Cain & Wife (Full Version)

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mphilipk -> Cain & Wife (8/7/2008 2:22:49 AM)

Hello Friends

pls help me with this question... while one of my life group members was discussing Origin of life,
he was stuck with this question..
where did Cain find his wife ?



AlphaCentauri -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/7/2008 7:50:51 AM)

Hi mphilipk,

my understanding is that Adam and Eve not only had Cain and Abel but they had other children as well. They also lived a long time so they may have had quite a few. My understanding is that Cain married his sister. Other brothers and sisters would have married as well. Now that sounds strange to us today but remember the laws forbidding close realitives to marry didn't come into effect till Moses time. Maybe that's when genes started to mutate with close connections.

I haven't offered any bible verses as I think It's good to study it for yourself keeping what I have said in mind. What you find sticks in your mind better.

I think we have to approach Genisis without our preconceived ideas of today. Some of it goes beyond our definition of normal but if we analyze it alot can make sense too.

That's my take on your question. Others may be more knowledgeable on it than me. I am not a theologin. Probably didn't even spell it right. haha

Hope it helps.



JimboFletch -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/7/2008 7:58:32 AM)

We can speculate until the cows come home but that's all we'll end up with, speculation. Had it been of any importance, God would have included it in the Genesis account.

But even atheist evolutionists (not to say that all evolutionists are atheists) have the same unanswerable question to deal with: if the first human just appeared as a mutation that could remarkably reproduce, where did the second fertile human mutation come from or was there a sudden, massive mutation of all a group of creatures into homo sapiens?



gluadys -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/7/2008 9:01:36 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JimboFletch
But even atheist evolutionists (not to say that all evolutionists are atheists) have the same unanswerable question to deal with: if the first human just appeared as a mutation that could remarkably reproduce, where did the second fertile human mutation come from or was there a sudden, massive mutation of all a group of creatures into homo sapiens?


No, the problem is that you don't understand evolution. It is populations that evolve, not individuals. There would never be a time in the history of hominid evolution when an individual would not have potential mates to choose from. Nor do you need a sudden mass mutation of all the population. The fossil record shows human attributes being acquired gradually and piecemeal.

No complex species appears so suddenly that it is one of a kind. The only scenario in which one gets a new species with a single mutation is a rare occurrence in bacteria. This was the case with the evolution of the nylonase bacteria. Even with bacteria, it is more normal for new species to appear gradually through the accumulation of several mutations. For example, the recent appearance of cit+ E.coli is thought to have taken at least two mutations. It helps as well that bacteria produce asexually without mating.



JimboFletch -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/7/2008 9:04:12 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys
No, the problem is that you don't understand evolution. It is populations that evolve, not individuals....

And that tells us about Cain's wife how?

You're right, I don't understand evolution. It takes way too much faith to excuse all it's unexplained holes.



gluadys -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/7/2008 9:16:03 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JimboFletch

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys
No, the problem is that you don't understand evolution. It is populations that evolve, not individuals....

And that tells us about Cain's wife how?


It is actually irrelevant to Cain's wife. I agree we can only speculate on that. But since you offered an opinion on the supposed problem of the first human finding a mate based on evolution, I commented on your error in that regard.

quote:

You're right, I don't understand evolution. It takes way too much faith to excuse all it's unexplained holes.


Study of the subject will close up the holes with explanations. No faith required.



JimboFletch -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/7/2008 9:54:43 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys
Study of the subject will close up the holes with explanations. No faith required.

Evolution, like speculation on unanswerable biblical questions, is not really big on my list of ways to spend the limited amount of time left me before my next phase of eternity. We have enough clear information that's not being studied and left undone to occupy us for decades to come. But thank you for the invitation.



gluadys -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/7/2008 12:40:22 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JimboFletch

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys
Study of the subject will close up the holes with explanations. No faith required.

Evolution, like speculation on unanswerable biblical questions, is not really big on my list of ways to spend the limited amount of time left me before my next phase of eternity. We have enough clear information that's not being studied and left undone to occupy us for decades to come. But thank you for the invitation.



No problem. I didn't take any interest in the question of evolution during the first 3/4 of my life either. It's a recently acquired hobby. But it is also probably best then to keep speculation about something you have no interest in studying to a minimum and not draw premature conclusions.



mushhead -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/7/2008 9:44:21 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mphilipk

Hello Friends

pls help me with this question... while one of my life group members was discussing Origin of life,
he was stuck with this question..
where did Cain find his wife ?

mphilipk,
While JimboFletch is right that any answer we give is speculative, I too have pondered the answer to this question. The best answer I could come up with is that Cain married a sister. The Bible only gives the geneology info necessary to introduce people critical to the redemption story and to establish the lineage of Jesus. It doesn't tell us how many children Adam and Eve had.

More importantly, the Bible doesn't tell us how long after they left the Garden that Cain was married. So, I sat down one day and calculated the population of the earth if Adam and Eve had five children; four of which married, forming two couples who each had five children. Continuing with this formula and figuring about a ten percent pre-childbearing mortality rate (likely a low mortality rate), it wasn't long before there were hundreds of thousands of people.

Carrying this process out , I calculated that at the end of Adam's life, the earth would have had a population of well over a billion people (going on memory here - I did this a few years ago and did not record my findings). So, it is possible that Cain's wife was one of his sisters, or if this event happened many years later in the process, he could have married someone far removed from his lineage.

Hope this helps you think about possible answers to the question.



JimboFletch -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 7:48:52 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys
No problem. I didn't take any interest in the question of evolution during the first 3/4 of my life either. It's a recently acquired hobby. But it is also probably best then to keep speculation about something you have no interest in studying to a minimum and not draw premature conclusions.

I wanted to backup to this for a moment. I've spent the better part of my life, the past 41 years, learning what I can about God and the Bible, since I will spend far more of eternity beyond this life than here. Three things occurred to me last night that I did not address yesterday that I think needs saying:

1) There is no theological significance to who Cain's wife was. While it might be a way to amuse someone, it's not important in the grand scheme of things.

2) The Bible and Christianity places great significance on the belief that man was a unique creation of God apart from all other life and his beginning can be marked by the creation of one man and, then, one woman in a special act by God.

3) The whole plan of redemption is based on the understanding that sin entered the human race through one man, the ultimate ancestor of all human beings and the corporate head of humanity who began without sin but was given clear understanding of the result of disobedience to his Creator. Without going into a longer explanation, that sin of our corporate head necessitated the redemption of mankind by another Man born without sin. That God Man was Jesus.



gluadys -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 8:25:55 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JimboFletch
I wanted to backup to this for a moment. I've spent the better part of my life, the past 41 years, learning what I can about God and the Bible, since I will spend far more of eternity beyond this life than here.


The better part of my life has been spent the same way. And I was in university while you were in diapers. [;)]

quote:

Three things occurred to me last night that I did not address yesterday that I think needs saying:

1) There is no theological significance to who Cain's wife was. While it might be a way to amuse someone, it's not important in the grand scheme of things.


Agreed. Absolutely.

quote:

2) The Bible and Christianity places great significance on the belief that man was a unique creation of God apart from all other life and his beginning can be marked by the creation of one man and, then, one woman in a special act by God.


Agreed in principle, although I don't think this prinicple is violated by the evolution of our biological form.

quote:

3) The whole plan of redemption is based on the understanding that sin entered the human race through one man, the ultimate ancestor of all human beings and the corporate head of humanity who began without sin but was given clear understanding of the result of disobedience to his Creator. Without going into a longer explanation, that sin of our corporate head necessitated the redemption of mankind by another Man born without sin. That God Man was Jesus.


This is where I disagree. Paul makes it clear in Romans that while the sin of one man opened the way, it was not the sin of one man only that made redemption necessary. Death, he notes, spread to all men because all men sinned

It is because all sinned that Christ died for all. And if I were the only sinner in all history, Christ's death would still be necessary to redeem me.

Of course, this doesn't remove the history of the first sin. But again, I don't see this as a problem. Many evolutionary creationists believe that Adam and Eve were unique individuals--the first biological humans to be made in the spiritual image of God. I just disagree with the theology that makes Adam's one particular sin the whole foundation of the Atonement. Every sin of every sinner requires atonement, whether or not Adam sinned.



JimboFletch -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 8:27:57 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys

quote:

ORIGINAL: JimboFletch
I wanted to backup to this for a moment. I've spent the better part of my life, the past 41 years, learning what I can about God and the Bible, since I will spend far more of eternity beyond this life than here.


The better part of my life has been spent the same way. And I was in university while you were in diapers. [;)]

Possibly, I don't know. I'm 56 and was born again at age 15, 41 years ago.



JimboFletch -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 8:36:40 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys
This is where I disagree. Paul makes it clear in Romans that while the sin of one man opened the way, it was not the sin of one man only that made redemption necessary. Death, he notes, spread to all men because all men sinned

It is because all sinned that Christ died for all. And if I were the only sinner in all history, Christ's death would still be necessary to redeem me.

True, all men have sinned but Paul also wrote that sin entered the human race by ONE man, Adam, thereby condemning all his descendants. (see Romans 5) We sin by nature and are judged sinful through our corporate head.



gluadys -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 10:19:40 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JimboFletch

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys
This is where I disagree. Paul makes it clear in Romans that while the sin of one man opened the way, it was not the sin of one man only that made redemption necessary. Death, he notes, spread to all men because all men sinned

It is because all sinned that Christ died for all. And if I were the only sinner in all history, Christ's death would still be necessary to redeem me.

True, all men have sinned but Paul also wrote that sin entered the human race by ONE man, Adam, thereby condemning all his descendants. (see Romans 5) We sin by nature and are judged sinful through our corporate head.



No. Paul does NOT say we are condemned because of Adam. That is serious error. We are condemned because of our own sins, not because of Adam's sin. Death did not spread to the human race because Adam sinned but because all sinned.

Re-read Romans 5 carefully and you will see that I am right on this. Sin entered the world because of Adam and death with sin. But it spread because all sinned, not because Adam sinned.

You may have unconsciously picked up on an error that entered Christian theology through Augustine, though it was not precisely his fault. It seems that Augustine based some of his thinking on original sin on a Latin translation which mistranslated Romans 5 as saying that "all sinned in Adam" But that was a fault of the translation. This is not what the original inspired text says in the original Greek.



EStan -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 10:35:38 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys

quote:

ORIGINAL: JimboFletch

quote:

ORIGINAL: gluadys
This is where I disagree. Paul makes it clear in Romans that while the sin of one man opened the way, it was not the sin of one man only that made redemption necessary. Death, he notes, spread to all men because all men sinned

It is because all sinned that Christ died for all. And if I were the only sinner in all history, Christ's death would still be necessary to redeem me.

True, all men have sinned but Paul also wrote that sin entered the human race by ONE man, Adam, thereby condemning all his descendants. (see Romans 5) We sin by nature and are judged sinful through our corporate head.



No. Paul does NOT say we are condemned because of Adam. That is serious error. We are condemned because of our own sins, not because of Adam's sin. Death did not spread to the human race because Adam sinned but because all sinned.

Re-read Romans 5 carefully and you will see that I am right on this. Sin entered the world because of Adam and death with sin. But it spread because all sinned, not because Adam sinned.

You may have unconsciously picked up on an error that entered Christian theology through Augustine, though it was not precisely his fault. It seems that Augustine based some of his thinking on original sin on a Latin translation which mistranslated Romans 5 as saying that "all sinned in Adam" But that was a fault of the translation. This is not what the original inspired text says in the original Greek.


I must disagree with you here.
Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned:-- (Rom 5:12 ASV)
"and so" καί οὕτω "and in this way" - from Thayers. Adam sinned ---> sin entered the world ---> death resulted from sin ----> death was passed to all people. Our sin nature started with Adam.



Consecrated2God -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 10:36:56 AM)

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Method -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 1:13:50 PM)

In Genesis 4 Cain moves to the Land of Nod after which he is said to have a wife. It doesn't say that Cain moved with his wife to the Land of Nod. Also, once there Cain begins to build a city. Could this indicate that there were people already in the Land of Nod?

Also, Genesis 6 mentions the nephilim who marry the descendants of Adam. How does this relate to the topic?



gluadys -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 1:22:43 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Method

In Genesis 4 Cain moves to the Land of Nod after which he is said to have a wife. It doesn't say that Cain moved with his wife to the Land of Nod. Also, once there Cain begins to build a city. Could this indicate that there were people already in the Land of Nod?

Also, Genesis 6 mentions the nephilim who marry the descendants of Adam. How does this relate to the topic?



Along the same lines, when God announces his punishment, Cain is afraid since "anyone who meets me may kill me". And for this reason God gives him some sort of protective mark.

Who is Cain afraid that he will meet far from home?



Consecrated2God -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 1:26:37 PM)

quote:

In Genesis 4 Cain moves to the Land of Nod after which he is said to have a wife. It doesn't say that Cain moved with his wife to the Land of Nod. Also, once there Cain begins to build a city. Could this indicate that there were people already in the Land of Nod?


The Bible doesn't say how old Cain was when he found his wife, but it does say how old Seth (his brother) was when he had his first son, Enosh. He was 105 years old. It appears that people lived longer before having children back then. They may also have waited longer to get married. As mushhead posted, there could have been several generations born before Cain got around to getting married. If you live close to a thousand years, there's plenty of time for other sons and daughters besides Cain and Abel to grow up and get married and have children and build cities.



cow451 -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/8/2008 2:33:35 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

quote:

In Genesis 4 Cain moves to the Land of Nod after which he is said to have a wife. It doesn't say that Cain moved with his wife to the Land of Nod. Also, once there Cain begins to build a city. Could this indicate that there were people already in the Land of Nod?


The Bible doesn't say how old Cain was when he found his wife, but it does say how old Seth (his brother) was when he had his first son, Enosh. He was 105 years old. It appears that people lived longer before having children back then. They may also have waited longer to get married. As mushhead posted, there could have been several generations born before Cain got around to getting married. If you live close to a thousand years, there's plenty of time for other sons and daughters besides Cain and Abel to grow up and get married and have children and build cities.

The only way to make it work is to fill in the gaps, so it's just speculation.

(edited to correct a typo--Consecrated2God)



swan42 -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/10/2008 5:52:38 AM)

quote:

Other brothers and sisters would have married as well. Now that sounds strange to us today but remember the laws forbidding close realitives to marry didn't come into effect till Moses time. Maybe that's when genes started to mutate with close connections.


I can tell that AlphaCentauri has a incomplete understanding of genetics and genetic disease. The modern concern against closely related couples having children is not based on genes that mutate in these children, but rather that the parents are more likely to carry the same already-mutated gene. A child of these parents have a lower chance of having a back-up copy.

That said, we can carry thoughts to its correct inference that before Moses time there were few if any mutated genes in the population to be concerned about at all.



AlphaCentauri -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/10/2008 8:34:58 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42

quote:

Other brothers and sisters would have married as well. Now that sounds strange to us today but remember the laws forbidding close realitives to marry didn't come into effect till Moses time. Maybe that's when genes started to mutate with close connections.


I can tell that AlphaCentauri has a incomplete understanding of genetics and genetic disease.


That's right Swan 42. The genetics thing was more a thought rather than a statement of fact hence the "maybe". my point is simply genetics may have had something to do with the reason for the law.

I'm glad a correct inference was made to my poorly worded point[:)]



Ps103 -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/11/2008 11:01:52 AM)

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rcjames -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/11/2008 2:03:32 PM)

Since we are all speculating as to where Cain found his wife, I will suggest he found her on e-Harmony.

That's as Scriputral as anything I have heard so far.

Thanks
RC



DanJames -> RE: Cain & Wife (8/21/2008 4:44:37 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: rcjames

Since we are all speculating as to where Cain found his wife, I will suggest he found her on e-Harmony.

That's as Scriputral as anything I have heard so far.

Thanks
RC


And no wonder he chose E-Harmony! They match couples on 29 dimensions of personality that determine long-term success!

Cain and Seth both married their sisters. Since there were no mutant genes, there was not yet any reason to give a law prohibiting the marrying of siblings, cousins, what-have-you.



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