Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
Although this theory furnishes a plausible explanation of certain
Biblical facts, such as the marriage of Cain (_Gen. 4:17_), Cain’s
fear that men would slay him (_Gen. 4:14_), and the distinction
between “_the sons of God_” and “_the daughters of men_” (_Gen.
6:1, 2_), it treats the Mosaic narrative as legendary rather than
historical. Shem, Ham, and Japheth, it is intimated, may have
lived hundreds of years apart from one another (409). Upon this
view, Eve could not be “_the mother of all living_” (_Gen. 3:20_),
nor could the transgression of Adam be the cause and beginning of
condemnation to the whole race (_Rom. 5:12, 19_). As to Cain’s
fear of other families who might take vengeance upon him, we must
remember that we do not know how many children were born to Adam
between Cain and Abel, nor what the age of Cain and Abel was, nor
whether Cain feared only those that were then living. As to Cain’s
marriage, we must remember that even if Cain married into another
family, his wife, upon any hypothesis of the unity of the race,
must have been descended from some other original Cain that
married his sister.
See Keil and Delitzsch, Com. on Pentateuch, 1:116—“The marriage of
brothers and sisters was inevitable in the case of children of the
first man, in case the human race was actually to descend from a
single pair, and may therefore be justified, in the face of the
Mosaic prohibition of such marriages, on the ground that the sons
and daughters of Adam represented not merely the family but the
genus, and that it was not till after the rise of several families
that the bonds of fraternal and conjugal love became distinct from
one another and assumed fixed and mutually exclusive forms, the
violation of which is sin.” Prof. W. H. Green: “_Gen. 20:12_ shows
that Sarah was Abraham’s half-sister;...the regulations
subsequently ordained in the Mosaic law were not then in force.”
G. H. Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, has shown that marriage
between cousins is harmless where there is difference of
temperament between the parties. Modern palæontology makes it
probable that at the beginning of the race there was greater
differentiation of brothers and sisters in the same family than
obtains in later times. See Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:275. For criticism
of the doctrine that there were men before Adam, see Methodist
Quar. Rev., April, 1881:205-231; Presb. Rev., 1881:440-444.
The Scripture statements are corroborated by considerations drawn from
history and science. Four arguments may be briefly mentioned:
1. The argument from history.
So far as the history of nations and tribes in both hemispheres can be
traced, the evidence points to a common origin and ancestry in central
Asia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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