Who Was Cain's Wife?

[Theologian in Training]

I thought this whole Q&A thing would be easy, but they just keep getting more and more difficult. The following question is one that was posed to one our catechists. He had no idea how to answer, nor did I, so I figured I would see what anyone here has to say. According to the catechist a young intelligent girl happened to notice that Adam and Eve "begat" Cain and Abel, then, all of a sudden, Cain had a wife somehow. So, the question he was asked and then asked me who is not asking you is: Who was Cain's wife and, though the bible is not a science textbook, why does this have such a heavy influence on the argument for evolution?

thanks

God Bless

[cmotherofpirl]

NewAdvent.org history of Cain and Abel:
[color="#FF0000"]A[/color]"His wife... She was a daughter of Adam, and Cain's own sister; God dispensing with such marriages in the beginning of the world, as mankind could not otherwise be propagated."http://www.newadvent.org/bible/gen004.htm


[color="#FF0000"]B[/color](1) Scripture itself points out that the creation of man in Gen., i, 26 sqq., is identical with that mentioned in Gen., ii, 7, for according to Gen., ii, 5, "there was not a man to till the earth"; according to Gen., ii, 20, "for Adam there was not found a helper like himself"; according to iii, 20, "Adam called the name of his wife Eve: because she was the mother of all the living". Scripture, therefore, knows of no men created before Adam. (2) The appeal to the incidents in the history of Cain loses its force, if we remember that they happened about 120 years after Adam had been driven from Paradise: at that time, the progeny of Adam must have amounted to several thousand souls, so that Cain's fear and flight and his building of a primitive city are easily explained. (3) The difficulty arising from Cain's marriage was satisfactorily explained by St. Augustine ("De civit. dei", XV, xvi; cf. Epiphanius, "Hær.", xxxix, 6), who points out that necessity compelled the immediate offspring of Adam and Eve to marry even their sisters. (4)

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12370a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12370a.htm[/url]

[color="#FF0000"]C[/color] The law forbidding marriage between close relatives was not given until the time of Moses (Leviticus 18–20). Provided marriage was one man to one woman for life (based on Genesis 1 and 2), there was no disobedience to God’s law originally when close relatives (even brothers and sisters) married each other.

Remember that Abraham married his half-sister (Genesis 20:12). God blessed this union to produce the Hebrew people through Isaac and Jacob. It was not until some 400 years later that God gave Moses laws that forbade such marriages.

[color="#CC0000"]D[/color] I was taught in Catholic school that Genesis up until Abraham is pre-historical teaching stories, NOT to be taken literally in all details. Like parables in the NT, the facts may or may not be accurate, but the morals were.
By this reckoning the story of Cain and Abel are there to discuss the emnity between herders and farmers [Gen 4:4 Jews being the herders], the practice of shunning [Gen4:14]

THe mention of evolution is because the question of "who was Cains wife" was asked in the infamous Scopes? trial on evolution, they were trying to prove the Bible wrong - the idea being Cain couldn't have married a sister. However if you think about it Adam and Eve were made by God, Cain was only the second generation, so there would not have been any genetic defects to pass along The prohibition of marrying brothers and sisters does not come along til Levitius, possibly thousand years later.

[Resurrexi]

[quote]D I was taught in Catholic school that Genesis up until Abraham is pre-historical teaching stories, NOT to be taken literally in all details. Like parables in the NT, the facts may or may not be accurate, but the morals were.
By this reckoning the story of Cain and Abel are there to discuss the emnity between herders and farmers [Gen 4:4 Jews being the herders], the practice of shunning [Gen4:14][/quote]

The Catechism disagrees with this:

[quote name='The Catechism of St. Pius X']27 Q. Can there be any error in Holy Scripture?
A. There cannot be any error in Holy Scripture since indeed it is inspired by God. The Author of all of the books is God Himself. This does not prevent that in copies and translations that have been made, some errors on the part of the copyists or translators may have crept into it.[/quote]

[Noel's angel]

There's no disagreement there. The Bible has no error, but at the same time, is not simply a factual timeline of events that actually happened. It includes religious truth which although it is not factual or historical truth, is not error either. It was written like that for a reason. If God wanted us to know the facts about creation etc. He would have let us know. The Bible was written His way

Edited January 15, 2007 by Noel's angel

[N/A Gone]

genre and error are different things. identify the proper genre first