The Bible?

[Donald McGlinn]

Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. Abel was slain by Cain. That left "one" woman, his mother. Does that mean that all future generations are based on offspring derived from Cain and his mother mating? Or did Adam and Eve have more kids which meant the kids mated?

[CFTraveler]

Ok, there's more than one way to attack this problem. One is with the info we have from itself. The Bible we 'officially' have is not complete as written, the book of Enoch was taken out. It belonged between Genesis and Exodus, and gives a part of the story that makes it 'chronologically' logical- For example, there are two creations, two 'primordial' humans, and a whole lot of other people there at the time which fleshes out the story.
Adam & Lilith, then fallen angels having sex with earth women, making giants, the giants being 'evil' or 'destructive', God deciding to scrap most of this, sending Lilith and the Giants away (remember, in this account, there were other humans) and them creating Eve and then Cain and Abel. Bla bla.
The other way to look at it is to realize this is a symbolic creation story, which may portray the advent to conscious thinking in humans- we are born 'innocent', physical reality 'tempts' us, then we become self-aware, and then we realize how hard life is.
There's others, but those are my two faves.

[ButterflyWoman]

It's a creation myth. It doesn't have to make logical sense. Most creation myths don't make much sense, but they felt right to the ancient people who created them. Our modern creation myths are a lot less interesting, frankly.

[DarkChylde]

yes but if you back track even further and your'e told adam had ribs to spare so eve could be made , you get pissed as in a "what sort of a muck is this chauvanistic/sexist god running?" ......i find that* far abrasive/offensive then other things.

[Beekeeper]

I came across the Urantia materials recently and listened to some recordings online. They're said to be channeled materials that originated in Chicago between 1924 and 1955 of uncertain authorship. They combine theories of humans evolving from other primate forms with visitations of highly evolved beings (including Adam and Eve) from outer space. Add to that spontaneous mutations that lead to different coloured races (including blue, green and orange humans that essentially breed out). It is all pretty far fetched but it's the some of cultural prejudices of the day creeping into the myth-making that makes it pretty clear the source isn't spirit. Kind of entertaining at times though. Oh, and there seems to be quite a bit of mating between siblings in it.

I think scientists say you need a breeding population of two hundred individuals if you want enough genetic diversity for viable future generations.

[DarkChylde]

I think scientists say you need a breeding population of two hundred individuals if you want enough genetic diversity for viable future generations.

aah okay wasn't aware of this.

[CFTraveler]

I have read about this, but if you consider the variety of preprimates that could have all 'spontaneously' evolved towards primates of all kinds, and had them all evolve into various types of prehominids (nowadays we have many types of primates, very different from each other) I would think that gives a theoretical genetic manipulator a lot of material to work with, if their idea is to evolve this hominid into something with a specific list of things they want (like a bigger prefrontal cortex, and a voice box to start with).