By Olatokunbo Odunuga
REFERENCE
- FROM WHERE DID CAIN GET HIS WIFE?
- WHO WOULD HAVE KILLED CAIN?
- AND RELATED ISSUES [ E.G. EXPOSURE TO ASSOCIATED BIBLICAL & CHURCH HISTORY ]
Nearly a week ago, I was present at a School’s “Carol” Service for this season. There, someone raised the issue concerning who would have killed Cain, when he was apparently the only person on the earth apart from Adam and Eve.
I felt then it would have been a distraction from the solemnity of the occasion to delve into such a matter, which might arouse controversy if others desired to contribute or express their own opinions based on what they have learned or heard elsewhere.
But I whispered my understanding in brief to someone who was sitting beside me, with respect to population spread over the years and permissive intermarrying among kins in those primordial dispensations. However this type of question cannot be addressed in a few words.
The question about who would have killed Cain when he was “seemingly” the only person on earth apart from his biological parents sounds witty but answerable from the perspective of Scriptural overview.
It was similar to a question asked when I was at a meeting of the Eckankar a very long time ago where the local leader of Eckankar, Eck. Omidiji announced that he wanted to throw a challenge at “those Christians” and asked : WHERE DID CAIN GET HIS WIFE FROM? His intention was to undermine the Bible and give credibility to their own “scriptures” written by mortals such as Paul Twichell, Harold Klemp, etc.
In the first two books I had published and the one yet to be published, I made reference to that question. And the answer I gave actually relates to and responds to the parent’s inquiry.
Unacknowledged by many, the Bible is unique, the Book of books, separate from all other books ever published or that would yet be published by philosophers, saints and sinners. It’s concise and focused primarily on God’s economy and eternal purpose, essentially on the salvation of man. That was why so many matters that didn’t actually bear on the eternal plan of God were not contained in the Bible as one would see in the very last verse of the Gospel according to John, i.e. 21:25.
The accounts of Human History in the Scriptures are divided into seven dispensations: Of Innocence; Of Conscience; Of Human Government; Of Promise; Of Law; Of Grace/ Church Age; Of The Millennial Kingdom. In the period of the early dispensations, i.e Dispensation of Innocence [ Genesis Chapters 1-3 ] and of the immediate Dispensation of Conscience [ Genesis i.e Chapters 4 -8 ], human beings were able to live up to and beyond 900 years. Adam lived to 930 years and Methuselah to 969 years.
Though the Bible characteristically was silent on women, it is sound logic to expect that women also would have been living that long if not longer in those early dispensations, as apparent from the comparison of present days’ life expectancy indices. Even at the onset of the dispensation of Human Government [Genesis 9-11], Noah lived up to 950 years [ Genesis 9:29]
The following trend makes me believe that women who lived into 500 years and probably beyond could still be bearing children, though the scriptures was silent on that. Let us remember that in the latter part of the Dispensation of Human Government when Abraham was 100 years of age, his wife Sarah bore a child at 90. And right through the dispensations of Innocence and Conscience, the Bible didn’t leave us in the dark as to the fact that daughters were being born simultaneously [ Genesis 5:4; 7; 10; 13; 16; 19; 22; 26; 30. The Bible mentioned in Genesis 6: 1 that as men multiplied on the face of the earth, daughters were also being born concurrently.
The climax was that God scattered them all over the face of the earth [ Genesis 11: 8 ]. In those days they were permitted to intermarry among themselves even though they were from the same origin, Adam and Eve.
Besides such permissive Will of God, no other explanation would be tenable for this consideration. For instance, even over 1,000 to 1,800 years after Adam and others in the Dispensation of Innocence,
Abraham still married his half-sister, Sarah [ Genesis 20:12] and that was at the twilight of the Dispensation of Promise. After the death of Sarah, Abraham married Keturah who bore 6 sons apart from daughters [Genesis 25: 2].
Later Abraham had many other women in his life [ Genesis 25: 6 ]. We weren’t told how many but because the word “concubines” in Genesis 25:6 was plural, it could have been two or twenty or two hundred concubines.
Abraham lived up to 175 years and Solomon who lived up to just 57 years was not just a conventional polygamist but an extreme polygynist with 700 wives and 301 concubines if we include the Queen of Sheba from Ethiopia who Solomon impregnated during her visit to his palace.
She gave birth to a baby boy Menelic, who became the long range ancestor of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. That was why in his life time, Emperor Haile Selassie titled himself lion ( small letter “l” ) of the tribe of Judah laying claims to his descent from King David through Solomon his own great, great….. great grandfather. Now if within 57 years, Solomon acquired 1,001 women, would extended polygyny have been entirely impossible for Abraham, who lived for 175 years and other men of previous dispensations who lived up to eight centuries and beyond.
To further promote the population explosion, the “sons of God” [ Genesis 6:2, Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7 ] who were fallen angels were also marrying the daughters of men [ Genesis 6 :2] and giving birth to children, the Nephilims, who were giants. Among the descendants of those giants was Goliath of Gath, who was 9ft. 9 inches tall [ 1 Samuel 17:4].
His relatives of great stature have 12 toes and 12 fingers [ 1 Chronicles 2: 4-6; 2 Samuel 21: 18-22 ]. Of that lineage was King Og of Bashan, who, according to history was about 14 ft. tall; whose iron bed was recorded to measure 18ft 6in long by 8ft 4in wide.
Back to Cain, of course, the news would have spread far and wide by oral transmission that he had been cursed and banished from the God’s presence for murder, hence the people, especially the mighty giants could effortlessly have wringed his neck out of contempt for his misdeed, but for God’s mark of protection on him [ Genesis 4: 15 ].
The fact that Cain had a wife at that point implies that he had already taken a wife out of his parents’ daughters. And besides, the fact that he built a city further implies that he had a large family to start with.
Now, let’s even for a moment imagine how rapid would have been the population explosion of those essentially primitive societies of people who were generally hunters, farmers, metal-based artisans, and unskilled labourers, with access to healthy diet: vegetables, fresh animals diet, natural spring water, unpolluted air, with much idle times in their hands and living for centuries!
The desire for intimate relationship between the men and women would have been very high. So I would not be surprised if there were hundreds of thousands of people Cain would have interfaced with over centuries though the Bible didn’t record how long he lived.
However, characteristically as had been extensively highlighted, longevity was the order of the day then with the associated unabated procreation. And of course, there was no scriptural indication as to his age when he was banished. He could have lived for centuries, acquired more wives from among others daughters of Adam and Eve and even from the daughters of Abel before the latter was killed. But definitely by instinct, he would have steered away from his own biological daughters.
Need for extensive study
In rounding up, we need to encourage ourselves of the necessity of extensive study of the scriptures. That was the pattern of the apostles and the first century Christians [ 2 Timothy 4: 13, Colossians 3:16, 2 Timothy 2:15; 3: 15]; the subsequent apostolic fathers [ Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, etc ]; the early Church fathers [ Justin Martyr, Athanasius, Jerome, Augustine, etc ], the Reformers [ Martin Luther, John Calvin, etc], the Puritans [ John Bunyan, Richard Baxter, Joseph Alleine, etc], The Brethren [ John N. Darby, Anthony N. Groves, etc ]
Incidentally our present generation has much penchant for miracles, signs and wonders. But in the Bible times, these were actually signs divinely initiated at the beginning of His ministry to authenticate Jesus Christ as the expected Son of God and Saviour of mankind [ John 2: 11, Acts 4:12 ], that they might believe in Him.
Even His utterances were unique and unprecedented [ John 7: 46] to further authenticate Him. Please mark it that it is the Word of God that saves souls in judicial salvation and keep them steady on in organic salvation [ Romans 1:16 ] not miracles, signs, wonders, breakthroughs and much “superfluity of naughtiness”.
Please look at our nation, for example and reflect. Can we even be bold to say. that we are seeing something close to genuine Christianity on the streets? That’s even going too far. Consider the average “pulpits” and pews.
It was St. Augustine of Hippo, the greatest among the Early Church fathers who observed that, concerning the Church, there are sheep without and many wolves within. The hymns composer, who blessed humanity with “Nearer My God To Thee”, Dr. Horatio Bonar, who said “I looked for the Church and I found it in the world; I looked for the world and I found it in the Church.” Doesn’t that observation appear contemporary around us?
Apparently, the present day version of Pentecostalism which evolved from Azusa Street over 100 years ago at the beginning of the last Century through William Seymour and others has dealt a fatal blow at the gains of the previous generation of Christianity.
Friends, I believe it is high time we settled down and devote ourselves to “searching the scriptures” so that by the mercy of God, we might have insights into the mystery of God [ Deuteronomy 29: 29 ].
We probably need to minimize the time we expend on some of the unprofitable escapades on spiritual hills and mountains, and settle down more in our personal closets. The Lord gave that timely and timeless counsel [ John 4:20, 21].
I can’t forget in a hurry John Bois, co-opted by King James into the KJV Bible Translation Committee, whose daily routine was to settle down in his Study from 4 am to 8 pm. It also took me a long time to get over a statement made by Myles Munroe over 15 years ago that if we don’t study much, we would only have anointed ignorance. SHALOM, friends.