A biblical dialogue with my daughter

My daughter called the other night to chat as she often does. I am honored because many of these chats aren't about society chatter but are really hard questions. I am honored that she thinks enough of my opinion that she seeks it out. This conversation fell into that category. So, she said, "if you take the Old Testament story of Genesis literally, Adam and Eve were the 'two humans' God created and they were driven out of the Garden of Eden and then, subsequently, there were a lot more humans, right?" I think that's what it says, I agreed. "Well, then in order for there to be a lot more humans, if you take it literally, there had to be a fair amount of interbreeding to build up the population, right?" "Ummmm" was my immediate response. But she's correct. Adam and Eve's offspring would have had to reproduce with either their parents or each other if the literal view of Genesis is correct. The alternative is that there were other humans or that they interbred with some 'non-human' population. Literal Bible readers would not likely accept either of these ideas. So, how to explain the growth of human populations otherwise? Not easy. I closed this conversation with my daughter thinking that I was very proud of her because I hoped all my children would ask hard, probing questions in the world. And she does so. I just didn't realize I would be the object of those questions as well.