Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Dear Deni,

First of all, when you cut and paste from a website, please take the time to
"clean up" the text and delete various links and the like. Remember that
people have different email programs, some of which only read plain text. 

As far as your question, I'm not really sure what the problem is. It plainly
says that Adam and Eve had other children besides Cain, the deceased Abel
and Seth. Who else could the first generation of children have married if
not their siblings? Whether Cain did so before or after the birth of Seth
seems to be irrelevant - the narrative first finishes with Cain and then
turns to Seth and his lineage (which ends up as the "chosen" line, because
only it survived the flood), and then mentions that Adam and Eve had other
sons and daughters. The chronological order is not important; the Bible is
not a "chronicle". "Ein Muqdam Umeuxar BaTorah" - "There is no early and
late in the Torah"

Yigal Levin

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Dianne Burke
Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 7:22 PM
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [b-hebrew] Genesis 5:3-5

Hello everyone.

This passage has haunted me for a long long time.

>From the (NET)

Genesis 5
<http://net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Gen&chapter=5&verse=3>

5:3 <http://net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Gen&chapter=5&verse=3> When
<http://net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Gen&chapter=5#n6>Adam had lived
130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to
his image, and he named him Seth.

5:4 <http://net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Gen&chapter=5&verse=4> The length
of time Adam lived
<http://net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Gen&chapter=5#n7> after he became
the father of Seth was 800 years;
* during this time he
had<http://net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Gen&chapter=5#n8>other<http://net.bi
ble.org/bible.php?book=Gen&chapter=5#n9>sons
and daughters
*.
<http://net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Gen&chapter=5&verse=5>

5:5 <http://net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Gen&chapter=5&verse=5> The entire
lifetime <http://net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Gen&chapter=5#n10> of Adam was
930 years, and then he died.

<http://net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Gen&chapter=5#n11>
 <http://net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Gen&chapter=5&verse=6>
The orthodox view is that Cain, in the previous Chapter left the presence of
God and married one of his sisters.  However from the verse above, it seems
that only after Seth was born THEN Adam and Eve had other sons and
daughters, which means that there is a possibility that there were other
people who existed outside the primal family designated by God.

My question is:  Is the NET rendering of Genesis 5:4 correct?  Specifically,
what I underlined.  Because if this is the correct reading and Genesis is to
be taken somewhat literally then Cain could not have married his sister.

My apologies if this has been brought up recently.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Dianne "Deni" Burke
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