Who was Cain’s wife

[Samof94]

The Bible isn’t clear on this at all as there is no non incest way to explain it. The whole Adam and Eve story makes zero sense from a genetic  point of view at all. It is also obvious the scientific record in general doesn’t reflect a literal Bible reading at all.

[DaleCooper]

She would've had to have been one of his sisters. I don't think Genesis was ever meant to be taken literally, even back whenever it was first written. There are a lot of similarities between it and old Babylonian mythology and others from the Mesopotamian region. Plus, Genesis more than anything in the Old Testament reads like mythology rather than a mixture of myth and history like a lot of the rest does. Later books of the Old Testament read as though they're fantastical and exaggerated stories meant to convey real events in history, like the books of the Kings or Chronicles, but in Genesis you get stories that are crafted to depict the origin of man and the planet, the first lie, the first murder, and the origin of different languages. I think it's silly to take it literally.

[Del Tachi]

Some Abrahamic traditions name Awan, daughter of Adam and Eve, as wife of Cain.  In all, Adam and Eve had six children:  Abel, Aclima, Awan, Azura, Cain, and Seth. 

[Central Lake]

Generally thought to be his sister. The Bible says Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters.

The Bible does not give a specific number. As Del Tachi said some traditions say six children. Other traditions say 56 children. There are probably other traditions that I am not aware of.

[nicholas.slaydon]

Well, considering the God made Mankind in Genesis Chapter One, and only creates the Garden of Eden as well as Adam and Eve in Genesis Chapter Two, after the Seventh Day of God's rest, one can surmise that there were other people on the Earth other than Adam and Eve at the time. It was just that Adam and Eve were unique among the created people because they were the only ones to whom God had granted the gift of the Breath of Life or a living soul. Likewise, Specifically as regards Cain's wife, in Genesis 4:14 Cain says "Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me". How could it be that there would be those outside of the lands East of Eden where Adam and his family dwelt that would seek to kill Cain if the only people alive on the Earth were Adam and Eve and their direct offspring? Therefore there must have been people other than Adam and Eve and their family living on the Earth.

[Samof94]

Well, considering the God made Mankind in Genesis Chapter One, and only creates the Garden of Eden as well as Adam and Eve in Genesis Chapter Two, after the Seventh Day of God's rest, one can surmise that there were other people on the Earth other than Adam and Eve at the time. It was just that Adam and Eve were unique among the created people because they were the only ones to whom God had granted the gift of the Breath of Life or a living soul. Likewise, Specifically as regards Cain's wife, in Genesis 4:14 Cain says "Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me". How could it be that there would be those outside of the lands East of Eden where Adam and his family dwelt that would seek to kill Cain if the only people alive on the Earth were Adam and Eve and their direct offspring? Therefore there must have been people other than Adam and Eve and their family living on the Earth.

I agree. That makes a lot more sense. They too were in The Garden in the myth apparently.

[Hindsight was 2020]

She would've had to have been one of his sisters. I don't think Genesis was ever meant to be taken literally, even back whenever it was first written. There are a lot of similarities between it and old Babylonian mythology and others from the Mesopotamian region. Plus, Genesis more than anything in the Old Testament reads like mythology rather than a mixture of myth and history like a lot of the rest does. Later books of the Old Testament read as though they're fantastical and exaggerated stories meant to convey real events in history, like the books of the Kings or Chronicles, but in Genesis you get stories that are crafted to depict the origin of man and the planet, the first lie, the first murder, and the origin of different languages. I think it's silly to take it literally.

It is in Christianity because the whole point of Jesus being crucified and coming back was that he made himself a sacrificial lamb that through his sacrifice washed away the original sin caused by Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. So their existence is vital to Christian theology

[Big Abraham]

It is in Christianity because the whole point of Jesus being crucified and coming back was that he made himself a sacrificial lamb that through his sacrifice washed away the original sin caused by Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. So their existence is vital to Christian theology

Not really. It could just as easily be interpreted as an allegory for the introduction of sin into the world; this was how most Hebrew scholars of antiquity saw it, and this is the interpretation some Church Fathers also favored. Paul, for instance, seems to take the existence of sin for granted, without wading too deep into the whole "inherited sin" argument. Regardless, the actual sins of mankind - from both a religious and secular perspective - are plain to see and omnipresent the world over, so insisting on the literal "Fall of Man" story is missing the forest for the trees. And, as previously mentioned, the Bible itself states that God created humanity before he created Adam.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Paul, for instance, seems to take the existence of sin for granted, without wading too deep into the whole "inherited sin" argument.

Paul's Christology is very much centred on Christ as the last Adam whose cosmic sacrifice defeats Sin and Death that the first Adam brought into the world. But that's peculiarly Pauline and not really found elsewhere in the New Testament.

[Big Abraham]

Paul, for instance, seems to take the existence of sin for granted, without wading too deep into the whole "inherited sin" argument.

Paul's Christology is very much centred on Christ as the last Adam whose cosmic sacrifice defeats Sin and Death that the first Adam brought into the world. But that's peculiarly Pauline and not really found elsewhere in the New Testament.

Headship theory did not dictate these terms are to be taken literally.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Paul, for instance, seems to take the existence of sin for granted, without wading too deep into the whole "inherited sin" argument.

Paul's Christology is very much centred on Christ as the last Adam whose cosmic sacrifice defeats Sin and Death that the first Adam brought into the world. But that's peculiarly Pauline and not really found elsewhere in the New Testament.

Headship theory did not dictate these terms are to be taken literally.

I don't know what "literally" would mean exactly here. But in any case I was making a point about what Paul says in his letters, not whatever is dictated by headship theory.

[TheFonz]

There are only two possibilities:

1. A descendant of Adam and Eve. This is the only possibility if you hold the standard position that Adam and Eve were the only people expressly created by God.

2. Someone else.

Number 2 can be split into two categories:

2a. A human who had developed as a result of evolution. This theory allows for the idea that humans evolved with other primates, and further suggests that (2a1) Adam was pulled from this group and sanctified by God; or (2a2) Adam was created by God, in the Garden of Eden, but was physically no different from the homo sapiens which had evolved outside of the Garden.

2b. God created lots of people, either at the same time or not, but Adam was selected to be the father of the human race, whose descendants would be "elect" and allowed to live in the Garden. With this theory, Cain's wife was just one of the others, created by God, but not in the line of Adam.

I'm much more comfortable with 2a and 2b than I am with 1, because though Sunday school teaches that Adam and Eve were the only people on Earth, the Bible simply doesn't say that. It says that everyone on Earth is a descendant of Adam, but given that Noah was a descendant of Adam, and at one time Noah and his family were the only people alive on Earth, we're all descendants of both. 2a allows for the theory of evolution - from single celled organisms to everything we have today - to be reconcilable with Genesis. 2b allows for the precise language of Genesis to be true without any intellectual leaps to explain who lived in the Land of Nod, why Cain needed the mark, who his wife was, etc. To accept 2b as true, as I do, one must only believe that the man and woman created in Genesis 1:26 were distinct from (or at least more expansive than) the man created in Genesis 2:7.

[Kingpoleon]

Paul's Christology is very much centred on Christ as the last Adam whose cosmic sacrifice defeats Sin and Death that the first Adam brought into the world. But that's peculiarly Pauline and not really found elsewhere in the New Testament.

I think if an idea is found in Paul’s writings - 28% of the entire NT - it’s difficult to imply that he is somehow not the foremost personage after Jesus. He is, after all, the earliest interpreter of the Christian language community!

[vitoNova]

More than likely a Neanderthal he caught out in the wild.



No, this is not a troll response.   It's just science.  Look it up.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Paul's Christology is very much centred on Christ as the last Adam whose cosmic sacrifice defeats Sin and Death that the first Adam brought into the world. But that's peculiarly Pauline and not really found elsewhere in the New Testament.

I think if an idea is found in Paul’s writings - 28% of the entire NT - it’s difficult to imply that he is somehow not the foremost personage after Jesus. He is, after all, the earliest interpreter of the Christian language community!

?? I didn't imply anything.

[Kingpoleon]

Paul's Christology is very much centred on Christ as the last Adam whose cosmic sacrifice defeats Sin and Death that the first Adam brought into the world. But that's peculiarly Pauline and not really found elsewhere in the New Testament.

I think if an idea is found in Paul’s writings - 28% of the entire NT - it’s difficult to imply that he is somehow not the foremost personage after Jesus. He is, after all, the earliest interpreter of the Christian language community!

?? I didn't imply anything.

“Peculiarly Pauline” makes it sound like Paul has some strongly distinctive voice of Christus Victor atonement, and that, in such thought, Paul had a distinct view from the other NT writers.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Paul's Christology is very much centred on Christ as the last Adam whose cosmic sacrifice defeats Sin and Death that the first Adam brought into the world. But that's peculiarly Pauline and not really found elsewhere in the New Testament.

I think if an idea is found in Paul’s writings - 28% of the entire NT - it’s difficult to imply that he is somehow not the foremost personage after Jesus. He is, after all, the earliest interpreter of the Christian language community!

?? I didn't imply anything.

“Peculiarly Pauline” makes it sound like Paul has some strongly distinctive voice of Christus Victor atonement, and that, in such thought, Paul had a distinct view from the other NT writers.

Paul's patterning of Christ after Adam is distinct, as I said. Didn't need to be overinterpreted.

Though bringing up Christus Victor reminds me one of the strangest things about Christianity is how the centrifugal part of the religion, the crucifixion of Jesus, is so undertheorised. Christians seem to have taken faith in a vague cosmic/apocalyptic/salvific importance attached to the event and worked forwards from there.

[Kingpoleon]

Paul's patterning of Christ after Adam is distinct, as I said. Didn't need to be overinterpreted.

Though bringing up Christus Victor reminds me one of the strangest things about Christianity is how the centrifugal part of the religion, the crucifixion of Jesus, is so undertheorised. Christians seem to have taken faith in a vague cosmic/apocalyptic/salvific importance attached to the event and worked forwards from there.

Theology of the Cross is a pretty big field - you can go to Amazon and see how many books come up when you search “a theology of the cross,” but please don’t buy books from them. A number of major modern theologians have written on the topic, including Douglas John Hall, James Cone, and Alister McGrath.

Probably the most fascinating one is the heretical Hegelian model of the cross, in which God died on the cross and became embodied in the church at Pentecost.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Paul's patterning of Christ after Adam is distinct, as I said. Didn't need to be overinterpreted.

Though bringing up Christus Victor reminds me one of the strangest things about Christianity is how the centrifugal part of the religion, the crucifixion of Jesus, is so undertheorised. Christians seem to have taken faith in a vague cosmic/apocalyptic/salvific importance attached to the event and worked forwards from there.

Theology of the Cross is a pretty big field - you can go to Amazon and see how many books come up when you search “a theology of the cross,” but please don’t buy books from them. A number of major modern theologians have written on the topic, including Douglas John Hall, James Cone, and Alister McGrath.

Probably the most fascinating one is the heretical Hegelian model of the cross, in which God died on the cross and became embodied in the church at Pentecost.

The variety of answers is kind of why I said undertheorised. The vast majority of Christians have a very exactly defined (to the point of absurdity) Christology since Nicaea and Chalcedon, for example. But the nature of atonement, which actually describes how Christianity works, is subject to a bewildering array of different theories with some of the popular ones only a few centuries old. It seems like early Christians had a fairly vague understanding of the mechanism behind Christ's sacrifice and just took the event at face value.