Mageth

God made Eve from Adam's rib. Maybe he made Cain a wife from Cain's rib. Or from Abel's ashes. Or from a can of beans.

It's a magical tale full of magical creatures doing magical acts. What's one more bit of magical mystery?

JEST2ASK

I have heard it explained that both Cain and Able were born as part of twins with the females not counted. Supposedly this is part of Jewish tradition - not counting female births - unless the female later proves to be notable. Of course where Seth gets his wife from falls under the same cloud of mystery.

The bible itself is quite silent on these matters. :huh:

BALDUCCI

Thanks for the interesting and helpful explanations. I still dont understand why original sin is regarded by medieval theologians as justification for human government. Can anyone outline the arguments that Ockham rejected ?

And, I guess Adam and Eve were in a kind of "state of grace" before the Fall. So, are there any theological explanations (aside from what is in Gensis, which I can see is muddled mythology) for what this State of Grace would have consisted of ? Just Adam and Eve and no one else ? Would they have been immortal ? What essentially is the change brought about by the Fall ?

JEST2ASK

I somewhat disagree it seems that Genesis chapters 1 - 4 (IMO) belong to earlier (oral) traditions (just so stories). The later theological retro-fitting (IMO) to justify their inclusion is the cause of most problems. Unfortunately without solid evidence of who, when, where and why; regarding the origin of those sections it is all speculation.

As for the immortality of A & E Genesis 3:22 (KJV) Then the Lord God said, "Behold the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now lest he put out his handand take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever" (23)therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.

Which I find interesting in light of Genesis 2:15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it.

Clivedurdle

When everything was lala in the garden of eden, government was not needed cos god was the bigdaddyo benign (?) dictator.

Eating the apple and seeing each other's rude bits leads immediately to the first law - no nudies in public - wear clothes. Cain and Abel soon bring in the need for Police and it has never stopped. Interestingly there is law in heaven, cos Jesus is our advocate - so the xian heaven is not actually as "perfect" as Eden!

Has anyone discussed the law of heaven? It is fascinating - Jesus and angels get to watch people being tortured for eternity for example.

Amedeo

I like to comment of your argument that God must have created Cain's wife, before dealing with the issue that the presence of Cain's wife creates.

In the Bible, you read of a whole existing world and suddenly you find something which is living but, under the conditions of that existing world, could not have been generated or produced by humans. So you say that it must have been created. You would make the same inference, if today something popped up in your room which, you are sure, was not generated or produced: There has to be a cause for its existence, and you call that cause God.

Of course, your argument that Mrs. Cain was created was done within the given Biblical framework of Reality: There is a world and a Creator. So, an unbegotten and non-constructed reality must be an additional creature of God. But your argument is Biblically refuted by the proposition that, after creating/fashioning Adam and Eve, God rested. Only if a new kind of thing popped up in the universe, a prophet would have said that God resumed work and created something else. You may not appeal to god's creativity since Cain's wife was not a new kind of thing.

My point opens up the broad question, Why did any prophet say that God created the world? Not because he witnessed the creation, but because -- and this is apparently the only alternative -- God told him that He created the world. (And that's why he is called a prophet: the information in his mind was caused by God.) Perhaps he explained that information in his mind by saying that God produced it. So he say, 'God told me that He created the world" and the very steps of the divine creating.

Actually there is a third alternative; that is, a prophet neither withness any creating, nor did he receive information that a God created the world, but he reasoned that somebody created the world.

In one case, indeed, some wondering human was not just born amidst human artifacts; he saw human fashioning new things and new kinds os things. So, he understood where artifacts came from. They are things that are produced by man. Where do soils, lakes, light, stars, etc., come from?
Where do the first parents of animals come from? All non-produced things must have been produced by a mighty artisan (Yahweh or other). So, the Genesis-2 chapter is de facto argument for a divine maker, even though it is stated categorically -- in "statements of fact."

The idea of successive creations depends on the analogy with human work: it takes time to produce anything. The six days are not so much consecutive periods of time as consecutive creations according to a classification of types of things. The more empowered an entity [capable of doing more and diverse things], the later was it to emerge (to have been created).
In agrarian time, generation was understood as being the male generation of seeds. So, the same god that constructed the inert or less empowered things constructed also animals and man (the first man).

In this whole reality-framework, the presence of Cain's wife and especially the talking/intelligent serpent (a new kind of thing), and of the nephilim, the sons of gods who consorted with human females, are totally unexplainable.

They -- the narrated they -- come from other accounts of reality (extra-Biblical accounts)... which existed alongside and before the Yahweh-headed-reality account and the Elohim-headed-reality account. As a matter of fact, both Yahweh and the Elohim existed in human cultures before they were narrated to the children of Israel (as it is attested in al least the Ugaritic and Eblaite records): they are neither real gods that inspired Hebrew/Israelitic prophets, nor gods reasoned to the such prophets. All the Biblical divine and semi-divine entities come from the reality-frameworks of diverse cultures. So, there is no away of expaining certain entitities from one culture by the reality-framework of one's own culture. (Cain's wife is just any woman which was known to exist outside the human genealogy of the Yahwehite culture of the Hebrews.)

RED DAVE

And now for a short break:

Adam and Eve had an argument, so Adam stalked off and went for a walk. He hung out with the animals, had a chin session with God, maybe talked theology with some angels.

Eventually, he got tired and walked back to where he and Even generally hung out, and he saw her sleeping on a lawn of nice, soft grass. So, he lay down next to her fell asleep.

Abruptly, Adam was awakened by a sharp poke in his side. Then there was another and another. He opened his eyes and saw that Eve was squatting next to him.

"What are you doing?" Adam asked.

"Counting your ribs."

RED DAVE

Clivedurdle

Eve's Diary, Complete by Mark Twain

JEST2ASK

:notworthy: :notworthy:

JEST2ASK

Interesting ! IMO a very valid line of thought unfortunately one that most Christians will not consider