Genesis Chapter 4: The exile of Cain, after murdering his brother. 014 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. 015 And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

COMMENT: So who exactly would find Cain and attempt to kill him because at the time he is banished there are only three people living according to the biblical narrative so far? Himself, Adam and Eve. The exact nature of the mark he is given is a subject for another debate. This article is focused on the sequences of events and how they relate to earlier events as well as later ones described in subsequent passages of the narrative.

016 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 017 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

COMMENT: So Cain left for Nod with his wife and had a child there? Or he met this woman in Nod and then had a child with her. So who exactly was this woman, another person created separately from the Adam and Eve line? Or there were other people around and Adam and Eve were simply created specially for some specific divine purpose? Christians currently claim without evidence that Adam and Eve had daughters and so Cain must have married one of them. So far there is no evidence of this to back up the claim but thinking God would approve incest is highly unlikely given some of the severe punishments he gives to others for that same crime. But let us assume this woman was there, then how was she living alone in the land of Nod? Or was there another humanoid/ sub-human species for example the Neanderthals who were not actually human so considered as beasts during creation yet somehow able to mate with humans? Afterall recent genetic studies have shown that between 1- 4% of the human genome of Europeans and Asians is from the Neanderthals. But this would mean we would have to prove that Eurasians are descended from a “mitochondrial father” Cain, whereas all other lines of Adam and Eve’s descendants from Seth became exclusively African. Noah is a descendant of Seth, and now since Hebrews, Jesus and others claim lineage to Noah this makes it even more messy. But I will discuss that in a later article. And by the way who was Seth’s wife? Because according to the tally so far we have Adam, Cain (and his unidentified wife) and Eve. Did Seth have a child with his own mother or his brothers unidentified wife, or his unmentioned sisters as Christians will currently claim. This would have created a serious “triangle” of misogyny and incest.

Another explanation could be from Genesis 1:27 where we are told God created male and female at the same time but since no specific numbers were given we may suggest there were multiple pairs of males and females and in that case some may have ended up in Nod for Cain to meet them whiles the specific narrative of Adam’s family was used for biblical purposes. How about that? This can also be backed up by the fact that Cain built a city. A city? Why build he a city for only three people? Himself, his wife and child. So there may have been others so it became necessary to build several buildings instead of just one for his family. It is interesting to note also that this country, Nod is not mentioned any more anywhere in the bible.

However these bring into question the biblical creation narrative which Christians claim to be perfect and without ANY blemish. So why all this confusion and speculation? Could the omnipotent being not have made it clear how things were instead of leaving it to mere mortals like ourselves to inject our own reasoning? And yet reasoning like this and counter claims etc is what has led to Christianity now having almost 38,000 denominations and counting, by latest estimates. Some of these denominations killing each other, waging war, looting, pillaging, exploiting, colonizing etc etc, all in the name that their branch is the only correct one. And we have not even got into the fact that this account is believed by two other religions Judaism and Islam, with their also multiple sub-divisions and their own inter and well as intra-domain strife and rancor.

CONCLUSIONS: So again the question is posed, is the bible true and accurate? So far there are several problems with the claims. In the next article I shall review Genesis 6 -9, and talk about Noah, the great flood and related issues. Once again we shall do a line-by-line review and make sure the passages are all consistent with what we have studied so far.

kwaku ba © July 2010