Answer --- This Is Probably The Most Frequently Asked Question About The Bible. The Answer Is Given In Outline Form From Our Study In Genesis.

Genesis 4:17, "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."

A. Alright, now the all important and most frequently asked question in the Bible: "Where Did Cain Get His Wife?"

1. A harder question would be, "Where Did He Find Enough People To Help Him Build And Populate A City?"

2. James Montgomery Boice points out that if only one half of Adam's children lived, and if only half of the living got married, and if only half the married had children, the population would still number More Than A Million at Adam's death.

3. Keep in mind --- 70 Jews went into Egypt and 430 Years later 3 Million left with Moses.

4. However, it is entirely possible that Cain Had Sisters From Whom To Take A Wife Even Before His Banishment And The Birth of Seth.

B. At any rate, The Population Was So Great, God found it Necessary To Put A Mark on Cain, as a warning to other humans not to take vengeance upon him.

1. Only if the population was very large would it be necessary to put a mark of identification on a person so that he would be Recognized and therefore not harmed.

2. Some have suggested that there was a "Second Race of People" because Cain would not have expressed any fear of being killed unless there were people Outside His Immediate Family.

a. This is mere "Human Speculation" --- try tell that philosophy to:

(1) Jacob concerning Esau,

(2) Joseph concerning his brothers,

(3) Amnon concerning Absalom,

(4) Besides had not he, Himself, just killed someone in his immediate family?

b. That Was Never A "Second Race of People"!

(1) Adam was the "First Man".

(2) Eve was the mother of "All Living".

C. Cain's Wife must have been His Sister who followed him into exile.

1. Some would Object, and say, "That's not likely because the Bible Expressly Forbids Incest and Modern Research Shows That Incest Is Harmful if not deadly --- Lev. 18:9.

2. However, remember, Abraham's Wife was his Half-Sister.

3. Because of the purity of the race --- Genetic Defects or Deformity, as a result of Inter-Family Marriage, would not begin to crop up until After Several Dozen Generations.

4. Not Until the time of Moses did God find it necessary to establish Laws Forbidding a man from marrying a sister or niece.

(( Now, Lets Notice A More Detailed Answer ))

D. Modern research has shown that our "Genes" get damaged and appear in a condition called "Mutant."

1. Normally a gene Once Mutated Remains Mutated, i.e., damaged, as it is passed through each successive generation.

2. The genes controlling inheritance becomes Increasingly Damaged With Each Successive Generation.

3. If a parent passes onto their children a damaged gene, these offspring will Both Share Damage At The Same Point (or locus) in their own gene complexes.

4. If these two marry and have children, the particular Segments of Damaged Material Are Bound To Be Brought Together in a way that Enormously reinforces their power to damage the growing embryo.

a. When inbreeding begins, all sorts of Defects and Weaknesses appear.

b. The average Life Span Decreases.

c. After a few generations the detriment is so severe that the Family Often Becomes Extinct.

d. This is true with Animals as well as Humans.

E. In "The Lancet" ("Risks to Offspring of Incest," 2/25/67, p.436, London), a discussion was reported on the risk taken by parents who decide to adopt a child born of an incestual relationship It was observed that,

...medical practitioners are sometimes asked about the advisability of the adoption of child born as the result of incest. Such children will have an increased risk of being affected by recessive conditions. In order to estimate of the extent of this risk, in 1958 I invited Children's Officers to let me know prospectively of pregnancies or of new births in which it was known that the pregnancy or birth was the result of incest between first degree relatives.

These children were followed prospectively and anonymously through the Children's Officers. The children were known to me by number and correspondence referred only to the child's number. Thirteen cases of incest (6 father-daughter and 7 brother-sister) were reported to me in 1958 and the latest information on them was in midyear 1965 when the children were all 4 to 6 years old. I summarize here the information on these 13 children.

Three children are dead: one at 15 months of cystic fibrosis of the pancreas, confirmed at necropsy; one at 21 months of progressive cerebral degeneration with blindness; and one at 7 years, 11 months of Fallot's Teratology (this child had an IQ of 70). One child is severely sub-normal, with much-delayed milestones, and was considered non-testable at age 4 years, 9 months, when she had a vocabulary of only a few words. Four children are educatively subnormal; the known IQ of 3 are 59, 65, and 76. The remaining 5 children are normal.

The risk of parents sharing a recessive gene will be four times greater in cases of incest between first degree relatives than it would be between first cousins.

F. The amount of damaged material Increases With Each Generation --- logically, therefore, each Previous Generation has suffered Less Genetic Damage.

1. Therefore, we can Extrapolate Backward In Time until we begin to reach a point at which damage to the genetic material would be Vastly Less than it now is.

2. If we go back far enough, it would Not Exist At All.

3. Adam & Eve were created by God with a Perfect constitution, in which case brother-sister marriages at the time would be Absolutely Harmless.

4. The damage started to be done Following The Fall and has accumulated ever since.

G. Prior To The Flood, man may well have been Shielded against at least one source of danger to the genes namely, Cosmic Radiation, by the existence of Canopy Barrier in the upper atmosphere.

1. The Flood reduced the world's population to Eight Souls, all of whom had now Accumulated Some Damaged Genes.

2. Also the potential hazard from Cosmic Radiation would be Greatly Increased.

3. The Life Span of Post-Flood Individuals rapidly declined until it slowly leveled off first to 120 years and later to three score and ten (70) years.

Travis Case
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