The Importance of Insignificant Questions

“Where did Cain get his wife?” This seems like an insignificant question. Do many people really ask it?

Absolutely! It’s a classic question that is still very common today. It’s a good, logical question.

Why do you think it is such a popular question, and what does it say of people who are asking it?

I believe it’s popular because it comes so early in the biblical text. It makes sense to ask this question as you read through Genesis 4. The chapter mentions only four people on the earth—Adam and Eve and their two sons, Cain and Abel. So where did this woman come from?

Some people ask this question because they are trying to find mistakes to discount the Bible; others are just trying to understand a detail that seems, at first glance, to be missing.

If every human came from Adam and Eve, where did Cain get his wife?

We find the answer later in Genesis 5:4: “The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters” (emphasis added). According to Jewish tradition, Adam and Eve had 33 sons and 23 daughters.

Genesis 2:24 and 3:20 teach that all people descended from Adam and Eve. That means, originally, close relatives like brothers and sisters married. So Cain married a sister or possibly a niece.

Scripture doesn’t explicitly name Cain’s wife. How can we be sure he married a sister or niece?

Adam and Eve’s lineage is the only human lineage that has ever existed. There is only one race, the human race (Acts 17:26). All people who have ever lived can trace their family tree back to the first two supernaturally created people, Adam and Eve (1 Corinthians 15:45).

There’s only one race, so it’s inevitable that Cain married a relative. In fact, if you’re married, you are married to a relative—just a distant relative.

Isn’t it wrong to marry a close relative?

Not until 2,500 years after creation, at the time of Moses, did God prohibit the marrying of close relatives (Leviticus 18:6). People often wonder why it was once okay to marry a close relative if God later forbade it. It really has to do with genetics. Humans have accumulated mutations (damaged genetic information) within their DNA for thousands of years. Close relatives are likely to have mutations, which can result in a birth defect if both parties pass on those mutations. But when a person marries a distant relation, that person’s good genes would tend to mask the other’s bad ones, helping to prevent birth defects.

But this was not a problem in the beginning. Adam and Eve’s genetic makeup was perfectly designed straight from the hand of God. When sin and the curse entered the world, mutations showed up, but they were limited for quite a while. So originally, marrying a close relative was no problem. Eventually, though, those mutations accumulated and became dangerous to future generations. That’s when God stepped in with the law.

Why is this seemingly insignificant topic relevant to the Genesis message and even the gospel?

Seemingly trivial questions such as “Where did Cain get his wife?” are tied to the Bible’s authority as a source of truth.

Seemingly trivial questions such as “Where did Cain get his wife?” are tied to the Bible’s authority as a source of truth. For that reason, they are intimately connected to the gospel.

Many people today refuse to accept the gospel as truth because they reject the book the gospel comes from. They are convinced that the Bible has been disproved by secular ideas such as the big bang, evolution, ape-men, and an earth that is millions of years old.

When Christians can’t answer questions—such as this one about Cain’s wife—their inability to explain can be a hinderance. So when they say, “The important thing is to trust in Jesus,” the logical response is, “If the Bible is wrong about history, then why trust what it says about eternal salvation?” The evolutionary view of history undermines the Bible’s authority, including what Scripture says about sin and salvation.

But Christians find the answers they need when they stand boldly on God’s Word. Only then can they confidently defend their faith and proclaim the gospel to the glory of God (2 Corinthians 10:5; 1 Peter 3:15).