# The mark of Cain **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 13, 2019, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607 "2019-08-13T15:56:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/61 "2019-08-16T05:42:28Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > The point is that if you take Genesis to be true (and I don’t) then it makes no sense to claim that people living today with a particular skin color are descendants of Cain, with their skin color being “the mark.” > > Because regardless of whether Cain was alive at the time of the flood or not, he and all of his issue (Noah being a descendant of Seth) would surely have been dead in the flood. So none of his descendants would be alive to populate the earth as this race or that today. > > If you accept that Genesis is true (which, again, I don’t). Per Genesis, Noah was a tenth-generation descendant of Seth. But Noah’s ancestors, going back 10 generations, number more than 2,000 people (although there may be some doubling-up, of course, with the same individual appearing in more than one place in the family tree). Seth was just one of Noah’s ancestors. There’s no reason why Cain couldn’t also be one. Therefore, there is no reason to think that all Cain’s descendants died in the Flood. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/62 "2019-08-16T06:10:49Z")
In which case, Noah (if we are to believe the mark was passed down through the generations) should also have had “the mark”. Alternatively, many ancient peoples (perhaps even the ones who compiled and edited the Genesis narrative) thought that the way baby-making worked was that the man planted his seed in the woman, where it grew if her womb was fertile (the whole egg-sperm didn’t exist), and in each seed was every “seed” that would be contained in that line. Preformationism is the term for it. In which case, the implicit Genesis-based view (as valid as the age of the earth being a mere few thousand years) would be that Noah could not possibly have descended from Cain, since people could only ever be descended from men, and Cain was explicitly not in the male line from Seth to Noah. Either way, whether the ancient Israelites understood the woman’s genetic contribution (not that they knew about genetics) to her offspring or not, we’re all descendants of Cain, or none of us are. The mark, then, still cannot be considered a basis for differences in skin color (even if we take the Genesis narrative as true, and again, I don’t). ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/63 "2019-08-16T06:47:38Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > It’s not a plot hole. They married their sisters. It says explicitly in the Bible that Adam and Eve had daughters (Genesis 5:4). Steve King calling on line 3. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/64 "2019-08-16T07:26:02Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Dorjan: > > Well, in the Genesis story, that would be G-d. Pre-literate? Adam had a language in which he named all of the Earth’s creatures. Of course, that’s not how science and history would view the first human beings, but the whole idea of a symbol from G-d is kind of outside that realm already. That word doesn’t mean what you think it means. > [@](#): > > lit·er·ate > /ˈlidərət/ > Learn to pronounce > adjective > adjective: literate > > ``` > 1. > (of a person) able to read and write. > synonyms: able to read and write > "their parents were barely literate" > > ``` I don’t remember anything saying that Adam could read or write. Moses clearly could. I don’t remember if there is anything about Abraham reading, though if the written Covenant was given to him I suppose he could. ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/65 "2019-08-16T15:05:49Z")
As a mormon back in the day… As I remember what I was taught, Cain was cursed with a dark skin. One of his descendants was Ham’s wife, so that’s how it continued after the flood. As they said, it only took a “drop of blood”. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/66 "2019-08-16T15:54:54Z")
In some Jewish teachings Noah’s wife is a descendant of Cain. [Naamah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naamah_(Genesis)) ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/67 "2019-08-16T16:31:27Z")
simster: > [@](#): > > Did God suffer vengence seven times over? How dd Cain survive the flood? While it’s not quite explicit, it’s implied that Lemekh was associated with the death of Cain (and this interpretation is written outright in the Midrash, the oral tradition, that he actually killed Cain, though it was an accident), this is the reason for the call-back to the Cain verse in Genesis 4:24. This was prior to the flood. (If Lemekh suffered some form of sevenfold revenge, it is not expilictly mentioned anywhere that I’m aware of.) TonySinclair: > [@](#): > > Strangely, there is no mention of any interaction between Shem and his descendants over the 500 years of his life following the Flood. Not explicitly in the scripture, but Jewish oral tradition says that Melchitzedek king of Shalem (see Genesis 14:18) was another name/title for Shem. Oral tradition also says that Shem and his grandson Eber taught Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the ways of G-d. > [@](#): > > Steve King calling on line 3. I know that Steve King is a Republican congressman from Iowa, but if this is a reference to some specific statement of his, then I’d appreciate an elaboration, for this has gone over my head. Voyager: I know what literate means. I was just saying that in the Biblical narrative, Adam clearly had some degree of innate G-d-implanted knowledge that one would not assume people of 6,000 years ago typically had, so it’s a bit silly to assume that he (and his most immediate descendants) was illiterate. More likely, if G-d put a letter on Cain’s head, it was something those who would encounter him could recognize/read. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/68 "2019-08-16T17:23:43Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Voyager: > > I know what literate means. I was just saying that in the Biblical narrative, Adam clearly had some degree of innate G-d-implanted knowledge that one would not assume people of 6,000 years ago typically had, so it’s a bit silly to assume that he (and his most immediate descendants) was illiterate. More likely, if G-d put a letter on Cain’s head, it was something those who would encounter him could recognize/read. Adam clearly had knowledge, he named the animals after all. But recognizing a sign is not literacy. (What did he have to read, anyway?) It is not even clear if the inhabitants of Babel were literate. No mention is made of documents they could no longer read. Of course the timeline of when the tongues were confused and the descendants of Noah established know nations is unclear. Bottom line, there is no reason to doubt that Adam was pre-literate. BTW, Steve King said something stupid about how if there was not rape and incest in the past no one would be here, in support of banning abortions for the victims of rape and incest. That’s the connection. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/69 "2019-08-16T18:22:50Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Bottom line, there is no reason to doubt that Adam was pre-literate. Perhaps no reason in that it’s not explicitly stated one way or the other in the text, but it’s hardly the most problematic claim made about Adam. I mean, seeing as he was supposed to have started out as a lump of clay, breathed to life by god, why not just go ahead and grant him some degree of literacy, too? We know, for instance, that actual historic humans who lived in the Fertile Crescent around that time were in the nascent stages of developing writing, using symbols pressed into clay to represent things in ever more abstract ways, so what’s so far-fetched about the biblical creator god using a similar proto-literate symbol verging on writing to mark Cain, when we must take it as a given (for discussing the biblical narrative) that Cain’s dad started out as a lump of clay, and his mom may or may not\* have come from his dad’s rib? \*For those who haven’t taken the time to slog through it, or read up on the documentary hypothesis, there’s at least two creation narratives contained in Genesis, and one of the many points they differ on is how Eve was brought into being: with Adam or from Adam. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2019, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/70 "2019-08-18T22:38:06Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > s – tattoos are forbidden by Moasaic law… It was my understanding that only tattoos of the dead were forbidden, but that the Jews, tending to err on the side of caution, don’t do tattoos at all. (Kind of like not eating cheeseburgers.) > [@SuntanLotion](#): > > And who were the women that Adam and Eve’s sons mated with? Perhaps from the same group of people that Cain was worried about killing him? Unless it was his parents that he was worried about. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2019, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/71 "2019-08-18T22:50:59Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > It’s not a plot hole. They married their sisters. It says explicitly in the Bible that Adam and Eve had daughters (Genesis 5:4). > [@Alessan](#): > > No. Nothing in the Bible implies this [the rest of humanity was part of the “cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth”] in any way. Then who was Cain afraid of? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2019, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/72 "2019-08-18T22:58:48Z")
His great-great-great-great nieces and nephews, maybe? If you’ve got lifespans of hundreds of years, and a whole big fertile world to populate, you could quickly get to the point where not everyone knows each other. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/73 "2019-08-18T23:21:46Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > \*For those who haven’t taken the time to slog through it, or read up on the documentary hypothesis, there’s at least two creation narratives contained in Genesis, and one of the many points they differ on is how Eve was brought into being: with Adam or from Adam. And if Eve had come with an instruction manual in either of the versions, the problem would be solved. I don’t think you can say anything about Adam’s literacy based on the literacy of the inhabitants of the Middle East. In any case, writing began in the Middle East around 3200 BCE, after Adam’s supposed creation. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2019, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/74 "2019-08-18T23:26:30Z")
Maybe he had to worry about some of the Mesopotamians the Genesis narratives were ripped off from. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/75 "2019-08-19T02:41:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > His great-great-great-great nieces and nephews, maybe? If you’ve got lifespans of hundreds of years, and a whole big fertile world to populate, you could quickly get to the point where not everyone knows each other. He must have been a very forward thinking guy, then. (Guess he learned his lesson after killing his brother.) At that point, it was only him and his parents. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/76 "2019-08-20T17:32:17Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > Who standardized these marks, and how are random people expected to see them and know the meaning? In a pre-literate society, at that. _Green like the grasses of the plains turned He his hair, and pale his skin as the clouds above the mountains. Like the apple full and round became his nose, that his face might bear the distinct mark of sins against God. And overlong and clumsy turned He his feet, that he might not easily escape anyone curious about his features or the nature of his crimes which caused them. Thenceforth, not by Cain was he known but Clain, for he had harmed one favored by God._ Wouldn’t nobody come near him after that because they all thought he looked funny. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/77 "2019-08-23T15:57:05Z")
Rucksinator: > [@](#): > > Then who was Cain afraid of? Cain was mainly afraid of animals, not of people. Man had, from the time of creation, been given masteryover other animals (Genesis 1:26, 28). However, Cain was afraid that due to his sin, G-d would remove this protection from him. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/78 "2019-08-23T17:58:14Z")
So then when did men become eligible to be killed by animals, if god was supposed to have allowed them to have some immunity to them, even after being expelled from Eden? ---
**Author:** ![ALOHA\_HATER](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/76d3ee/32.png) [@ALOHA\_HATER](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ALOHA_HATER)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/79 "2019-08-23T17:59:57Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > As I understand it, archaeologists currently favor that the idea that Israelites lived on the fringes of Canaanite society, like the Travelers in the British Isles, or the Gypsies in continental Europe. Archaeologists have not found any evidence of a sudden conquest. As you move from more ancient sites to more modern sites, the number of Canaanite artifacts gradually decreases, and the number of Israelite artifacts gradually increases. How do you tell a Canaanite artifact from an Israelite one? ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607/80 "2019-08-23T18:08:00Z")
ASL v2.0: > [@](#): > > So then when did men become eligible to be killed by animals, if god was supposed to have allowed them to have some immunity to them, even after being expelled from Eden? Don’t have an answer to that off-hand. I’ll see if I can find anything about that and get back to you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mark-of-cain/838607.md?page=3)