A co-worker brought up a question regarding creation/evolution yesterday. I was looking for the answer and was a little puzzled as to where Cain's wife came from (Gen. 4:17). My co-worker once was told that Adam & Eve were created by God and had Cain and Abel. She knew that Cain killed Abel (and thought that there were no other children by Adam & Eve, which is clearly not true according to the Bible) but then the speaker - whomever she was listening to - said that was where evolution came in and the rest of the human race came
from.
Here's my reply:
That’s a great question, and is very important to answer appropriately for three primary reasons:
- The authority and inerrancy of the Bible.
- Who is eligible for salvation?
- Doesn't the Bible teach against family intermarriage, thus this would be an internal contradiction and undermine scripture?
Let’s look at the first point – the authority and inerrancy (without error) of the Bible. As you pointed out your friend thought that there were no other children by Adam and Eve which as you correctly stated is wrong (see Genesis 5:4,5 - After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.). So first of all we have an issue with the authority of scripture where the speaker now is at conflict with what the Bible teaches. We know the Bible is true for several reasons, but a short answer is the acronym MAPS – the M is for manuscript evidence, more than any document in antiquity the ancient manuscripts prove themselves to be in agreement and have an amazing degree of accuracy. The A is for archeological discovery, where the Bible talks about locations archeology and history are in agreement not conflict. The P is for prophecies fulfilled, where statements recorded in the Bible prior to the event actually happening occur just as prophesied. The S stands for statistical probability, which relates to the vast period of time over which the Bible was written, in palaces and prisons, by kings and shepherds, yet there is a singular message and theme that weaves the books of the Bible together. So, if there is an opinion or statement that contradicts the Bible, we would hold the Bible to be the truth.
The second point is who is eligible to receive salvation. As you related, your friend said that the speaker she heard mentioned that after Adam and Eve evolution started (my assumption is to then propagate the rest of the human race). Wow! That creates a huge problem. The Bible is very explicit that just as sin entered the human race through Adam and Eve, salvation will be provided to the human race through Jesus – the second Adam (see Romans chapter 5 and 1 Corinthians 15). If the speaker’s assertions are true, we would have not two different races, but two different SPECIES – mankind created by God, and other “people” (but then they couldn’t even be called “people”!) created by evolution. The Bible is clear that the descendants of Adam are eligible for salvation. How could these other creatures be saved then? It would require some pretty wild conjecture to try to bridge that gap!
Finally, doesn’t the Bible teach against marrying within one’s family? It does (see Leviticus 20) but it is important to note that was many years (likely 2,000+) after Adam and Eve that the law was given. By that time, there was good reason as just as sin spread through every human post Adam (again see Romans 5), the effects of sin began to spread including (we believe) genetic imperfection that make it important to not marry or birth defects would and would occur.
To summarize, we believe that Cain did marry a sister or cousin, but it is important to recognize that with Adam’s long life (hundreds of years) there were likely to be many, many of his children that began to inhabit the earth. Due to time and geography, it is entirely plausible that Cain did not even know (as a child or teen) his wife and met her well into adulthood.
