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Lv 7

Christians, do you really believe all human life began with three couples 4000 years ago?

I'm not talking about Adam and Eve 6000 years ago. I'm talking about after the flood when all human and animal life had been destroyed except for those on the ark. Old Noah and his old wife (who the bible never mentions them "begatting" any more children after the flood), and their 3 grown children with their spouses. So all the unthinkable numbers of animal life and all human life is now a result just of those few on the ark? In 4000 years? That's one heck of a lot of begatting going on and a remarkable survival rate.... (Oh, and if you haven't thought of this before, you do realize all that begatting was initially with 1st cousins, if not with brothers, sisters, parents...) And how did we "evolve" (if I can use that word here) into all the different races, colors, etc., from 3 couples in 4000 years?

Update:

TJ, you say only fundies are that literal. The Gallup poll shows that about 44% of the U.S. population believes in the literal interpretation of the bible, that the world is 6000 to 10,000 years old, etc. So even if it is "just the fundamentalists", how is that NOT a problem?

19 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    The bible has so many holes in it. No wonder they call it Holy!!

  • 1 decade ago

    Even science has it figured out that we all came from the dark skinned

    Middle Eastern olive skinned person. There is not black and white skin. I've noticed this, but most people have not. We either have very light colored skin or very dark colored skin, but we never truly get black or white. Some black people are so dark browned skinned that they look black or dark, and some white people are so light colored skinned that they look Albino or light, light colored.

    We are all colored, just what end of the stick do we belong on - either lightesh or darkesh.

    Yes, we all came from Noah's family, Shem, Ham and Japheth about 4000 years ago.

    You talking about begatting and begetting. What if we came from 5 billion years ago like evolution thinks? Where in the universe would you put all of those people?

    You know, Noah's grandson Nimrod tried keeping all the Noah family together after God had told them to separate and multiply. Nimrod rebelled against God and God came down and confused their languages and gave them different speaking tongues so they all separated then by language seeing they all couldn't communicate like they could at one time. Isn't God great. God solves all of mankinds disobedience and keeps on going.

    Evidently blood isn't a problem until it becomes polluted by sin, therefore close relations( marrying )wasn't a problem until sin came down generation after generation and polluted the bloodlines because mankind would not listen to God.

    We adapted into all the different races, colors, idiosyncrasis, etc. After all sin causes the curses of disease. Proverbs 26:2 "...a curse without a cause does not come." Sin has caused many a curse and you call it evolving. A mother dog with a deformed (different-mutated) puppy will not let it feed and literally let it die. Kind produces kind and new anything is not acceptable by most kinds.

    I believe God and I trust the Lord and His Word, the Holy Bible. Anything against the Lord - DOES NOT STAND. Evolution will fall!!!

  • 1 decade ago

    "Old Noah and his old wife (who the bible never mentions them "begatting" any more children after the flood), and their 3 grown children with their spouses."

    Though the Bible does not indicate that Noah and his wife had any more children it does reveal that their children and in-laws did. Genesis 10:1-32

    If each successive couple had a child once a year or once every other or three years the human population will grow exponentially.

    So all the unthinkable numbers of animal life and all human life is now a result just of those few on the ark?

    For one thing Noah did not gather every animal alive on earth because he did not have to assemble marine animals. He only had on the ark animals that depended on dry land for survival.-Genesis 7:8, 9

    Only animals that moved upon the ground and not in the seas were gathered. The flood would have not dire consequences for sea life. Also you should not imagine that all animal kinds existed that early in human life. For example many breeds of dogs today come from the wolf but did not exist 4000 years ago. Cats and other species started out with there basic species and the successive members of their families developed later because of climate, food and other natural factors, including breeding by man. Then too there is the fact that most animals, even today are relatively small. There really are only relatively few land animals that are taller or larger than man. All the species that are larger than man could have only had one or two basic species during Noah's day. Most animals are smaller that the domestic dog or cat, again even today.

    That's one heck of a lot of begatting going on and a remarkable survival rate.... (Oh, and if you haven't thought of this before, you do realize all that begatting was initially with 1st cousins, if not with brothers, sisters, parents...)

    Early in human history mankind was closer to being complete or perfect in his make up. His genes were more nearly perfect. Thus there was no threat of birth defects during that time. Marriage between relatives was both necessary and common for the human population to grow. Today man is far more incomplete or imperfect genetically and thus family sexual relations would pose a extremely high possibility of producing birth defects. This fact and the fact that man has long developed a practical abhorence toward sex between family members keeps this practice mostly at bay.

    And how did we "evolve" (if I can use that word here) into all the different races, colors, etc., from 3 couples in 4000 years?

    Just as in the early history of animal life the environment affected how animals developed within their species man was also influenced.

    The Bible reveals that post-flood mankind started out at southern Turkey or around th upper Middle East south of Turkey and spread out from there. Sun exposure, available food and other conditions affected how man developed as he spread to different parts of the earth. Those that travelled northward gave birth to children where each successive generation became increasingly lighter in complexion, hair color and eye color. Those that went farther to the southwest, Africa, became increasingly darker in complexion, eye and hair color etc. Thus the physical and possibly other subtle characteristics of various groups gradually changed with the environment under which they settled. Today such changes in man has ceased because the purpose of having a variety in mankind has been fulfilled.

    By the way if you were wondering what race was first, it wa.............................................

    The human race. The first race of man had no label because it needed none. There was no other races to which to distinguish it from. Though we can reasonably say that the complexion was similar to those of the northern Middle East, with dark hair (possibly dark brown) and of medium height. The first people were in the middle of the extremes that we see in racial differences today. They were between the extreme of Negroids and Caucasians.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    There are three basic, main colours: Red, Green and Blue (the opposite are Cyan, Magenta and Yellow), and there are not less than 26000000 different computer-recognized colours derived from them. Our chromosomes are 48 a person, not three.

    So, close to the original creation, the rate of "imperfection" in creation was at minimum. Interbreeding was not a potential for abnormal births. Hence the law against incest and the like did not enter the scene until many centuries later. Looking at the life span in those days, it was longer than nowadays. Methuselah lived to be 960 years.

    Bottom line "...they have Moses and the prophets; if they do not believe them, they won't believe someone coming from the dead", said Jesus, because to "believe" this must be done with the "eye of the faith", just like they walked through the bedrock of the Read Sea.

    "What is more difficult to do, tell this man "raise, your sin is forgiven" or "take your bed and go? But for you to know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins I tell you go, take your bed and leave, your sin is forgiven" ". Do you 'see' now?

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  • enamel
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago

    I thoroughly believe that all that we have now came from the contents of the ark. Genetic variation is no problem and DNA contains all the information necessary to produce multiple races and species of animals. 4000 years is more than enough time. Place 2 productive mice together and let nature runs it course unhindered for a few years and see what happens. God Bless

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Have you done the math ?

    The flood as recorded in the Bible was 2350 BC, that is 4,358 years ago

    Now let us be generous and say a generation is 50 years (whereas in fact it is about 30)

    4350 divide by 50 = 87 generations,

    Start from Noah (we know he had 3 sons)

    2 multiplied by 10 to the power of 87 =

    154,742,504,910,672,534,362,390,528

    and todays population is only 6.5 billion

    6,500,000,000

    I rest my case !

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Yes. The account of Noah is completely true. Even Jesus taught this.

    (Matthew 24:37-39) . . .For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. 38 For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; 39 and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be. . .

    And the Apostle Paul taught:

    (Hebrews 11:7) . . .By faith Noah, after being given divine warning of things not yet beheld, showed godly fear and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; and through this [faith] he condemned the world, and he became an heir of the righteousness that is according to faith. . .

    And the Apostle Peter said:

    (1 Peter 3:19-20) 19 In this [state] also he went his way and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who had once been disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in Noah’s days, while the ark was being constructed, in which a few people, that is, eight souls, were carried safely through the water. . .

    (2 Peter 2:4-5) . . .Certainly if God did not hold back from punishing the angels that sinned, but, by throwing them into Tar′ta·rus, delivered them to pits of dense darkness to be reserved for judgment; 5 and he did not hold back from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a deluge upon a world of ungodly people;

  • 1 decade ago

    I am not 100% sure this is right but I think I am on the right track at least. Yes, all descendants of mankind are from Noah's 3 sons who repopulated the earth along with all the other animals. The "separation" came when Nebuchadnezzar built the tower of Babel which God destroyed for idolatry. God then changed people's skins, tongues and whatnot and spread them throughout the earth in order to prevent them from recreating any blasphemous thing like that again.

  • 1 decade ago

    Good question. Remember, this was before Social Security and the Population Explosion and Birth Control. The only old-age pension was having lots of children to share caring for you, birth control was unheard of and not wanted--consider Ruth 4:9-17:

    "9 Then Bo´az said to the older men and all the people: “YOU are witnesses today that I do buy all that belonged to E·lim´e·lech and all that belonged to Chil´i·on and Mah´lon from the hand of Na´o·mi. 10 And also Ruth the Mo´ab·i·tess, the wife of Mah´lon, I do buy for myself as a wife to cause the name of the dead man to rise upon his inheritance and that the name of the dead man may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his place (compensating the survival rate you mentioned). YOU are witnesses today.”

    11 At this all the people that were in the gate and the older men said: “Witnesses! May Jehovah grant the wife who is coming into your house to be like Rachel and like Le´ah, both of whom built the house of Israel (they had twelve children, counting the ones they asked Jacob to have by their maidservants); and you prove your worth in Eph´ra·thah and make a notable name in Beth´le·hem. 12 And may your house become like the house of Pe´rez, whom Ta´mar bore to Judah, from the offspring that Jehovah will give you out of this young woman.”

    13 Accordingly Bo´az took Ruth and she became his wife and he had relations with her. So Jehovah granted her conception and she bore a son. 14 And the women began to say to Na´o·mi: “Blessed be Jehovah, who has not let a repurchaser fail for you today; that his name may be proclaimed in Israel. 15 And he has become a restorer of your soul and one to nourish your old age, because your daughter-in-law who does love you, who is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” 16 And Na´o·mi proceeded to take the child and to put it in her bosom, and she came to be its nurse. 17 Then the neighbor ladies gave it a name, saying: “A son has been born to Na´o·mi.” And they began to call his name O´bed. He is the father of Jes´se, David’s father."

    So nation-building even entered into it in ancient societies, as verse 11 mentioned, for self-defense, no doubt.

    My sister just sent me an email encouraging spaying my cat, pointing out that a single mother, assuming two litters a year with only 2 1/2 or 3 surviving, would result in 12,000-odd cats in just SEVEN years. We're talking exponential rates of growth here.

    My grandparents had eleven children and four. Jacob had twelve. I have heard a lot of reasonable objections but not that one, so apparently others have done the math and found no problem.

    I think there are only five races: White, black, brown, yellow, and red (and green, if you count the olive-complected Italians!) Any encyclopedia article on race will explain that they resulted from geographical isolation of populations, easily possible with the Flood survivors. And any breeder will tell you that many breeds can be bred out of a mongrel, a mixed-breed. That's what breeders do.

    And remember just a few years ago in Australia, when they imported some rabbits as a biological weapon. What happened? The rabbits multiplied so fast (few natural enemies) that they literally overran Australia, causing them to build a gigantic fence across the CONTINENT called something like The Barrier, to stop them from eating all the farms out of business.

    As the insurance company said, "Life Comes At You Fast!"

    This is not to defend the present-day political view called Creationism which asserts that the Bible says that the universe and living things were created in 24-hour days a few thousand years ago, but you should know that, in fairness to the Bible record, the Bible clearly allows an indefinite amount of time for the creation of the universe in its opening words in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." In verse two, if plainly says that 'darkness' was over the earth, not the universe or heavens. The following four "days" do not use the Hebrew word for "create", but "make", and apparently deal with the clearing of a cloud cover, 'making' first light, then sun, moon and stars visible in the sky. And Gen. 2:4 clearly shows that the "days" were not the 24-hour variety, calling all seven "days" ONE "day," as in, "my grandfather's day."

    Best regards,

    Mike

    Source(s): the Bible;
  • 1 decade ago

    Yes I do. Remember each couple carry the traits of their ancestors. A the tower of Babel God separated them by language and as they moved away and mixed with those the diversity of their genes created what we have today. As the 1st cousin thing that was no big deal back then. Think of it this way they were almost as pure as you could be, or God protected them from inbreeding, but after a time had passed the law of inbreeding came into place especially his people.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Noah took 2 of all flesh in the ark. Humans are flesh,just as aninals. As far as the different races go there was a sixth and a eighth day creation.

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