Cain’s Wife

Is She the Most-Talked-About Wife in History?

Defenders of the gospel must be able to show that all human beings are descendants of one man and one woman.

We don’t even know her name, yet she was discussed at the Scopes Trial,
mentioned in the movies Inherit the Wind1 and Contact,2 and talked about in countries all over the world for hundreds of years.

Skeptics of the Bible have used Cain’s wife time and again to try to discredit
the book of Genesis as a true historical record. Sadly, most Christians have not
given an adequate answer to this question. As a result, the world sees them as not
being able to defend the authority of Scripture and thus the Christian faith.

For instance, at the historic Scopes Trial in Tennessee in 1925, William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor who stood for the Christian faith, failed to answer the
question about Cain’s wife posed by the ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow. Consider
the following excerpt from the trial record as Darrow interrogates Bryan:

Q—Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?

A—No, sir; I leave the agnostics to hunt for her.

Q—You have never found out?

A—I have never tried to find.

Q—You have never tried to find?

A—No.

Q—The Bible says he got one doesn’t it? Were there other people on the earth at that time?

A—I cannot say.

Q—You cannot say. Did that ever enter your consideration?

A—Never bothered me.

Q—There were no others recorded, but Cain got a wife.

A—That is what the Bible says.

Q—Where she came from you do not know.3

The world’s press was focused on this trial, and what they heard has affected
Christianity to this day—Christians can’t defend the biblical record!

In recent times, this same example was taken up by Carl Sagan in his
book Contact2 (which was on the New York Times best-seller list) and used in
the movie of the same name based upon this work.

In the book, we read the fictional character Ellie’s account of how she
could not get answers from a minister’s wife, who was the leader of a church
discussion group:

Ellie had never seriously read the Bible before . . . . So over the weekend
preceding her first class, she read through what seemed to be the important
parts of the Old Testament, trying to keep an open mind. She at
once recognized that there were two different and mutually contradictory
stories of Creation . . . and had trouble figuring out exactly who it
was that Cain had married.4

Sagan cleverly listed a number of common questions (including Cain’s
wife) that are often directed at Christians in an attempt to supposedly prove the Bible is full of contradictions and can’t be defended. The truth
is—most Christians probably couldn’t answer these questions. And yet
there are answers. But since churches lack in the teaching of apologetics,5
particularly in regard to the book of Genesis, most believers in the church
are not able to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks
you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

Why Is It Important?

Many skeptics have claimed that for Cain to find a wife, there must have
been other “races” of people on the earth who were not descendants of Adam
and Eve. To many people, this question is a stumbling block to accepting the
creation account of Genesis and its record of only one man and woman at the
beginning of history. Defenders of the gospel must be able to show that all
human beings are descendants of one man and one woman (Adam and Eve)
because only descendants of Adam and Eve can be saved. Thus, believers need
to be able to account for Cain’s wife and show clearly she was a descendant
of Adam and Eve.

In order to answer this question of where Cain got his wife, we first
need to cover some background information concerning the meaning of the gospel.

The First Man

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned (Romans 5:12).

We read in 1 Corinthians 15:45 that Adam was “the first man.” God did not start by making a race of men.

The Bible makes it clear that only the descendants of Adam can be saved. Romans 5 teaches that we sin because Adam sinned. The death penalty, which
Adam received as judgment for his sin of rebellion, has also been passed on
to all his descendants.

Since Adam was the head of the human race, when he fell, we who were
in the loins of Adam fell also. Thus, we are all separated from God. The final
consequence of sin would be separation from God in our sinful state forever.
However, the good news is that there is a way for us to return to God.

Because a man brought sin and death into the world, the human
race, who are all descendants of Adam, needed a sinless Man to pay the
penalty for sin and the resulting
judgment of death.
However, the Bible teaches
that “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23). What was the solution?

The Last Adam

God provided the solution—a way to deliver man
from his wretched state.
Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 15 that God provided
another Adam. The Son of
God became a man—a perfect
Man—yet still our relation.
He is called “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45) because he took the place of the first Adam. He became the new head and, because He was sinless, was able to pay the penalty for sin:

For since by [a] man came death, by [a] Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:21–22).

Only descendants of the first man Adam can be saved.

Christ suffered death (the penalty for sin) on the Cross, shedding His
blood (“and without shedding of blood there is no remission,” Hebrews 9:22) so that those who put their trust in His work on the Cross can come in repentance
of their sin of rebellion (in Adam) and be reconciled to God.

Thus, only descendants of the first man Adam can be saved.

All Related

Since the Bible describes all
human beings as sinners, and we
are all related (“And He has made
from one blood every nation of
men to dwell on all the face of
the earth,” Acts 17:26), the gospel
makes sense only on the basis
that all humans alive and all that
have ever lived (except for the first
woman6 ) are descendants of the
first man Adam. If this were not
so, then the gospel could not be
explained or defended.

Thus, there was only one man
at the beginning—made from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7).

This also means that Cain’s wife was a descendant of Adam. She couldn’t
have come from another race of people and must be accounted for from
Adam’s descendants.

The First Woman

In Genesis 3:20 we read, “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because
she was the mother of all living.” In other words, all people other than Adam are descendants of Eve—she was
the first woman.

Eve was made from Adam’s
side (Genesis 2:21–24)—this
was a unique event. In the New
Testament, Jesus (Matthew 19:4-6) and Paul (Ephesians 5:31) use this historical and onetime
event as the foundation for
the marriage of one man and
one woman.

Also, in Genesis 2:20, we
are told that when Adam looked
at the animals, he couldn’t find
a mate—there was no one of
his kind.

All this makes it obvious that there was only one woman, Adam’s wife,
from the beginning. There could not have been a “race” of women.

Thus, if Christians cannot defend that all humans, including Cain’s wife,
can trace their ancestry ultimately to Adam and Eve, then how can they understand
and explain the gospel? How can they justify sending missionaries to
every tribe and nation? Therefore, one needs to be able to explain Cain’s wife, to
illustrate that Christians can defend the gospel and all that it teaches.

Who Was Cain?

Cain was the first child of Adam and Eve recorded in Scripture (Genesis 4:1). He and his brothers, Abel (Genesis 4:2) and Seth (Genesis 4:25), were part of the first generation of children ever born on this earth. Even
though these three males are specifically mentioned, Adam and Eve had
other children.

Cain’s Brothers and Sisters

In Genesis 5:4 we read a statement that sums up the life of Adam and
Eve: “After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he
had sons and daughters.”

During their lives, Adam and Eve had a number of male and female
children. In fact, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote, “The number of Adam’s children, as says the old tradition,
was thirty-three sons and twenty-three
daughters.”7

Scripture doesn’t tell us how many
children were born to Adam and Eve,
but considering their long life spans
(Adam lived for 930 years—Genesis 5:5), it would seem logical to suggest
there were many. Remember, they were
commanded to “be fruitful, and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).

The Wife

If we now work totally from Scripture, without any personal prejudices or
other extrabiblical ideas, then back at the beginning, when there was only the
first generation, brothers would have had to marry sisters or there wouldn’t
have been any more generations!

We’re not told when Cain married or many of the details of other marriages and children, but we can say for certain that Cain’s wife was either his sister or a close relative.

We’re not told when Cain married or many of the details of other marriages
and children, but we can say for certain that Cain’s wife was either his
sister or a close relative.

A closer look at the Hebrew word for “wife” in Genesis reveals something
readers may miss in translation. It was more obvious to those speaking
Hebrew that Cain’s wife was likely his sister. (There is a slim possibility
that she was his niece, but either way, a brother and sister would have
married in the beginning.) The Hebrew word for “wife” used in Genesis 4:17 (the first mention of Cain’s wife) is ishshah, and it means “woman/wife/female.”

And Cain knew his wife [ishshah], and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch (Genesis 4:17).

The word ishshah is the word for “woman,” and it means “from man.” It
is a derivation of the Hebrew words ‘iysh (pronounced: eesh) and enowsh, which both mean
“man.” This can be seen in Genesis 2:23 where the name “woman” (ishshah)
is given to one who came from Adam.

And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman [ishshah], because she was taken out of Man [iysh]” (Genesis 2:23).

Thus, Cain’s wife is a descendant of Adam/man. Therefore, she had to
be his sister (or possibly niece). Hebrew readers should be able to make this
connection easier; however, much is lost when translated.

Objections

God’s Laws

Many people immediately reject the conclusion that Adam and Eve’s sons
and daughters married each other by appealing to the law against brother-sister
marriage. Some say that you can’t marry your relation. Actually, if you
don’t marry your relation, you don’t marry a human! A wife is related to her
husband before they are married because all people are descendants of Adam
and Eve—all are of one blood. This law forbidding close relatives marrying was
not given until the time of Moses (Leviticus 18–20). Provided marriage was
one man for one woman for life (based on Genesis 1–2), there was no disobedience
to God’s law originally (before the time of Moses) when close relatives
(even brothers and sisters) married each other.

Remember that Abraham was married to his half-sister (Genesis 20:12).8
God’s law forbade such marriages,9 but that was some four hundred years
later at the time of Moses.

Biological Deformities

Today, brothers and sisters (and half-brothers and half-sisters, etc.) are
not currently permitted by law to marry and have children.

Now it is true that children produced in a union between brother and
sister have a greater chance to be have genetic disorders. As a matter of fact, the closer
the couple are in relationship, the more likely it is that any offspring will be
deformed. It is very easy to understand this without going into all the technical
details.

Each person inherits a set of genes from his or her mother and father.
Unfortunately, genes today contain many mistakes (because of sin and the Curse), and these
mistakes show up in a variety
of ways. For instance, people
let their hair grow over their
ears to hide the fact that one
ear is lower than the other. Or
perhaps someone’s nose is not
quite in the middle of his or
her face, or someone’s jaw is a
little out of shape. Let’s face it,
the main reason we call each
other normal is because of our
common agreement to do so!

The more closely related
two people are, the more likely
it is that they will have similar mistakes in their genes, inherited from the
same parents. Therefore, brother and sister are likely to have similar mistakes
in their genetic material. If there were to be a union between these
two that produces offspring, children would inherit one set of genes from
each of their parents. Because the genes probably have similar mistakes,
the mistakes pair together and result in genetic disorders in the children.

Conversely, the further away the parents are in relationship to each other,
the more likely it is that they will have different mistakes in their genes.
Children, inheriting one set of genes from each parent, are likely to end
up with some of the pairs of genes containing only one bad gene in each
pair. The good gene tends to override the bad so that a disorder (a serious
one, anyway) does not occur. Instead of having totally deformed ears,
for instance, a person may have only crooked ones. (Overall, though, the
human race is slowly degenerating as mistakes accumulate generation after
generation.)

However, this fact of present-day life did not apply to Adam and Eve.
When the first two people were created, they were perfect. Everything God
made was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). That means their genes were perfect—no mistakes. But when sin entered the world because of Adam (Genesis 3:6),
God cursed the world so that the perfect creation then began to degenerate,
that is, suffer death and decay (Romans 8:22). Over a long period of time,
this degeneration would have resulted in all sorts of mistakes occurring in the genetic material of living things.

But Cain was in the first generation of children ever born. He, as well as
his brothers and sisters, would have received virtually no imperfect genes from
Adam or Eve, since the effects of sin and the Curse would have been minimal
to start with. In that situation, brother and sister could have married (provided
it was one man for one woman, which is what marriage is all about, Matthew 19:4–6) without any potential to produce deformed offspring.

By the time of Moses (about 2,500 years later), degenerative mistakes
would have accumulated to such an extent in the human race that it would
have been necessary for God to bring in the laws forbidding brother-sister
(and close relative) marriage (Leviticus 18–20).10

(Also, there were
plenty of people on the
earth by now, and there
was no reason for close
relations to marry.)

In all, there appear
to be three interrelated
reasons for the
introduction of laws
forbidding close intermarriage:

1. As we have already discussed, there was the need to protect against the increasing
   potential to produce deformed offspring.
2. God’s laws were instrumental in keeping the Jewish nation strong, healthy,
   and within the purposes of God.
3. These laws were a means of protecting the individual, the family structure,
   and society at large. The psychological damage caused by incestuous
   relationships should not be minimized.

Cain and the Land of Nod

Some claim that the passage in Genesis 4:16–17 means that Cain went to
the land of Nod and found a wife. Thus, they conclude there must have been
another race of people on the earth who were not descendants of Adam, who
produced Cain’s wife.

Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch.

From what has been stated above, it is clear that all humans, Cain’s wife
included, are descendants of Adam. However, this passage does not say that
Cain went to the land of Nod and found a wife. John Calvin in commenting
on these verses states:

From the context we may gather that Cain, before he slew his brother,
had married a wife; otherwise Moses would now have related something
respecting his marriage.11

Cain was married before he went to the land of Nod. He didn’t find a wife
there but “knew” (had sexual relations with) his wife.12

This makes sense in light of what Nod is, too. Nod means “wandering”
in Hebrew. So when Cain went to the land of Nod, he was literally going to
the land of wandering, not a place full of people.

Who Was Cain Fearful of (Genesis 4:14)?

Some claim that there had to
be lots of people on the earth other
than Adam and Eve’s descendants;
otherwise Cain wouldn’t
have been fearful of people wanting
to slay him because he killed
Abel.

First of all, one reason that
someone would want to harm Cain
for killing Abel is if that person was
a close relation of Abel!

Secondly, Cain and Abel were
born quite some time before the
event of Abel’s death. Genesis 4:3 states:

And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering
of the fruit of the ground to the Lord.

Note the phrase “in the process of time.” We know Seth was born when
Adam was 130 years old (Genesis 5:3), and Eve saw him as a replacement for
Abel (Genesis 4:25). Therefore, the time period from Cain’s birth to Abel’s
death may have been 100 years or more—allowing plenty of time for other
children of Adam and Eve to marry and have children. By the time Abel was
killed, there may have been a considerable number of descendants of Adam
and Eve involving several generations.

Where Did the Technology Come From?

Some claim that for Cain to go to the land of Nod and build a city, he
would have required a lot of technology that must have already been in that
land, presumably developed by other races.

Adam and Eve’s descendants were very intelligent people. We are told
that Jubal made musical instruments, such as the harp and organ (Genesis 4:21), and Tubal-cain worked with brass and iron (Genesis 4:22).

Because of intense evolutionary indoctrination, many people today have
the idea that their generation is the most advanced that has ever been on this
planet. Just because we have jet airplanes and computers doesn’t mean we are the most intelligent or advanced. This modern technology is really a result of
the accumulation of knowledge.

We have greatly degenerated compared to people many generations ago.

We must remember that our brains have suffered from 6,000 years of the
Curse. We have greatly degenerated compared to people many generations
ago. We may be nowhere near as intelligent or inventive as Adam and Eve’s
children. Scripture gives us a glimpse of what appears to be advanced technology
almost from the beginning.

Cain had the knowledge and talent to know how to build a city!

Conclusion

One of the reasons many Christians cannot answer the question about
Cain’s wife is that they tend to look at today’s world and the problems that
would be associated with close relations marrying, and they do not look at the
clear historical record God has given to us.

They try to interpret Genesis from our present situation rather than understand
the true biblical history of the world and the changes that have
occurred because of sin. Because they are not building their worldview on
Scripture but taking a secular way of thinking to the Bible, they are blinded
to the simple answers.

Genesis is the record of the God who was there as history happened. It is
the Word of One who knows everything and who is a reliable Witness from
the past. Thus, when we use Genesis as a basis for understanding history, we
can make sense of evidence which would otherwise be a real mystery. You see,
if evolution is true, science has an even bigger problem than Cain’s wife to
explain—namely, how could man ever evolve by mutations (mistakes) in the
first place, since that process would have made everyone’s children deformed?
The mere fact that people can produce offspring that are not largely deformed
is a testimony to creation, not evolution.

SourceThis article originally appeared on answersingenesis.org

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