Where did Cain's wife come from?

[Reid]

The Bible Reader is right.

Yall should take a look at John Paul II book The Theology of the Body.

It shows the creation story, in a much different way!

When Adam is first mentioned in the Bible it is not talking about (male) or (female) it is talking about man kind in general. When God creates Adam out of dust, there is nothing said about body. God at some point in time gives human kind an intelligent soul that is free to love him.

To me the story is my story, in away. Adam meaning mankind was able to look deep inside himself and realize who he was, and in the process knew who God was. As infants we all know God, because we come from God, and prior to be taught right from wrong, or Catholic vs baptist or any other world religion, we know God and the truth within us because it is written on our hearts.

I also recomend Truth and Tollerance of Christianity and other world religions by our current Pope Benedict.

This shows us the truth in religion itself as it has developed and continues to develope in our modern time.

Whether you take the stories of the bible from a literal since like most do, or a myth or theology story like myself and Bible Reader, I hope you will find the lesson of the story and its meaning in your life today, to help you grow closer to God like never before.

 

[mike182d]

BibleReader:

mike182d asks, “So, you believe that when humans were created, there were several that just popped up at once out of nowhere?”

What I personally suspect is that maybe around 30,000 to 15,000 B.C., perhaps as Cro-Magnons began to be born, God inspired them with a soul, and because these had insight (for example, they could say, “I am,” and understand what that means) they could easily recoignize one another and enthusiastically searched for such partners which God, in His wisdom, made available to them (to avoid what amounts to bestiality).

SUCH QUESTIONS ARE NOT ACTUALLY ADDRESSED BY GENESIS, HOWEVER.

You say God “inspired” cro-magnons with a soul, so there were animals with a soul other than humans, or homo sapiens? Is it not the soul that makes a human being different from the rest of the animal kingdom? If another species other than homo sapiens was given a soul by God, and this soul was passed on to another species through evolution, does that mean that homo sapiens are not the only animals with eternal souls?

Furthermore, was only one cro-magnon inspired with a soul? If so, did he mate with other “uninspired” cro-magnons? If a soul is what defines the human person, and there was only one “human person” mating with animals that were not “persons,” would this not be a form of beastality? Is the possession of a soul transferred by sexual intercourse, and would the child of the “inspired” cro-magnon and the “uninspired” cro-magnon have a soul? Did God then choose two seperate cro-magnons, one male and one female, and just infuse within them a soul? What historical/scientific evidence do we have to answer these questions beyond mere conjecture?

What we “know” of science leaves more problems open to question than the story in Genesis. I would not place so much of my trust in its “accuracy” in sufficiently describing the rise of mankind.

 

[Shiann]

mike182d:

You say God “inspired” cro-magnons with a soul, so there were animals with a soul other than humans, or homo sapiens? Is it not the soul that makes a human being different from the rest of the animal kingdom? If another species other than homo sapiens was given a soul by God, and this soul was passed on to another species through evolution, does that mean that homo sapiens are not the only animals with eternal souls?

Furthermore, was only one cro-magnon inspired with a soul? If so, did he mate with other “uninspired” cro-magnons? If a soul is what defines the human person, and there was only one “human person” mating with animals that were not “persons,” would this not be a form of beastality? Is the possession of a soul transferred by sexual intercourse, and would the child of the “inspired” cro-magnon and the “uninspired” cro-magnon have a soul? Did God then choose two seperate cro-magnons, one male and one female, and just infuse within them a soul? What historical/scientific evidence do we have to answer these questions beyond mere conjecture?

What we “know” of science leaves more problems open to question than the story in Genesis. I would not place so much of my trust in its “accuracy” in sufficiently describing the rise of mankind.

I believe it is BibleReader’s point that it really doesn’t matter the “how”. When viewing Creation from his perspective the science of Creation becomes irrelevant. It is the message of the story that is important. It is the meaning of the pieces, how they are represented, and how they fit together which gives the Creation story such value… not wether or not Adam and Eve had or could have had a belly button…

Take the fable of the tortise and the hare. Does it really matter to the message of the story that rabbits and turtles do not have organized races? Do we use the fact that they do not act in this way, as a reason to deny or devalue the message that “slow and steady wins the race”? I know I don’t. We use it as a way to instruct children with a positive character trait- patience and perserverance.

So to more directly comment on your post, the how’s of what happened with the first human being (ensouled) is a bit irrelevant. Wether that first being was a homo sapien, or a cro magnon, or primordial ooze; God, at some point, decided to ensoul human being(s). It is a mystery.

But the mystery should not overshadow any of the message that God wants us to hear in the Creation story.

Rabbits and turtles racing do not overshadow the message of “slow and steady…”

 

[Reid]

Yes all living things have a soul!

Plants have a soul, animals have a soul.

The difference between something living and dead is wheter or not the soul is in the body.

And on the matter of you saying we should not put much time into the truth of creation or any other search for truth to me is ridicullous. The one thing I love most about my new church is the deep theology and philosophy of the truth and how the Church can seperate the hearsey from the truth, as men continue to explore we have the Church to continue to guide us in the right direction.

 

[LSK]

bengal_fan:

well, as i understand it, the church teaches that they were real. the church says that evolution is compatible with church teaching but that there was a literal adam and eve (two people who are the original ancestors of all humans) who sinned and were cast out of paradise. so, cain married his sister. bible reader, not even the magisterium says that they didn’t exist, so you are pretty bold to be so sure. divine inspiration could have caused the names.

You are correct. Our CCC teaches that, at some point, Adam and Eve were real people.

Remember, as Catholics we do not apply a literalist interpretation to the Bible. We remember at all times that those telling the stories and writing them down were not doing a science project or writing a biology paper. The CCC teaches that, if we do not understand something then we are the ones that are at fault - not Holy Scripture.

For Catholics - faithful Catholics - the story of Adam and Eve is not a myth. We may not understand all the ‘ins and outs’ but I like to remember that nothing is impossible with God, so it is ok if I do not understand the intricacies involved with Creation. Shoot, as a Catholic, I can even subscribe to a belief in evolution as long as I believe that at some point in that process the Creator took two of his Creatures and gave them each a soul, I am fine. In fact, if you think about it, the idea that woman came from man could be interpreted as evolution - though there is that old joke about God creating woman after man because His second attempt was to correct His first mistake .

Now I am just kidding…I think Our Father did a mighty fine job creating us in His image and likeness - now we have to do the work!

 

[Magicsilence]

Shiann:

Take the fable of the tortise and the hare.

You said it, a fable. Hardly comparable to The Word of God.

Its my personal opinion that the Bible is pretty clear cut on things that sometimes people describe as “fables”. They do not start of with : The parable of … goes like this. It just tells it how it happens, too many things have been found, discovered, unearthed, that lie in correlation with the bible, and its “fables”.

Granted, that the issue of Adam and Eve can never be proved, but i think its illogical to say that God chose one of his products of evolution to give a soul, I hardly think that God needed evolution to produce human beings, the Bible is pretty obvious about how Adam was created as a human, it does not say, and God created man from an animal, but from dust, i.e from scratch, possibly after evolution had occurred with the animals.

We must not turn the bible into a book of parables, at what point will Jesus Christ become another parable representing love and peace. I think it is important to see that the Bible is a historical document as well as a guide to salvation.

 

[Shiann]

Magicsilence:

You said it, a fable. Hardly comparable to The Word of God.

Its my personal opinion that the Bible is pretty clear cut on things that sometimes people describe as “fables”. They do not start of with : The parable of … goes like this. It just tells it how it happens, too many things have been found, discovered, unearthed, that lie in correlation with the bible, and its “fables”.

Granted, that the issue of Adam and Eve can never be proved, but i think its illogical to say that God chose one of his products of evolution to give a soul, I hardly think that God needed evolution to produce human beings, the Bible is pretty obvious about how Adam was created as a human, it does not say, and God created man from an animal, but from dust, i.e from scratch, possibly after evolution had occurred with the animals.

We must not turn the bible into a book of parables, at what point will Jesus Christ become another parable representing love and peace. I think it is important to see that the Bible is a historical document as well as a guide to salvation.

Again, I think you are missing the point. REGARDLESS of the ACTUALITY of the EVENTS- the Message is still the same! I only introduced the “fable” analogy to show that. The message of patience and perserverance would be true wether or not rabbits and tortoises actually race!

I did not mean for you to infer that I believed the Word of God was a fable. I, of course, do not believe that. But Christ did use stories to convey His message. I believe it is more important to find the True Message in the Bible, than to prove it scientifically or historically correct. God is not limited by either.

 

[mike182d]

Shiann:

I believe it is BibleReader’s point that it really doesn’t matter the “how”. When viewing Creation from his perspective the science of Creation becomes irrelevant. It is the message of the story that is important.

If the how is not important, why disregard the feasibility of the Creation story happening as portrayed in the Bible if we really have no credible evidence to the contrary?

If we really cannot know what happened in the beginning, would it not be more virtuous to err on the side of giving God too much credit than giving God too little?

 

[mike182d]

Reid:

Yes all living things have a soul!

Yes, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, anything that is animate possesses a “soul,” but the “soul” of man differs greatly in that it is eternal and substantially different in nature, more specifically the human “soul” possesses a clear identity or “personhood” that is otherwise lacking in other animate objects - there is an “I” in thought.

 

[BibleReader]

mike182d:

You say God “inspired” cro-magnons with a soul, so there were animals with a soul other than humans, or homo sapiens? Is it not the soul that makes a human being different from the rest of the animal kingdom? If another species other than homo sapiens was given a soul by God, and this soul was passed on to another species through evolution, does that mean that homo sapiens are not the only animals with eternal souls?

Furthermore, was only one cro-magnon inspired with a soul? If so, did he mate with other “uninspired” cro-magnons? If a soul is what defines the human person, and there was only one “human person” mating with animals that were not “persons,” would this not be a form of beastality? Is the possession of a soul transferred by sexual intercourse, and would the child of the “inspired” cro-magnon and the “uninspired” cro-magnon have a soul? Did God then choose two seperate cro-magnons, one male and one female, and just infuse within them a soul? What historical/scientific evidence do we have to answer these questions beyond mere conjecture?

What we “know” of science leaves more problems open to question than the story in Genesis. I would not place so much of my trust in its “accuracy” in sufficiently describing the rise of mankind.

Hi, Mike. Our species is Homo sapiens sapiens. Cro-magnon (not Neanderthal, which is what I think you are thinking of) is still regarded as pre-Magdalenian Era Homo sapiens sapiens *-- *us – by anthropologists, as far as I know. The “Magdalenianers” – the cave-painters – were clearly “us.”

No matter what, at a particular point I suspect God infused our line with souls – perhaps when the first “Cro-magnoner” popped out of his non-Cro-magnon mother’s womb.

The problem silently considered by Biblical fundamentalists, but rarely publicly discussed, is, "Who did these soul-infused Cro-Magnoners copulate with? NON-soul-infused counterparts, so that they amounted to Mankind making love to animal?

They “solve” the problem by sweeping aside all of the archaeological evidence, and declaring that Adam’s children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren all engaged in incestuous copulation with one another, and they were “higher,” “less fallen” beings, and so it was okay.

Balderdash!

Poppycock!

I say that God is cleverer than that. In
His consummate foreknowledge, God made sure that enough soul-infused member of the Homo sapiens sapiens line were soul-infused so that wherever a a member of our species, interested in mating, looked, there happened to be a soul-infused member of the opposite sex standing there.

That would explain the “Eve mitochondria” that researchers found about 10 years ago, which goes back about 250,000 years, +.

None of this is taught in Scripture. Neither is incestuous intercourse between Cain and a sister. The inspired authors DIDN’T CARE about such things. The story is FICTION WHICH TEACHES THEOLOGY. It’s not a course in Genetics. It doesn’t teach that “incest is best.” IT’S FICTION TEACHING THEOLOGY.

 

[LSK]

BibleReader:

Hi, Mike. Our species is Homo sapiens sapiens. Cro-magnon (not Neanderthal, which is what I think you are thinking of) is still regarded as pre-Magdalenian Era Homo sapiens sapiens *-- *us – by anthropologists, as far as I know. The “Magdalenianers” – the cave-painters – were clearly “us.”

No matter what, at a particular point I suspect God infused our line with souls – perhaps when the first “Cro-magnoner” popped out of his non-Cro-magnon mother’s womb.

The problem silently considered by Biblical fundamentalists, but rarely publicly discussed, is, "Who did these soul-infused Cro-Magnoners copulate with? NON-soul-infused counterparts, so that they amounted to Mankind making love to animal?

They “solve” the problem by sweeping aside all of the archaeological evidence, and declaring that Adam’s children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren all engaged in incestuous copulation with one another, and they were “higher,” “less fallen” beings, and so it was okay.

Balderdash!

Poppycock!

I say that God is cleverer than that. In
His consummate foreknowledge, God made sure that enough soul-infused member of the Homo sapiens sapiens line were soul-infused so that wherever a a member of our species, interested in mating, looked, there happened to be a soul-infused member of the opposite sex standing there.

That would explain the “Eve mitochondria” that researchers found about 10 years ago, which goes back about 250,000 years, +.

None of this is taught in Scripture. Neither is incestuous intercourse between Cain and a sister. The inspired authors DIDN’T CARE about such things. The story is FICTION WHICH TEACHES THEOLOGY. It’s not a course in Genetics. It doesn’t teach that “incest is best.” IT’S FICTION TEACHING THEOLOGY.

While I do not believe that the story is fiction, I absolutely agree with you that anything is possible with God, that it doesn’t have to be a matter of incest (though there are places recorded in the Bible where humans certainly engaged in it and justified it - Lot and his daughters come to mind).

I am content, as an Obedient Daughter of the Chrurch, to believe there was an Adam and an Eve and when it was time for the kids to marry, God did whatever was necessary to perpetuate human race.
I guess that makes me a female Church Militant

 

[Shiann]

mike182d:

If the how is not important, why disregard the feasibility of the Creation story happening as portrayed in the Bible if we really have no credible evidence to the contrary?

If we really cannot know what happened in the beginning, would it not be more virtuous to err on the side of giving God too much credit than giving God too little?

It DOESN’T MATTER how one looks at Creation. If one is getting the moral teaching the passage was meant to convey- it doesn’t make any difference how virtuous one thinks he or she is! The moral teaching is what matters! The Word is what matters!

 

[Shiann]

LSK:

While I do not believe that the story is fiction, I absolutely agree with you that anything is possible with God, that it doesn’t have to be a matter of incest (though there are places recorded in the Bible where humans certainly engaged in it and justified it - Lot and his daughters come to mind).

I am content, as an Obedient Daughter of the Chrurch, to believe there was an Adam and an Eve and when it was time for the kids to marry, God did whatever was necessary to perpetuate human race.
I guess that makes me a female Church Militant

-another Obedient Daughter of the Church

 

[BibleReader]

LSK:

While I do not believe that the story is fiction, I absolutely agree with you that anything is possible with God, that it doesn’t have to be a matter of incest (though there are places recorded in the Bible where humans certainly engaged in it and justified it - Lot and his daughters come to mind).

I am content, as an Obedient Daughter of the Chrurch, to believe there was an Adam and an Eve and when it was time for the kids to marry, God did whatever was necessary to perpetuate human race.
I guess that makes me a female Church Militant

The story of Lot and his daughters is probably another fictional source teaching theology.

Perhaps I can locate the article I did on that and e-mail it to you, if I can have your e-mail address.

 

[AnAtheist]

BibleReader:

O
This is the story of how Mr. Smith killed Mr. Herdsman.

What theology does this story teach?

This is most interesting!
So the story could be viewed as a parable for mankind turning from nomadic tribes to settled nations, from natural to technocratic, with all the accompanying problems.

 

[wcknight]

deb1:

I am completly bummed too.:crying: We need to start a thread on the depression that this news has cost us.

I’m almost glad to see them go, I never could get used to the awkward sentence structure of first grade readers. I used to have trouble reading because I didn’t believe anyone could or should write like that. People certainly don’t talk like that.

I mean, who says." See spot run. See Jane run, See Dick run." It’s just not natural. No one talks like that. I suppose someone might say, " see Spot, Jane, and Dick run", but even that is a bit of a stretch.

More than likely one is more apt to say " I saw Jane and DIck running with their dog, Spot." But I guess that would be considered outside the abilities of a first grader.

Anyhow, I always felt some resentment towards unjustly being labelled as a “poor reader”. It was an adversion to the awkward sentences that made me read slower. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking too it.

Maybe after almost 50 years, justice will be served and I will be vindicated. Who knows what sort of psychological damage was caused by this misevaluation. I could have become a great writer (or not) or at least a great reader. Instead I ended up in hi tech (which BTW pays really well !).

I don’t want to be a whiner, but I think an apology is in order. I know my first grade teacher, Sister Bernadette Marie (God bless her soul . She was the sweetest first grade teacher anyone could have.) is no longer around to make the formal apology, but any surrogate will do.

wc

 

[Magicsilence]

BibleReader:

Hi, Mike. Our species is Homo sapiens sapiens. Cro-magnon (not Neanderthal, which is what I think you are thinking of) is still regarded as pre-Magdalenian Era Homo sapiens sapiens *-- *us – by anthropologists, as far as I know. The “Magdalenianers” – the cave-painters – were clearly “us.”

No matter what, at a particular point I suspect God infused our line with souls – perhaps when the first “Cro-magnoner” popped out of his non-Cro-magnon mother’s womb.

The problem silently considered by Biblical fundamentalists, but rarely publicly discussed, is, "Who did these soul-infused Cro-Magnoners copulate with? NON-soul-infused counterparts, so that they amounted to Mankind making love to animal?

They “solve” the problem by sweeping aside all of the archaeological evidence, and declaring that Adam’s children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren all engaged in incestuous copulation with one another, and they were “higher,” “less fallen” beings, and so it was okay.

Balderdash!

Poppycock!

I say that God is cleverer than that. In
His consummate foreknowledge, God made sure that enough soul-infused member of the Homo sapiens sapiens line were soul-infused so that wherever a a member of our species, interested in mating, looked, there happened to be a soul-infused member of the opposite sex standing there.

That would explain the “Eve mitochondria” that researchers found about 10 years ago, which goes back about 250,000 years, +.

None of this is taught in Scripture. Neither is incestuous intercourse between Cain and a sister. The inspired authors DIDN’T CARE about such things. The story is FICTION WHICH TEACHES THEOLOGY. It’s not a course in Genetics. It doesn’t teach that “incest is best.” IT’S FICTION TEACHING THEOLOGY.

First of all, one must take any archaeaolgical evidence with a pinch of salt.

Regarding the bible fundamentalists, if there was only one with a soul, they havent got a leg to stand on.

I think the idea that God allowed evolution, and then gave some of the creatures souls is ridiculous.

How would he have decided to give them a soul? What was the one thing that made him decide, IQ points?? brain size? emotions towards each other? and once that level of whatever was reached, it is entirely possible that one of the offspring would have had a lower level of the required trait. In fact, its almost a given. What would he do then, remove the soul? Or what would have happened if that creature had died out? "God was with them, "i hear you cry, “they could not have died out”. Well, why would our Lord do such a thing as waiting for evolution to take place, instead of creating man?

Also, man was created in Gods image, the bible is clear enough on that. And woman was created from man. You are saying that mans image came from evolution, and an intelligent ape.

Evolution is a VERY SLOW process ( which i dont believe in anyway, so lets say it happened for arguements sake). If God had decided to give one of the creatures a soul then what of the parents of the generation with a soul?? If they had the ability to be given a soul, they must have been similar to modern humans, are you saying that the parents of those with a soul were NOT given a soul because they were 0.1% different from their offspring?
They would have been the same as a stupid human by our standards, but because of their place in time, would have been denied eternal life??
**
[SUMMARY]**
It boils down to:

Scenario a) God gave a stupid animal a soul, so that when they involved into intelligent beings, all intelligent beings would go into heaven. BUT then how are the animals of today any different, eventually they will evolve into humans too, right?So why shouldnt they have a soul??

Scenario b) God gave an intelligent creature a soul so stupid animals were not involed at all solving the above problem, BUT what of the parents of that soul-having generation, they would only be a minuscule amount of difference between the parent and the offspring, and there would be offspring (with a soul) at some point, with exactly the same intelligence, IQ, emotional expression as these parents (of the soul having generation) who did not recieve a soul. (Think of those with serious mental disabilities, supposedly the same intelligence as a dolphin, does God remove the soul because intelligence is less than a normal human being, he does not!

Both scenarios DO NOT WORK, the idea that God watched evolution with interest and then threw the soul down at one point is illogical and non-functional AT ALL.

Please, attempt to refute my evidence.

Also, you comment about mitonchondrial EVE? is misunderstood, please see this article for full understanding.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

 

[deb1]

aomin.org/index.php?itemid=494

Here is a website giving a scientific explanation of the first female, Eve. Interesting.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Magicsilence:

It boils down to:

Scenario a) God gave a stupid animal a soul, so that when they involved into intelligent beings, all intelligent beings would go into heaven. BUT then how are the animals of today any different, eventually they will evolve into humans too, right?So why shouldnt they have a soul??

Scenario b) God gave an intelligent creature a soul so stupid animals were not involed at all solving the above problem, BUT what of the parents of that soul-having generation, they would only be a minuscule amount of difference between the parent and the offspring, and there would be offspring (with a soul) at some point, with exactly the same intelligence, IQ, emotional expression as these parents (of the soul having generation) who did not recieve a soul. (Think of those with serious mental disabilities, supposedly the same intelligence as a dolphin, does God remove the soul because intelligence is less than a normal human being, he does not!

Oh oh Magic, I think you may have fundamentally flawed conception of what 1)a person is and 2) what our soul is!

Our souls are rational souls, and thus we possess an intellect and will. Without a rational soul there is no intellect. Animals do not have rational souls (they are sans intellect and will) so they can’t ever become intelligent enough to have rational soul. Having a rational soul means you have intelligence.

So you don’t have to worry about human persons who had itelligence but NO soul. They wouldn’t 1)be human persons and 2)wouldn’t be intelligent!

What do you think? Does this make sense to you?

 

[LSK]

BibleReader:

The story of Lot and his daughters is probably another fictional source teaching theology.

Perhaps I can locate the article I did on that and e-mail it to you, if I can have your e-mail address.

Thanks for the offer. I determined to be a faithful Catholic and so my position stands. HOWEVER, I always find information interesting. It never shakes my faith or my opinion on Biblical matters because I am guided by The Holy Mother Church. While I don’t feel really comfortable handing out my email address, if your paper is published on line, please feel free to send the link to me in a private message. I am sure you did a lot of very good work on it and I would be interested in reading it.

Afterall, I can’t let that wonderful education received from UC Berkeley go to waste, can I? Stop laughing, you!