The Posterity of Cain.
This Is Appendix 20 From The Companion Bible.
It is important to note that the posterity of
Cain comes in the First Toledoth,
videlicet, that of "the generations of the heavens and the
earth"; and not in "the book of the generations of
Adam." The posterity of Seth commences with
"the generations of Adam": showing that the two accounts are
distinct, and deal with two different subjects. See the Structures on
pages 3 and 5 of the Companion Bible (Genesis 2:4 - 4:26; 5:1 - 6:8).
- The generations of the heavens and the
earth (2:4 - 4:26).
- J 1 |
2:4 -
25.
Before the Fall.
- J
2 |
3:1 -
34.
The Fall.
- J
3 |
4:1 -
26.
After the Fall.
- The expansion of J 3. "After
the Fall" (4:1 - 26), page 8 of the
Companion Bible in Genesis.
- J 3 | L |
1 -
16.
Adam's sons: Cain and Abel.
- |
M | 17 - 24. Cain's son:
Enoch.
- | L |
25. Adam's son:
Seth.
- |
M | 26. Seth's son:
Enos.
There were 130 years before Seth was born and
substituted for Abel in the line of the promised seed.
In those 130 years after Cain, Adam must have
begotten "sons and daughters", as in the 800 years after
Seth. If Abel died in A.M. 125, and Abel and
Cain had children before that year, even supposing they had no descendants
till they reached the age of sixty-five, Adam could have had 130 children.
And if each of these could have a child at sixty-five years of age, one in
each successive year, there would have been 1,219 in A.M. 130. If we
suppose Adam's earlier sons and daughters to have had children at the age
of twenty-one instead of at sixty-five, there would have been over half a
million in the 130 years, without reckoning the old or young, and this at
a very moderate rate of increase. It is generally
assumed that Adam and Eve had no children beyond those
named. But, as in the line of Seth, it is clear from Genesis
5:4 that they had, we
may well conclude that the same was the case in the line of Cain. It is a
gratuitous assumption that Abel had no posterity. It
is manifest that the history assumes a considerable population; and the
fact that there is no attempt to explain it, proves its genuineness, and
shows that we are left to explain it for ourselves in the only natural way
by which it can be explained. |