"Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch,” [Genesis 4:17]
“When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. And after he became the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Methuselah lived 969 years, and then he died. When Lamech had lived years, he had a son. He named him Noah and said, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed." After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Lamech lived 777 years, and then he died. After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days -- and also afterward -- when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth -- men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air -- for I am grieved that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.,” [Genesis 5:25-6:8]
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) -- if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment,” [2 Peter 2:4-9]
Some skeptics love to corner Christians. The modern neo-atheistic movement has resorted to saturating the public (particularly big cities) with messages that cause Christians to doubt the faith. The questions or statements are not new statements, they have circulated for centuries, but they typically catch the average Christian off guard, unsure and ill equipped, to answer these questions. Marxist / atheistic professors in colleges and universities across America love the challenge of receiving a new batch of students every year where they have a new opportunity to destroy the faith of young, impressionable people. Alarming statistics tell us that 70% of new college students abandon the faith after one year of college after high school. This is a primary reason why we see churches shrinking all across America. The atheists are actively trying to corner and eliminate the Christian faith and its influence on every sector of American life. This agenda has succeeded in Europe, it has succeeded in Canada and it is currently succeeding in America. How did this happen? And why has it been so successful in this century and the previous century? The answer - Technology. Although this sounds like a trivial or cliché answer, it’s true. Previous to the advent of television and radio, the primary form of social interaction and entertainment was church activity all across Western society. This made it extremely difficult to change the minds of Christians. The Western world was a reading culture, particularly from the 1400’s all through the 1800’s. People could read books that contradicted or challenged the Bible, but they were well equipped to challenge attacks on the Bible because the Bible had become the primary textbook in every school and every home. People read the Bible often and were well rooted in its teaching. But when radio and television appeared, that form of entertainment required no effort to enjoy. And such entertainment quickly turned us from being a reading culture into being a lazy culture. The more technology we accumulated, the more lazy and irresponsible we have become (generally speaking). We have been bombarded with subtle messages from entertainers and advertisers that say the same basic thing: “You can have whatever you want; YOU are god…” Unfortunately, the Church everywhere has generally allowed subtle, Satanic messages to capture entire families, not realizing the devastating effects this has had on eternal life. Most Christians shrug their shoulders and say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with people…” Then, into this arena enters the atheist…
“If the Bible is really true, then who was Cain’s wife?” This usually catches Christians off guard. Or another question that Christians are unsure how to answer, “If God is so good, then why is there so much evil in the world?” Or, “What about radiometric dating?” “What about the proofs of evolution?” And the list goes on and on. The sad truth is that there are powerful answers for each of these questions, answers that typically silence the atheists and strengthen the faith of the redeemed –and even win the lost to the Gospel. The problem is not the answers; the problem is the Church’s general laziness or unwillingness to pursue the answers. The fact is, if God is completely True, then He is true in every area of life –or He is not the truth. But because He is True, the Christian can be confident that there ARE answers to even the most formidable questions. For this reason, I plan to write a series of newsletters through the summer that deal with the difficult questions. To start off, let’s tackle the question of Cain’s wife.
Answering directly, Cain’s wife was one of his sisters. It was possible and even commendable to marry a sibling in the world that existed before the flood. There are definite answers for why this was true. The clue to the answer is found in the length of lives before the flood. Simply speaking, the world that existed before the Flood was fundamentally different, allowing for people to live up to 1000 years! I have heard varied explanations as to why the Bible records people like Methuselah living nearly 1000 years such as, “They just recorded time differently back then,” or “It must have been a mistake in copying documents,” or my favorite, “Every ancient culture exaggerated lengths of time to show how great they are.” While the last statement is semi-true, (the Babylonians liked to include hundreds of thousands of years in their storytelling), the truth is - there is no error or exaggeration in the Bible’s account. The world was fundamentally different before the great, worldwide Flood of Noah’s time. This accounts for how siblings could marry and why life was so long. In all truth, we have clues of what that world must have been like, but we haven’t seen that world; it must have been magnificent! Now combine this with the fact that people had remarkable knowledge and abilities at the time, and we really have no idea what that world may have looked like. It may have been more advanced technologically than we currently are! That world was also rampant with sin. Apparently, people had become very creative in the realm of rebellion and sin, to the point that God was deeply grieved for creating man. Despite this, the gene pool was very rich and intermarriage of siblings was not a problem. However, after the flood, we notice that the lifespan of people gradually decreased until the number of years people live was generally no more than 120 years. The environment had drastically changed –and so had the DNA of people, animals, plant life and microscopic organisms. Reptiles actually grow as long as they are alive –no wonder reptiles could grow to be so large in the pre-flood world. However, after the flood, they could not reach such an enormous size due to the change in environment. Some species of plants and animals also could not survive in the post-flood world because of the harsh conditions of the earth. By the time of Moses, it was already apparent that siblings could no longer intermarry. The gene pool was becoming increasingly shallow as nations and pockets of people refused to intermarry with other nations and peoples, thinking themselves superior to others. To make matters worse, the sun was gradually changing DNA, causing mutations (such as malformations and diseases) because the new environment no longer shielded life on earth from the harmful effects of the sun. Life changed drastically. God shortened the lifespan of all life because of mankind. All of creation suffered the same fate as that of people, so that people would not live a long time, and become increasingly creative with sinful behavior the longer they lived. God did this to preserve life on earth.
So, who was Cain’s wife? His sister. Now we find it strange and abnormal for siblings to intermarry –with good reason: It causes harmful malformations in children. But this was not always the case. As time goes on, life is shortened by the appearance of more malignant manifestations of a fallen world. Praise be to God that He has saved us from the decay of this world through His Son; we have the promise of the resurrection and a new, glorious world to come. But don’t be surprised when archeologists unearth fossils of very large human footprints that measure two feet in length or human skeletons that measure nine, twelve, or even fifteen feet tall! Or don’t be surprised when people discover technologically-advanced devices or craftsmanship inside of lumps of coal. These are the remnants of a very different world that no longer exists. However, the evidence that this world was is plentiful and overwhelmingly obvious. It’s up to you whether you would like to embrace what is obvious, or join the rest of the world and exchange the truth of God for a lie…
Set free by the truth,
George