Here goes…In the Bible Adam & Eve had ONLY 2 sons. Cain killed Able and in the next paragraph it says he went out and begat a wife. Would someone please explain to me where this wife came from??? Thank you, Jaystercom
Welcome to Straightdope, Jaystercom!!
Cain’s wife was one of his sisters. Remember, his parents Adam and Eve had lots of sons and daughters. Since they were the first offspring and are just short of perfection since adam and Eve sinned, they intermarried.
BTW: Factual questions such as this are better off in General Questions.
It is admittedly confusing because from Eve and Naamah, Cain’s daughter, in Genesis chapter 4-5 to Sarai, Abram’s wife in chapter 12, not a single woman was mentioned by name.
Hoo boy.
I answered one of these last year, and it turned into a 2 page nightmare.
Genesis 4:16- And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he built a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
From this we can easily see that it was not a case of incest.
As far as I can tell, there is no mention how these people came to be in the land of Nod at the same time as Adam & Eve. (Maybe God made them after the whole Eden fiasco?)
Cain didn’t “begat” a wife, he “knew” her. (Gen 4:17).
The timelines are a bit murky, here. Verses 17 through 22 describe Cain’s descendants:
Cain (who begat...)
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Enoch
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Irad
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Mehujael
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Methusael
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Lamech
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Jabal, Jubal, Tubalcain, Namaah
Namaah is Cain’s great-great-great-great-gandaughter, not his daughter. Lamech’s wives, Adah and Zillah (I guess he wanted women A to Z) are mentioned in Gen 4:19 and 23. Zillah was a particularly close follower of God.
In any event, six generations of Cain’s descedants are mentioned before the Bible goes back to Adam and starts to describe what he was doing the whole time. Gen 4:25 states, in part: And Adam knew his wife [Eve, presumably] again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth. Following that, Gen 5:4 says Adam “begat sons and daughters” in the 800 years he lived after fathering Seth. Considering the ages of these people (Adam’s total of 930 years seems typical, though Methuselah’s 969 gives him the record), they had plenty of time to mate not only with sisters, but even neices and great-great-great-grandneices. By the modern definitions of incest, some of these pairings might not even count.
You don’t need to magically create Cain’s wife out midair, you just have to get past the potentially icky prospect of him mating with one of his sisters or neices.
As a way of both explaining why incest was not necessary as well as the conflict between biblical history and evolution, I have alwys considered that man evolved just like the other animals but that God gave to adam and then eve the one thing that sets them apart fom all other animals and that is a “soul”. Or maybe it is simple self-awareness. Either way I have always ssumed that while Adam and Eve were the first of God’s children, no where in the bible does it say they were the only humans on earth. Adam and Eve and their children were the first to have a “soul” and their children when marrying would bring that ancestory to their own marriages and produce children that also have souls. There are many instances in the bible that refer to other beings and creatures including other “angels/gods” that made their home on earth and propagated children.
An interesting note on this topic:
If you take one of the verses prohibiting incest with one’s sister, you’ll see it says (Leviticus 20:17 – JPS translation):
The Hebrew word for “shameful thing” used in this verse is very unusual. The word used is chesed. If you walk up to any Hebrew speaking person and ask them what the word chesed means, you will be told it means “kindness.” That is the primary meaning of the term. The Jewish commentators note this and make the comment that the reason this prohibition is referred to as a chesed is because it was a kindness by God to allow Adam’s & Eve’s children to marry their siblings in order to perpetuate humanity.
Zev Steinhardt
If these people were made separate from Adam and Eve, then they must be free of the taint of A&E’s actions in the Garden, right? So, no Original Sin and all that.
Yet they were destroyed along with everyone else (aside from Noah’s brood, who were descended from A&E) during the Flood.
Why?
IANAC, but I’m gonna take a stab at this one…
You’re making the false assumption that the cause of the flood was Original Sin. This is not the case, even according to Christians. The reason for the flood was because mankind sinned. One can sin, even without Original Sin. After all, Adam and Eve did so.
Furthermore, let’s not forget that according to Christian thought, Noah and his family had Original Sin as well too, no?
Zev Steinhardt
I don’t know. Neither do you, or anyone else on this board.
The OP asked:
I gave him the answer. No speculation, no interpretation.
Retraction: I did speculate slightly in my last paragraph:
The truth however, is that we don’t know, and have no way of knowing.
Interesting. I wonder if the person who wrote that passage originally actually thought that what he was describing wasn’t a “shameful thing” and was in fact a kindness. I have to admit I’m not up on Leviticus so I don’t know how it fits the context, but it’s an idea. Maybe that person didn’t think incest was so bad.
I highly doubt that. First of all, I left off the end of the verse wherein the punishment for said crime is contained. The writer of the verse clearly did not approve of sibling incest.
Secondly, the verse is contained within a block of verses describing other forms of forbidden incest.
Zev Steinhardt
Yeah, right. This is a religious question and is in the correct forum. Those of us who do not believe the Bible is literal history wouldn’t consider any of the answers given to be “factual” but rather exegesis of the mythology.
Not to pick a fight Homebrew-
If I asked “In greek mythology, why did Icarus’ wings melt?”, would that not be a factual question better suited for GQ?
What was the first mention of people apart from Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel? Was it when God sent Cian out into the world and he said people would kill him?
We can deduce that some polulation had arrived, either as unmentioned sons and daughters of A&E or spontaneuosly by God.
It’s an interesting take that some people may not be descended from A&E. DO they not hurt at birth, etc? Or mixed descent give you all the curse of original sin.
and what of those “giants” who were from the “sons of men”?
Is ANdre the Giant of their lineage?
No, you gave an answer that was entirely based on speculation. In a literal reading of Genesis, you’ve got two choices: God created Adam & Eve, and everyone descended from them, in which case incest must be invoked to account for Cain’s wife; or, God mysteriously creates these other people, but makes no mention of that activity (it was, after all, a big deal the first time around). In choosing this option, however, one must account for why they, as well as A&E and their kin, were subject to God’s wrath, since there was likewise no mention that they screwed up as A&E had. One must, in fact, make a fair number of speculations or interpretations in this case, since there is no real evidence given within the Bible to support it.
The most likely solution, again given a literal reading (which I feel is unwarranted in the first place), is incest (such was invoked again with Lot and his daughters, and would necessarily have to have been invoked after the Flood, which left only Noah’s family to repopulate).
As such, I’m not sure why this “second creation” keeps popping up as an explanation for Cain’s wife.
Bad phrasing on my part.
Once again, straight from the source:
Cain had no sisters at this point, so he heads out to “Nod”, hooks up with a native, and the story continues.
Hmmn, well, there’s certainly enough in the Bible to speculate that “God” was/is not the only God, that he only created Adam and Eve, and that he was only the God of the Jews/Israelites.
Which might explain why he didn’t give a rats ass about the Amelekites, the Canaanites, the Egyptians, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.