BIBLICAL BRIEFS 41
This has been a tricky question throughout centuries, and the answer thereto has bigger and more important implications than to simply elucidate Biblical family. In the genealogical table regarding Jesus in Luk. 3: 23-38, his ancestors are drawn back to Adam. In order to accept Jesus’ life and death as well as His resurrection as reality, we therefore have to retrospectively in history accept Adam as physically the first person. Therewith, Acts 17:26 becomes a keyword: God “made also of ONE BLOOD EVERY nation of men, to dwell upon all the face of the earth–having ordained times before appointed, and the bounds of their dwellings–” Thus, there were NO other people on earth except the descendants of Adam. Eve is therefore rightly called “the mother of all the living” (Gen. 3:20). Cain and Abel were the first two sons of these first parents. The Bible does not mention Cain’s age when he killed Abel (Gen. 4: 8), but since both of them were agriculturalists, they were most probably both adults, because it happens with emphasis “in the course of time” (Gen. 4: 3). Nor does the Bible furthermore specifically mention who Cain’s wife was. The only possible answer is that Cain married his sister, or one of the granddaughters of Adam and Eve. After Cain had killed Abel and then fled to the land of Nod, East of Eden, he was already involved with this woman. Gen. 4:16 does not state that he had found her there, merely that they had sexual intercourse there, resulting in the birth of his first son. Since Adam and Eve were the first (and only) human beings on earth, their children would have no other choice as to marry one another. At that stage the gene pool was still quite pure; besides, inter-familiar marriages were not prohibited – it only became law at the time of Moses 2500 years later (Lev.18: 6-18). But who then was this daughter or granddaughter of Adam and Eve whom Cain married? After Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve had a boy named Seth, and thereafter more children as well (Gen. 5: 3-4) during their long and fruitful lifetime. According to the trustworthy Jewish historian Josephus, Adam and Eve had 33 sons and 23 daughters! Conservative projections suppose that as many as 32 000 people lived at the time Abel died. The fact that Cain feared for his own life after killing Abel and consequently fled (Gen. 4:14), suggests that Adam and Eve’s extended family (together with the other children, possibly grandchildren and great grandchildren) wanted to kill him out of rage. Conclusion? The Amplified Bible explains briefly in Gen. 4:17 who Cain’s wife was – she was also “one of Adam’s offspring”.
Dr. Tom Gouws
