Land of Fugitiveness

by I.Wonder 4 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  I.Wonder

  Good Day Everyone!

  Genisis 4:14 says: Here you are actually driving me this day from off the surface of the ground, and from your face I shall be concealed; and I must become a wanderer and fugitive on the earth, and it is certain that anyone finding me will kill me.

  16 says: With that Cain went away from the face of Jehovah and took up residence in the land of Fugitiveness (or Nod') to the east of E´den.

  17 says: Afterward Cain had intercourse with his wife and she became pregnant and gave birth to E´noch. Then he engaged in building a city and called the city’s name by the name of his son E´noch.

  25 says: And Adam proceeded to have intercourse again with his wife and so she gave birth to a son and called his name Seth, because, as she said: "God has appointed another seed in place of Abel, because Cain killed him.

  I heard two men discussing this account today. One was a witness and the other was not. The non-witness fellow felt that the book of Genesis is incomplete and that there very well could have been people living in other lands (such as Nod') that were not descendants of Adam & Eve. The witness fellow said that "The Bible does not tell us how many generations had come to pass at the time of Cain leaving Eden. So Eve could have had other children and they are just not mentioned. So these other children could have moved out of Eden and started families of their own." Then the non-witness said "Well why does the bible say that Eve gave birth to Seth to take the place of Abel? Indicating that Eve had at the time only given birth to two sons and when the one died he needed to be replaced."

  What do you think? What does this account tell us? I am very curious to hear your opinions.

  Very Best Regards,

  I.Wonder
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  Narkissos

  There are a number of narrative gaps in the Genesis story and the well-known problem of Cain's wife is just the tip of the iceberg. One might as well wonder, for instance, who on earth might find Cain and kill him, or avenge him?

  One likely possibility is that the core of the story emerged, not in its present context (Cain as the firstborn son of the "first human pair"), but as an ethnical etiology for the nomadic "Cainites" = Qenites, which are mentioned elsewhere in the Bible (Judges 1:16; 4:11,17; 1 Samuel 15:6; 27:10; 30:29; cf. 1 Chronicles 2:55). Cain (Hebrew qyn, qayin) is their eponym ancestor (same name exactly in Numbers 24:21; Judges 4:11). The story is then meant to explain why the Qenites are wanderers = nomads. The ascription of city-building and techniques to the line of Cain may derive from an independent motif (from the use of the same root in Arabic and Aramaic, qyn can mean "smith"). The connection with Adam and Eve, based on yet another popular etymology or pun (qyn is artificially related to qnh, which may mean either "produce, beget" or "acquire", Genesis 4:1) still comes later in the development of the story. Note also the variant Qenân in the parallel sethite genealogy, which forms a duplicate tradition (5:9).

  So while the story as it stands doesn't make any sense as a narration of "real events," it is a very interesting case of gradual narrative development.
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  Annie Over

  What do you think? What does this account tell us? I am very curious to hear your opinions

  Cain was already married when he killed Abel. He probably married one of his sisters.. The KJV says... "and in the process of TIME,... it came to pass that Cain brought fruit frome the field.... Adam and Eve had been having children all the time before Cain killed Abel, but there was no reason to mention it because nobody had ever killed another before, and there was no reason to have a seed to replace Abel, because Abel wasn't dead yet. These men were grown when Cain killed Abel and probably had more than a hundred brothers and sisters who were marrying eachother and having hundreds more children.
  Genisis doesn't say Cain found his wife in the land of Nod, it says he" knew" or had sex with his wife in the land of Nod and had a child. Once Abel was dead, isn't it logical that Eve would say of her next child, " I now have a son to replace Abel."
  And don't forget about how long those people lived back then, and how old they were when they could still have children... That gave them the chance to populate that part of the Earth very quickly. So even if it happened that Cain did not get married till he got to Nod, the people in Nod would still be his relatives.

  Annie
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  Carmel

  This is the first account of humans engaging in composting! That would lead to enhanced agriculture and the formulation of complex doctrins of dichotomy transfigurations.

  carm
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  I.Wonder

  Thank's to all of you for responding!!

  the formulation of complex doctrins of dichotomy transfigurations.

  You are so right about that!

  Narkissos- I truly appreciate the information you provided! I never really thought of these stories as perhaps many stories put into one. I guess I always viewed them as a "list" of events (whether factual or not).

  Thanks Again,

  I. Wonder