17. WHEN WERE PEOPLE CAIN TOOK HIS WIFE FROM CREATED?
First and foremost I wish to bring this to our notice. In chapter one up to chapter eleven of the book of Genesis are ancient stories that had survived getting obliterated from the minds of people thanks to oral tradition. One also has to thank Moses and all his faceless assistants and informers a lot for compiling these stories. It may happen that He also got more information from literature set aside for the privileged few in Egypt, the royal family and perhaps families of those in higher ranks in the kingdom.
The story of creation comes in two different narrations. Barring some differences in them, one may safely say Chapter1 and 2 are similar. But Chapter 1 ends in Chapter 2:7 and Chapter 2 starts in verse 8 and ends in verse 25. Chapter 5: 1-2 is a summary of the first two chapters and the rest of its verses state the years each person from Adam to Noah lived. The way first chapters of the book of Genesis have been written substantiates that they were from different sources. Seemingly Moses was equally fascinated by these two versions of the story of creation that he could not put it all under the same subsection. For instance, all that deals with the creation of people should be in verse 26 starting with Adam. Verses 27 should not just mention that He created a male and a female, but should have continued with the life of Adam alone in the Garden of Eden, and how God warned him not to eat of a tree of knowledge. The following verses would then tell of the creation of Eve and how God decided to create Eve and how God blessed them as it is in verse 28. Let us also note that the book of Genesis never states how old Adam and Eve were at the birth of Cain and Abel. It also says absolutely nothing about the daughters of Adam and Eve. So one can speculate that Adam was ten years when Cain was born and fourteen when Abel was born. Remember Adam was created a mature young man, so was Eve a mature young woman when she also was created. One can then speculate that between the age 18 and 786, Adam begot numerous sons and daughters.
The bible states that when Adam was 130 years old, his son that looked exactly like him, Seth, was born. When Seth was born Cain who was still alive, and according to our calculation which does not give his exact age, was 120 years old. What we do not know is how old were they when Cain killed Abel. If Cain was forty it means Abel was thirty six. At that time Adam and Eve prolific as God had specially made them to be should have had nine children. If Eve also gave birth to twins would have been more than ten. If two daughters were born in succession, the eldest by the time Cain killed Abel should have been thirty two years old and the second one twenty nine years old. Some of Adams younger daughters who might have been in their teens and early twenties would all be living in the land which came to be known as Nod. Nod was on the east of Eden. Taking all this in to consideration, one can say with some confidence that Cain, who by that time might have been more than sixty years, married one of his sisters. Adam lived up to an unbreakable age record of 930 years. The bible says after Seth was born Adam and Eve carried on giving birth to more and more sons and daughters.
Adam and Eve still remain to this day the most fertile couple here on earth when it comes to producing children. God Almighty had really made them prolific and kept to his word; “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth…” Genesis 1:28. (NKJV)
One can also deduce from the fact that only Adam's age is mentioned, that Adam and Eve were not created on the same day, month or year. Eve was created a few years later. This deduction quite concurs with Genesis chapter 2:18 And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.' (NKJV)
Someone may ask: “Why were all of Adam and Eve sons and daughters not mentioned but Cain, Abel and Seth?” The answer is, oral tradition could not mention them and give historical accounts of them all. It was by zeal on the part of Adam and Eve's immediate descendants that this story was kept alive in the minds of all generations that had come and gone until it reached Moses who made the best he could to pen it down.
Someone may ask; “When did Cain kill Abel?” The year is not stated. What is known is both of them were grown up men. What we must also note is that not a single daughter of Adam and Eve is mentioned by name. One can then infer that daughters were allowed to live on their own away from their parents and only boys who were few than girls stayed with their parents. This separation caused the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve to marry without a guilty conscious of committing incest since humanity was still at its inception stage.
Moses compiled his books around 1 400 B.C. In those years the lands of the Kurds, the Canaanites, the Persians and the Arabs were extremely fertile. The bible says in Numbers 13:23 “Then they came to the Valley of Eshcol, and there they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes; they carried it between two of them on a pole.” (NKJV) Even to these days of highly modernized agricultural technology one cluster of grapes has never been as big and heavy as to be carried by two men on a pole. Palaeo-climatological research as cited by Andrew Collins in his book, states that “…between 3 000 and 2 000 BC, Asian monsoons slowly retreated, leaving the region devoid of its spring and summer rains. As a consequence suffered …a slow desiccation.., a process that continues to this day.” Moreover David, who ruled the Israelites around 1 010 BC, states in one of his psalms; “He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me besides the still waters.” Psalm 23:2 (NKJV) David could not have fabricated the green pastures and still water. Andrew Collins states that these regions had mountains with very much huge and also very much tall cedar trees. These trees were so tall in such a way that one standing in their forest would think they even touch the sky. Other mountains had glades green with brushwood. Today all the lushness and greenness of the land of Canaan which is Palestine and the neighbourhood is no more. These regions long lost their fertility and their streaming waters. To say they were once covered with a variety of vegetation would to many be more of a fairytale than of a historical fact.
The truth is during the days of David these regions were still enjoying copious rainfall and their soil in most places very much fertile, although not as copious and fertile as in the days of Moses. As time went on people of Israel in their contumacy became more and more atheistic in their way of life, doing what God Almighty had warned them not to do. Read what God Almighty said will befall them in Deuteronomy 28:23-24 “No rain will fall, and your ground will become as hard as iron. Instead of rain, the Lord will send down duststorms and sandstorms…”
Like all oral tradition, the book of Genesis starts off as a myth. Chapters 1-3 to me are more myth-like than historical. Chapters 4 up to chapter 31 are in all respects a folktale. From chapter 32 to the last chapter which is 50, the book of Genesis is historical. Genesis is one of the most ancient books to have survived various periods of time. From Palaeolithic period, to Mesolithic period, up to Neolithic period. Neolithic period is around 10 000 B.C. If the book of Genesis is that old, we would not be judging it fairly to demand precision out of it, especially in its first chapters.