TAKE LESS TIME TO PRESENT BETTER PROGRAMS WITH THESE
Science and the Bible by Bolton Davidheiser, Ph.D.
I T f i n a l l y happened! During a ques tion period someone asked the present writer, “Where did Cain get his wife?” For many years this ques tion has been asked of numerous speakers for a variety of reasons. But the answer is really quite sim ple. Cain married one of his sisters. This is not done in our society, and there is a good reason. Undesirable hereditary traits tend to be “ reces sive.” That means that these traits must be inherited from both parents in order to be manifest. Since closely related persons are more likely to be carrying the same hereditary fac tors, close marriages tend to bring out undesirable characteristics. But in the beginning God created every thing good. There is no reason to believe that the first parents had undesirable hereditary factors to transmit to their children, and hence brother-sister marriages would not be detrimental. Undesirable h ered ita ry factors may accumulate in a population as time goes on because good genes may mutate to inferior or bad genes at any time. It is believed that the hereditary bleeding condition known as hemophilia began in the royal families of Europe through such a change in a gene in Queen Victoria. Such changes may arise spontan eously, but radiations and some chemicals speed up the mutation rate. That is one of the reasons why scientists are worried about the in creased radiation in the atmosphere brought about by atomic explosions. Perhaps the spontaneous mutations are caused by such things as cosmic rays. At best, mutations are nearly always disadvantageous. If highly desirable traits are found in a family and hereditary defects do not occur, intermarriage will concen trate the good traits. There was con siderable intermarriage in the Bach family, and as a result there were more musicians in that family than there would have been if they had married outside the family. The Darwin family was rather much intermarried. Charles Darwin married his cousin, Emma Wedge- wood, whose father made the famous Wedgewood chinaware. He had some reason for concern about the close ness of intermarriage in his family, and he had a defective child who died
young. There were also persons of outstanding ability among his de scendants. The P tolem ies of Egypt were Greeks and they practiced brother- sister marriage. The famous Cleo patra was in this lineage. Apparent ly she was rather superior in some ways, but there were others in this family of whom the general public has graciously been spared knowl edge. The Roman emperors belonged to a much intermarried family, and there was considerable insanity and other undesirable traits in this fam ily. Abraham married his half-sister Sarah. His son Isaac married Re- bekah, a daughter of his cousin. Their son Jacob married Leah and Rachel, daughters of his cousin, his mother’s nephew. From these close marriages came the Hebrew people. They were strong and vigorous and favored by the Lord. Many promises were made to them by God. Some of these promises have been fulfilled in our own time and some remain to to be fulfilled in the future. The most wonderful of these will occur when they recognize and accept their Messiah. The Bible says that Adam was created as an individual, and there fore had no mate. To remove any possible g r o u n d s for quibbling, Scripture describes how the first wo man was produced from a portion of his side. For those who will not accept this — and they are legion today — there is no problem as to where a “mythological Cain” got his wife. For those who do believe, there is likewise no problem as to where the real Cain got his wife, for under the circumstances laid down in the Bible it could only have been a sister. Josephus, the great historian of the Jews, also wrote about Adam’s children. His writing was not in spired, of course, and his information in this area came from tradition. He says that Adam “was solicitous for posterity, and had a vehement desire for children. . . . He had many other children.” In those early days people lived a long time, and the Bible tells us that after the birth of Seth, Adam lived 800 years and “ begat sons and daughters” (Gen. 5:3, 4). God gave them instructions and the ability to “be fruitful and multiply and replen ish ffill] the earth” (Gen. 1:28).
Y O U T H A T W O R S H IP by Annie Ward Byrd
Thirty-six programs designed to help you plan better worship periods for teen-agers. The programs are classified under eight themes: God, Jesus, the Bible, the Church, Missions, Personal Christian Living, Living with Others, and Christian Leadership. $2.95 J U N IO R A S S E M B L Y P R O G R A M S by Ethel Harrison Grice Here are 50 worship programs complete with ob jectives, stories, and illustrations. This book con tains plans for special days, stewardship, missions, and Christian living. S U N D A Y S C H O O L P R O G R A M S FO R IN T E R M E D IA T E S compiled by Mary Alice Biby Sixty-one practical programs enrich departmental worship services and hold interest of pupils. Planned by experienced intermediate workers. Includes pro grams for special occasions. A Y E A R O F J U N IO R P R O G R A M S by Bobbie Trent Junior workers will find sound material in these 53 programs for a full year of Junior activity. Com plete instructions are given for seasonal programs, special programs dealing with problems, the life of Christ, and many other matters of interest to Juniors. K IN D L E A B L A Z E F O R C H R IS T by Virginia Whitman Seed thoughts, devotional comments, wise sayings, and quotations useful for five-minute talks or ex panded for thirty-minute messages. Suggestions for adapting the material to all age groups are espe cially helpful. $2.50
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BROAOWAN
Published by B R O A D M A N PRESS
and available at your book store $1600 CONTEST for WRITERS OF UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS. Send for contest rules and free Brochure on publishing your book. Dept. KB Pageant Press, 101 Fifth Avenue, New York 3 AUTHORS WANTED BY NEW YORK PUBLISHER Leading book publisher seeks manuscripts of all types: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, scholarly and religious works, etc. New authors welcomed. For complete information, send for booklet KB. It’s free. Vantage Press. 120 W . 31st St.. New York. N .Y.
OCTOBER, 1967
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