Who was Cain's wife in the bible?

Question

"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." (Genesis 4:17)


What wife? At that time only Adam & Eve, Cain and Abel existed on the Earth. The only possibility comes from, either a grave omission from the Bible, or his mother Eve served as his wife. The second possibility would mean incest.

After Cain killed his brother, God protected him by setting "a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." (verse 14). Considering the earth supposedly had only Adam's family, who should kill him? And what kind of mark could have protected Cain? From the absurdity of this story, it should not surprise why anyone would read into it what they wanted. Certain inane beliefs resulted such as the common belief that the "mark of Cain" meant the dark skin of the "*****" race.

Answer 1

Often, apparent inconsistencies can be resolved if we just look at the context. Consider, for example, the often-raised problem about Cain’s wife. As is well known, Cain killed Abel; but after that, we read that Cain had a wife and children. (Genesis 4:17) If Adam and Eve had only two sons, where did Cain find his wife?

Where did Cain get his wife? Is there a logical Bible answer?

Yes, there is. It is pointed to in the very instructions given to Adam and Eve shortly after their creation, namely: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it.”—Gen. 1:28.

Obedience to this command would require that Adam and Eve have children. Then these children, in turn, would marry and bear children. This process of reproduction by succeeding generations would need to continue in order to fill the earth in harmony with God’s purpose.


The solution lies in the fact that Adam and Eve had more than two children. According to the context, they had a large family. At Genesis 5:3 we read that Adam became father to another son named Seth and then, in the following verse, we read: “He became father to sons and daughters.” (Genesis 5:4) So Cain could have married one of his sisters or even one of his nieces.

At that early stage of human history, when mankind was so close to perfection, such a marriage evidently did not pose the risks for the children of the union that it would today.

It is probable that, while yet alive, Abel had sisters; the record mentions the birth of daughters to his parents, but their names are not recorded. (Ge 5:1-4)

Cain went into banishment in “the land of Fugitiveness to the east of Eden,” taking with him his wife, an anonymous daughter of Adam and Eve. (Ge 4:16, 17; compare 5:4, also the much later example of Abraham’s marriage to his half sister Sarah, Ge 20:12.)

Answer 2

That's a very interesting question. However, the Bible says that Adam was the first man (1 Corinthians 15:45). Eve was called the Mother of all living (Genesis 3:20). The Bible makes it very clear that because of Adam, all die (1 Corinthians 15:22), and in Christ, all can have life (1 Corinthians 15:22). Therefore, if other people are alive that did not descend from Adam, they cannot be saved. Christ came to redeem all who have died in Adam. Some people feel that there had to have been others living around the time of Adam and Eve because of a "problem" with whom Cain would have married. Cain was Adam and Eve’s son. The Bible explains how Cain killed his brother, Abel, and was banished for what he had done.

The Bible says Cain went to the land of Nod, and knew his wife. Some people feel that this means Cain met his wife in Nod. So the question is, if Adam and Even had Cain and Abel, and Cain killed Abel, who did Cain marry? It appears that the question is answered by suggesting that other people unrelated to Adam and Eve were alive at the time, however, if we learn to stick with God's Word, and not man's fallible word, we will never be let down. Genesis 5:4 explains how Adam lived 800 years and had sons and daughters!

How many kids could two people have in 800 years! So Cain would have more than likely married a sister of his. This would take us into a whole new question of "Is it right for them to marry brothers and sisters". The laws forbidding it weren't given until over 2000 years later. Secondly, they wouldn't experience any of the genetic problems we have today with close-relational breeding. This is an entirely different question, so I'll leave it at that!

Answer 3

It is not a common belief that the "mark" on Cain's skin made him black though the KKK may say otherwise. Not to mention the mark was put on his skin so no one would kill him, which should right there mean even if the mark made him black, he shouldnt be killed (like the KKK wants)

Also... The Bible never says that Cain and Abel were Adam and Eve's first children. They were given the command to go out and fill the Earth before the fall. When they fell, God told Eve He would "Greatly INCERESE" her pains in childbirth... she would have had to have birthing pains before then for them to be incresed. Before the Law was written, there was no law against incest, there are a few cases in the Bible and before the Law, they were not punished. Such things were needed to fill the Earth especially once men wouldnt live forever. But there is a Law against incest now, I do not condone it and neither do other Christians.

Note: If we think the Bible is too big to read now, how much bigger would it be if the geneology of everyone in there was listed?

Answer 4

Adam lived 930 years. He and Eve were created as adults. The Bible says that they had many other sons and daughters. Cain obviously married one of his sisters-it was not incest then, there was no law for another 2000 years or so. Also the gene pool was clean. If someone would have killed cain , it would have been a relative-maybe distant. The '*****' mark idea has surfaced, but it comes from no bible scholar. Besides everyone on earth except Noah and his family was killed in the flood just 1650 years after creation. If ****** came from Cain, they would have all died in the flood.

Answer 5

When Cain slew Abel a 130 years had passed. We know this because right after Cain was banished Seth was born. It says Seth was born when Eve was 131 years of age.

Given marriage at 13 which was common in ancient cultures, you could have 20k people around by 130 years. Cain and Abel were not their only children. The command was given by God to multiply.

Answer 6

I was told by a Christian, that she was so insignificant that she need not be named. They couldn't tell me were she came from either, they just assumed that it was his sister. The bible never states that Adam and Eve begot Cains wife, she seems to have just appeared out of no where. If she was so insignificant then why was she the mother of Enoch, the man who walked with God. Just more inconsistency that are all through out the Bible.

Answer 7

It's only logical to believe that it was his sister. The Bible does not spell out every details, nor did it list everyone of Adam & Eve's children by name. And that other stuff, where in the world did that come from?

Answer 8

"Adam" and "Eve" were not neccessarily individual people...
adam=males
eve=females
the bible is not to be taken in the literal sense

Answer 9

OOMFOOFOO

Answer 10

Cain’s wife—who was she?

by Don Batten (editor), Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland

First published in The Revised and Expanded Answers Book
Chapter 8

It is not lawful to marry your sister, so who did Cain marry? Were there other people on the earth? Who lived in the land of Nod? Does this have any relevance to the gospel?

We don’t even know her name, yet she was discussed at the Scopes trial, mentioned in the play and movie Inherit the Wind1 and the book and movie Contact2, and has been talked about in countries all over the world. Is she the most-talked-about wife in history?

Skeptics have used Cain’s wife time and again to try to discredit the book of Genesis as a true historical record. Sadly, most Christians have not been able to give an adequate answer to this question. As a result, the world thinks Christians cannot defend the authority of Scripture and, thus, the Christian faith.

For instance, at the historic Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925, William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor who stood for the Christian faith, failed to answer the question about Cain’s wife posed by the outspokenly anti-Christian ACLU 3 lawyer Clarence Darrow.4

The world’s press was focused on this trial, and what they heard has affected Christianity to this day—Christians are seen as unable to defend the Biblical record. And skeptics then make the logically fallacious jump of concluding that the Biblical record is indefensible!

The atheist Carl Sagan used this same question in his book Contact5 (which was on The New York Times best-seller list), and the movie Contact, which was based on Sagan’s book, also used it.

In the book, the fictional character Ellie relates that she could not get answers about Cain’s wife, and other questions, from a minister’s wife, who was the leader of a church discussion group.6

Sagan cleverly used common questions—such as ‘Who was Cain’s wife?’—questions that are often directed at Christians in an attempt to prove the Bible cannot be defended.

Sadly, most Christians probably could not answer these questions! And yet, there are answers. But, since most churches are lacking in the teaching of apologetics,7 particularly in regard to the Book of Genesis, most believers in the church are not ‘ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope in you’ (1 Peter 3:15).
Why is it important?

Many skeptics have claimed that, for Cain to find a wife, there must have been other ‘races’ of people on the Earth who were not descendants of Adam and Eve.

To many people, this question is a stumbling block to accepting the creation account in Genesis and its record of only one man and woman at the beginning of history—a record on which many Old and New Testament doctrines depend.

Defenders of the gospel must be able to show that all human beings are descendants of one man and one woman (Adam and Eve)—as only those people who are descendants of Adam and Eve can be saved. Thus, believers need to be able to account for Cain’s wife and show clearly that she was a descendant of Adam and Eve. (The relevant Bible passage is Genesis 4:1–5:5.)

Before we answer this question, we will first show how important it is to the meaning of the gospel.
The first man

‘Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned (Romans 5:12).’

We read in 1 Corinthians 15:45 that Adam was ‘the first man.’ God did not start by making a whole group of men.

The Bible makes it clear that only the descendants of Adam can be saved. Romans 5 teaches that we sin because Adam sinned. The death penalty, which Adam received as judgment for his sin of rebellion, also passed on to all his descendants.

Since Adam was the head of the human race when he ‘fell,’ we who were in the loins of Adam ‘fell’ also. Thus, we are all separated from God. The final consequence of sin would be separation from God in our sinful state forever. However, the good news is that there is a way for us to return to God!

Because a man brought sin and death into the world, all the descendants of Adam need a sinless Man to pay the penalty for sin and the resulting judgment of death. However, the Bible teaches that ‘all have sinned’ (Romans 3:23). What is the solution?
The last Adam

God provided the solution—a way to deliver man from his wretched state. Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 15 that God provided another Adam! The Son of God took on a human nature in addition to His full divinity, becoming a perfect God-man—Jesus Christ. In His humanity He was a descendant of Adam (through Noah, Abraham and David)—He thus became our relation! He is called ‘the last Adam’ (1 Corinthians 15:45), because he took the place of the first Adam. He became the new head and, because he was sinless, He was able to pay the penalty for sin:

‘For since by a man came death, by a man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:21–22).’8

Christ suffered death (the penalty for sin) on the cross, shedding his blood (‘without shedding of blood is no forgiveness’ Hebrews 9:22) so that those who repent of their sin of rebellion and put their trust in His work on the cross can be reconciled to God.

Since the Bible describes all human beings as sinners, except the God-Man Jesus, and we are all related (‘And He has made all nations of men of one blood to dwell on all the face of the Earth’ Acts 17:26), the gospel makes sense only on the basis that all humans alive and all who have ever lived are descendants of the first man Adam.9 If this were not so, then the gospel could not be explained or defended.

The Book of Hebrews amplifies how Jesus took upon himself the nature of a man to save mankind (Hebrews 2:11–18). Seven centuries before this happened, the Prophet Isaiah spoke of Him as literally the ‘Kinsman-Redeemer,’ i.e. one who is related by blood to those he redeems (Isaiah 59:20, uses the same Hebrew word goel as used to describe Boaz in relation to Ruth).

Thus, only descendants of the first man Adam can be saved.
All related

Thus, there was only one man at the beginning—made from the dust of the Earth (Genesis 2:7).

This also means that Cain’s wife was a descendant of Adam. She could not have come from another ‘race’ of people and must be one of Adam’s descendants.
The first woman

In Genesis 3:20 we read, ‘And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.’10 In other words, all people are descendants of Adam and Eve—she was the first woman.

Eve was made from Adam’s rib (or side, Hebrew tsela, Genesis 2:21–24)—this was a unique event. Jesus (Matthew 19:4–6) and Paul (Ephesians 5:31) use this historical and one-time event as the doctrinal foundation for the marriage of one man to one woman.

Also, in Genesis 2:20, we are told that when Adam looked at the animals, he could not find a mate—there was no one of his kind.

All this makes it obvious that there was only one woman, Adam’s wife, at the beginning. There were never any other women around who were not Eve’s descendants.

If Christians cannot defend that all humans (including Cain’s wife) can trace their ancestry ultimately to Adam and Eve, then how can they understand and explain the gospel? How can they justify sending missionaries to every tribe and nation? Therefore, one needs to be able to answer the question about Cain’s wife, to illustrate that Christians can defend the gospel and all that it teaches.
Cain’s brothers and sisters

Cain was the first child of Adam and Eve recorded in Scripture (Genesis 4:1). His brothers, Abel (Genesis 4:2) and Seth (Genesis 4:25), were part of the first generation of children ever born on this Earth.

Even though only these three males are mentioned by name, Adam and Eve had other children. In Genesis 5:4 a statement sums up the life of Adam and Eve—‘And the days of Adam after he had fathered Seth were eight hundred years. And he fathered sons and daughters.’ This does not say when they were born. Many could have been born in the 130 years (Genesis 5:3) before Seth was born.

During their lives, Adam and Eve had a number of male and female children. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that, ‘The number of Adam’s children, as says the old tradition, was thirty-three sons and twenty-three daughters.’11

The Bible does not tell us how many children were born to Adam and Eve. However, considering their long life spans (Adam lived for 930 years—Genesis 5:5), it would seem reasonable to suggest there were many! Remember, they were commanded to ‘Be fruitful, and multiply’ (Genesis 1:28).
The wife

If we now work totally from Scripture, without any personal prejudices or other extra-Biblical ideas, then back at the beginning, when there was only the first generation, brothers would have had to have married sisters or there would be no more generations!

We are not told when Cain married or any of the details of other marriages and children, but we can say for certain that some brothers had to marry their sisters at the beginning of human history.
Objections
God’s laws

Many people immediately reject the conclusion that Adam and Eve’s sons and daughters married each other by appealing to the law against brother-sister intermarriage. Some say that you cannot marry your relation. Actually, if you don’t marry your relation, you don’t marry a human! A wife is related to her husband even before they marry because all people are descendants of Adam and Eve—all are of ‘one blood.’ 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.
Biological deformities

Today, brothers and sisters (and half-brothers and half-sisters, etc.) are not permitted by law to marry because their children have an unacceptably high risk of being deformed. The more closely the parents are related, the more likely it is that any offspring will be deformed.

There is a very sound genetic reason for such laws that is easy to understand. Every person has two sets of genes that specify how a person is put together and functions. Each person inherits one gene of each pair from each parent. Unfortunately, genes today contain many mistakes (because of sin and the Curse), and these mistakes show up in a variety of ways. For instance, some people let their hair grow over their ears to hide the fact that one ear is lower than the other—or perhaps someone’s nose is not quite in the middle of his or her face, or someone’s jaw is a little out of shape—and so on. Let’s face it, the main reason we call each other normal is because of our common agreement to do so!

The more distantly related parents are, the more likely it is that they will have different mistakes in their genes. Children, inheriting one set of genes from each parent, are likely to end up with pairs of genes containing a maximum of one bad gene in each pair. The good gene tends to override the bad so that a deformity (a serious one, anyway) does not occur. Instead of having totally deformed ears, for instance, a person may only have crooked ones! (Overall, though, the human race is slowly degenerating as mistakes accumulate, generation after generation.)

However, the more closely related two people are, the more likely it is that they will have similar mistakes in their genes, since these have been inherited from the same parents. Therefore, a brother and a sister are more likely to have similar mistakes in their genes. A child of a union between such siblings could inherit the same bad gene on the same gene pair from both, resulting in two bad copies of the gene and serious defects.

However, Adam and Eve did not have accumulated genetic mistakes. When the first two people were created, they were physically perfect. Everything God made was ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31), so their genes were perfect—no mistakes! But, when sin entered the world (because of Adam—Genesis 3:6ff, Romans 5:12), God cursed the world so that the perfect creation then began to degenerate, that is, suffer death and decay (Romans 8:22). Over thousands of years, this degeneration has produced all sorts of genetic mistakes in living things.

Cain was in the first generation of children ever born. He (as well as his brothers and sisters) would have received virtually no imperfect genes from Adam or Eve, since the effects of sin and the Curse would have been minimal to start with (it takes time for these copying errors to accumulate). In that situation, brother and sister could have married with God’s approval, without any potential to produce deformed offspring.

By the time of Moses (a few thousand years later), degenerative mistakes would have built up in the human race to such an extent that it was necessary for God to forbid brother-sister (and close relative) marriage (Leviticus 18–20).12 (Also, there were plenty of people on the Earth by now, and there was no reason for close relations to marry.)
Cain and the land of Nod

Some claim that the passage in Genesis 4:16–17 means that Cain went to the land of Nod and found a wife. Thus, they can conclude there must have been another race of people on the Earth, who were not descendants of Adam, who produced Cain’s wife.

‘And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bore Enoch: and he built a city, and he called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.’

From what has been stated previously, it is clear that all humans, Cain’s wife included, are descendants of Adam. However, this passage does not say that Cain went to the land of Nod and found a wife. John Calvin, commenting on these verses, states:

‘From the context we may gather that Cain, before he slew his brother, had married a wife; otherwise Moses would now have related something respecting his marriage.’13

Cain was married before he went to the land of Nod. He didn’t find a wife there, but ‘knew’ (had sexual relations with) his wife.14

Others have argued that because Cain built a ‘city’ in the land of Nod, there must have been a lot of people there. However, the Hebrew word translated as ‘city’ need not mean what we might imagine from the connotations of ‘city’ today. The word meant a ‘walled town’ or a protected encampment.15 Even a hundred people would be plenty for such a ‘city.’ Nevertheless, there could have been many descendants of Adam on the Earth by the time of Abel’s death (see below).
Who was Cain fearful of? (Genesis 4:14)

Some claim that there had to be lots of people on Earth other than Adam and Eve’s descendants, otherwise Cain would not have been fearful of people wanting to slay him for killing Abel.

First of all, in the days before civil government was instituted to punish murderers (Genesis 9:6), someone would want to harm Cain for killing Abel only if they were closely related to Abel! Strangers could hardly have cared. So the people Cain was afraid of could not have been another race of people.

Second, Cain and Abel were born quite some time before Abel’s death. Genesis 4:3 states:

‘And in the course of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord.’

Note the phrase ‘in the course of time.’ We know that Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old (Genesis 5:3), and Eve saw him as a ‘replacement’ for Abel (Genesis 4:25). Therefore, the period from Cain’s birth to Abel’s death may have been 100 years or more—allowing plenty of time for other children of Adam and Eve to marry and have children and grandchildren. By the time Abel was killed, there could well have been a considerable number of descendants of Adam and Eve, involving several generations.
Where did the technology come from?

Some claim that for Cain to go to the land of Nod and build a city he would have required a lot of technology that must have already been in that land, presumably developed by other ‘races.’

However, Adam and Eve’s descendants were very intelligent people. Jubal made musical instruments such as the harp and organ (Genesis 4:21), and Tubal-Cain worked with brass and iron (Genesis 4:22).

Because of intense evolutionary indoctrination, many people today think that our generation is the most intelligent that has ever lived on this planet. But just because we have jet airplanes and computers, it does not mean that we are the most intelligent. Modern technology results from the accumulation of knowledge. We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.

Our brains have suffered from 6,000 years (since Adam) of the Curse. We are greatly degenerated compared with people many generations ago. We may be nowhere near as intelligent or inventive as Adam and Eve’s children. Scripture gives us a glimpse of what appears to be great inventiveness from the beginning.16
Conclusion

Many Christians cannot answer the question about Cain’s wife because they focus on today’s world (and the problems associated with close relations marrying), and do not understand the clear historical record God has given to us.

They try to interpret Genesis from our present situation, rather than understand the true Biblical history of the world and the changes that have occurred because of sin. Because they are not building their worldview on Scripture, but taking a secular way of thinking to the Bible, they are blinded to the simple answers.

Genesis is the record of the God who was there as history happened. It is the word of One who knows everything, and who is a reliable witness from the past. Thus, when we use Genesis as a basis for understanding history, we can make sense of questions that would otherwise be a mystery.