Where did Cain get his wife?

Q: How could all the races of the world come from one man and one woman? Did Cain and Abel marry their sisters?

A: If people are asking questions about the Bible, this one is sure to come up. The Bible doesn’t tell us, so it is speculation. Here are a couple options:

The Talmud (a history of commentary on the law by Jewish rabbis) tells us that Cain and Able were both born with twin sisters, who married the other brother. Yes, that is incest by later standards but, given the circumstances, it was necessary in the beginning.

In his book, The Science of God, Gerald Schroeder offers an interesting alternative view. He speculates that since Genesis says Adam was “made,” not “created” (meaning he was made out of something already existing), that the earth by this time was filled with...

hominids – pre-human creatures. When God announces His punishment on Cain for killing his brother, Genesis 4:15 says Cain “will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds [him] will kill [him].” That suggests that there are other people in the world besides Cain, his parents and siblings. Schroeder suggests these are hominids, pre-human beings who may or may not have had spirit breathed into them by God as had happened when Adam was made. Again, this is speculation but it has biblical warrant in the language of Genesis. Interestingly, this would reconcile some aspects of evolutionary theory with the biblical account of creation. He does a much better job of describing this, so I suggest getting his book if you want to dig deeper.

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Dinosaurs!

Q: Where do dinosaurs come into God’s creation?

A: Ah yes, the ultimate FAQ – the dinosaur question! Several people asked the question in different ways.

Since the Bible’s main objective is to tell the story of God’s history of redemption (and not the history of our planet), it is not obligated to cover material that is irrelevant to the development of that story. In all likelihood, dinosaurs were extinct long before Adam & Eve. That doesn’t mean the Bible is completely silent on the matter. Genesis 1:21 tells about Day 5 of creation and mentions the taninim gedolim. It gets translated a number of different ways. Gedolim meant “big” and taninim was a category of animal. This word is used elsewhere in the Old Testament and it is always a...

reptile. So, you could translate this verse, “And God created the big reptiles…” Since the author is mentioning animals only known to people at the time of writing, it would have been inconsistent in his writing style to mention something they would not have been familiar with. But, it is a hint; and perhaps that’s all it is.

Underlying the dinosaur question, often, is the notion that their existence somehow proves the Bible wrong. The existence of dinosaurs is only a problem if you are a “young earth creationist,” meaning you interpret from Genesis that the earth is only about 6,000 years old. That is a minority position within the Christian community. Old Earth Creationists believe the earth is millions of years old, though the story of God’s redemption of the world spans the past 6000. There are also “theistic evolutionists,” those who believe in God and accept the theory of evolution. Folks in these latter two camps have no trouble reconciling dinosaurs and the Bible.

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Who created God?

Q: I keep telling my daughter not to judge Christianity by looking at the flawed people who claim Christ. Judge it by going to the source. She says, “God can’t exist because…Who created God?” “How do you know that God is real and not just a bed time story from back in the day?” She is 14.

A: It seems like there are three really big questions wrapped up in this one statement. I will do my best to tackle the 2^nd and 3^rd ones, knowing that others will be addressing the question of the flawed people in Christianity.

“God can’t exist because…Who created God?” That’s a great question that has been asked and talked about for lots and lots of years. Where did God come from? Who created Him? He can’t just exist, can He? One way to answer this question is to look at, say, a car.

If you have a car in your driveway or garage right now, take a glance at it, or think about it in your mind. Where did it come from? The car dealership, right? Where did they get it from? The auto manufacturer. Where did they get it from? Well, they got the various parts from all over: the tire manufacturer, the seat manufacturer, the glove compartment latch manufacturer, etc. Well, where did they get the materials to make those parts? From all over the place. But eventually, the line of where things come from has to end somewhere. For example, the tire manufacturers are the starting place for the tires. They didn’t get the tires from anywhere else. They created them. But still, they had to get the rubber from somewhere, right. The materials that go into rubber – not sure what those are, exactly – had to come from somewhere.

What I just described with the automobile is the end result in a long line of supply and demand. Someone has a demand for something, and they get it from somewhere. But if you follow that line back long enough, it has to end. Material doesn’t simply start to exist out of nothing. There has to be a First Cause, a being that creates out of nothing. As you look at the universe, it is clear that it had to come from somewhere, from something. The Christian worldview would say that there is a Creator, a God, that created all of it. Many in the scientific world would suggest that there was Big Bang that the universe was created out of; that there was a bunch of gasses that got together, forming a chemical reaction, setting off an explosion, from which the world and everything else in the universe was created (sorry for the simplistic way I stated this – not trying to offend those in the scientific world with the simple explanation; just trying to keep an already long post somewhat short). If that viewpoint is accurate, I have just one question: where did the gasses come from? Didn’t they have to come from somewhere? Matter doesn’t just start to exist, it has to be created. So even if the Big Bang happened like that, there still had to be a Creator that created those gasses. We put a name on that Creator: God.

Let’s dive into the 2^nd question, that being the idea that God is a bedtime story. Step outside of Christianity and the Bible for just a moment, and let’s just talk about the generic idea of God. To address this question, I would like you to think about an iPhone. Cool, huh? As you think about an iPhone and all of the things it can do – surf the internet, make a phone call, give directions, play music, take pictures, play movies, make breakfast – you realize that it is a very complex instrument. Something that complex and intricate couldn’t have possibly just come into existence on its own, could it? It’s very evident that there had to be something that made that lovely piece of electronics (can you tell I want one?).

Now compare that to the complexity of the universe. Take into consideration that if the earth were any closer to the moon, the tides would overwhelm the earth. Or that the tilt of the axis of the earth is perfect, and that if it were any different, life would not be possible on earth. Or that the rate of expansion of the universe would have to fall within certain limits for life to exist – if it was too fast, planets and stars wouldn’t be able to form; too slow, and gravity would have pulled everything back together creating a big crunch – and it does! There are so many more, but I’ve gone on too long already. The atheist would suggest that it all happened by chance. As you look at all of the facts, there is far too much complexity in the universe for it to have just happened by chance. There had to have been a Creator. Again, we call that Creator God. To believe in a God is far less fairy tale-esque than to believe that all this complexity just happened by chance

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Why did God create human beings?

Q: If God is perfection and needs nothing, why did He create us? He doesn’t NEED humanity. Sometimes it just seems like a game to play. I really don’t get why He made us in the first place.

A: It’s a game only if bringing children into the world is a game. Why do couples have children? Because they want to share their love for each other with someone of their own flesh and blood. Love always wants to share; it is never self-seeking but always others focused. God, who has forever existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has dwelt in perfect joy and infinite love. This “community of oneness” created human beings to share their love so others could be in on a very good thing.

Yes, it is true that God doesn’t need humanity. In that sense, I didn’t need my children before they were born. But, that isn't the way love looks at things. Love is never concerned with what it needs; it is only concerned with the beloved, the object of its affection. Why did God create us? So that we might know and love him forever!

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