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| trekearth |
I am reading through the Courson commentary series, that I just received and mentioned in a recent article. I found a short entry particularly interesting. The commentary mentions Genesis 4:17. I will cite the New American Standard Bible.
17 Cain [j]had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son.
[j] Genesis 4:17 Lit knew
The use of 'knew' is in the King James Version quoted by Courson.
Revered Courson states:
'Where did Cain get his wife? This is one of the questions that has been asked of me more than any other single question.' (21).
Cited
'Because Adam lived to be 800 years old, he and Eve had many, many children. Therefore, Cain married one of his own relatives, because mankind had not yet gone down the road of depravity long enough chronologically to cause the kinds of problems now present in intermarriage'. (21).
Reasonable answer.
H. L. Ellison opines on this verse '...there is no reason for questioning the traditional explanation that she was his sister (cf. 5: 4). (119).
New American Standard Bible
4 Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.
The two commentary texts are in basic agreement.
My short term academic tutor, that was very knowledgeable in regard to philosophy of religion, Manchester University, Professor David Pailin, once basically told me that there was no historical documentation for the existence of Adam and Eve, whatsoever.
I replied basically, not quoting myself exactly, that the Hebrew Bible and related historical and Biblical scholarship would serve as legitimate religious history. Modern history, by its definition, did not exist in ancient Biblical times. For example, we do not have photographic, audio and video evidences of the first human beings. Common sense informs that the first human beings existed at some point in time, and these would be ancestors of present humanity.
ELLISON, H. L (1986) 'Genesis' in The New International Bible Commentary, Marshall Pickering/Zondervan, Grand Rapids.
COURSON, JON (2005) Application Commentary, Thomas Nelson, Nashville.
