Hi Pastor John,
During our Old Testament class* we are taking with Mark, Brad and Allison, Mark asked, “where did the other people come from?” Today, Michelle and I were listening to one of the CD’s, God is punishing Cain to be cut off. Our question is where did the other people come from that caused Cain to be afraid? Up to this point all we know are the descendants from Adam, no one else.
Thank you,
Kevin
==========
Hi, Kevin.
You all are doing a good thing, going through the online Old Testament class.
As you continue through the Old Testament, and the New, for that matter, you will find that there are stories that leave off a critical time element, so that the events seem out of sync, if not impossible. I suspect that is the case here. The story you mentioned makes it seem as if Adam only had two children, Cain and Abel, at the time Cain murdered Abel. But those two sons were both grown at the time (just how old they were, we cannot say), and I assume that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters during the previous years. Apparently, Adam’s sons and daughters married one another. As Adam’s family expanded, there would have been quite a few children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, etc., and they could not all have lived in the same area.
Adam would have had a multitude of children over his lifetime: “And the days of Adam after he fathered Seth were eight hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. And all of the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died” (Gen. 5:4–5). And after earth’s population increased sufficiently, God forbade marriages of close kin. Before then, however, very close kin could marry. Abraham and Sarah were half-brother and sister, and God was OK with that in their time, but in the law (centuries later), God plainly forbade such marriages (Lev. 18:9, 11).
There are many unanswered, and unanswerable, questions about the earliest days of earth (Genesis 1–11), and we wonder about such things, but we have to stay focused on what is revealed. Moses told Israel: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but things that are revealed belong to us and to our children”.
That’s the best I can do with your question because the Bible does not deal with that issue. It’s one of those “secret things that belong to God”. So, I just say “OK”, and move on to learn those things God has revealed.
Thanks for the question. A lot of people have wondered about that, including me.
Pastor John