**vanilla[\b] the giants are the sons of angels who wanted mortal woman as wives. They seem to have all died in the flood and even if they didn’t they were limited to a mere 125 years (IIRC) of life.
As for Cain’s wife she may have been a demon or other such creature (who the hell knows what lives in Nod). Give the vagueness of the time frame with regards to the births I’m inclined to say the text just doesn’t contain the information regarding who Cain’s wife is. Obviously the writers didn’t think it was important or they would have at lesat named her.
SO WHAT YOUR TELLING ME IS THAT THE HUMAN RACE HAS A DAMN SMALL GENE POOL, AND WE STILL DON’T KNOW HER NAME. WHEW !!!
IT ALL MAKES ME VERY TIRED.
BILL MARER FROM POLITICALLY INCORRECT SAID IT VERY SIMPLY ONE NIGHT. HE SAID THAT HE BELIEVED IN GOD OR A SUPERIOR BEING OR POWER BUT HE DOESN’T THINK HE RAN AROUND WRITING STORIES AND I COULDN’T AGREE MORE. DEE
Didn’t Noah’s sons take their wives with them? So people would be marrying cousins, which while probably not healthy is a lot better than marrying siblings.
There’s your problem. Gen 4 doesn’t give a whole lot of specifics, like how much time elapsed between verses 16 (Cain lights out for the Land O’ Nod) and 17 (Cain knows his wife). Gen 5:4 - 5 describes Adam having more kids over his 930-year lifespan, so there is more than enough time for Cain to sulk and nap (Nod off, as it were) in solitude before one of Adam’s daughters or grand-daughters heads East and hooks up with Cain.
Time doesn’t seem to be a major problem for these people. The average lifespan of the people mentioned in Gen 5 is over 800 years. Noah is mentioned in the last verse of Gen 5 as being 500 years old before begatting his 3 sons, 600 when the Flood came (Gen 7:6), and 950 at the time of his death (Gen 9:29).
Lifespans don’t shrink appreciably until the last verse of Genesis, 50:26, when Joseph hangs on a mere 110 years before kicking the bucket. Lousy quitter.
Genesis is full of interesting tidbits, including 17:27, which sounds like the worst house party imaginable.
We’re debating the meaning of an incomplete and inconsistant text, so at best, we’ll have an incomplete and inconsistant argument.
I’m just disappointed no-one commented on my Zillah joke.
Weren’t lifespans back at the beginning several hundred years? (I vaguely recall being told such a thing in hebrew school all those years ago).
Who’s to say that Cain didn’t wander around for 500 years and when he got to the land of Nod his siblings hadn’t had 25 generations of descendents there already. Maybe he actually married his g’g’g’g’g’g’g’g’g’g’g’g’g’g’g’g’grand-niece or something.
interesting that 950 “years” works out to about 79 years old if those “years” were actually MONTHS, which would also be the most likely unit of time back then and would involve only observing the new moon. 79 would be very ripe old age even by todays standards in most of the world.
It would still hold if they didnt begin measuring a mans age until he reaches puberty/manhood.
Otherwise I would have to question why he would have waited 80 years to find a mate when God’s will was for them to be “fruitful”
I responded to this one when it came up last year in more detail, but there are several stories about Cain’s wife. One of the best sources is Robert Graves & Raphael Patai’s THE HEBREW MYTHS, an examination culled from the Aggadah and other sources.
Usually it’s said that Cain married a sister. In other myths, he produced a race of children with his dad’s ex-wife Lilith, and in still another a wife was manufactured for him when he was expelled from Eden.
An interesting thing about the genealogies is that you’ll learn by computing the ages that Methuseleh died in the flood, or at very least in the same year as the flood. Apparently he wasn’t that righteous a dude.
Na’amah is generally considered to be the wife (and half-sister) of Noah. Before her marriage she was seduced by the demon Samael and bore a half-divine offspring named Ashmedai (or in Greek, Asmodeus) and from his sharing her blood she received immortality as well. Not being human, Ashmedai survived the flood and caused a bit of havoc in the Apocrypha, while Na’amah is supposedly still out there and sometimes hangs with Lilith. (This can be found in THE HEBREW MYTHS as well as other sources.)
Another ancient myth involving incest: the sons of Jacob/Israel were each born with a twin sister whom they later married. Joseph’s twin married his brother Benjamin as he was sent away to Egypt. Sarai was born of Terah and a priestess of the goddess while Abram was born of Terah and his wife, so their marriage was in a way a union of faiths.
Originally posted by Rhapsody
"interesting that 950 “years” works out to about 79 years old if those “years” were actually MONTHS, which would also be the most likely unit of time back then and would involve only observing the new moon. 79 would be very ripe old age even by todays standards in most of the world. "
I’ve thought of that one two but came across the same paternity observations as zev. However, if you go later into Genesis and the Old Testament you’ll find that halving ages works perfectly, and in many of the areas the nomads travelled in there are essentially two seasons, thus it could be seasons and not years.
For example, Sarah was 90 years old and convinced she would remain childless when she became pregnant with Isaac. If this is seen as 45 rather than 90, it works perfectly- women that age have had healthy children many times, and most of them think they’re through changing diapers by this time. Moses by the half-time count killed an overseer at 20 instead of 40 (doesn’t it sound more like something a young man would do?), spends 20 years in the wilderness marrying Zipporah and starting a family (Exodus states that his sons were not adults when he returned), then wanders 20 years in the wilderness refusing to ask directions to Canaan, all of which have more of a ring of truth.
Speaking of paternity, the Aggadah and other sources also answer what Genesis does not about why God refused to accept Cain’s sacrifice. Cain was born of Eve’s adultery with the serpent, who was Samael in disguise, and thus he turned his back on Cain because he was the son of an enemy, yet later had mercy for Cain couldn’t help his parentage. Some white supremacists actually use this myth today to explain the inherent inferiority of races that don’t derive as much income from Jerry Springer Show appearances.
Jewish tradition notes the fact that Methuselah died in the same year as the flood. The traditional explanation is that he died on the day the flood was supposed to start. The tradition goes on to state that God delayed the start of the flood for seven days (Genesis 7:4) to observe a mourning period for Methuselah.
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While Jewish tradition does state that Na’amah was the wife of Noah, she was not his half-sister. Noah was descended from Seth, while Na’amah was descended from Cain.
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Does Graves give a source for this? I’ve never heard of this.
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This should be clarified. Under Jewish law, a non-Jew is allowed to marry a paternal half-sibling, but not a maternal half-sibling. People before the revelation at Sinai had the status of non-Jews with regard to the laws.
As such, Jewish tradition does state that a sister was born with each of Jacob’s sons. However, they did not marry thier own twins. Rather Rueben would have married (for example) Gad’s twin (Rueben and Gad had different mothers).
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Again, I’ll have to ask for a source on this.
This is not within normative Jewish thought either. Normative Jewish thought identifies Sarai with Yiscah (Genesis 11:27), thus meaning that Abram married his neice (since Yiscah/Sarai was Haran’s daughter).
I think the responses prove that these weren’t parallel questions since there doesn’t seem to be a “factual” answer to this one. In Icarus’ case, the reason was explicitly given. In this case, as we can see, the answer is speculative and interpretive. I fell vindicated.
