wife of Cain

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childhoodtimes

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why is that it is not listed in the bible her name? or is it his mother which is eve?
 
Her name does not matter. If it did, if it had any reason for being there, it would be there. Focus on what is in the Bible, God put it there for a reason and He left out what He left out for His own reasons, and these reasons are not for us to know at this time.

You must have faith, Thomas believed because he saw, Christ said “blessed are those that do not see, but still believe”!

NOT JUST STRONG…CATHOLIC STRONG!!!
 
…or is it his mother which is eve?
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This is a teaching opportunity.
Your conclusion, in the form of a question quoted above, is an argument from silence. Because the story does not specifically say who it is that means it could be any one I choose. I choose Eve. This is not sound reasoning.
Lets take your mode of reasoning further to illustrate the point. In the following text, no women are ‘named’ after the naming of Eve until we hear of Ada and Tzilla. Are we to assume Eve was handed down the line of Cain as a wife to Cain’s descendants until Ada and Tsilla arrived? Of course not.
As you continue to read scripture you will be sometimes struck by the lack of details precisely when you were hoping to get some more details. Why is this? We must trust that the inspired author knows what he is and is not telling us.
Trust is another word for faith.
And we must read the scripture in faith.

Keep reading, keep thinking, keep questioning, keep yearning.
Answers will come.

Hope this helped.
Pete
 
childhoodtimes said:
why is that it is not listed in the bible her name? or is it his mother which is eve?
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Hi, friend.

By and large, the folks here conclude that Cain’s wife was his sister.

I, personally, think that Cain did not have a wife, because Cain is a fictional character whose story teaches theology.
 
childhoodtimes said:
Why is that it is not listed in the bible her name? or is it his mother which is eve?
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If you look at all the genealogies of the Bible, only Jacob’s daughter is listed (is her name Beulah?). This would come into play when she is raped and the resulting slaughter takes place. You should find it around Genesis 35 or so immediately after Jacob/Israel reunites with his brother Esau.

Cain’s wife would also be his sister.
 
Orogeny said:
Based on what?

Peace

Tim
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Based on the teaching that we all descended from Adam and Eve. The only options are:
a) His wife is his sister.
or
b) Eve is his wife.

I’m not aware of any woman in any Scripture being the wife of two men. But there are instances of the wife being a sister, at least a half sister.
 
Granny is partially right. notice in Genesis how many stories begin like they are going to major stories then fade to nothing? It starts out tantalizingly then peters out?.Nimrod is one, the nephiliim is another, Cain, lamech are others. They were probably part and parcel of an ancient oral traditions so massive that the full stories never got into written formThese would have been stories told for hundreds if not for thousand years- the people would have been as familiar with the characters ans situations including who the heck was Mrs. Cain as we know all the characters in Cinderella or any other familiar folktales. The point is -all we would have to hear is the name"Cinderella" and we could fill in names and events that happened in the story.Same with these stories.People would have known who and what and wherefores -they wouldn’t have needed anymore then that to pull them into these stories.
 
Notworthy,
a) His wife is his sister.
or
b) Eve is his wife.
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c) Cain’s niece - it’s possible his unmentioned brothers and sisters had children, one of which he married. This idea is not outside the realm of possibility considering the genre.

But it is evident the inspired author was more interested in other matters than strict anthropological decent. Cain’s departure starts setting the stage for the judgement of the deluge.

Pete
 
Many wives are not named in the OT.

Cain’s wife was likely his sister or could be a niece. Either way, it had to be a close relative, but back in those days, incest was not forbidden by God. Even Abraham was married to his half sister. Incest wasn’t prohibited by God until Mosaic law.

I would caution any Catholic to carefully consider the notion that Cain/Adam/Eve and other people of the early OT are fictional. The need for a Savior is directly linked to the sin of our first parents. Catholic teaching is crystal clear on the matter of having only two first parents who we call Adam and Eve. If then, all humanity springs from these two parents (and fell because of their disobedience), it stands to reason that their son had to have married a sister or a niece. The Bible also teaches that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters (also not named). Since Cain “went off”, I would say that rules Eve out. As Catholics, a lot rides on the teaching of the first parents— if there were separate people living in the land of Nod, they wouldn’t have need for a Savior because they had no original sin. I’ve no doubt that other Christian religions do not subscribe to the notion of ‘original sin’ and so it is much easier to dismiss all of early Genesis as myth told to convey theology. But that is not the Catholic position.
 
PeterK said:
Notworthy,

c) Cain’s niece - it’s possible his unmentioned brothers and sisters had children, one of which he married. This idea is not outside the realm of possibility considering the genre.

But it is evident the inspired author was more interested in other matters than strict anthropological decent. Cain’s departure starts setting the stage for the judgement of the deluge.

Pete
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Yeah, I’ll grant you that. But at least ONE SET of his brothers and sisters had to reproduce in order to produce said niece.
 
Prayer_Warrior said:
I would caution any Catholic to carefully consider the notion that Cain/Adam/Eve and other people of the early OT are fictional. The need for a Savior is directly linked to the sin of our first parents. Catholic teaching is crystal clear on the matter of having only two first parents who we call Adam and Eve. If then, all humanity springs from these two parents (and fell because of their disobedience), it stands to reason that their son had to have married a sister or a niece.
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Don’t be too concerned. The poster that made that claim also claims to be Catholic. He may be Catholic in his eyes, but it is different than the Catholic Church. And it is misleading to tell someone you are Catholic, all the while knowing that they are going to misinterpret your meaning.
 
Re: Cain’s wife

While we’re airing theories…

I say, if you’re a smart-alecky time traveler who plans to go back in time and murder your grandfather, God sends you further back in time and makes you marry one of the Adam’s family.

🙂
 
I’m in the camp of those that say that Scripture, especially those first 11 chapters of Genesis, don’t tell us everything. This partially is rationalized that the original listeners of the oral accounts that eventually were written down “understood” the parts that are now mysterious to us.

For example, when Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden, a cherubim is stationed there to guard them from coming back into the garden. What’s a cherubim? and, for that matter, what is a flaming sword? We don’t know the origin of that “sword.”

For example, Eve uses the unpronouncable and unmentionable name for God, YHWH. Where’d that come from? How did she get it and what would anybody understand by that name?

For example, Jewish commentators believe that there must have been a now-lost covenant, whose breaking was responsible for the destruction of mankind in the account of Noah and his family.

We can complain about this situation forever, but we won’t get solid answers.

While modern and skeptical readers focus on the astronomical implications of creation in seven 24-hour days, in fact, the emphasis of the first account of creation is much different. A seven-day unit of time was a common metaphor in Near-Eastern culture, and it largely represents that creation is a very important event. Important things were simply done in seven days and people at the time wouldn’t have it otherwise.

The number seven is featured over and over in this account, in ways which are not apparent in the resulting English translation – the phrases are in groups of seven Hebrew words or multiples of seven words.

The name used for God, Elohim, is a word that refers to God’s being Almighty and a Judge. Notice, seven times God makes not just a statement, but a **judgment **that what has been created is “good.”

Personally, I like how questions about the “wife of Cain” serve to pull us into the story.
 
Crumpy said:
I’m in the camp of those that say that Scripture, especially those first 11 chapters of Genesis, don’t tell us everything. This partially is rationalized that the original listeners of the oral accounts that eventually were written down “understood” the parts that are now mysterious to us.

For example, when Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden, a cherubim is stationed there to guard them from coming back into the garden. What’s a cherubim? and, for that matter, what is a flaming sword? We don’t know the origin of that “sword.”
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Aren’t the Cherabim described in Isiah 5 or 6? Or are those Seraphim?
Crumpy said:
The name used for God, Elohim, is a word that refers to God’s being Almighty and a Judge. Notice, seven times God makes not just a statement, but a **judgment **that what has been created is “good.”

Personally, I like how questions about the “wife of Cain” serve to pull us into the story.
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Two points. Elohim is plural. Why is that?
Also, God says things are “good” 7 times, but only after Man is created does God say that things are “Very Good”.

Hmmmmmm… :hmmm:
 
I’ve had this idea knocking about my mind for a while and I just wanted to air it and get a bit of advice or direction about it.
The Catholic Church is ok with the belief that human’s corporeal form evolved from other creatures but that there came a point that God breathed the ‘breath of life’, ie the soul, into Adam, the first man. This is my belief.
Here is my subsequent idea: Adam and Eve are the parents of all present day humans, as all humans nowadays have souls. However, in Genesis chapter 6, the author makes a clear distinction between the ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men’. Could this mean that in the days following the creation of Man, ie the humans with souls, they could have married other humans that weren’t sons of God in the sense that they didn’t have souls, as a means of producing the Nephilim, who were descended from Adam, and therefore had souls, giving rise to the eventual population of the planet by those descended from Adam?
 
Book of Jubilees (not canonical)


  1. *]And in the third week in the second jubilee [64-70 A.M.] she gave birth to Cain, and in the fourth [71-77 A.M.] she gave birth to Abel, and in the fifth [78-84 A.M.] she gave birth to her daughter Âwân.
    *]And in the first (year) of the third jubilee [99-105 A.M.], Cain slew Abel because (God) accepted the sacrifice of Abel, and did not accept the offering of Cain.
    *]And he slew him in the field: and his blood cried from the ground to heaven, complaining because he had slain him.
    *]And the Lord reproved Cain because of Abel, because he had slain him, and he made him a fugitive on the earth because of the blood of his brother, and he cursed him upon the earth.
    *]And on this account it is written on the heavenly tables, ‘Cursed is ,he who smites his neighbour treacherously, and let all who have seen and heard say, So be it; and the man who has seen and not declared (it), let him be accursed as the other.’
    *]And for this reason we announce when we come before the Lord our God all the sin which is committed in heaven and on earth, and in light and in darkness, and everywhere.
    *]And Adam and his wife mourned for Abel four weeks of years, [99-127 A.M] and in the fourth year of the fifth week [130 A.M.] they became joyful, and Adam knew his wife again, and she bare him a son, and he called his name Seth; for he said ‘GOD has raised up a second seed unto us on the earth instead of Abel; for Cain slew him.’
    *]And in the sixth week [134-40 A.M.] he begat his daughter Azûrâ.
    *]And Cain took Âwân his sister to be his wife and she bare him Enoch at the close of the fourth jubilee. [190-196 A.M.] And in the first year of the first week of the fifth jubilee, [197 A.M.] houses were built on the earth, and Cain built a city, and called its name after the name of his son Enoch.

    1. *]And Adam knew Eve his wife and she bare yet nine sons.
      *]And in the fifth week of the fifth jubilee [225-31 A.M.] Seth took Azûrâ his sister to be his wife, and in the fourth (year of the sixth week) [235 A.M.] she bare him Enos.
      *]He began to call on the name of the Lord on the earth.
      *]And in the seventh jubilee in the third week [309-15 A.M.] Enos took Nôâm his sister to be his wife, and she bare him a son in the third year of the fifth week, and he called his name Kenan.
      *]And at the close of the eighth jubilee [325, 386-3992 A.M.] Kenan took Mûalêlêth his sister to be his wife, and she bare him a son in the ninth jubilee, in the first week in the third year of this week, [395 A.M] and he called his name Mahalalel.
      *]And in the second week of the tenth jubilee [449-55 A.M.] Mahalalel took unto him to wife DinaH, the daughter of Barakiel the daughter of his father’s brother, and she bare him a son in the third week in the sixth year, [461 A.M.] and he called his name Jared, for in his days the angels of the Lord descended on the earth, those who are named the Watchers, that they should instruct the children of men, and that they should do judgment and uprightness on the earth.
 
Notworthy,
Elohim is plural. Why is that?
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Yes and no. It’s plural in form but not usage. The verbs in the verses are singular. In Hebrew, the tense and quantity of the subject and predicate match. Gen1.1 literally is ‘In the beginning he created God the heavens and the earth.’ as opposed to ‘they created’.

btw, ‘heavens’ is another ‘is-it-sigular/is-it-plural?’ Hebrew word. Later, and literally, "And *he said, *God, “Let there be…” You get the idea. The etymologies for Elohim are many and some quite speculative - like it points to the Trinity.

Post the question as a new thread. Some of the posters here are quite knowledgeable and have great insight regarding ancient Hebrew. But you already knew that, right?

Peter
 
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