From Christmas to Genesis

Well I have survived the first of the holidays and seem to be regrouping well for the next one. I mentioned in an earlier post that there was the question posed to me about why we celebrate Christmas in the middle of winter rather than in the spring which would be more in line with the scriptures.
In response to this, I am not really clear but when you think of the whole story, the entire life and walk of Christ it begins to make some sense in my mind. First we have to take into consideration what the celebrations of the church mean.
Christmas is the beginning of the life, the start of the whole Messiah walk. The birth of Christ is the start-up of what is to come. If it represents a hope of new life, then the middle of winter where there are already festivals and celebrations (pagan) that represented this to the people. It became a simple task to attach the "birth of a new hope" onto the already hopefull celebration. In winter we also have "hope" of spring when life will renew itself and the hope will be fulfilled. Change will have happened and we will get the gift of new life.
The move into Epiphinay (sp), the realization of what we have. The day is when finally, it all becomes clear. I would liken it in a way to Luke 2.25 and following verses. My eyes have seen and I have held the Savior of the world.
There are other days that lift up particular events in the life of the church but the next one to really add to why Christmas would be in the middle of winter, (only in the northern hemishpere) would be that breaking forth in the spring. When the new plants emerge and life begins from the cold, frozen, dark winter. Easter!!!!!, the resurrection and new life. The real answer to the question posed at Christmas. "Is there really hope?" Yes is the answer and it comes as a blast of trumpets and death is conquered for all time.
All of this is easily misinterpreted and we begin to wonder why there is death to begin with. This comes to us from Genesis. The second question, who did the sons of Adam marry?
This one is about the same as the first, there is no easy answer without looking at the whole picture. It begins in a garden of completeness, a garden of bliss, one filled with God's presence and his peace.
Enter God's creation, human kind, and soon the whole thing falls apart. There is sin and the sin leads to getting kicked out and the introduction of pain and suffering. It continues in the murder of a brother, again a kicking out and more suffering and strife.
I will attack some things I found but the answer seems to be mathmatical at best. There are many years and lots of off-spring. Marriage is not limited to those not blood related as the purity of genes allows it to be okay biologically. So it is likely the only answer is yes, there were families created from the marriage of brothers and sisters.
It is later in scripture forbidden to marry close relatives. I hope this will create a curiosity to get us digging deeper into the big picture. I caution many who seek simple answers that there are none. The cure is simple, give your life over to Jesus. He is obviously seeking you if you have these questions.
Be careful that you don't try to make God to small so you can hold him and make him what you want. This life in Christ is a messy thing but one that is exciting and freeing.
Sue (sp) I hope this answers some of your questions and I will be calling to check in. There are those reading this who are much wiser than I so ask if you are in question and maybe someone can clear up some confusion that I created.
I can't remember where I found these but did a Google search. Like all the scriptures I struggle with there isn't much info.
Cain and his descendants.
1. (16-17) Cain moves away and marries.
Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son; Enoch.
a. And Cain knew his wife: We don’t know where did Cain got his wife. Genesis 5:4 says Adam had several sons and daughters. Cain obviously married his sister. Though marrying a sister was against the law of God according to Leviticus 18:9, 18:11, 20:17, and Deuteronomy 27:22 (which even prohibits the marrying of a half-sister), this was long before God spoke that law to Moses and the world.
i. Here, necessity demanded that Adam’s sons marry his daughters. And at this point, the “gene pool” of humanity was pure enough to allow close marriage without harm of inbreeding. But as a stream can get more polluted the further it gets from the source, there came a time when God decreed there no longer be marriage between close relatives because of the danger of inbreeding.
ii. Even Abraham married his half-sister Sarah (Genesis 20:12). God did not prohibit such marriages until the time of Moses (Leviticus 18:9). Marrying a brother or sister was not forbidden until God forbade it.
Commentary by David Guzik

Dr. Shuckford farther observes that the Hebrew word tya oth, which we translate a mark, signifies a sign or token. Thus, chap. ix. 13, the bow was to be tyal leoth, for a sign or token that the world should not be destroyed; therefore the words, And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, should be translated, And the Lord appointed to Cain a token or sign, to convince him that no person should be permitted to slay him. To have marked him would have been the most likely way to have brought all the evils he dreaded upon him; therefore the Lord gave him some miraculous sign or token that he should not be slain, to the end that he should not despair, but, having time to repent, might return to a gracious God and find mercy. Notwithstanding the allusion which I suppose St. Paul to have made to the punishment of Cain, some think that he did repent and find mercy. I can only say this was possible. Most people who read this account wonder why Cain should dread being killed, when it does not appear to them that there were any inhabitants on the earth at that time besides himself and his parents. To correct this mistake, let it be observed that the death of Hebel took place in the one hundred and twenty-eighth or one hundred and twenty-ninth year of the world. Now, "supposing Adam and Eve to have had no other sons than Cain and Hebel in the year of the world one hundred and twenty-eight, yet as they had daughters married to these sons, their descendants would make a considerable figure on the earth. Supposing them to have been married in the nineteenth year of the world, they might easily have had each eight children, some males and some females, in the twenty-fifth year. In the fiftieth year there might proceed from them in a direct line sixty-four persons; in the seventy-fourth year there would be five hundred and twelve; in the ninety-eighth year, four thousand and ninety- six; in the one hundred and twenty-second they would amount to thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight: if to these we add the other children descended from Cain and Hebel, their children, and their children's children, we shall have, in the aforesaid one hundred and twenty-eight years four hundred and twenty-one thousand one hundred and sixty-four men capable of generation, without reckoning the women either old or young, or such as are under the age of seventeen." See Dodd.
But this calculation may be disputed, because there is no evidence that the antediluvian patriarchs began to have children before they were sixty-five years of age. Now, supposing that Adam at one hundred and thirty years of age had one hundred and thirty children, which is quite possible, and each of these a child at sixty-five years of age, and one in each successive year, the whole, in the one hundred and thirtieth year of the world, would amount to one thousand two hundred and nineteen persons; a number sufficient to found several villages, and to excite the apprehensions under which Cain appeared at this time to labour.
Adam Clarke’s commentary on Genes

Happy reading. Will be back after the new year begins. Pastor WaynO