Huon

Who were the wives of Cain and Seth, the surviving sons of Adam and Eve ?

Duvduv

Are you asking a question based on the information provided in Genesis or based on information provided elsewhere?

Huon

I am simply asking a question.

Duvduv

Of course you probably know that this information does not appear in Genesis. However, other Jewish sources in the Midrash Genesis Rabba and elsewhere discuss this. Midrash Genesis Rabba says Cain was born with one sister, and Abel was born with two sisters. The same Midrash says that the reason Cain decided to kill Abel was not because of the rejected sacrifice but because of a quarrel over who had the right to marry Abel's second sister.

Genesis does say that Adam and Eve had many other children (aside from Seth). Eventually nearer and more distant cousins were marrying each other.

Does this answer this question you asked?

outhouse

fiction, they didnt exist in reality


all literary creations, compiled over centuries from oral tradition, before collections were compiled and redacted over centuries, mainly the 5th and 6the century under monotheism

sotto voce

There are of course the original records of the proper religious authorities to consult. There is no question of the human race starting by shenanigans out of wedlock! Presumably a cathedral was available for such auspicious occasions. Or at least a decent-sized synagogue.

Toto

You will find some old threads on this.

The standard religionist answer is that incest was OK back then, since it was necessary to get the human race started.

For those who are not Biblical inerrantists, it is just another Bible difficulty showing that the text is not to be taken literally.

sotto voce

Doubtless. Though I wonder how many of them quote interpretations that involve Cain and Abel being figurative representatives of all humanity? Not so many, I reckon.

Sarah Palin rules BC&H? Aw, shucks.

How about a scholarly answer? We don't want to be messing with straw men, surely.

You mean literalists, don't you. That's not us, is it?

Of course it isn't. Bright four-year-olds will tell you, absolutely straight, Toto, that snakes don't talk. Nothing you can say will persuade them otherwise. Really.

So how does one discount Genesis 1-11 while squarely facing the mainstream view that Genesis 1-11 ish is allegory?

Chili

From my point of view, at least Gen. 1, 2 and 3 have nothing to do the creation of mankind and does not suggest that Adam and Eve were the first humans on earth, but is there only as the starting point of the mythology for Jews to come full circle in, and only then will know who they truly are.

And so it was that the planet earth already was, but the world on it pertains only to the mind of the believer who is created male and female (androgyne as such) to become either male or female in Gen. 2. After that and not until in Gen.3 man became human now with the Tree of Knowledge engaged in both males and in females (sic) to have a mind of their own and they each took Eve to be 'his' wife, for to say different is to call females the 'non-rational' animal man, while in function they are just the same, obviously, since Adam was the name given to the second or ego identity of man. This idea is made know in the shame complex that did not exist before the TOK was ever used (cf Gen.2 25 and Gen 3:7).

This second identity became known as Adam in Gen. 3:9, first used by Lord God in "Adam where are you?" to say "why have you done this to me" (get a mind of your own), and then the punishment follows wherein the opposites were formed 'to the good' so that humans will know when enough is enough. I so exists only in the imaginattion of man, and again, that includes females as well.

So Adam has no existence of being nor does Eve, wherefore then Christ can be the second Adam and Mary the second Eve (later called Magdalene and Martha also).

Toto

Saying that it is allegory is a way of discounting it, isn't it?

The question of who Cain married is only a problem for people who believe the Bible is true on a very literal materialist level.