If Adam and Eve were the first man and woman and Cain and Abel were the first children,.. then where did Cain and Abel get their wives from? I heard different answers before and always wondered this.
First some background info.
The bible only lists the males in their genealogy. If women are mentioned, it's because they are necessary to the story. The line of heredity went from 1st born male to 1st born son. Reason is because from the beginning, they were expecting Jesus and the 1st born male got a double portion of the inheritance. Cain was only the firstborn male. And most Jewish scholars are of the opinion that Cain and Abel were twins. Reason for that being that everywhere else, the bible usually says ----and so, and, so knew his wife and she conceived and bare a child. With Cain,
Gen 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
Gen 4:2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
There is no sense of time elapsing and then Adam knew his wife again and she bore---it goes immediately into and she again bare. So, it may very well be. Anyway, Eve could have had several female children first before Cain. There is nothing that says how old Cain or Able were when Cain killed Abel. And there is nothing that states when Cain married. It sounds as though they were already grown, having their own sacrifices which where traditional offered by the head of each family unit. There could have been several females by the time this happened, and actually, their could have been many children for Abel, but his progeny would not have been recorded for Cain was the inheritor. When Cain killed Abel, he was kicked out of the family circle and he left and he had a firstborn, male and he was Enoch. The firstborn inheritor for Adam would have gone to Abel after Cain left, if he had not been killed. So then the 1st born inheritor became Seth. By the time Cain went out of the family, he and Abel could have had several female children, but Abel's female or male children would not have been mentioned. The line of descent then went from Adam to Seth and Abel, nor Cain, are mentioned in the genealogy again.
By the time Cain went out, there could have been countless number of children born. They married their sisters. It was no sin, there was no one else, and the reason for no close relations marrying was due to genetics. Before then, there were no genetic flaws nor diseases to pass on. Abraham was married to his 1/2 sister. If your read the stories, many of the patriarchs were very closely related, Jacob married his 1st cousin Rachel. That became a no-no much later, when God gave the laws to Moses.
Today, one woman has given birth to over 24 children in a little over 30 years. Eve was completely free of flaws and lived hundreds of years (no age is given for her when she died). Eve could have given birth to several hundred children, easily, and many of them could have been multiple births, by the time Cain went out, and her daughters would have started baring children also. One woman could actually give birth to a whole city! Cain had plenty of sisters to choose from. By the time Adam and Eve died, they were elbow deep in progeny.
