Gen 5:4
“And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:”
” ויהיו ימי אדם אחרי הולידו את שׁת שׁמנה מאת שׁנה ויולד בנים ובנות׃ "
“hayah yom 'adam 'achar yalad 'eth sheth shemoneh me'yah shaneh yalad ben bath”
Last week we saw that the Bible indicates a literal 6 day creation. This obviously creates a lot of questions, especially for those whose world view is based on evolution.
If the Bible is to be taken seriously when it talks about a 6 day creation, then we have to look at the tale of Adam and Eve as more than just a “story”. The biggest question that pops up when we get to this part of history is “Where did the rest of us come from?”
The answer to this question is very simple. Gen 5:4 reveals that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters. So the answer to “Where do the other people come from?” is easy: Adam and Eve had many children – all of us came from these sons and daughters…
However, the question is never asked alone. It is always followed by something like this: “So did the brothers and sisters have kids with each other?”
These questions have one purpose: to set you up for their real question… “If the brothers and sisters had kids together, wouldn’t they be born deformed?”
Some people ask this because they want to try and corner the Creationist, believing that he or she won’t be able to explain how this could be possible. Many Creationists are stumped by this question, but we do not need to be. This supposed dilemma has a perfectly normal, scientific explanation.
The real question is not “Why weren’t the kids born with deformities?”, but rather, “Why do babies born to siblings have deformities?”
Answering the real question:
Why do children born to siblings have deformities?
This question is actually based on a false assumption. The assumption is that kids born to siblings will definitely be deformed or disfigured. This is actually not true. It is true that they have a greater risk of being deformed, disfigured, mentally challenged or have a weak immune system, but these defects have very little to do with their parents being siblings…
Many people will say that it is due to genetic similarity, but genetic similarity is a very misleading term and does not actually have anything to do with it.
So why are people born with defects? To properly explain this we need to look at DNA. I am going to try and keep it as simple as possible so that we can all understand. (For those who do not like science, I apologize; however, since the Evolution theory is supposedly “science”, we need to look at real science to combat it)
DNA is the blueprint of a living organism. In the DNA we find a detailed map explaining everything about you, the colour of your eyes, hair and skin, how many fingers you will have, how many legs, where the muscles will form, the specifics of your bone structure and pretty much every little detail about you, including some of your personality traits.
DNA is found in every cell in your body. DNA is bundled together in long strings called Genes (That look like a twisted ladder). Two strings of Genes are linked together in the shape of an “X” and called a Chromosome. The picture below is a very basic structure of a Chromosome.
Humans have 46 Chromosomes lined up in 23 pairs.
Sometimes these genes have errors in them. These errors are known as mutations. Mutations are always a loss of genetic information. Fortunately, most of the errors are harmless. There are many reasons why errors occur in the Gene structure. To imagine the extreme complexity of it all think about it this way: There are 23 Chromosomes in one cell. If you stretch all the DNA in ONE CELL out, it will be approximately 90cm long and it consists of approximately 6 billion subunits (individual steps in the DNA ladder), all of this must be duplicated every time a cell divides – and your cells will divide approximately 10 000 trillion times in your lifetime (10,000,000,000,000,000 cell divisions in your lifetime). Sometimes, due to the incredible complexity of this copying process, the cells do not copy perfectly. Therefore errors within the gene code occur. Errors or mutations can also occur due to damage from the environment – harmful ultraviolet light and x-rays from the sun and space etc.
In rare occasions these mutations can lead to deformities.
We all have these mutations in our genes. When a baby is born it receives half of his genes from his father and the other half from his mother. The reason why babies are not usually deformed is because the normal gene is dominant and the mutated gene is recessive (The dominant genetic blueprint is always followed – the recessive gene is only followed when no dominant gene is present), so when the baby forms, it will follow the correct gene blueprint.
The problem comes in when the mother and father both have the same mutated genes and the baby therefore receives two incorrect genes. Since there is no dominant “correct” gene, the mutated gene blueprint will be followed.
Siblings (and closely related family members) have a very high chance of having the same mutated genes, which means that there is a much higher chance of deformity in their children – however, the risk is often not physically visible. Most of the time it will be the immune system that will be negatively affected and no visible deformity will be evident. It is therefore not genetic similarity in the broad sense that causes deformities; it is similarity in the mutated genes that causes defects.
Looking back in time:
3000 years ago it was still very safe to marry your cousin (genetically speaking). In the past 3000 years the gene pool has become more and more corrupt and such a close blood-relationship now carries a much greater degree of risk.
Adam and Eve were made perfect. God declared it to be good. So when they had children, the gene pool was without mutations. Their kids would have very little to no defective genes. In fact, two complete strangers today have a far greater chance to have deformed babies than the children of Adam and Eve would have had.
To Answer The Question:
So, how could the children of Adam and Eve marry one another?
1) They had no choice; there was no one else around.
2) The law that states that brothers and sisters cannot marry only came into affect a few hundred years later when Moses and the Israelites were in the desert.
3) The genetic pool was not yet corrupted, so they could have perfectly formed children.
Scientific Adam:
When a paternity test is done, the scientists look at the errors in the genes to prove who the father is.
A project called “the Genome project” was done and hundreds of thousands of people had DNA samples taken. One of the side projects was “Super Ancestors”, which was a search for a common ancestor to all the people on the planet. Using the same methods as those used in paternity and maternity tests, scientists started to map the genes of all these people. Men were traced back through their male lineage and women were traced through their maternal lineage, all in the hope of finding a common ancestor.
To their surprise they found one…
There is a specific genetic mutation that is present in every single male on this planet. Every man alive is somehow related to this one “super ancestor”.
The scientists called this common ancestor “Scientific Adam” (Or Y-Chromosomal Adam – since the Y-Chromosome in men is used in the tests). Of course, they refuse to believe that this could be the Adam from the Bible… They add their own theories as to who he was and date him to about 60 000 years ago. There is no way to tell how long ago this mutation took place; it is nothing more than guesswork. However, even the 60 000 year date is a problem with some evolutionists because this date is much later (in their timescale) than they believe a single human male could have existed…
This is a truly remarkable discovery; however, I do not believe that this super ancestor is Adam. I believe that Adam’s DNA was perfect and without mutation. Therefore, this super ancestor is one of the following people:
Seth, Enosh, Cainan, Mahalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech or Noah (Luke 3:36-38). (Since Noah and his sons are the only male survivors of the great flood)
They have also found a female ancestor that seems to be present in every woman alive! (Which was named “Scientific Eve” – or Mitochondrial Eve – since mitochondrial DNA is used in maternity tests)
Conclusion:
DNA shows that we all have a common ancestor, just as the Bible indicates, which goes against the evolution theory; even though scientists try to cover it up with elaborate (yet ultimately impossible) theories. We have also seen that everyone alive could have come from Adam and Eve, which makes the Genesis story a viable historical account.
Again we see that we do not need to reconcile the Bible with “Modern Science”. It is scientifically viable on its own. It is easier to have faith in what the Bible says, than to have faith in the theories conjured up by men.
Next week we will look at more DNA, focusing specifically on Macro-Evolution.
