ECT Gen. 4:17. When and where did the murderer Cain find a wife?

tieman55

Member
Gen. 4:17. When and where did the murderer Cain find a wife?

KJV 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

I think most young earth Christians would agree that Cain married a sister of Abel. Why would a sister of Abel marry or stay married to the brother who murdered a brother?

Cain who is now guilty, cursed, marked and basically exiled from his family, starts his own family in Nod. In my book "Killing Abel" I lay out a rational, reasonable and compelling reason on just how Cain got one of his sisters to agree to be his wife.

Gen. 4:16. And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Cain clearly left his family after he murdered his brother Abel. He told the Lord that he was afraid of vengeance. That vengeance had to be from his family, Adam, Eve, his brothers and sisters. Gen. 4:14

Cain is afraid of vengeance. The Lord grants Cain protection from that vengeance. (There was a very specific reason why the Lord did what He did and that will be the subject of another post, or read my book Killing Abel.)

Cain was afraid of vengeance form his brothers and I think even more from his sisters. So how did Cain find a wife in Nod? Or if he was all ready married, why would she flee to Nod with a cursed marked murderer? Cain is hardly a good catch! Not even close to good marriage material.

If already married, Cain's wife would not have been afraid of vengeance, especially if she stayed with her family. She was not the subject of the Lords curse on Cain. If he was married before the murder, he would have had to convince his wife to go with the cursed marked murderer, thereby sharing his curse.

My reading of Gen. 4 is that Cain got married after he murdered Abel, but it doesn’t say so I can’t know for sure.

Whichever sister married Cain, she had to have known her brother Abel, who is now dead. And she would have had to have known that Cain was responsible for Abel's murder.

There is no indication in Gen. 4:17 that Cain raped and or abducted a sister. Gen. 4:17 clearly states that the women that bore Enoch was Cain's wife. This tells me that Cain’s wife is there by choice. What compelled a daughter of Eve, a sister of Abel to marry a man who is guilty of murder?

Young earth Christians who don't have a good explanation for just how, when and where Cain might have gotten his wife, are open to ridicule from those who believe in an old earth. For me there has to be a plausible if not convincing explanation on just how Cain got and or kept his wife.

In my book "Killing Abel", I set out a scenario where Cain got his wife, and why a just women decided to marry the marked murderer Cain.
 

Jerry Shugart

Well-known member
I think most young earth Christians would agree that Cain married a sister of Abel.

Just curious, but is it possible that Cain married his wife at a time when he was older and his wife might have been a grandaugher or great-grandaughter or even a great-great-granddaughter of Adam and Eve?

At the time the life-span was much greater than it is today so perhaps wouldn't that be possible if Cain didn't marry until he was four hundred years old or so?
 

tieman55

Member
A couple of thoughts on that.

It is hard, as a man, to think that Cain was old before he has children.

And if Cain would have had children before he went to Nod, that means Cain had two blood lines, and that literally can't be, given the rest of the text in Genesis with the two blood lines.

So, I love the idea of thinking it through as you are doing, but to me that scenario doesn't ring true. I think Cain was young when he killed his brother and probably only a short time later began the blood line of Cain.
 

Truster

New member
There were many sons and daughters born to Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel were the first twins, not the first children.
 

ttruscott

Well-known member
Gen. 4:17. When and where did the murderer Cain find a wife?

KJV 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

I think most young earth Christians would agree that Cain married a sister of Abel. Why would a sister of Abel marry or stay married to the brother who murdered a brother?

Please consider:
One of our problems with this story is that we do not know how old these two were when they had their fight. Because they are mentioned without any other child being mentioned it is assumed they are the only children and the first children. BUT that is not proven in the text...Genesis 4 is about Cain and Abel, not anyone else, so no one else is mentioned until their story is over.

But if Adam and Eve had a child each year and these children started to have their own children at age 15 or so, in a very short time, 125 years, (out of a 900 year lifespan that is) the exponential increase would be huge with 125 years being between 9 and 10 generations, on the order of between 20 billion and 289 billion people in this model.

So, if Cain and Abel were born during Adam and Eve's 100 year on earth, it might have had a very large population indeed by that time.

Also it is not proven by the text that these two were just kids when the fight happened. All the cutesy little pictures in your children's bible may be bogus as, well, completely bogus. Figments of the imagination and orthodox bias. This was not just a kid's mistake and childish anger; it was religious war.

Cain was trying to supplant the religion of the coats of skins for righteousness instituted by GOD for Adam and Eve with his first fruits fertility / weather cult of the Ba'als and Asherah (groves).

If they were 25 years old themselves by the time this religious war came to a head, how many more people were populating the earth, given exponential growth?

Peace, Ted
 

iamaberean

New member
Gen. 4:17. When and where did the murderer Cain find a wife?

KJV 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

I think most young earth Christians would agree that Cain married a sister of Abel.

Think about this, would you let one of you children marry a killer? Adam and Eve would never let him anywhere near their family.

Here is the truth.

Gen 1 God created with input from angels.
Gen 2 LORD God alone created Adam from the earth.

Gen 1 God created them, male and female
Gen 2 LORD God created Adam from dust and later on Eve from his bone

Gen 1 God told mankind to go and replenish the earth
Gen 2 LORD God put Adam in a garden

Gen 1 God created the beasts of the earth
Gen 2 LORD God formed every beast of the field

Gen 1 speaks of filling the earth with people, beast, fish and trees for meat.
Gen 2 speaks of placing a man named Adam in a garden called Eden to dress it and keep it. Then LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them:

Gen 1 speaks of earth and Gen 2 speaks of a field, a place for domestic animals and then, after looking for a help meet from the females God created in Gen 1 and not finding one, he took a rib from Adam and created Eve.

Entirely different type of people, plants and animals in Gen 1 and Gen 2.

Did you also note, and understand the difference of God in Gen 1 and LORD God in Gen 2?

One has to understand these things or there is confusion, since they can not explain the differences with scripture.

Cain married a woman who was created in Gen 1.
 
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