Copyright (c) 2016 by Bob Siegel
“If Cain was the third human being, the son of Adam and Eve, how is it that when he was banished he worried about danger at the hands of other people? Who were these others? Also, Cain had a wife. Where did she come from? How did we get all these people if Adam and Eve alone lived in the garden of Eden and Cain was their first child after the banishment?”
Here is the passage in question:
Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
15 But the Lord said to him, “Not so[e]; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,[f] east of Eden.
17 Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch (Genesis 4:13-16)
Certainly this is one of those situations of which we wish the Bible provided more information. All I can do is speculate, however for what it is worth, I consider it reasonable speculation.
I do not believe Cain was the first child born to Adam and Eve. I believe he was the first child born in pain. Indeed, that is what Cain’s very name means; “With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man” (Genesis 4:1). The suggestion seems to be that of a difficult birth which would make sense if Cain was Eve’s first child born in mortality. Presumably, women in their original, unfallen state did not experience pain in childbirth.
Before leaving the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were immortal human beings. Keep in mind that the command to reproduce came from God while they were still in the garden.
“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28)
There is no reason to believe that this command was not carried out immediately, neither do we have any idea how long Adam and Eve were in Eden carrying out the command before they fell into sin. It may take us only five minutes to read the story but that doesn’t mean they were only in the garden for five minutes. It might have been a thousand years. It might have been ten-thousand years. They were, after all, immortal beings.
My suggestion, therefore, is that an entire community was banished from Eden and that Adam and Eve were the federal heads of this community.
I realize that such a controversial theory will invoke many questions. Here are some of the questions I frequently get.
“But the Bible says Adam was 930 years old when he died (Genesis 5:5). So how could he have lived in the garden thousands of years?”
I’m not saying I know how long Adam lived in the garden. I am merely pointing out that nobody else knows either. As an immortal man, created to live forever, his age would have been irrelevant. Perhaps the need to count years was unnecessary while Adam was still in Eden. As a result of the fall into sin, Adam’s days were now numbered and the 930 figure might possibly be a listing of his mortal years.
“Wouldn’t this idea change our view of a young earth and a six-day creation?”
Those who believe in a young Earth do start by counting Adam’s age and subsequently assume our Earth is only about six-thousand or so years old. Yes, this idea would be challenged.
As for six-day creation, in another article I share about how the Hebrew word for day (yom) could also refer to an event and that we may simply be reading about six stages of creation. Having said that, young Earth creationists make a better case than people give them credit for and I believe their data should be examined with an open mind. For the sake of this present discussion, let’s just say that even a literal six-day creation fails to comment one way or the other on how long Adam and Eve were in the garden since we are reading about an event that took place after creation.
“But according to this theory, an entire population would be punished for something Adam and Eve themselves did. Would this be fair?”
It is difficult to imagine people suffering for the misdeeds of their leaders. This is a hard truth to swallow and yet this is just exactly what the Bible teaches.
For example, God told King David plainly that the Israelites would suffer for his own personal disobedience. David, against God’s wil,l had decided to take a census of Israel. Here is how God responded:
11 Before David got up the next morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: 12 “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’”
13 So Gad went to David and said to him, “Shall there come on you three[b]years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.”
14 David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”
15 So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died (2 Samuel 24:11-15)
We should also bear in mind that even the most conventional theology of Adam and our sin nature teaches that all of us, as Adam’s descendants, are born with a sin nature that we did not ask for. Paul discusses this in Romans Chapter Five. As if anticipating our objection, he goes on to point out that if we are unhappy about our association with Adam, we can change associations and receive the forgiveness of Christ. He too, bestowed something we did not ask for or deserve. The righteous life that Christ lived, was credited to our account and our sin was credited to his. This is one of the reasons Scripture refers to Christ as the “second Adam” (1 Cor 15:45).
And so, if we are unhappy about the way we were born, the solution is to become born-again.
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