A Stone's Throw Between Brothers
Strange Scriptures, Part II: Cain and Abel
If youโre like me, youโve read the story of Cain and Abel a thousand times. If not, what follows will be new to you.
As shocking as this may seem, Cainโs wife IS NOT the most important facet of the story.
Atheists bring her up as if sheโs some slam dunk in their waste bin of anti-God arguments, while completely ignoring the background and larger points of the story.
For instance, Adam and Eve, driven from the Garden of Eden, remained close to God and within proximity of the Garden.
Genesis 4:16 suggests they knew exactly where Eden was and even shared the location with their own children, likely because they longed for the life contained within its boundaries, defended by the fiery cherubim.
And God remained accessible to them.
These are important elements of the story of Cain and Abel overlooked because our infatuation today is with the alleged mystery of Cainโs wife.
The feud between the brothers is the first recorded dissolution of relational bonds that ends in the physical destruction of material life. Influenced by jealous rage.
And that has IMMENSE bearing on the story of not only the Bible, but the Gospel.
Below, weโll briefly address Cainโs wife and why sheโs not really a mystery, and then explore the theological and historical heart of the passage to the story of God and mankind.
Pop! Thereโs a Woman
Since our world is so warped by evolutionary theory as the only โacceptableโ history of the natural world, including humanity, stories like Cain and Abel in the Bible are often reimagined as myths recounting the history of groups of people through singular figures.
Because of that, when mention of Cainโs wife pops up in Genesis 4:17, skeptics immediately jump to the argument that there were more humans who existed separate from Adam and Eve and their sons. Humans of different bloodlines who evolved from separate ape clans encountered by Adam and Eve after they left the Garden.
All of that is pure speculation, of course. But they love it. And insist itโs the only explanation for Cainโs wife.
Theyโre wrong.
The real and only answer for the identity of Cainโs wife permitted by the Bible is she was his sister.
That makes us recoil because these days, incestuous relationships result in horrible genetic and psychological abnormalities, disabilities, and diseases which ruin humanity.
But what most donโt consider is if humanity actually came from two first ancestors, like Adam and Eve, there would have been much less genetic diversity...the actual cause of destructive genetic mutations. Making it possible and even necessary for incestuous relationships to exist for a time so humanity could populate the earth, adapt, and diversify into what we see today.
By the time of the Law of Moses, humanity had diversified so much and spread across the globe that incest was destructive and therefore banned by God amongst the Israelites as an abomination. Because of the fact that it destroys the image of God.
The Bible makes clear that Eve was โthe mother of all living.โ Thatโs the very reason for her name, given to her by the first man, Adam, her husband. So, we are left with no other adequate explanation than to infer all humanity came from her and her children.
Even though the text hones in on Cain and Abel, two sons of Adam and Eve, it does not eliminate the possibility of other children being born to the first couple. After all, time jumps from when Eve gives birth and thanks the Lord for them in 4:1-2 to their giving of their sacrifices to God as grown men in 4:3-5. Their entire childhood is omitted.
Logically, in the story, they wouldโve had other brothers and sisters already by the time they were grown. And Cain selected a wife from among his sisters.
Nevertheless, the whole fiasco with Cainโs wife distracts from the more important matters in the narrative...
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From Disobedience to Violent Murder
