A little something I've noticed about Genesis 4:22. Am I reading too much into it?

YECs often claim Cain’s wife was an unnamed child of Adam and Eve, rather than being a mystery, or coming from another group of humans. But I think we have reason to argue against this idea. It’s not as tho Genesis 4 goes out of it’s way to ignore women in the genealogies. Naamah, the sister of Tubal-Cain is clearly mentioned in Genesis 4:22.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I feel as tho it’s certainly possible that Cain’s wife was not from the genealogy of Adam.

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You’re forgiven oh RiderOnTheClouds

Can you put a number on that possibility? You know, quantify it? Starting with the possibility of A&E?

I think that is obviously a consideration but by mentioning Eve I would assume it would mention any immediate daughters. But Moses ( maybe ) wrote it potentially thousands of years after the event.

But this is why I don’t believe it was a sister.

After Cain killed Abel ( I assume with a spear based off of the Hebrew ) and left it seems Eve was down because when she had Seth the text reads as if she was happy that Abel was replaced. If she had other kids, I don’t believe she would have felt Abel was being replaced by Seth but would simply see it as just another child. But from the way the story reads it seems like Abel was killed and Cain was drove away and some time went by because by the time Seth was born it says that many begin to follow God once more.

So to me the evidence is more on the side that Cain found a woman among the others, who were also the humans he feared that lived away from the area immediately outside the garden.

But keep in mind that in a patriarchal culture, male children were important.

I do. I even use that as a argument about compressed genealogies. But it still does not fit this particular narrative. What’s in the story is Eve and Adam and her kids all lived near the garden but outside of it. Cain killed Abel and Eve did not rejoice until Seth was born and it was then that mankind begin to once more pursue God.

But it would be hard to fit this into the narrative. Adam and Eve had lots of kids and all of them was female except Cain and Abel until Seth was born. A bunch of those females left the area outside the garden and became a scary group of women. (because no other sons are mentioned that would have replaced Abel ) and Cain was scared of them and received a mark and found one of those women to be his wife.

If we replace some of the women with men, it would undermine the entire argument about Eve feeling down until Seth was born replacing Abel. It all seems to messy. Additionally, it’s not what science shows. Though cousin to cousin marriages was accepted it seems that scripturally full blooded siblings were not.

With everything all working together it seems to me the most realistic interpretation that is most authentic to biblical principles is that Cain feared other humans that were not part of Adam and Eve’s genealogy indicating if real, Adam and Eve were simply ambassadors, or just two people picked by God to be brought to the garden and blessed with a paradise on earth that included a tree that granted sustained immortality.

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