And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
Genesis 4:1
SIDE BAR:
In Genesis 4, God is referred to as “the Lord.” This is Yahweh.
Now Adam and Eve get busy and start popping out kids. First Cain, then Abel. They brought offerings to God; Cain, being a farmer, brought his finest fruits and vegetables while Abel, being a shepherd, brought his finest sheep. Unfortunately, as we discovered in our last piece, God has a bit of a death fetish. He rejected the offering the plant-based offering in favor of the dead animals.
The Invention of Murder
But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
Genesis 4:5
You probably remember how this all ends. Cain kills Abel in an act of passion, and God comes looking for Abel, and finds Cain. Cain is cursed, as the ground will no longer easily yield to him. He is “driven from the face of the Earth” and become a vagabond. (In fact, it later says he just went slightly East to the Land of Nod and settled there). Cain, who had just invented murder, was terrified of a vengeance killing and said he couldn’t bear the punishment. God compromised and said he would put a mark on him and revenge is death seven-fold.
SIDE BAR:
Remember for a moment that there are four three people on Earth. Given the benefit of the doubt, there may be a few more daughters, but that’s it. Who was Cain worried would hunt him down and kill him? And why would placing a mark on him matter? Everyone knew each other. Keep this in mind as the boys begin to find wives.
And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
Genesis 4:16
Wait, so Adam and Eve were still in the presence of the Lord! They were cast out of Eden ONLY to keep them from the tree. Hopefully, we’ll see if we can spot when mankind was truly cut free. Cain had a son Enoch (not that Enoch) who immediately built a city…to hold all those people that were around now. Even using “crazy people numbers”, there would have been no more that 8000 total on Earth by then. Hardly enough for a city. Also, we have a weird parallel. Check out this list of kids. I don’t know for sure, but it looks like someone has confused the timelines and has the same people listed with different fathers.
Finally, we get to Lamech
And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.
Genesis 4:23-24
So, out of nowhere, Lamech admits to murder, which he feels is eleven times worse than killing your own brother. In Christian tradition, this is all we get. Judaism has a more involved tale, where Lamech sees an animal in the distance and kills it with an arrow. The animal turns out to be Cain himself, and in a fit of fear, he kills his hunting companion. In the Book of Mormon, there’s another tale involving a pact with the Devil, but Mormonism is a whole other thing. Maybe I’ll get to that later.
The Problem of Enoch
The only other name of note is Enoch. The only brief references to him in Christian tradition tell you who his relatives are, and that he didn’t die, but was taken up directly to heaven by God. That’s pretty Jedi. Jewish tradition sheds much more light on him, claiming he had an enormous amount of righteousness. His book (there are actually three, but the original is most interesting and much older) has bizarre interactions between God, angels, and Enoch. Islam declares him the first prophet. The Book of Mormon, once again, has a different account, as he is said to have founded the city of Zion. In their belief, the entire city is transported to Heaven. In the book Uriel’s Machine, by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, they discover the technique used to find the megalithic yard in the Book of Enoch. This is the “lowest common denominator measurement used in all ancient monuments worldwide. I won’t get into more detail, but you can find out more here and here. Another side note, the book of Enoch names the fallen one who tempted Eve in the garden. It was Gadreel, not Satan. There will be a whole side bar on that someday, but a quick read here will shed some light.
I think Enoch is a problem in Christianity. We are told God cannot be in the presence of sin. We have all sinned, even if we haven’t sinned (Original Sin – thanks Eve) and that the only way around that is the death of Jesus. Enoch seems to have found a way around this. THIS IS A BIG DEAL. If Enoch goes to Heaven, then Jesus’ sacrifice is not needed. This is a serious foundational flaw, and may be the reason the Book of Enoch wasn’t included in the Bible.
Summary
That wraps it up for the kids of Adam. Incest is required to further the human race, the coolest people are barely mentioned, and God once again demands blood. Possibly the most chilling is a foundational belief of Christianity is called into doubt.
Our next installment is Noah and the Flood!
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