Todd Clippard

Topic(s): Old Testament, Bible Study

Eve was the mother of all living (Gen 3:20). Therefore, God did not engage in any special creation to supply wives for Adam and Eve's children. Thus, Cain either married one of his sisters (Gen 5:4) or he married a niece. In any event, one of the sons of Adam would have had to marry a sister. Even Abraham, 2000 years removed from Eden, married his half sister (Gen 20:12), and Isaac married a first cousin (Gen 24).

The laws against incest did not come into effect until the law of Moses in Leviticus 18. Laws forbidding incest were probably given due to the degeneration of the genetics of man. God's first couple was perfect in every way. Many of the factors causing genetic mutations (solar radiation, pollution, etc) were unknown for hundreds of years following the Creation. Only after sin entered into the world, and the environmental changes brought about by the Flood, would the problems associated with marrying one's near kin begin to be manifest.

Though marrying one's near kin sounds "gross" or repulsive to us today, we must remember it was a necessity for the earliest peoples, and none of today's ill effects would have been present.