God created Adam, and then Eve from Adam. He instructed them to 'be fruitful and replenish the earth.' This means Adam and Eve were the only humans God Himself created, correct?
It would seem so Because of gaps in logic, contradictions and missing information - I gave up on the Bible and decided to live a decent life, help those in need etc That to me is what life is about and why we are here. Goodness is next to Godliness
The Bible is where I have my problem also. Even with science I can believe in a God or a creator of all things but to me the Bible is just a book of history and a way to control man, kind of like the first laws. Then it took on a life of its own as more and more was added to it. This is my opinion and nobody has to agree or disagree.
Does anybody believe that every word in the bible is literally true? It has a number of contradictions.
I am going to throw out something controversial. Although I do not claim that it is supported by the Biblical record, neither do I believe that it is contradicted by such. Still, it's just a wild idea, but one that makes sense to me. According to the Bible record, Adam and Eve's children were Cain, Abel, and Seth -- all males. And of course, Abel didn't live long. Unless their children were having sexual relations with their mother, it's kind of hard to spawn a race of people that way. Jewish tradition has it that Adam and Eve had twenty or more children, though; although only the first three were named in the Bible record. If some of them were daughters, yeah it could happen. But still, there would have to be some kinky stuff going on in that family, and I have trouble believing that God would choose to start things off that way, only to condemn it later. the Bible record also states that, after killing his brother, Abel went off and found a wife in a strange land. Huh? I will propose, and I am sure I'm not the only one who has, although I haven't read it anywhere, that God created more than just Adam and Eve, and that we are given the Adam and Eve record because, among other things, the Bible is a history of the Hebrew people, and it wasn't important for us to know about the others.
How about in Genesis 26 where God says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Who was he talking to?
He was discussing the upcoming creation with Christ, for we are told in the Book of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind." Then it goes on to tell of John the Baptist, whose purpose was to prepare for and introduce Jesus Christ. Christ is the Word, and this is why each step of creation begins with a spoken word: "He said," "God said," etc.
Re: your question- I was curious enough about this awhile back that I did some research; with the exception of some Baptists, none of the mainstream Christian religions/denominations view the Bible as literal. Re: your statement- one reason being it was written by a variety of individuals, different times in history, and in different languages.
Re - Ken's post - it does seem extremely odd that God would only put '2' people on this earth As I said there are many contradictions and gaps in the Bible
I disagree about the contradictions but there are gaps, largely because the Bible wasn't intended to be a history of everything. In large part, if we don't need to know it, it's not mentioned.
I believe they were the only male and female God first created @Janice Martin and that from them and their children the earth was populated. "And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living." Genesis 3:20 In Genesis Chapter 6 we find that some of God's fallen angels mated with the daughters of man and children came from these matings. The people on the earth grew more and more evil and God destroyed all but Noah, his wife, and their three sons and wives with a great flood. When the rest of mankind, etc. was cleansed from the earth and the flood waters had receded enough for Noah, his family, and the animals, etc. to come out the Bible then says: The whole earth was then repopulated by Noah's 3 sons. Genesis 9: 18 Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan.19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.
If we examine the Bible a little more closely, we see that Rarely is a female acknowledged in a family's geneology. Matthew 1:1 gives the geneology of Jesus where only on a couple of instances is a female even mentioned. Everything pretty much goes back to the seed. Women in general were not regarded as high on the "worthy to be acknowledged" list as much as the bearer of the seed was. One of the few instances that a "named" woman giving birth was of course the birth of Abel and Cain in which Eve was acknowledged as having conceived. (Gen. 4) That said, even when Cain was exiled he found a wife (unnamed) and his progeny (males) were announced. (Also Gen. 4) Of course, two major named female players in the Bible are Ruth, mother of Jesse and Mary, mother of Jesus but still, females were pretty much held in the background in Biblical geneology. Bottom line, Eve could have had several females in the mix but still, that would leave a whole lot of begetting within the first family's genetic pool.