Adam & Eve

That is where the question of divine revelation comes into play.

The way I see it, there are two possible answers to that question:

1) God created additional women after Adam and Eve to provide wives for Cain and Seth (which I tend to think is likely), thereby keeping the gene pool a little more varied.

2) God somehow "protected" humanity from genetic disorders like Down's Syndrome and other inbreeding maladies until such time as the population was large and diverse enough.

I don't know the answer, though.

 

I don't think so.

 

One thing I have learned from studying the Bible is that our definition of 'perfect' and God's definition of 'perfect' often differ. Ours tends to be rooted in the overall ideal. His tends to be rooted in purpose. Applied to certain contexts, that discrepancy can make a huge difference.

 

The only way I know of is to do word studies on the original texts. There are differing styles throughout the Old Testament especially. Passages written in poetic form tend to be almost completely figurative. Much of Jesus' teaching also included word pictures and hypotheticals to convey specific lessons. It's difficult, at best to know the facts from the figures, and I think we all tend to whiff on that from time to time.

 

If Adam had not sinned, then sin would have not have enter the world, and Jesus died for nothing. He wouldn't have needed to come. (I think if Adam hadn't sinned then someone eventually would have, and sin would have entered through them). If, on the other hand, sin was always here, then God would be at fault, and responsible for all the world's problems.

 

Obviously.

Depends on what you mean by "always here".

 

I'm not sure I follow you. What does it depend on?

 

What did you mean by "if sin was always here", exactly? What would that look like?

 

I was responding to Sly in the 6th post where he said that he thought that sin had always been here. I disagree with him.

I think that if sin was always here, then God would have had to have created it that way, and He would be to blame for all the world's problems. It would be unjust and unreasonable to create something imperfect and then require perfection from it. That, I think, is what Sly is implying weather he realizes it or not.

Also, to say that God made a mistake (i.e creating sin) and then provided the answer through Jesus is denying(sp?) the omniscience of God. He wouldn't knowingly make a mistake.

 

One could argue that the potential for sin was always there through free will, which Adam and Eve had from the beginning, and which Satan had even before that. But all three still have to take the blame for pulling the trigger on their own decisions, even as we do today.