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NASB | Genesis 5:4 Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 5:4 After he became the father of Seth, Adam lived eight hundred years and had other sons and daughters. |
Bible Question:
My question relates to the creation of mankind. We know that God created Adam and Eve. Did God create others as he did Adam and Eve? Since Eve gave birth to three sons, at least two of these sons took on wives and Cain feared being killed by others when he was sent to The Land of Nod. So where did the wives and others come from? |
Bible Answer: The opening chapters of Genesis reveal this: that God created Adam, and from a rib of Adam, formed Eve. He told them to be fruitful and multiply; in other words, have babies. They did. We don't know whether Eve gave birth to three sons (as you assume) or thirty, or even more. Neither do we know how many daughters there were in the first family. We do know that Adam lived to be 930 years old (Gen.5:5), and that he "begat sons and daughters" (Gen.5:4). Proscription of incest came much later in time. Whereas the Bible produces no evidence whatever that God created any human beings but Adam and Eve, and whereas He commanded them to multiply and fill the earth, we therefore have no reason not to draw the inference that the descendents of Adam married one another and produced families. There is not other viable explanation available of how the human race was able to reproduce itself "after its kind." Given the extremely long life span of Adam, it is mathematically possible that there were literally thousands of his descendents walking the earth by the time he died. Your question, by the way, is a variant of "Who was Cain's wife?" -- a question that has been asked on the forum many times and answered in various ways, some of them sensibly and others less so. The fact is, whether we're disposed to accept it or not, that the Bible does not always provide line-and-rule, detailed answers to all our questions. Even if it did, it's unlikely that we are equipped to understand them fully. For example, the Bible in Gen. 1:1 says this: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The traditional Jewish and Christian belief has always been that this verse declares that God created these heavens and this earth "ex nihilo" -- a Latin term meaning "from nothing." Look in the opening verses of Gensis at how many times the phrase "and God said" is used. God, by His might and power, literally spoke things into being. But are you, am I, is anyone prepared to write a thesis setting forth a clear explanation of just how God was able to do this? Scientists and philosophers in their ignorant bewilderment have postulated all sorts of theories, but none of these has ever been proved nor, for that matter, has made much sense. I like the explanation a little girl gave of the "big bang" theory. Said she, "God spoke and bang! there it was!" ..... I'll close with a final observation about the Genesis account of creation and the beginnings of mankind. I see nothing wrong with pondering on the logistics of how the human race began to reproduce, so long as we don't dwell on that and miss the more important account of the fall of man, the genesis of sin, and the plan of redemption that God in His love established even then, even in the long, long ago. Perhaps I'm not disposed to be intellectually curious enough to delve into the question of Cain's wife with full-blown gusto. But I have been possessed with a bump of curiosity sufficiently large enough to lead me to seek God's answer to what I've long considered man's most important question: How can I restore and maintain a right relationship with God? Another way of saying this is, "How can I be saved?" And the Bible gives us a great deal more information on that than it does about Cain's wife! --Hank |