???Where did the sisters come from if Adam and Eve were first issue items?
Waving a hand and saying they came form distant lands is confusing. They married their own sisters?
The Jewish explanation is that they were born with sisters for the purpose. Based on Psalm 89:3 “Forever will it be built with kindness...” referring to permission granted to the children of Adam so that the world become populated.
Traditional Jewish perspective on these kinds of questions can be found at:
http://www.askmoses.com/en/index.html
“Where did the sisters come from if Adam and Eve were first issue items? Waving a hand and saying they came form distant lands is confusing. They married their own sisters?”
Yes, they married their sisters. In some cases, it was probably common for early males to marry their female cousins or nieces also. They didn’t come from “distant lands”. They came from Adam and Eve.
Genesis 2:8
The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
East of what? East of where the author and his audience lived: Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc. Eden was in modern day Iraq. So was the tower of Babel, and later Babylon.
The descendants of Adam and Eve migrated to various areas of the same part of the world up until the time of Noah’s flood and even for quite some time after it. Just because the Bible indicates that Cain settled in a particular area and married does not imply that there was some other population of humans from some other origin already at this place. Adam and Eve’s children were supposed to spread out and populate the earth by God’s command. That’s what they were doing.
Genesis 1:8
Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
I’m a little confused about what you are asking. Adam and Eve were a married couple from which ALL humans came. So, the sisters (or nieces, etc.) who became wives to the first couple’s sons and grandsons were also born from Eve or the couple’s daughters and granddaughters. The first couple had sexual relations, became pregnant, and gave birth, just as any other couple.
Genesis 1-5 covers a great deal of territory—about a thousand years, roughly—in a few very short chapters. These are highlights of things God decided were important for us to know.
We are told of 3 sons Adam and Eve had: Cain, Able (that was killed by Cain and apparently had no children), and Seth. We are told the first couple had sons and daughters:
Genesis 5:4
After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters.
It is possible there were other sons. Adam lived almost a thousand years. During this time, communities were built, technology was discovered, skills were learned. At some point, rebel angels also got involved and taught people certain things which are not recorded in the Bible and are only mentioned in passing. These angels interbred with humans, resulting in the Nephilim which were killed in the flood. The angels also apparently taught people to genetically alter animals and plants.
You are overcomplicating what the passage tells us about Cain and Seth. Adam was formed from the ground and given life by God breathing into him. God formed Eve by taking part of his body, from his side, commonly thought to be a rib. After this, all humans came from their offspring. Eve is called “the mother of all living”.
Genesis 3:20
And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
Common sense tells us that there had to be a first man and woman capable of having offspring. Recognizing this does not require any faith in the Bible or any religious or philosophical view. This means that early humans had to mate with siblings. There is no other way for it to happen. Maybe you prefer to think of God creating non-sibling spouses for the first generation of Adam and Eve’s offspring, but this would contradict what it teaches and would be an entirely different religious view.
It is understandable that people find the thought of this repugnant because in the modern dispensation it would be incest to have sexual relations with a close relative. This moral law took effect some time after the flood apparently. Exactly when is not recorded in the Bible. But we do know that Abraham married his half sister, and yet God did not treat him as a wicked, sexual pervert to be destroyed. Yet, later, God condemns the incestuous behavior of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan which He said was why they were being driven from the land in judgment.
Under the Law of Moses, incest was prohibited, but first cousins getting married, or a man marrying his niece, I believe were not considered to be incest. See Leviticus 18. Today, some states prohibit marriage between first cousins and some do not. I am not sure what the law says about a man marrying his niece, but I assume it is not practiced. People have healthier children when they marry someone who is genetically different for the reasons I mentioned earlier. When Cain and Seth married their sisters, they were “distant” relatives genetically. And they were probably raised apart rather than growing up together.