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Cain & Abel


itsnotoutthere

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Um, no doubt this has been discussed on several occasions, but what is the (no doubt) convoluted explanation for Cain & Abel - Adam & Eves only children walking into the desert & mysteriously reappearing sometime later with wives. Who 'begat' the women?

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Um, no doubt this has been discussed on several occasions, but what is the (no doubt) convoluted explanation for Cain & Abel - Adam & Eves only children walking into the desert & mysteriously reappearing sometime later with wives. Who 'begat' the women?

.

good question INOT, one i've always wondered about, but not wanted to know the answer to, if you know what i mean?

the mental imagery would scar me for life!!

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maybe god took them from their ribs. or women wernt noted not being patriarchs so their were females born but not noted. that then leaves incest, which results in the copying of two sets of flawed genes but i guess if they had just been created time wouldnt of affected and corrupted those genes, there fore producing healthy offspring.

id prefer to assume people were are outside the garden of eden allready

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Well for starters, Cain and Abel where not the only children of Adam and Eve. The Bible mentions specifically a third son, Seth, and non specific referances to various children afterward. In regards to the wives, Able had not yet married when he was killed, at least by the traditions I know of. As for Cain, he was doomed to wander the world and supposedly later came across one of his sisters and you can imagine what happened there.

So to answer your question, the descendant of Adam and Eve where way to damn close.

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.

good question INOT, one i've always wondered about, but not wanted to know the answer to, if you know what i mean?

the mental imagery would scar me for life!!

you can always lend me some money and i can tell you the answer XD

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I was under the impression that Adam, Eve and their horde of kiddies were the first humans to have "the spark of the divine" in them, and not the humans left to run free outside of God's Garden, thus they introduced a specific something into the wild human makeup that made them more intune with the divine.

Or ... here's a wild thought. It's a metaphor.

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Several theories exist, I'll start with the literal approach first before moving to the metaphorical:

1- Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters not mentioned by name, these daughters married Cain and Abel (and Seth, and others also) and had children. In this scenario the people were still mirrors of the perfection in Eden and therefore the genetic disorders that came later did not affect the early people.

2- One interesting theory is that Genesis 1 is an overview of the entirety of the earth, while Genesis 2 is a description not of the earth as a whole but a small part of that earth (the Garden of Eden). In chapter 1 God is described as creating humankind (both male and female). Then in chapter 2 it describes God creating Adam from the dust of the earth, and then creating Eve from part of Adam's side. It is possible that God created humans and then created Adam and Eve specially to live in the garden. Thus when they are kicked out, there are already many people out there (hence why Cain feared for his life when he killed his brother, for he laments "whoever finds me will kill me", a legitimately scared response to being exiled and finding refuge with tribal people aside. This view suffers from a theological flaw, for if there really was a literal Adam and Eve then through them sin entered the world, but if there were already humans aside from Adam and Eve did they also inherit the sin-nature?

3- The metaphorical approach, and the one I would choose as most likely, is that the story of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel represents one small part of the pre-Abrahamic oral history of the Hebrew people. The story may reflect an event that did actually happen but has been appropriated by the oral tradition and turned into a narrative about God. You can read more about that HERE in a discourse I wrote on it about a year ago now.

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Um, no doubt this has been discussed on several occasions, but what is the (no doubt) convoluted explanation for Cain & Abel - Adam & Eves only children walking into the desert & mysteriously reappearing sometime later with wives. Who 'begat' the women?

Those were not only children of Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve were "King and queen" of early men, so there were others people aswell.

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The faster we as a society forget about that silly book, the better off we'll be.

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The faster we as a society forget about that silly book, the better off we'll be.

As Torah, Quran etc.?

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Um, no doubt this has been discussed on several occasions, but what is the (no doubt) convoluted explanation for Cain & Abel - Adam & Eves only children walking into the desert & mysteriously reappearing sometime later with wives. Who 'begat' the women?

Ever check the translations of the names "Cain" and "Abel?" "Cain" means a craftsman, the original Mr. Smith, someone who makes things with tools. In the Exodus, the Kenites were the craftsmen, the ones who made things, like the Arc of the Covenant. Equivalent to the Egyptian Sementyou.

"Abel" is a herdsman or farmer. Someone who makes his living from the land.

Their story is the story of hunter-gatherers making the transition to a more-settled agricultural style of living. The smith killed the hunter-gatherer.

Those are eponymous names - names of ideas, not of people. They are completely symbolic and don't have to make sense in terms of wives and sweethearts and who did the begatting.

Doug

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My take is that Adam&Eve story was pretty much independent from Cain&Abel story. They were combined together later on.

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everything seemed to be combined and tied together later on in the bible, the book is worse than an epic crime novel series switching up all the time

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Ever check the translations of the names "Cain" and "Abel?" "Cain" means a craftsman, the original Mr. Smith, someone who makes things with tools. In the Exodus, the Kenites were the craftsmen, the ones who made things, like the Arc of the Covenant. Equivalent to the Egyptian Sementyou.

"Abel" is a herdsman or farmer. Someone who makes his living from the land.

Their story is the story of hunter-gatherers making the transition to a more-settled agricultural style of living. The smith killed the hunter-gatherer.

Those are eponymous names - names of ideas, not of people. They are completely symbolic and don't have to make sense in terms of wives and sweethearts and who did the begatting.

Doug

Indeed, this part of genesis is probably about the transition from hunter gathers to agragrarian societies. The story continues to play itself out. Most recently the exchange between the native Americans and Australian aboriginals and western invasion. Not much left now except missionaries trying to work their magic in papue new guine. Luckily people have wised up and are trying to hault missionary activity into native cultures.

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Ever check the translations of the names "Cain" and "Abel?" "Cain" means a craftsman, the original Mr. Smith, someone who makes things with tools. In the Exodus, the Kenites were the craftsmen, the ones who made things, like the Arc of the Covenant. Equivalent to the Egyptian Sementyou.

"Abel" is a herdsman or farmer. Someone who makes his living from the land.

Their story is the story of hunter-gatherers making the transition to a more-settled agricultural style of living. The smith killed the hunter-gatherer.

Those are eponymous names - names of ideas, not of people. They are completely symbolic and don't have to make sense in terms of wives and sweethearts and who did the begatting.

Doug

Problem is that there are still people who take it quite literally,and not see it for what it is,just a collection of fairy tales.

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Problem is that there are still people who take it quite literally,and not see it for what it is,just a collection of fairy tales.

It's not quite that either. Much of is written down oral history. There is a lot more to it than fairy tales. But yes takein it literally is silly.

Edited by Seeker79
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It's not quite that either. Much of is written down oral history. There is a lot more to it than fairy tales. But yes takein it literally is silly.

agreed, it would be silly, it was the telephone game, there are possible facts but they have been distorted and added to through out the years

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agreed, it would be silly, it was the telephone game, there are possible facts but they have been distorted and added to through out the years

Yes... But watch out for the telephone game analogy. If you do a little research oral tradition is extremely accurate in detailed concept but not In unimportant details.

Example: when the world tree shakes there is a battle between the earth and the sea. They war with each other for several days. Only the sacred hill can protect you. The spirit of the hill can ward off the chaos.

I am prapraphrasning what I know to be true, but these sorts of traditions save lives. There is real information here. Often ignored by modern people's. intellects get hung up on the words and literalness.

I couldn't find the pic. But there is a stone above a Japanese village warning them to never build below this point. The picture has the stone and in the back ground a decimated town. Our traditions are wisdom from our ancestors they just get distorted, the message lost. Literalism, and mythicism are the culprits. Try and understand the real meaning.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Cain and Able were not the first people, the world was well populated by then. First there was Neolithic man, there were several ice ages, there were cavemen, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age etc.

Cain was building a walled city, they were working in iron and bronze, they were making fire, they were playing the flute and the harp and the were living in the agrarian age and were no longer hunter gatherers.

This account is Jewish history that begins about the same time writing was invented.

Read Genesis chapter 4

Edited by 0lly
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I may be wrong here. It certainly wouldn't be the first time since I'm not biblical scholar. But weren't there two creation stories back to back in the bible?

Perhaps there is even a third lying around somewhere with more human creation?

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I may be wrong here. It certainly wouldn't be the first time since I'm not biblical scholar. But weren't there two creation stories back to back in the bible?

Perhaps there is even a third lying around somewhere with more human creation?

This is my 'human' account, enjoy.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ve5_N4JCZp7G6YKQsrvdJF51nfpVTMwt4kyUETnJvfE/edit

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I may be wrong here. It certainly wouldn't be the first time since I'm not biblical scholar. But weren't there two creation stories back to back in the bible?

Perhaps there is even a third lying around somewhere with more human creation?

It depends on who you ask. Some historians and theologians identify two distinct stories (seven days of creation as one, the creation of Eden as another). Other historians and theologians argue that the seven days narrative is a general description of the whole creation process, while the Eden narrative is a concurrent event focusing on one specific part of creation (the Garden).

I tend to lean towards the second explanation, but I don't have a problem with the first. In both cases the creation story/ies are not historical or scientific accounts if creation. They are a theological discourse on the nature of God and mankind's relation to it.

Edited by Paranoid Android
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I forgot to mention that the Hebrew word for 'day' is yome which means a period of time and hundreds of years ago the translators who knew no different translated yome as 'day' and that is how it has been ever since. I was talking to someone on the internet who is involved in Bible translation and although the publishers know about this and other issues they refuse to change it because they say nobody would buy their Bibles.

H3117

יום

yôm

yome

From an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literally (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figuratively (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverbially): - age, + always, + chronicles, continually (-ance), daily, ([birth-], each, to) day, (now a, two) days (agone), + elder, X end, + evening, + (for) ever (-lasting, -more), X full, life, as (so) long as (. . . live), (even) now, + old, + outlived, + perpetually, presently, + remaineth, X required, season, X since, space, then, (process of) time, + as at other times, + in trouble, weather, (as) when, (a, the, within a) while (that), X whole (+ age), (full) year (-ly), + younger.

Edited by 0lly
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