Question
Gramps,
One question I have often wondered about is the marriages of Adam and Eve’s children. They must have married their siblings. Is this true?
Alverne
Answer
Alverne,
At the very heart of this question is a reading of the Bible and associated scripture. The Book of Genesis, accepted as authoritative by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is clear: Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, and all humans descend from them. Genesis 3 and 4 describe their family, including sons and daughters.
With Adam and Eve as the only human couple, the immediate and obvious implication is that their children must have married each other, i.e., siblings marrying siblings. This conclusion is more than an assumption—it is the only scenario explicitly supported by the scriptural record.
I see nothing in scripture to suggest otherwise. With Adam and Eve being the only people to have children, their offspring would have had no one else to marry. They were following the commandment as given to them to multiply and replenish the earth in the only way available at the time.
Attempts to sidestep this straightforward reading often stem from modern discomfort with the idea of inter-sibling marriage, or “incest.” But context is key. There were no prior precedents, social taboos, or large populations—the world was in its infancy.
Some modern commentators have speculated that perhaps other people existed outside the family of Adam and Eve, potentially as partners for their children. This notion is occasionally found in fictionalized or non-traditional “translations” of the Bible. However, all standard scriptural accounts, from the King James Version to the Revised Standard Version, affirm that Adam and Eve are the progenitors of the entire human family. None of the standard versions of the scriptures gives any hint that Adam and Eve were not the first two people to inhabit the earth and the progenitors of all the human family.
Speculation about pre-Adamites or contemporary races alongside Adam and Eve is not supported by official doctrine or recognized translations. Church scholars such as Hugh Nibley have discussed enigmatic figures or groups in ancient scripture (e.g., the “sons of God” and “daughters of men”), but such discussions do not undermine the scriptural assertion that Adam and Eve were the direct progenitors of humanity. Thus, any attempt to explain Adam and Eve’s children finding spouses outside the family is a modern adaptation, not a doctrinal position of the Church.
A natural objection arises: wouldn’t the children of Adam and Eve, marrying siblings, be prone to the genetic defects commonly associated with close-kin marriage today? Modern genetics teaches that inbreeding significantly increases the chance for harmful recessive genes to pair up, leading to birth defects and genetic diseases. Critics sometimes frame this as a significant scientific problem with the biblical account.
Genetic defects in offspring that are not evident in the parents come from the matching of recessive genes for the same defect. If the parents had no defective genes, they could not be passed on to the children. I would suggest that there have been no more perfect physical specimens on the earth, save Jesus Christ only, than… Adam and Eve. I imagine that defective genes began to be incorporated into the chromosomes of their descendants through mutations that seem to occur from time to time.”
The logic here is twofold:
1. Adam and Eve’s genetic makeup was perfect—that is, their bodies were free from the mutations and defects that accumulate over generations.
2. Genetic risks accumulate over time rather than appearing from the beginning. Since defect-causing genes would only appear through mutations in subsequent generations, the earliest sibling marriages would not have carried the same risks seen today.
Thus, according to official Church perspectives, the unique circumstances of the first human family made such unions both necessary and relatively safe in ways that are no longer applicable in today’s world.
For some, the notion of sibling marriage—even under these unusual circumstances—can seem unsettling. The scriptures make clear, however, that commands and prohibitions change as circumstances require. Modern commandments against incestuous relationships are based, in part, on accumulated genetic risks and the need for social order. However, initially, this restriction did not exist.
I think we project our modern views into the scriptures and feel like maybe certain things were wrong. But, if you put yourself in their place, it would seem perfectly normal, because that’s all there was at the time, and there was no prior precedent.
From the Church’s perspective, God’s commands are fully suited to each period and circumstance. Initially, the divine command to “multiply and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28) permitted sibling marriage. As the family of humanity expanded and cycles of mutation and social complexity increased, God revealed new commandments about appropriate sexual relations and marriage partners.
To attempt to talk about ‘incest’ and gene pools as being reasons for objecting to the written word of God is ludicrous… We cannot assume that all the conditions scientists can measure today were the same six thousand years ago. Furthermore, many areas in modern science contradict the recorded word of God. It would be well for us to have the faith necessary to understand that where such differences do exist, science is wrong in every case.
While this may not satisfy critics working strictly within a scientific paradigm, it is a consistent theological position within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
While the official doctrine is clear, Latter-day Saint scholars and thinkers have, at times, examined the textual complexity of ancient scriptural records for further light and understanding. Hugh Nibley, one of the most influential Latter-day Saint academics, explored questions about apparently parallel peoples and “other nations” mentioned in ancient texts:
There were humans who were not invited by Enoch’s preaching—not included among the residue of people not entering Enoch’s city. They were ‘the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain…”
Nibley’s work suggests that even within the scriptural narrative, there are complexities—groups who are not specified in the Genesis account but are still considered descendants of Adam. However, Nibley never proposes “pre-Adamite” peoples or unrelated humans as potential spouses for Adam’s children. His explorations reveal that all humans are descended from a common ancestor; their children were initially married within the family.
The effort to “get around what they saw would be ‘incest’ otherwise” is largely motivated by modern discomfort rather than scriptural or prophetic warrant. For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, faith in God’s revealed word—both ancient and modern—provides an answer grounded in the realities of a unique and unrepeatable period in human history.
We come to know the truths of God by living under the principles that He has revealed to mankind. By doing so, we may receive the influence of the Holy Spirit that teaches us and confirms to us eternal truths.
Gramps
