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From where did the "wives" of Cain and Abel come?

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
From where did the "wives" of Cain and Abel come?

How were THEY created?
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`mud

Just old
Premium Member
Didn't one die ? Am I in the wrong thread ?
Find it in the East my friend.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
From where did the "wives" of Cain and Abel come?

How were THEY created?

Ok, officially the Church claims Cain married his sister. Adam and Eve had more than two children.
Incest? Well it was a time of sin.

I suppose Adam and Eve were siblings as well. Same genetic material.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
From the Blue Letter Bible:

"It seems then that Cain, or one of his brothers, must have married a sister. If the entire human race came from an original pair then this was unavoidable. Does this not present us with the problem of incest? The answer is no. These early intermarriages between brothers and sisters does not violate the commands God later gave in the Book of Leviticus which condemned these relationships."
source
And why doesn't it "violate the commands God later gave in the Book of Leviticus which condemned these relationships." Because that would be problematic, so we just pretend it doesn't. :facepalm:

Of course this means that during all those years, some 3,500 of them, from the time of A&E to the writing of Leviticus 538-332 BCE (ave.= 430 BCE), people were also freely doing other things that god later decreed to be no-nos in Leviticus. . . . . "Ah, those were the good years. Ay, Martha?"

.
 
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`mud

Just old
Premium Member
We all owe a lot to something called `imagination` !
Surprising how the `message` was imbedded in the youth !
 

halbhh

The wonder and awe of "all things".
From where did the "wives" of Cain and Abel come?

How were THEY created?

Everyone likes to speculate don't they?

While it seems somewhat trivial, I never had any concern about such a question when I first read these chapters very long ago, as it clearly isn't addressed in the text, which isn't at all about small details.

Something else is afoot -- not detailed history, but more interesting things.

I never had a distraction to imagine extra ideas such as that notion some have that whatever happened in Genesis chapter 2 was during chapter 1 (sorta an odd idea in my own personal view), and it's interesting to consider here the question: why assume that?

Simpler to read to just read it as it is written, more plainly, thus as a sequence, so that all in chapter 1 finished before anything in chapter 2. That would then mean a variety of humans came into existence in some sense (in chapter 1, just as the text says) before the special situation of the Garden in chapter 2.

In that case, Adam and Eve are the first ever humans with souls: breathed in spirit, thus the forerunners of all of us here in the profound way. In other words, if one wants to speculate as your question does, then one speculation is just that it's a sequence of events, and things are nowhere coincident together, but all is in sequence.

Ergo, then of course in chapter 4 when Cain leaves for good and goes off to this 'land of Nod' which is some already existing group/tribe/place/or nation....he takes a wife there from the already-existing peoples.

That was all merely recounting the text as it is with just the simplest interpretation with the least extra assumptions added.

In a way these kinds of side issues are a red herring though. One wants to read chapter 1, 2, 3 with the intent to actually get the real messages, not the trivial details (which aren't even in the text), such as mere time duration, or even admitted interesting stuff like in the vision of chapter 1 did the sun, moon, stars appear on day 4 first in the vision due to constant clouds on the previous 'days', etc. side issue stuff people invent theories about.

I mean don't miss the forest for the trees. In a way, the reason all those kinds of details are missing is they truly are not the point -- small details are not the point, not even a little.

In other words, forget all the noise, sometime, maybe another day, and just purely read, as if a poem if you need, and try to hear the message, the one that isn't small detail, but deeper.
 
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Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
The more that one accepts the "literal" truth of the Bible, the more difficult it is to contend with the necessary contradictions. Thus, if Adam and Eve are accepted as the only two first humans, and if Eve was created out of Adam's "rib" (probably meaning baculum, or penis bone -- I've given this explanation elsewhere), then they are not only "brother and sister," they are in effect identical twins! Their children could only have produced offspring with one another (or, worse, with their parents), and those offspring likewise. At the third or fourth generation, everybody is getting on with someone who is at the very farthest genetic distance, a cousin,

These sorts of problems disappear the very instant you accept that this part of the story, at least, is not "literal history" but myth. And if you go one step further and accept that evolution is actually responsible for the emergence of humans among the creatures of earth, you can stop worrying about it altogether.
 

Terry Sampson

Well-Known Member
if you go one step further and accept that evolution is actually responsible for the emergence of humans among the creatures of earth, you can stop worrying about it altogether.

Not that I'm going to lose sleep over it, but ... have you ever read a description of evolutionary theory that explains how two members of the same species but differing in gender evolved roughly simultaneously? I've never bothered to research the matter and only decided to be curious enough to ask today.
 
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Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
And why doesn't it "violate the commands God later gave in the Book of Leviticus which condemned these relationships." Because that would be problematic, so we just pretend it doesn't.

Etiological tales are not intended as history, your sophomoric pissing-match with Jewish scripture notwithstanding.
 
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Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Not that I'm going to lose sleep over it, but ... have you ever read a description of evolutionary theory that explains how two members of the same species but differing in gender evolved roughly simultaneously? I've never bothered to research the matter and only decided to be curious enough to ask today.
As I read your question, I'm struck by what seems to be your supposition that you need two newly "evolved" members to successful mate -- as if they are already a new species. But this is not true. A small, beneficial genetic modification in one animal can be passed, through mating with another, unchanged, partner, to their offspring. Or at least some of them. And to the extent that the modification is beneficial (in terms of ability to produce more offspring that survive to reproduce), that can spread rapidly. And during much of this time, the fact that there is a new genetic line within the pack would be unnoticed.

Now, make a little environmental change -- say a little earth tremor that opens a rift, separating members of the pack on either side, and suddenly, you may find that the animals on one side begin to look noticeably different from those on the other. The point is, this all takes TIME. And not time the way you and I count it, but "geologic time." That ain't fast.
 

101G

Well-Known Member
Addressing the OP only, Cain got his wife from the offspring that Adam and Eve had in the Garden before the fall. supportive scripture, Genesis 3:16 and Genesis 3:20.

PICJAG.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Not that I'm going to lose sleep over it, but ... have you ever read a description of evolutionary theory that explains how two members of the same species but differing in gender evolved roughly simultaneously? I've never bothered to research the matter and only decided to be curious enough to ask today.
I know, and how did that Latin speaking mother communicate with her Spanish speaking baby?
 
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