Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear Doug:

I am looking at 4:26, which indicates that people started calling on
the name of the Lord after the birth of Enosh, son of Seth. That's
where I get my 235 years. The verse does not say the name was
previously unknown, nor why people started calling on YHWH. The text
probably gives more questions than answers.

Similarly, the text does not tell how many people were living at that
time, nor how old Qain and Abel were at the time of the murder, nor
answer a bunch of other questions that we have. Abel could have been
well over 100 years old when murdered, the text does not say.

Karl W. Randolph.

On 7/16/06, Revdpickrel AT wmconnect.com <Revdpickrel AT wmconnect.com> wrote:
> In a message dated 7/15/2006 3:08:24 PM Central Daylight Time,
> kwrandolph AT gmail.com writes:
>
>
>
> Is this still that small a family? After all, we are talking 235 years
> after the fall into sin. How many other sons of Adam and Eve had been
> born, only not listed because their descendants all perished in the
> Flood? The daughters were not listed other than the generic notice in
> 5:4. By this time several generations of Qain's family were listed,
> thus the implication is that there were several hundreds, if not
> thousands, by that time. After all, who were the other people that
> Qain was afraid of when he murdered his brother?
>
>
> Karl,
>
> Actually, Karl, according to Genesis 5:3 we're talking about 130 years from
> the creation of Adam to Seth, not 235 years.  Still a small family.
>   Applying modern standards of measurement which says population doubles
> every ten years that would mean by the time Seth was born the earth's
> population was 8,192.  It's hard to imagine that they increased any faster,
> since all the burden was on Adam and Eve to be fruitful: Cain was in the
> land of wandering having babies, Abel was dead, and Seth was a newborn.  It
> is Seth that began to pray (call on the name of the Lord).  Cain's
> descentants became murders: the first record of a serial killer was recorded
> in Cain's seventh generation.
>
>
> Doug.
> Rev. Doug Pickrel, Litt.D.
> Tejas Valley
> San Antonio, Texas