Adam & Eve Mythical - or "where did Cain get his wife"

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Lifetimes to die for….
930 - 912 - 905 - 910 - 895 - 962 - 365 - 969 - 777 – 950
The numbers are astounding, stunning our modern sensibilities, a far-off dream for modern medical science. Is it possible that the original patriarchs from Adam to Noah really completed these incredibly long lifetimes?
This question was once quite easy to answer. Of course they are truly and literally years, as these numbers are taken directly from the Book of Genesis, a didactic and factual account of the beginning times of humanity.
But the modern age is skeptical, a questioning age. As some illiteralists claim, was the Bible author counting months, not years? This ‘interpretation’ of years compressed by 12 would bring the patriarchal ages in line with lifetimes today.
Then what of Gen 5:21 ?
When Enoch was sixty-five years old, he became the father of Methuselah.
If years are really months, then Enoch sired his first son when he was about 5 1/2 years old!

more…
 
I see the account written very much like an event told to a child in order for them to grasp fundermental truths. When we look at the time line for creation itself, we are not told how God created. In the time line, one could say, It took 5 minutes to make a cake. Yet this is only collecting ingredience and does not include the elasped time of pre-heating oven and cooking. It takes a short time to make a human being. Yet it is 9 months before the human is out of the womb and many years before the baby is an adult.

When dealing with pre-flood or even pre ice age civilizations (something being investigated at present), then there are scientific factors that could allow a person to live much longer. This would explain how it would be possible for one to live one thousand years and then begin to have a life span of 120 years. I do not have the file in front of me but it has to do with changes in ozone that does something to the earth. Very scientific. It is a theroy, but a scientific possible theroy.

One also has to remember that in many other ancient cultures men are recorded to have once lived much longer. Also it is prophesied in Scripture that after something happens, if a man dies at one hundred years old he would be considered young.

God Bless
Sue
 
Originally Posted by OTavern
One possibility is the evolution and co-existence of other “humanoid” types of creatures, predating the Genesis story.
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Ron_Conte said:
This idea introduces many more theological problems than it purports to solve.
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There is a rather enigmatic verse in Genesis that speaks of “men,” “Sons of God,” “daughters of men” and “the Nephilim.”

When men had begun to be plentiful on the earth, and daughters had been born to them, the sons of God, looking at the daughters of men, saw they were pleasing, so they married as many as they chose. Yahweh said, “My spirit must not forever be disgraced in man, for he is but flesh; his life shall last no more than a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth at that time (and even afterward) when the sons of God resorted to the daughters of man, and had children by them. These are the heroes of days gone by, the famous men. Genesis 6:1-4

Who exactly were this third group of beings then? Also, why the distinction between “men,” daughters “of men” and “sons of God?” It would seem that the “men” and the “sons of God” were not the same beings. And then, again, there are the Nephilim!

This might make sense if Adam and his progeny were the “Sons of God,” and the men/daughters of men were the evolved humanoids. Perhaps Nephilim was the generic term for the latter group.

Ron, do you have any suggestions for how to interpret this verse?
 
OTavern said:
There is a rather enigmatic verse in Genesis that speaks of “men,” “Sons of God,” “daughters of men” and “the Nephilim.”

When men had begun to be plentiful on the earth, and daughters had been born to them, the sons of God, looking at the daughters of men, saw they were pleasing, so they married as many as they chose. Yahweh said, “My spirit must not forever be disgraced in man, for he is but flesh; his life shall last no more than a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth at that time (and even afterward) when the sons of God resorted to the daughters of man, and had children by them. These are the heroes of days gone by, the famous men. Genesis 6:1-4

Who exactly were this third group of beings then? Also, why the distinction between “men,” daughters “of men” and “sons of God?” It would seem that the “men” and the “sons of God” were not the same beings. And then, again, there are the Nephilim!

This might make sense if Adam and his progeny were the “Sons of God,” and the men/daughters of men were the evolved humanoids. Perhaps Nephilim was the generic term for the latter group.

Ron, do you have any suggestions for how to interpret this verse?
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Hi, OTavem!

…sometimes we tend to look for a meaning that exists within the human intellect (cultural expectations)… there are some who believe that there is definite proof of ETs in Scriptures… am an avid fan of SciFi and I see most, if not all, of the marvels depicted in this genre based on Biblical accounts… but I do not believe that everything that is imagined is just so…

If you read the passage that you’ve cited in light of St. John 1:1-14 you can determine who the “sons of God” were: those who Believe! Yahweh God has always separated His children from the world… and He has further separated from among His children those who would be His prophets and priests (sometimes they happened to be a little of both, as in certain kings). When we read through the Old Testament we find that Yahweh demands that these men maintain a stricter behavior than that afforded to the general population… a similar demand was adopted by the Apostles as they consecrated some of the disciples into the various offices, as Bishops and Deacons–1 Timothy 3:1-13.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
There were no other women in Adam and Eve’s day besides Adam and Eve’s daughters. Therefore, incest had to have happened. However, it is notable to say that revelation had not yet occurred that incest was wrong.
 
jcrichton said:
Hi, Swan!

Here’s how you can view it:

Adam and Eve were only two people; their children, as many as they could have been wee only a few tens or hundreds–interbreeding was necessary for the propagation of the human race…

Today the earth has upwards of billions of human beings–regardless of how similar our gene pools might be we are far enough from other human beings that interbreeding is absolutely unnecessary to maintain the human race.

There came a time, from Yahweh God’s perspective, when there were enough people to continue the human race… it was then that He instructed His people to change their behavior, under penalty of sin.

Maran atha!

Angel
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Bingo - and we can see at exactly what point that transition happened - somewhere between Abraham who was married to his half-sister with no problems and Leviticus which explicitly prohibits it.
 
The number of ages thing was a maybe a code that has yet to be broken even if many jewish and christian sages have tried for centuries even Isaac Newton.

It follows a descending scale meaning that the farther you get from YHWH the shorter your life becomes.
Also the genealogies must be compared with their Babylonian counterpart to discover the real message.
With the Babylonian put Gods into the genealogies Genesis does not, meaning that we all have common descent.
 
As the responses above indicate, Cain’s wife was apparently one of his sisters (or possibly his niece). This was possible at that time, among other reasons, because of the great life-spans at that time enabling the procreation of many children over a long period of time, and the fact that the gene pool had not yet had time to become contaminated (a Jewish tradition, cited by Josephus, states that Adam and Eve had 33 sons and 23 daughters. After all, the command was “To be fruitful and multiply”). Bear in mind, there was no legal or religious proscription against consanguinity until Leviticus. By that time, the gene pool had been corrupted and there were so many people, marriages between close relations were not needed any longer.
**
Who was Cain’s Wife?**
angelfire.com/ms/seanie/cainswife.html

Interesting stuff. I’m leading a Bible study on this topic this week.
 
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