Nod - A Prolepsis

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Encephaloid Martini
Valued Senior Member
A prolepsis is a rhetorical device for anticipating and answering objections in advance.

When Moses wrote of "The Land of Nod" (Genesis 4:16), he was using a prolepsis to describe a place which should not have existed. Cain dwelt in the Land of Nod and knew his wife, and he had sons and built the city of Enoch.

Another example of prolepsis is found in Genesis 13:3 where we read that Abraham “went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel.” This area actually did not wear the name Bethel until years later when Jacob gave it that name (Genesis 28:19). However, when Moses wrote of this name hundreds of years later, he was free to use it even when writing about a time before the name actually was given.

In John 11, the Bible speaks of a woman named Mary who “anointed the Lord with ointment” (11:1-2), yet this anointing actually did not occur for about three months.

So who did Cain marry - his sisters ?
 
We see in the Bible in Genesis 3 where Adam and Eve were cursed and sent out of the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 4, Cain kills Abel. In Genesis 4:17 above we see that Cain had relations with his wife. Where did he get his wife? The answer is simple. Cain married one of his sisters.

Genesis 5:4 says, "Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters." We see that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters. The genetic lineage of Adam and Eve was perfect so marrying a sister wasn't going to cause birth defects. It wasn't until much later, during the time of Moses, that incest was forbidden as the genetic pool became less and less able to stand interbreeding. "‘No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD," (Lev. 18:6).

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inspector

Where did he get his wife? The answer is simple. Cain married one of his sisters.

Oh, I see - incest is best, according to God. Brothers sleeping with sisters - mothers with sons - fathers with daughters...

The genetic lineage of Adam and Eve was perfect so marrying a sister wasn't going to cause birth defects. It wasn't until much later, during the time of Moses, that incest was forbidden as the genetic pool became less and less able to stand interbreeding

If the gene pool was perfect, what caused it to disintegrate ? Didn't all people come from Adam and Eve ? Who were the first generations to bear witness to birth defects ? Or did God arbitrarily decide at some point that their genes couldn't sustain interbreeding ?

I find this whole argument specious at best. Of course, I've yet to touch on the obvious genetic paradoxes which arise from such an argument - but we'll take it one step at a time. I like doling out rope.
 
In early Hebrew culture inbreeding was allowed. However it was only allowed in certain circumstances. It was the duty of the husband, or who ever was the "protector" of the woman to see that she had babies. It was allowable to some extent back in those days. If a woman had to sleep with her father to have kids, so be it. Read what happens to Lot and his daughters, they sleep with him because there is no other man to impregnate them. Not to say this was a good thing, but it was more acceptable then than it is now. To be without children was to have the "curse of god" upon you.

- Phaedrus
 
"Oh, I see - incest is best, according to God. Brothers sleeping with sisters - mothers with sons - fathers with daughters..."
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Cain also committed the first murder. Do you think God approved of that? Of course not. The same goes for original sin. Free will can result in good, or it can result in bad, depending on how it is executed. Reductionism is a typical ploy of most atheists, as is attacking singular passages or events from the Bible (usually out of context) in an attempt to destroy the appertaining validity. Fails every time. ;-)

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Phaedrus,

It was allowable to some extent back in those days. If a woman had to sleep with her father to have kids, so be it... To be without children was to have the "curse of god" upon you.

Therefore morals, principles and ethics were not an issue in regards to propagation. The important thing was to have children, at any cost. I cannot imagine a daughter having to sleep with her father and a father having to sleep with his daughter, for any reason, especially in the name of God. That must have cut across the very fabric of their consciences, so to speak.
 
inspector

Cain also committed the first murder. Do you think God approved of that?

He must have approved - He allowed Cain to marry and have children with his own sister according to you. Apparently Cain lived long enough to build a city. Cains descendents could very possibly be rulers and heros of countries, men of wealth, power and fame. Surely God would have Cain's lineage "nipped in the bud," as it were.

btw- what about my other questions on genetics ? Did you not realize that God could never stop man from interbreeding - think about it. Man's relatives are everyone everywhere.

Reductionism is a typical ploy of most atheists, as is attacking singular passages or events from the Bible (usually out of context) in an attempt to destroy the appertaining validity. Fails every time.

Your matter-of-fact statement is of course only your opinion and is not necessarily shared by others.

One should never assume a victorious battle has won the war. ;)
 
That must have cut across the very fabric of their consciences, so to speak.
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This part is not true. You have to put it back into cultural context, as you do with most of it. If you read any text, you have to put it into context. It was ok back then because their "race" so to speak, was most important to them. While I could not imagine living in a world like this, I still would not hold something against them that was acceptable back then. That would be like some christian holding against Plato the fact that he was a bisexual (even though I would argue he was a homosexual.) I will say that I do not hold this against anyone, I am only giving an example, so do not feel any need to attack. You cannot say "Plato was a bad person because he was a homosexual" when you put it into historical context. Most people during his time in Athens did partake of activities that we would call homosexual (males, generally not females). However I hope that no one would hold it against them (then or now), because during his time is was practiced widely. How can you apply your moral codes and ethics on a person who lived thousands of years ago in a completely different cultural situation?

- Phaedrus
 
Phaedrus

While I could not imagine living in a world like this, I still would not hold something against them that was acceptable back then.... How can you apply your moral codes and ethics on a person who lived thousands of years ago in a completely different cultural situation?

Good answer. But I wonder what caused the change to occur from this acceptable/immoral state (from our point of view) to an acceptable/moral state as indicated by the passage above quoted by inspector:

"‘No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD," (Lev. 18:6).
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I don't think inspectors explanation to this occurrence is valid. He cites the gene pools declining ability to sustain interbreeding.
 
inspector

Tell me, is the math really that simple ?

The Bible does tell us "after Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years," and it also tells us that "he had other sons and daughters." (Genesis 5:4 ).
In fact, the genealogy in Genesis 5 records that every descendant of Adam down to Lamech had "other sons and daughters," some born to men who were on the wrong side of 180 years. People up to this point in Biblical history had very long life spans thereby substantially increasing their childbearing years, which means there could have been a out-and-out population explosion in a relatively short period of time.

If Eve’s childbearing years were about 500 and they had their first child at about the age of 50 and another child every five years, it is not outside the realm of possibility that he had sisters from whom he picked a wife even before he left. However had he waited to marry until he was about 200 years old, he probably had more than a few women to choose from, some of whom could have left for Nod before he did. In fact the world's population could have approached a few billion by the time of Adam's death at the age of approximately 900, and at least 120,000 people could have been alive on earth within only a few hundred years. The math is simple…
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http://www.inplainsite.org/html/finding_a_wife_for_cain.html
 
"I don't think inspectors explanation to this occurrence is valid."
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Thanks for your opinion.





".........which means there could have been a out-and-out population explosion in a relatively short period of time."
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Note the phrase, "there could have been". Of course, I can equally claim that the accounts of the Bible "could have been" accurate in it's context, which BTW, has been proven archaeologically and textually consistent.





"If Eve’s childbearing years were about 500 and they had their first child at about the age of 50 and another child every five years, it is not outside the realm of possibility that he had sisters from whom he picked a wife even before he left."
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Note the first word, "if". Of course, we can theorize all day long about what took place 6,000 years ago. However, all theories would be subjective and open to criticism.





"Tell me, is the math really that simple ?"
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Back to reductionism, can everything be reduced to mathematical equations? Evolutionists say no, when I recite the mathematical impossibilities of abiogenesis.

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It has not been shown that abiogenesis is a mathematical impossibility. There are many factors to take into account in calculating the probability of it occuring, many of which are quite uncertain given our present state of knowledge. All current estimates of the probability of abiogenesis by chance are just that - estimates. Some estimates put the chances as very low; others put them as quite high. We just don't know what the best answer is right now.
 
Not to mention there may very well be some mechanism that triggers abiogenesis that we have not yet discovered. We assume amino acids must have combined in many ways quite randomly until life was formed, but perhaps there is some mechanism that guides the amino acids to combine only in certain ways. We simply don't know yet.
 
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

For some idea of the "improbability" of some type of abiogenesis to occur, given the right mechanism and circumstances. Not that improbable after all. The question really is, can we discover a method by which life may have used to begin on its own? Perhaps the first steps were needed off planet, and only then could something grow here.
 
NOD

Hello, about the Cain in ther land of Nod, we all know that places are named after people, and so Nod was a pre-adamic person and settlement.:m: thanks
 
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