Did Adam and Eve's children have to have sex with each other to make the human race?

No, it is specified in the first chapter that God created man & woman on the 6th day and told them to go forth and replenish the Earth. Adam & Eve were created after the 6 days of creation (and the 7th day of rest).

Also it says that Cain went East to the land of Nod where he found a wife and other people. They were not Adam & Eve's offspring as this happened before they had their third child, Seth, of whom Noah was descended.

If you believe in a literal account of Genesis then yo ushould be asking yourself about the impossibility of the Ark and how did mankind survive with only 8 family members to rebuild it.

if you have any concerns at all - think of it this way....

Eve was taken from Adam's rib - how's that for shared DNA.

The point is, when God created the world and everything in it - IT WAS GOOD, therefore there was no sin, no corruption of anything. Don't forget that they lived for almost a thousand years as well. So - that being said, yes brothers married sisters,, nieces, nephews etc.

After sin enters the picture (eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil) the whole world begins to die.... degeneration of everything begins, including DNA degeneration. It wasn't until after the flood of Noah's time, during the time of the law of Moses, that people were forbidden to marry their brothers, sisters, cousins etc. This was not because it was wrong, but that God was protecting us.... the integrity of the gene pool had degenerated so bad by then that it was no longer healthy for us to intermarry.

yes I know it sounds off the wall, but there it is.

The 6th day of creation, animals both wild and livestocks and any animals that move on the ground, fish of the sea and birds of the air were created in the same day as male and female. To this male and female there was no covenant except to rule over the earth's species and multiply. They came before Adam and Eve, a reason why Cain was so afraid to be exiled outside Eden fearing that whoever finds him will kill him. A reason why he was able to find a wife and have children. Adam and Eve were made by God for His special purpose another reason why in Luke, the genealogy of Jesus says that Adam was the Son of God and those people from Adam and Eve are called God's son. One reason why God was so angry at that time that the Sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful so, they marry anyone they choose. (The sons mentioned there are not angels that went down to earth and take human forms to marry the woman of their choice. These are stupid speculations of those who pretends to know the works of God) In the Book of Jeremiah 31:27 'The days are coming," declares the Lord,"when I will plant the House of Israel and the House of Judah WITH THE OFFSPRING OF MEN AND OF ANIMALS. The offspring mentioned there are those that Jeremiah was told to be the people ahead of Adam and Eve. They were created together with the animals on the sixth day. Otherwise there will be no Gentiles to be called early at the time. And the world that was flooded was only the world of Noah. In the absence of transportation available to bring Noah and the people around him from one end of the sea to another has made his limited area his world. A possibility that there were people aside from his immediate family were spared. Incest could have happened in the time of Abraham and Lot when God promised them specially Abraham that his decsendants will be as plenty as the stars in the sky. They did not realized that is it not necessary that they will all come from his bloodline.

Incest is bad. God forbid incest when giving the laws to the Isrealites...you may find it in Duet or Leviticus or one of those books that tell about the laws. A&E were perfect so their genes and physical make up were far superior to ours...it was necessary at first to get the human race started...but once it grew there was no need to marry so close a relative. Regardless we are all still related in some way because we all stem from the first humans

Yes, they took each other as mates/spouses.

But you must understand that the Law regarding morality was not yet given. Without a law prohibiting incest, brothers and sisters marrying was the norm.

Genesis 5:4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:

Since this was God's way to start populating the Earth, and since the DNA (gene pool) wasn't nearly as corrupted as later, therefore it seems that was an acceptable method. Even then, though, it would seem that they would "match" rather than just running around from one to the other.

As for the problem of "incest", probably it was not "incest" in that first generation ... and, WHEN did God declare such was INCEST and that INCEST was wrong?

Lest anyone misunderstands, I am not saying that "incest" is permissible or acceptable other than in that very early years of Earth.

I have to qualify that I'm a Roman Catholic right away, as we don't subscribe to the "literal" interpretation of the Old Testament.

Since the Old Testament was passed on by oral tradition, it became somewhat songlike, or poetic in its nature. As a result, things became rather standardized in their imagery, i.e.

40 days and 40 nights = a long time

40 years = a long time

They also used other numbers of symbolic nature:

7 days = 7 is used to indicate perfection

33 = Christ died, Exodus 33: God spoke to Moses about the deliverance, Deuteronomy 33: Moses blessed the people before his death...etc.

I know that Fundamentalist Christianity believes firmly in the Word of God, but it's important to note that there was some human intervention in the end product. It's also important to note that humans used localized and customary euphemism in their expression of faith. God is important. He's also very "touchable" for the first time, so people used a lot of their personal language in explaining him.

The Bible is the greatest work on Earth. It's important to give credit (good and bad) to the fact that humans wrote it, through Divine intervention.

Best of luck to you. God bless you and yours.

The Bible does reference to other people during Adam's life. He lived nearly a thousand years. The Bible starts with Adam and shows Jesus Christ lineage up until his birth. That's why all the "begot" references in the Old Testament. The whole thing is to give a history and how Jesus was born of God's creation.

It says that Adam and Eve were the first to be created, it didn't say they were the only ones. It mentions other people being around when Cain leaves.

No matter what creation theory you believe.. at some point incest was committed to get the human race going.