Why hide Cain??
16 Jul '05 06:453 editsFrom Genesis 1:
27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
From Genesis 4:
16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch.
Many scholars conclude there are two strains, from two different authors (or groups of authors) in Genesis: the Elohist (E) and the Yahwist (Y or J). The first creation story is from E; the second—when the text mentions “the LORD,” which is the name YHVH (or Yahweh) in the Hebrew text—from Y. I’m not sure how these strains are conflated throughout Genesis, but YHVH does not appear in the 1st chapter.
In the E version, it just says that God created them “male and female,” without reference to how many. In the Y version, it is Adam and Eve. Eve bore Cain and Abel; then, when Adam was 130 years old, came Seth and then other sons and daughters. So I think the point of brustar’s original post is basically: where did Cain’s wife (or anybody else to that point, such as the people he feared might kill him) come from?
Now, if you take the story as allegory—with or without the E & Y distinction—it really doesn’t matter. God could just as well have created other “original” humans, of course—although this might create some problems with regard to the Garden of Eden, eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, and the passing on of “original sin” to all humanity; after all, that story only pertains to Adam and Eve. You can probably get around all that, if you’re willing to work hard enough outside the text.
Or, the stories just got mixed up when conflated, and nobody worried about it because the Adam and Eve story was mainly a morality tale. If you’re looking for the allegorical messages of the stories—God as creator, the changing relationships between God and humanity, etc.—then it’s no big deal. These are very short stories, after all, and, as such, are short on details that the authors didn’t think were relevant to the points they wanted to make; and the origins of Cain’s wife or other “clans” just wasn’t one of them.
If the Adam and Eve story is taken as the actual, historical creation of the only two first human beings, then—again—where did Cain’s wife come from? If all humankind is descended from Adam and Eve, then Darv is right—the sons of Adam and Eve must have married the daughters of Adam and Eve.
27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
From Genesis 4:
16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch.
Many scholars conclude there are two strains, from two different authors (or groups of authors) in Genesis: the Elohist (E) and the Yahwist (Y or J). The first creation story is from E; the second—when the text mentions “the LORD,” which is the name YHVH (or Yahweh) in the Hebrew text—from Y. I’m not sure how these strains are conflated throughout Genesis, but YHVH does not appear in the 1st chapter.
In the E version, it just says that God created them “male and female,” without reference to how many. In the Y version, it is Adam and Eve. Eve bore Cain and Abel; then, when Adam was 130 years old, came Seth and then other sons and daughters. So I think the point of brustar’s original post is basically: where did Cain’s wife (or anybody else to that point, such as the people he feared might kill him) come from?
Now, if you take the story as allegory—with or without the E & Y distinction—it really doesn’t matter. God could just as well have created other “original” humans, of course—although this might create some problems with regard to the Garden of Eden, eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, and the passing on of “original sin” to all humanity; after all, that story only pertains to Adam and Eve. You can probably get around all that, if you’re willing to work hard enough outside the text.
Or, the stories just got mixed up when conflated, and nobody worried about it because the Adam and Eve story was mainly a morality tale. If you’re looking for the allegorical messages of the stories—God as creator, the changing relationships between God and humanity, etc.—then it’s no big deal. These are very short stories, after all, and, as such, are short on details that the authors didn’t think were relevant to the points they wanted to make; and the origins of Cain’s wife or other “clans” just wasn’t one of them.
If the Adam and Eve story is taken as the actual, historical creation of the only two first human beings, then—again—where did Cain’s wife come from? If all humankind is descended from Adam and Eve, then Darv is right—the sons of Adam and Eve must have married the daughters of Adam and Eve.
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