Cain and Able

[Guest LadyC]

well, he said like rabbits LOL, i just agreed in a sense.

yeah, it does open up a whole "what about parent/child" back then. but we go back to the standard of ONE wife. so i suppose if the father were widowed, then that would leave open the possibility of a father and daughter marriage. (or son/mother, if the father were deceased).

so could it have been possible? sure. there are no biblically recorded instances though.

[e lansing]

I think the topic creator is basically asking "How did the human race multiply without incest?"

and the simple answer is, incest didn't exist.

Are you saying that since there was no law given by God at the time men and women were to be like rabbits with who ever and when ever?

they were to be fruitful and multiply, so yes, like rabbits. but NOT with whomever and whenever they wanted. a man was to leave his parents and cleave unto ONE WIFE. so indiscriminate promiscuity was not allowed. marital sex between two individuals was allowed. God did not forbid marital relations between a husband and wife until levitical law came into being.

O.k i'm slow this statement brings me back to my first question. If the law is the game changer and Adam and Eve and there kids were the only ones here, regardless if they had 3 or 50 kids, all would be brothers and sisters. It seems that, based upon the logic of when the law was given, that sister and brothers were starting families together. This would to appear to be incest.

[MelodyCat]

We know there were other people on the Earth at the time Cain killed Able and he was being punished by God.

GE 4:10 The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."

GE 4:13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."

GE 4:15 But the LORD said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

GE 4:17 Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch.

This is all we know. Yes Adam and Eve had other children. Could these people Cain was afraid of be his brothers and sisters? Don't know.

However we do know that there were others on the Earth and all I can say is God obviously created them either through Adam & Eve or some other way. Don't know. Only know every person on this planet is here because God created them. Cain's wife provided by the Lord.

In the End, does it really matter that we can't verify exactly where Cain's wife came from?

[MelodyCat]

I think the topic creator is basically asking "How did the human race multiply without incest?"

and the simple answer is, incest didn't exist.

Are you saying that since there was no law given by God at the time men and women were to be like rabbits with who ever and when ever?

they were to be fruitful and multiply, so yes, like rabbits. but NOT with whomever and whenever they wanted. a man was to leave his parents and cleave unto ONE WIFE. so indiscriminate promiscuity was not allowed. marital sex between two individuals was allowed. God did not forbid marital relations between a husband and wife until levitical law came into being.

O.k i'm slow this statement brings me back to my first question. If the law is the game changer and Adam and Eve and there kids were the only ones here, regardless if they had 3 or 50 kids, all would be brothers and sisters. It seems that, based upon the logic of when the law was given, that sister and brothers were starting families together. This would to appear to be incest.

You talk about the LAW but you don't understand that the LAW only came into being in the days of Moses. Yes there was obviously a moral code prior to this BUT the LAW didn't exist before Moses.

The people who lived in the days prior to the Law had a direct relationship with God and were not under the LAW. God dealt directly with the people on Earth prior to the Law being written.

DT 31:9 So Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel.

So what does this have to do with Incest. Restrictions on who you could marry came in after when the LAW was given to Moses not before. It didn't exist before this time.

Just an example, Abaraham was married to his sister. She was his half sister but nevertheless not a cousin as many teach. They had the same father.

GE 20:11 Abraham replied, "I said to myself, `There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.' 12 Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. 13 And when God had me wander from my father's household, I said to her, `This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my brother." ' "

Edited January 13, 2010 by MelodyCat

[e lansing]

We know there were other people on the Earth at the time Cain killed Able and he was being punished by God.

GE 4:10 The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."

GE 4:13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."

GE 4:15 But the LORD said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

GE 4:17 Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch.

This is all we know. Yes Adam and Eve had other children. Could these people Cain was afraid of be his brothers and sisters? Don't know.

However we do know that there were others on the Earth and all I can say is God obviously created them either through Adam & Eve or some other way. Don't know. Only know every person on this planet is here because God created them. Cain's wife provided by the Lord.

In the End, does it really matter that we can't verify exactly where Cain's wife came from?

Are you saying that Adam and Eve were not the first people on earth?

[Guest LadyC]

I think the topic creator is basically asking "How did the human race multiply without incest?"

and the simple answer is, incest didn't exist.

Are you saying that since there was no law given by God at the time men and women were to be like rabbits with who ever and when ever?

they were to be fruitful and multiply, so yes, like rabbits. but NOT with whomever and whenever they wanted. a man was to leave his parents and cleave unto ONE WIFE. so indiscriminate promiscuity was not allowed. marital sex between two individuals was allowed. God did not forbid marital relations between a husband and wife until levitical law came into being.

O.k i'm slow this statement brings me back to my first question. If the law is the game changer and Adam and Eve and there kids were the only ones here, regardless if they had 3 or 50 kids, all would be brothers and sisters. It seems that, based upon the logic of when the law was given, that sister and brothers were starting families together. This would to appear to be incest.

unless there are other people that God created that He didn't tell us about in the Bible, then yes, men were taking their sisters as wives.

this was NOT, however, incest, because incest did not exist at the time. it is what WE understand NOW to be incest, but God did not forbid it at that point in history.

it's kinda like... lemme use a modern day example. i remember the day, years ago, when the drug extacy became illegal. prior to the law being created, it was legal to produce, sell and purchase, and consume the drug. so it was with marriage in the beginning. it was legal (in the eyes of God) to take one's sister as one's wife. nobody thought it to be "wrong" or anything of the sort, because it had never BEEN wrong. God had not put any restrictions down on it until later. so in the days of adam, eve, and their children, it was perfectly natural for them to take one another in marriage.

[e lansing]

I think the topic creator is basically asking "How did the human race multiply without incest?"

and the simple answer is, incest didn't exist.

Are you saying that since there was no law given by God at the time men and women were to be like rabbits with who ever and when ever?

they were to be fruitful and multiply, so yes, like rabbits. but NOT with whomever and whenever they wanted. a man was to leave his parents and cleave unto ONE WIFE. so indiscriminate promiscuity was not allowed. marital sex between two individuals was allowed. God did not forbid marital relations between a husband and wife until levitical law came into being.

O.k i'm slow this statement brings me back to my first question. If the law is the game changer and Adam and Eve and there kids were the only ones here, regardless if they had 3 or 50 kids, all would be brothers and sisters. It seems that, based upon the logic of when the law was given, that sister and brothers were starting families together. This would to appear to be incest.

unless there are other people that God created that He didn't tell us about in the Bible, then yes, men were taking their sisters as wives.

this was NOT, however, incest, because incest did not exist at the time. it is what WE understand NOW to be incest, but God did not forbid it at that point in history.

it's kinda like... lemme use a modern day example. i remember the day, years ago, when the drug extacy became illegal. prior to the law being created, it was legal to produce, sell and purchase, and consume the drug. so it was with marriage in the beginning. it was legal (in the eyes of God) to take one's sister as one's wife. nobody thought it to be "wrong" or anything of the sort, because it had never BEEN wrong. God had not put any restrictions down on it until later. so in the days of adam, eve, and their children, it was perfectly natural for them to take one another in marriage.

Someone mention the law, and i understand when the law was given and was useing someone elses logic. Now to the example above. Its a good one and i agree, however, someone else mention moral law. Wouldn't they feel wrong or something? It just seems that we might know instinktively right from wrong.

[Guest LadyC]

why would they have instinctively felt that it was immoral, or wrong, when God was their moral compass, and HE didn't say it was wrong?

you have to remember, at that time, God had only told them to marry, be fruitful and to multiply. there were no other options other than amongst themselves.

[e lansing]

why would they have instinctively felt that it was immoral, or wrong, when God was their moral compass, and HE didn't say it was wrong?

you have to remember, at that time, God had only told them to marry, be fruitful and to multiply. there were no other options other than amongst themselves.

right! I just thought that God did not change His mind. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, right. I can accept the fact that God has delt with people differently at different times. It must be perseption. If God say something is right or not who are we to question.

[Guest LadyC]

i don't think God changed His mind. He created and implemented a rule once it became necessary to do so. in the beginning, it wasn't necessary... and would have, in fact, made it impossible for the people to have fulfilled God's command to populate the earth.

go back to that analogy of extacy for a minute... originally there was no law against it because it just simply hadn't been necessary to create one. legislators never "changed their minds" about the drug, they just created and enforced a rule (law) that became necessary at some point in time.