Here are a couple more areas that have been controversial and misunderstood in the Bible.

Cain:

A very common question that people ask has to do with Cain – where did he get his wife? In fact, it was asked at the famous Scopes monkey trial early in the 20th century. The answer is so simple that it is embarrassing. Cain got his wife from his sisters — Genesis 5: 4. That may sound creepy to many of us today, but any law against marrying a close relative didn’t start until Moses (Leviticus 18-20 ). In fact, Abraham married his half sister in Genesis.  We may wonder about the possibility of having defective children, but some experts say there were not as many accumulated genetic mistakes then.

Creation:

The Bible sounds pretty modern if you read the first chapter of Genesis where it says all matter, space, time, and energy had a start. For a long time there were many other popular theories about the beginning of the universe. Many believed it had always been here while others thought we were part of a cyclical universe which expanded and contracted repeatedly.    But experiments in the 20th century have caused scientists to believe in what originally was sarcastically referred to as the Big Bang theory. This says that the universe sprang into existence out of nothing around 14-15,000,000,000 years ago. Ever since then the universe has been expanding and cooling. What’s interesting is that other Bible passages may be referring to this expansion –Job 9:8, Isaiah 40:22, Psalm 104:2.