Questioner

Today if a man has intimate relations with his daughter he is a molester, also if a boy has the same relations with his sister he too is a molester. Yet Adam and Eve were the only two humans on earth by God’s creation.  How did the earth get populated?  Brothers and sisters, even though Adam and Eve continued to have children for several hundred years, they all are still brother and sister.

Answer

Yes, and we are still marrying our brothers and sisters of the human race.  We know that we are prohibited from marrying our immediate brothers and sisters today, but you have to allow for very unusual circumstance "like creation," where you have only two people to populate the earth.  We know it was not sin for God had not declared it so, and God protected the offspring from the inbreeding.


Questioner (Continued)

Again after the flood Noah and his family were the only humans on earth and again "the daughters lay with their father" for children.  Was that because they knew there were no men to be their husbands?  What about the brothers and sisters again.  Even though Noah and wife had more children, I am sure, they were still brother and sister.

Answer

Also, a very exceptional time in the human race, where it was restarted with only four couples.  Most likely it was "first cousins" marrying "first cousins."


Questioner (Continued)

What was the purpose of a concubine?  The Bible says that men were to have only one wife.  Yet David and his son Solomon some of the most prominent figures in God's eyes and History had hundreds of each.  Were the men of David’s and Solomon’s time so virile that they needed these?  Were the concubines just hanging around waiting to have a night with the King or were they just for the King to have on hand to play around when ever he felt like it?

Answer

God always restricted a marriage to only one man and one woman for life. Concubines were for sexual pleasure only, and was pure sexually immorality.  This was sin and their lives were affected by the sin.

 
Questioner (Continued)

Were are told that the reason  that we’re to have one wife and not to have intimate relations with anyone till we get married is because there is a spiritual connection as well as an emotional one when this type of intimacy occurs.  Does this apply to the brothers and sisters and Fathers and Daughters mentioned earlier?


Answer

Don't compare apple and oranges when it comes to initial creation, and the Flood, for those were very special situations, when compared to the present.  In reference to all the extra wives and concubines, that was always sin and carried its consequences.

 
Questioner (Continued)

How can all this be, regarding a GOD who is Holy and Just and Righteous.  How can I reconcile these things and Believe God in light of these issues of which I am sure there are more not mentioned here?


Answer

Don't ever doubt God's wisdom, holiness, and plan, for He is always Holy in all that He does. It is up to God to judge them for their sins, and He did, but remember that they did not have the full revelation of Scripture that we have, nor the Holy Spirit living within them.  Also, God gave them mercy for their sinful lives.  Think how many sins we commit each day, and God allows us to live and doesn't discipline us for each sin. How would you like to have all your sins written down in a book to be read by thousands of generations? 


Questioner (Continued)
 

I am sure that the world is saying the same and uses these to justify their dismissal of God and fuel their dislike of Christians.


Answer

Not really, the "world" doesn't care a hoot about the Bible and Christianity.  Since salvation is a sovereign act of God, then the sins of the OT and NT saints have no effect of keeping anyone from salvation that God has elected to be saved!

 
Questioner (Continued)
 

Will you help me understand?


Answer

Bottom line, we don't worry about what God may have allowed to go unpunished in the OT, for we are NT saints and have a very clear understanding of what we can and can't do, and are held accountable to that standard.  So we let God be God and know that He is Holy and Righteous and does everything perfectly.   His plan is working out for the good of all His saints, and we must trust Him, and never start to judge Him for what He "appears" to allow in the lives of others.  We are to focus on our own lives and live them as holy as we possibly can.


Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "Tony Capoccia's Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 199
Middletown, DE  USA, 19709
Our websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986