Cain's Wife

A couple of weeks ago I had an opportunity to think about what I call "Cain's wife" questions.

See, when it comes to the scriptures, there's only two kinds of questions.  "Salvation questions", such as "What must we do to be re-united with our Heavenly Father after we die?" and "Cain's wife questions" as in, "So, where did Cain get his wife?"

The most asked about and yet unknown woman in history.

The second one may need some explanation.  You see, some skeptics, atheists, agnostics and just general smart alecs, like to ask the believer, "Hey, if the Bible's true, where did Cain get his wife?"

As only four people had been listed out (Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel) when Cain killed Abel and went off to the land East of Eden and "knew his wife", that's supposed to be a real theological stumper.

Of course, the truth is that his wife was simply the daughter of a brother of his who had not been specifically named.  This is not hard to understand, nor even scientifically impossible, given that by any theoretical model we started out with a very scant breeding set anyway.

Yet it is the Standard Skeptic Question that believers can expect to hear from an atheist they meet.  It might seem like they are just playing Bible Trivia, but in reality, they intend those questions as a stumbling block to the unwary or unschooled.  One is supposed to hear that, slap their forehead, and say, "Oh, goodness!  If I don't know that, and if no one can answer that, then it must all be a lie!"

Silly, but that's how many atheists/agnostics think we'll think.

Now, every "Cain's wife question", from "How come there was light and dark before the sun was created?" to "Was the great fish that swallowed Jonah an Orca or a Sperm whale?" has an answer.  And it's an answer that you'll get to hear of in what to you will just seem a few more decades, if after death and resurrection you still care to ask.

But the real important focus should be on "Salvation Questions".  Who is our neighbor?  What commandments do we follow?  Which church is true?  What does Christ want of us? and such like that.

What to do when someone asks you a "Cain's wife question"?  You can just point the above out - that some questions are of direct and real importance, and others are just fun or entertaining to speculate on while we're studying scripture for nobler reasons.  Or you can provide some "reasonable explanations", if you think they're being honestly curious and not messing with you.

Like I was asked once, "Did people really live to 900 years in Genesis?"  To which I said, "Well, maybe it was because they were closer to the original creation and hadn’t degenerated as much.”  “How can you know that?”, was the follow up, to which I answered, “I don’t.  I said ‘maybe’.  Again, after you die, you’ll be asleep, then when you wake up, if you’re still curious, you can ask then!”

Because that's what it all comes back to, when it comes to scripture questions.  Does it aid you in your salvation, or is it just "Bible Trivia" at best, or a "stumbling block" at worse?  If it's the second, then a good believer confronted this way - or anyone else - will bring it back to a "Salvation Question".