370

Gen 3:20 And calling is the human his wife’s name Eve, for she becomes the mother of all the living. Concordant Literal Version

By the time Cain went to Nod Adam and Eve had many other offspring not written in the Bible who were making many other offspring. The Scriptures just mention those important enough to mention. Adam was 130 years old when he had Seth after Abel was murdered. He may have had many other sons and daughters prior to Seth but Seth was a notable one. Genesis 5:4 said A & E had daughters too.

LLC, there couldn’t have been other people living since just prior to Adam and Eve being created the earth was chaos and** vacant of all life**

The Scripture is saying that up until the law of Moses was given that sin was not taken into account but that people were dying anyway. Why? Because Romans 5:12 just told us death passed through into all mankind.

#371

Correct. We don’t inherit sin from Adam. The divine record states we inherit death from Adam (Romans 5:12).

#372

I don’t take the story of Adam and Eve as entirely literal. However, if one wishes to read it that way, Eve did not conceive until they went out of the garden. According to the Bible, Cain was the first, proceeded by Abel then Seth. Gen. 5:4 states that after Adam had Seth, he begot sons and daughters. So I would say that the people living in Nod were other people. There Cain built a city. A city is made up of many people. As defined it is a center of population, commerce and culture.

#373

My dad was one of 16 children and one of his sisters married and she and her husband alone have over 200 descendants living now in New York State. They alone are almost a small city. Include all the descendants of grandparents and you do have a city :slight_smile:

#374

I don’t see where it says “after Adam begot Seth that he has sons and daughters” as you state above. Here is what it states:

Gen 5:4 And coming are the days of Adam, after his begetting Seth, to be seven hundred years. And begetting is he sons and daughters.
Gen 5:5 And coming are all the days of Adam, which he lives, to be nine hundred and thirty years. And he died.
Gen 5:6 And living is Seth two hundred and five years. And begetting is he Enosh.
Gen 5:7 And living is Seth, after his begetting Enosh, seven hundred and seven years, and begetting is he sons and daughters.

The above tells us Adam lived 700 years after begetting sons and daughters. So he had sons and daughters it seems prior to Seth having sons and daughters.

Jeff, my mom and dad had 13 children (3 sets of twins) and by now we could comprise a small town. In another hundred years, probably a small city.

#375

According to the KJV Gen.5:4 says this: “After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he begot sons and daughters.” I take this to mean that Adam’s other children were born after Seth. I don’t think that Cain would be building a city with all of his younger brothers and sisters. I also don’t believe that Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years. He was human, and the average lifespan of a human is somewhere around 70-80 years old. According to Gen. 4:14 Cain tells the Lord he would be a fugitive and anyone who finds him would kill him. This also suggests that there were other people at the time.

#376

LLC, you seem to think it impossible that the entire human race descended from Adam and Eve. Check out Acts 17:26.

#377

Cain brought with him some of his siblings and cousins.

I also don’t believe that Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years. He was human, and the average lifespan of a human is somewhere around 70-80 years old.
I can’t help it you don’t believe the Bible.

That’s right. Adam and Eve were busy making children and their children were busy making children etc. etc. God told them to multiply. That’s what they did. The Bible doesn’t record all the many thousands of offspring of Adam or it would have been too huge a book. It just records the notable one’s names and what they did for the record.

Like I said before, prior to Adam and eve the earth was chaos and vacant of all life. Then during 6 days God made the earth habitable again and created only one human, Adam. Then later He took Eve out of Adam. So there couldn’t have been other humans traipsing around prior to Adam and Even’s creation waiting to join up with Cain.

#378

eff, No, I don’t believe that we all came from two humans.

Eusebius, According to Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him male and female He created them.” From this account God created male and female together. It does not specify how many. As we are told, humans were hunter/ gatherers at first,however Adam was a tiller of the ground. Although this could have several different meanings, it indicates that he was a farmer. “Adam” is also used in reference to mankind. As for Cain, there is nothing in the Bible that suggests he had an incestuous relationship with a sister or cousin. This seems to be an assumption. However, in the book of Leviticus, incest was against the law.

I do believe there is truth in the Bible, I just don’t believe in a lot of the fallible interpretations of it.

#380

We are told Adam was the first and Eve the mother of all living [humans].
Since Eve is the mother of all living [humans] we can rest assured that God did not create more humans when He created Adam and Eve.

Abel was a grazer of animals. Cain was a server of the ground (see Genesis 4:2).

No one was under the law of Moses BEFORE the law of Moses was given. So how could anyone prior to the law be accused of breaking a law such as incest since no law was in existence at the time. How else could they multiply and fill the earth.

There is nothing in Revelation informing us that they defacated. We take it for granted they did. The Bible does not have to inform us that the earliest humans had sex with their sisters. We just take it for granted that that was the only way to procreate at the time.

#381

While I agree with you, gaz, that God does reveal to us spiritual realities in Genesis, I wouldn’t be so quick to agree with LLC on his idea.

Adam and Eve were literal humans. Adam is in the genealogy of Christ as well as genealogies in the OT. You don’t put a figure of speech in one’s genealogy.

Also, Adam and Eve are always written about in both the Old and New Testaments as being literal people who literally screwed up.

#382

I definitely believe that Adam and Eve were the first two human beings. God created them as recorded in Genesis 1-2.

I seriously doubt if back in those old days there were very many brother-sister pairings (outside of the first dozen or so marriages) because of the extraordinarily long lifespans. Probably most pairings were with nieces, grand-nieces, great-grand-nieces, etc. Like this:

Suppose about 400 years after her creation, Eve gave birth to a young girl named Insha. When she was 40 she married Ereksh, a 200-year-old man who descended from Irok, who descended from Milrok, who descended from Gershan, who descended from Adam. We see in this hypothetical example that Insha was the sister of her husband’s great-grandfather. Insha married her great-grand nephew, and Ereksh married his great-grand aunt.

I’m sure that’s the sort of thing that typically happened, which is a far cry from brothers and sisters habitually marrying each other.

#383

I’m rather less certain about A/E than others are. I do think it is important that, as far as biblical salvation history is concerned, that there was in fact a human couple that was at the beginning of the flow of that history - I’m not sure that it is important to the biblical story that A/E were the only people on earth at the time.
My $,02

#384

Me thinks there are similar situations, in these modern times. :exclamation: :laughing:

#385

I agree. Makes good sense.

#386

Let’s look at another theory from the book The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom. It’s by Gerald Schroeder, who is a PhD physicist and Jewish theologian. Gerald tries to reconcile the Biblical account of Genesis with modern science - including evolution. Now suppose, as Gerald postulates, evolution occurred and produced humanoid forms - without consciousness. Let’s call them P-Zombies, which is a name I like. Now when God breathed into Adam and then formed Eve, he produced the first humans - with consciousness. But it is possible that Adam (and perhaps his offspring), had sex with the P-Zombies - and produced offspring. There’s nothing in the Bible to support it (although Schroeder claims otherwise). But there’s nothing in the Bible to disprove it, either. Let’s see this a bit more, from a Science of God book review:

I think I should dedicate a Zombie love song - to this theory. :exclamation: :laughing:

or

youtube.com/watch?v=YCVMuevcCvY

Here’s also a link to how P-Zombies, fit into Universalism at P-Zombies and Universalism

http://b.dryicons.com/images/icon_sets/handy_icons_set/png/128x128/up_arrow.png

#388

Actually, I find the Geoffrey “Sugar Daddy”, the traditional “incest” (i.e. Why did God allow incest in the Bible?)and the Gerald Schroeder “P-Zombie” theories, all equally plausible explanations. God will tell me the real answer someday. What about you, qaz?

#389

Well… I have heard of this :open_mouth: And there are folks who believe it :open_mouth: :open_mouth: And HEY, who the heck knows :question:

So now we need to look at the Eve part, that Eve may have had relations with the serpant :unamused: But wait, there is a compelling argument made by such adherents, and it is interesting how the use of scripture is used… Check it out israelect.com/ChildrenOfYahweh/Emahiser/two_seedline.htm

#391

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQCQmtyFtuTwPgBbncFy5KTo_zNgJNv3pGQd7XeQ-HQOkXIJfl9Qw

Now we have four theories.

the Geoffrey “Sugar Daddy”
The traditional “incest” (i.e. Why did God allow incest in the Bible?)
the Gerald Schroeder “P-Zombie”
The “other people”
, all equally plausible explanations. God will tell me the real answer someday. But I like the “other people” theory the best. Any other theories out there, that folks subscribe to :question: :exclamation: :laughing:

#392

I am not saying that A&E weren’t real people. They probably were. However, I believe that the story is mixed with allegory, metaphor and symbolism to reveal a spiritual truth. It’s hard to say which parts are historically true and which parts are not, as for example, the movie “Titanic” which was historical fiction. I don’t think the Jewish people cared about getting all the facts right, as in a straight forward history book. Although the Bible does contain a lot of history, it was also written for spiritual purposes.
Yes, there are other people in the story. As we know, snakes do not talk;unless one is a human liar,then snakes do talk. There was also a law or laws at the time. Obviously, there was a law against murder or Cain would not have been exiled for it. Also there must have been some sort of grain offering or tithing rules since both Cain and Abel brought their offerings to God.
As for Eve being the mother of all living, since we have no life without God, I would say this means that she taught her children the ways of the Lord. My guess is that this may have been the beginning of Jewish history or “the people of God”.