Introduction
ALMOST AS FAR back as I can remember, I have heard
casual critics ask, somewhat cynically, "Where did Cain get his wife?"
To the answer "He married his sister, of course," the usual reply
was, "That's not likely. The Bible expressly forbids incest and modern
research shows that incest is deleterious."
Curiously enough, this question of long standing has a significance quite
beyond the mere satisfaction of curiosity. It can be used to illustrate
a number of important aspects relating to the accuracy and inspiration of
Scripture and the reasonableness of the Christian faith as a whole.
For one thing, the findings of modern research, as we shall show, do not
merely bear out the undesirable effects of consanguineous marriage--a fact
entirely in keeping with the prohibition in Leviticus 18:9 introduced many
centuries later than Cain--but also bear out the fact that as we retreat
into the past, the cause of this currently deleterious result is progressively
reduced so that with perfect reason we may extrapolate backward until we
reach a time when such consanguinity would almost certainly not be harmful
at all.
The second point is that Scripture does not leave us in the dark on the
matter, but provides us with data capable of statistical analysis which
shows that--while the writers themselves may not have been aware of the
significance of some of the things they set down--they were nevertheless
guided by inspiration to set forth the data they did record in sufficient
detail that modern researchers into human genetics might, had they had sufficient
faith in the Word of God and perception of its potential as a source of
information, have at least anticipated certain current findings in genetics
by merely studying it. Thus, far from being outmoded and childishly inaccurate,
the Bible proves to contain information which, when properly understood,
is completely up-to-date and scientifically of predictive value.
The third thing which we may observe is that problems of this kind can often
be solved by an appeal to Scripture itself, provided we accept the basic
principle that the whole of Scripture is a dependable source of 1ight
upon itself. In other words, the Bible is one Book, self-consistent, and
most illuminating when it is most completely and wholly believed. It is
safe to accept the whole, but not safe to pick and choose what one will
accept and what one will reject. If we trust the record throughout, we are
on safe ground and ultimately will find our faith vindicated.
IN PRIMITIVE societies it is a general rule that brothers do not marry their sisters. The strictest of taboos are applied to this particular form of incest. Yet, from certain points of view, close inbreeding--especially within a family of prominence--has something to commend it when considered from the social and economic point of view: both material wealth and wealth in the form of rights or privileges are by this means kept closely within the family. An excellent example of this was to be found among the Incas, where the right to marry within the clan, and indeed to any who were first degree relatives, was reserved for the chiefs primarily to protect the interests of the royal house. According to Felip Huaman Poma de Ayala in his El Primer Nuevo Chronica Y Buen Gobierno, published in Paris in 1926, the formal Inca statement was: (1)
We, the Inca, order and decree that no one shall marry his sister or his mother, nor his first cousin, nor his aunt, nor his niece, nor his kinswoman, nor the godmother of his child, under penalty of being punished and of having his eyes pulled out...because only the Inca is allowed to be married to his carnal sister....
In "modern" times the maintenance of rights within a family by this means is best exemplified in the royal families of Europe, the right in this instance being the right of holding dominion rather than material wealth per se--since many royal families are impoverished. But as is well illustrated in the case of the Spanish royal family, close inbreeding has had a very deleterious effect. Charles Blitzer, writing of this family, spoke of Charles II in the following way: (2)
Charles II of Spain, the most grotesque monarch of the seventeenth century, had been a travesty of a king. Generations of royal intermarriage had culminated in Charles in a creature so defective in mind and body as to be scarcely even a man. He was born in 1661, the product of his father's old age, and his brief life consisted chiefly of a passage from prolonged infancy to premature senility.
He could not walk until he was ten, and was considered to be too feeble for the rigours of education. In Charles, the famous Hapsburg chin reached such massive proportions that he was unable to chew, and his tongue was so large that he was barely able to speak.
Lame, epileptic, bald at the age of 35, Charles suffered one further disability, politically more significant than all the rest: he was impotent.
The Medici family--beginning with Giovanni di Bicci de Medici (1360-1429) and ending, in one line, with Catherine de Medici (1519-1589) who married Henry II of France--provides us with another instance where inbreeding clearly affected viability. The members of the family for successive generations traced through two lives lived shorter and shorter, with the notable exception of Catherine herself. These two lines are given below with their life spans indicated by years rather than dates, to simplify the figures (3).
Other branches of the family seemed to have done
very much better, a fact which suggests that marriages further afield led
to the birth of quite normally viable offspring.
While it is customary to assume that close inbreeding has always a
damaging effect, this is not strictly true--as is evident in the case of
the Inca rulers, whose royal prerogative it was to marry sisters. Indeed
there could conceivably be a connection between a ruling house and incestuous
marriage, for genetic reasons. In antiquity and during periods when ruling
houses were first establishing themselves, only such families as produced
a line of particularly energetic and forceful individuals would be likely
to come to power. It might very well be evidence of exceptional breeding
(in the genetic sense) that a line could survive the potential hazards of
inbreeding such as are involved in a series of brother-sister marriages.
That a particular "house" could so inbreed successfully might
quite rightly establish that house as an exceptional one from the genetic
point of view. A Royal House may therefore have been any house which could
successfully mate in this incestuous way and not witness any ill effects,
while at the same time accumulating and consolidating its wealth and prestige.
At any rate, the Incas were a notable royal house and certainly practiced
incest over a considerable number of generations without ill effect. As
Murdock said: (4)
The long line of Inca emperors reveals only one man of mediocre talents; all the rest displayed exceptional energy, resourcefulness, tolerance, and magnanimity in the conduct of affairs. Certainly no dynasty with a higher average order of capacity has graced a throne in the whole of human history.
It is well known that the Ptolemies also married
their sisters in order to maintain the integrity of material wealth and
rights, and the experiment was not without success if Cleopatra is any indication.
This notable woman represented the seventh generation of such brother-sister
marriages. There is some evidence, I believe, that her young brother was
showing signs of mental deficiency, a circumstance which, if it is true,
might be an indication that the inbreeding process was just beginning to
break down and the line was at the end of its genetic good fortune.
Other royal families, the Alii among the Hawaiians, for example, and the
Singhalese (5) must be counted among those who practiced this principle
of brother-sister marriages. Against this background one may remember that
among the common people such marriages were taboo. Primitive people are
highly observant and quickly learn to avoid doing things which reduce the
viability of their community as a whole. Experience taught these that the
children of brother-sister matings were in one way or another apt to be
less healthy than the children of those who married more distant relatives.
But it seems likely that these people also observed rather quickly that
the wealth of a family was dissipated when the various children married
at too great a distance in terms of blood relationship. Hence almost all
such people laid down rules which, while forbidding marriage to a brother
or a sister, also frowned on marriage to anyone who was only remotely related;
in the latter case, the bride price paid by the groom or the dowry brought
by the bride tended to pass out of the family's control. They therefore
bracketed the range of relationship within which one might marry, avoiding
the extremes. Indeed, in most cases the relationship considered ideal was
the marriage of cousins, a practice almost universal among primitive people.
Now, the judgment made by the general public in such a case might very well
have been firmly founded upon fact: namely, such a family was, in their
genetic makeup, truly an outstanding one. This observation makes perfectly
good sense when it is realized that through the centuries we have accumulated
individually so much low-grade genetic material that when brothers and sisters
marry, the same particular kind of low-grade material finds expression in
the offspring in a reinforced way, in a way which will be examined a little
more fully subsequently; the end result is that such children are apt to
be much below average in many different ways. As we shall show, experience
fully bears this out, and theory has reached such a point of refinement
that geneticists can often predict quite accurately the degree of probability
of detrimental traits that will appear in such children. Thus, when brothers
do marry sisters without such deleterious effects, we have to all intents
and purposes good evidence that quite by chance they have inherited a less
damaged genetic constitution.
Although I do not have available all the information that would be required
to substantiate what I wish to propose below, I think we may well have in
recent times a good illustration of these general principles. I have in
mind a very primitive people in South India known as the Toda, (6) who practice
polyandry--that is, several men (normally brothers) share one woman who
becomes wife to them all. In writing of these people, George Murdock referred
to them as a "race of superb men and hideous women." Elie Reclus,
in his work on comparative anthology titled Primitive Folk, also
refers to the splendid character (within the context of their culture) of
Toda males. And he added this remark, which is apropos: (7)
Marriage between relatives has had no dire consequences in this tribe, which, though it has practiced the closest endogamy (marriage within the family) for centuries, possesses an athletic constitution and pleasing exterior, and is famed for the gentleness of its manners, and the peacefulness and tranquillity of its way of life.
Although toward the end of the last century the
Toda were apparently beginning to decline as a consequence of their contact
with more highly civilized people and the breaking up of their own native
customs, we have sufficient evidence from the studies of W. H. R. Rivers
and others that close intermarriage had not proved detrimental to
these people in the way that it habitually does among other peoples, whether
primitive or highly civilized. Some fortuitous circumstance had therefore
preserved among these people a genetic strain less damaged with the passage
of time than most of us share. It is apparent, therefore, that not only
so-called royal families but even whole tribes may closely intermarry with
impunity upon certain occasions, while others cannot do so without disastrous
results.
Let us therefore examine the factors which determine when brother-sister
marriages will be harmful and when they will not: and in what form the degeneration
is likely to show up. And let us consider why this effect results. It will
be necessary to attempt to do this without becoming too involved in the
jargon of the geneticists; thus some statements may be somewhat unsatisfactory
from the point of view of the experts, an ever-present danger when oversimplification
is required.
Inherited Potential
When a man and a woman are mated, each passes onto
their children one half of the inherited potential they themselves have
received from their parents. Present indications are that the characteristics
which each will contribute to the child are carried by genes. For each character
that a man or a woman may contribute to his offspring, there are usually
two alternatives--or to put it another way, the potential is in duplicate
and at the present moment chance appears to govern which of the two
alternative contributions the individual will pass on. For example, a brown-eyed
parent may pass on to his children that which will give them blue eyes instead
of brown eyes like his own.
There are a very large number of alternatives, as for example the control
of hair color (fair or dark). Modern research into the nature of these controlling
genes (and there are thousands of them in each individual) has shown that
for one reason or another, these genes get damaged and appear in a condition
which is called mutant. Normally a gene once mutated remains mutated, i.e.,
damaged, as it is passed through each successive generation. The inevitable
conclusion of this finding is that the amount of material controlling inheritance
becomes increasingly damaged in its nature with each successive generation.
In other words, each generation may be expected to be less viable in some
way than the preceding one, even though the damage may be so small as to
be, to all intents and purposes, of little consequence.
Now, if a parent with a particular damaged gene complex passes onto a son
and a daughter this damaged material, these offspring will both share damage
at the same point (or locus) in their own gene complexes. Should these two
marry, in their mating the particular segments of damaged material are bound
to be brought together in a way that enormously reinforces their power to
effect the growing embryo detrimentally. On the other hand, if such a son
marries a girl from some other family who, although suffering genetic damage
like the rest of us, has not inherited damage at the same place in the gene
chain, the effect of bringing the two "damages" together is likely
to be much less serious, for the areas of damage do not coincide. For this
reason, marriages are safer from the physiological point of view when the
two parties do not share the same kind of damage in their genetic make-up
at the same locus.
At the beginning of this grossly oversimplified statement, I said that the
amount of damaged material increases with each generation. It follows logically,
therefore, that each previous generation has suffered less genetic damage.
We can extrapolate backward in time until we begin to reach a point at which
damage to the genetic material would be vastly less than it now is: logically,
if we go back far enough, it would not exist at all. It is true that this
may not be a straight line function, that the improvement in reverse may
follow a curve which slows up in its approach to perfection and never quite
reaches it. This is possible. There is no need to make this assumption,
however. There is no reason at all why the first human beings may not have
had a perfect constitution, in which case brother-sister marriages at the
time would be absolutely harmless.
Before we return once more to this aspect of the paper, let us look briefly
at some of the present evidence for the detrimental effect of close-relationship
marriages. The underlying causes for the deleterious effects of incestuous
matings are pretty well understood and have been variously expressed. For
those who have some knowledge of and interest in the more basic principles
of human genetics, the following miscellany of quotations will perhaps be
of value and, taken as a whole, state the case clearly enough. For example,
Bentley Glass, in a paper which gives some consideration to the possibility
of "improving" the human stock by inbreeding in the way this is
done with plants, made the following observation: (8)
Within the past three centuries human populations have increased enormously in size, and an approach to panmixia has become characteristic of the major races of the world population. The result of this has been to render man a highly heterozygous animal. Beneath the facade of dominant traits expressed in the phenotype of each individual, there lies concealed a great number of unmanifested recessive genes, kept in a heterozygous condition within the population. From studies of mutation in man, mouse, and Drosophila it is apparent that the manifestation of the majority of these recessives would be deleterious in most, if not all, environments. In fact, one quarter to one third of them are lethal when homozygous.
New lethal and deleterious mutations arise in each generation at an average frequency that is estimated to be of the order of 1 in 100,000 per locus per gamete, or higher. The number of different genes (i.e., loci) in man may be taken as 10,000 or perhaps even 40,000. It follows that at least one gamete in ten will bear a new mutant, nearly always of a lethal or detrimental sort. The effect of these is not normally evident, since they are kept heterozygous. Any return of the human population to closer inbreeding may be expected to bring these recessive traits to the surface....
Human pure lines selected for (say) intelligence would most probably be weak in vigour, low in fertility, and beset by numerous hereditary defects.
From a mathematical point of view, the situation may be put in this way: matings among first cousins (as in Darwin's case, for example, or his sister Caroline's case) result in the offspring having identical genes in a ratio of 1 to 7. (9) Many of these genes will be recessive mutants and therefore detrimental to the possessor when inherited homozygously. Mating of uncle to niece, or nephew to aunt, raises this ratio to 1 to 3. Matings among brothers and sisters raises this ratio, often disastrously, to 1 to 1.
Willard F. Hollander, in an article significantly titled, "Lethal Heredity," commented on this situation as follows: (10)
Sometimes a mutation is so radical that nothing can be done to prolong the animal's life to maturity. This is what is known as a lethal mutation. Often it kills the animal while it is still an embryo. Most lethal mutations are recessive, however, and are carried unsuspected by normal appearing animals...
The quickest way to expose lethal traits is by intense and continued inbreeding. In man such matings are generally illegal or tabu; the experience of the race indicates bad results...the outcome is generally detrimental. When inbreeding begins, the heredity seems to be breaking down. All sorts of defects and weaknesses appear. The average life span decreases. After a few generations the family often becomes extinct.
We shall have occasion to return to this latter
aspect of the problem, but we may just note here Hollander's conclusion.
(11) "The abundance of hidden lethals and hereditary defects exposed
by inbreeding must be seen to be believed. It seems safe to say that very
few individuals of an ordinary mixed population fail to harbor one or more.
Whence came this multitude of skulking malefactors?" To this last point
we must likewise return subsequently, for the perceptive reader may already
have noticed that animals are afflicted with these imperfections as well
as man and they cannot therefore be attributed in a direct way (at least
insofar as animals are concerned) to a fallen nature. The fall of man may
be the originating cause, but this cause cannot be applied directly to
animals unless animals are included among sinners--though Scripture has
intimations even for this....(12)
Under normal circumstances inbreeding, therefore, leads to a decline in
overall vigor for a number of generations. In many cases the detriment is
so severe that the line becomes extinct. However with very careful management
such inbred lines, if they can be preserved through ten or twelve
generations, tend to settle down in a modified form, i.e., with a somewhat
different character. This different character may turn out to be a desirable
one from the breeder's point of view, having lost certain of its former
strengths and accumulating many new weaknesses, but having also acquired
some new quality which the breeder had particularly in mind. This is true
of corn, for example. (13) If the inbreeding can be arranged from widely
separated lines, the hybrids generally turn out to be more vigorous. This
sounds like a contradiction. What is actually meant is that--by inbreeding
one line in one geographic locality until it is highly degenerate and perhaps
barely surviving, and at the same time inbreeding another line in another
geographic location until it too is degenerate--if the two inbred degenerate
lines are now crossed, the resulting breed may be more vigorous than it
would have been if the originals had merely been crossed without first producing
the degenerate types. It is not necessary to go into the causes of this
somewhat odd but most useful discovery, it is necessary only to include
it in this discussion because one commonly hears the statement made that
inbreeding produces superior stocks. This is true of plants and of some
animals, and it is conceivable that it might be true of human beings. But
in the process, the lines degenerate seriously or may die out completely.
On the basis of this theoretical understanding of what is happening, it
might be supposed--and the supposition is borne out by experience--that
in a small population which is multiplying there may appear at first an
extraordinary diversity of types. Not all mutations expressed homozygously
are lethal, but they are all likely to be more or less effective in substantially
modifying the bearer's physical type. As Lebzelter pointed out, a small
group of people will share a basically homogeneous culture but show great
physical diversity, whereas a larger community of people (because mutant
genes are less likely to appear homozygously) will show greater uniformity
of physical type but allow a larger measure of cultural variability. (14)
This may very well account for the fact that early man seems to have proliferated
types (forerunners of races) in a remarkably short time while at the same
time witnessing an amazing measure of cultural conformity. This heterogeneity
of physical type appears even within single families, as for example, in
the Upper Cave at Choukoutien. (15) Early human history may have quickly
witnessed the emergence of all the racial types which we now think we can
recognize in the modern world. There is no need to postulate tremendous
eons of time. I prefer the word emergence: most people would prefer
the word evolution and on the basis of the above reasoning they would
say, as Franklin Shull said, (16) that "if a population is very
large...evolution must be slow under these circumstances," and on the
other hand if the population is too small an inbreeding too frequent, the
population is likely to die out, being overwhelmed by its own defects. Several
royal families have suffered virtual extinction by this very process, and
all because they sought to preserve family lines intact.
In some parts of the world there are isolated communities in out-of-the-way
villages, even in otherwise densely populated areas in which inbreeding
has proceeded for many years. In such communities there is a high incidence
of deaf-mutism. W. L. Ballinger reported in one case that forty-seven marriages
between blood relatives produced seventy-two deaf-mutes. (17) In the same
connection E. B. Dench remarked, "Consanguinity of the parents is among
the most common causes (of diseases in the ear), and the great frequency
of deaf-mutism among the inhabitants of mountain districts is probably to
be explained by the fact that intermarriages are much more common among
such people." (18) Similarly in Lajous' Analytical Cyclopedia of
Practical Medicine, it is noted that "several statistician have
proved that the closer the degree of relationship between parents, the larger
was the number of deaf-mutes born." (19)
In The Lancet, a discussion was reported on the risk taken by parents
who decide to adopt a child born of an incestual relationship It was observed
that, (20)
...medical practitioners are sometimes asked about the advisability of the adoption of a child born as the result of incest. Such children will have an increased risk of being affected by recessive conditions. In order to estimate of the extent of this risk, in 1958 I invited Children's Officers to let me know prospectively of pregnancies or of new births in which it was known that the pregnancy or birth was the result of incest between first degree relatives.
These children were followed prospectively and anonymously through the Children's Officers. The children were known to me by number and correspondence referred only to the child's number. Thirteen cases of incest (6 father-daughter and 7 brother-sister) were reported to me in 1958 and the latest information on them was in midyear 1965 when the children were all 4 to 6 years old. I summarize here the information on these 13 children.
Three children are dead: one at 15 months of cystic fibrosis of the pancreas, confirmed at necropsy; one at 21 months of progressive cerebral degeneration with blindness; and one at 7 years, 11 months of Fallot's Tetratology (this child had an IQ of 70). One child is severely sub-normal, with much-delayed milestones, and was considered non-testable at age 4 years, 9 months, when she had a vocabulary of only a few words. Four children are educatively subnormal; the known IQ of 3 are 59, 65, and 76. The remaining 5 children are normal.
The risk of parents sharing a recessive gene will be four times greater in cases of incest between first degree relatives than it would be between first cousins.
So much, then, for the evidence. Incest today is
clearly detrimental in a very large percentage of cases, the risk
of defective offspring being so high that every civilized country legislates
against the marriage of brothers and sisters. Yet it is a risk rather than
a certainty, an important fact which shows that under certain circumstances
it might be quite safe--though the circumstances under which such a union
could be predicted safe are not known at present. Current genetic theory
does, however, indicate that the number of recessive and damaged genes increases
rather than decreases with each generation. It might be thought that if
there is a steady increase, the complement of genes in each individual would
be by now all damaged in one way or another. Indeed, if the factors which
lead to such damage (certain types of natural and artificial radiation and
some poisons, and so forth) have always been with us--a fact which seems
likely enough for a very large part of human history--and if current theory
about the vast antiquity of man are really sound (which I don't believe
they are), one would have to suppose that the damaging process must by now
have almost completed its task. But evidently, even in comparatively recent
times, this is not the case, for as we have already noted, both Hawaiian
and Incan chiefs successfully married their sisters, and somewhat before
that the Ptolemies did so.
It seems to me, therefore, that the evidence does not on the face of it
bear out the concept of man as already having thousands of successive generations
behind him. The biblical record actually shows only 77 generations from
Adam to Christ, (21) and if we add to this the two thousand years since,
we have something like 100 to 120 generations covering the whole of human
history. Since the accumulation of defective genes is meaningful only in
terms of their effect on succeeding generations, it is not altogether unlikely
that the first human beings (namely, Adam and Eve) were indeed perfect,
and that the damage started to be done following the Fall and has accumulated
ever since at what seems to be a reasonable rate during these 120 generations,
until we reach the present situation in which there are still some possibilities
of successful brother-sister matings though the odds are against it. At
the rate at which these mutations occur in each generation, according to
current genetic theory, one would not expect to find any undamaged segments
of the individuals inherited stock of genes if the human race had been multiplying
for thousands upon thousands of generations. We would all be so badly damaged
by now that no brother-sister marriage could possibly succeed any longer.
On the other hand, taking the biblical story as it stands, Adam's sons and
daughters (Gen. 5:4), of whom Cain was one and his wife another, need not
have been carriers of any more than a mere token of damaged genetic stock.
Such a marriage need not have endangered the offspring.
There is, surprisingly enough, direct evidence in Scripture that this interpretation
of the events is strictly true. We are first of all presented with a list
of immediate descendants for some ten generations from Adam to Noah who
enjoyed what must be described as magnificent viability. Consider for a
moment what was happening during this period of time. Prior to the Flood,
man may well have been shielded against at least one source of danger to
the genes namely, cosmic radiation, by the existence of some kind of barrier
in the upper atmosphere. There are many who believe that this barrier disappeared
at the time of the Flood and could indeed have been related to that event.
The pre-Flood population (both men and animals, be it noted)
may therefore have suffered little damage to their genes throughout each
succeeding generation while these environmental conditions existed.
Added to this is the fact that during this time so that, even if some damage
was occurring, it would become less and less necessary for any man to marry
a near relative, thereby avoiding any reinforcement of such gene damage.
For this reason, there is little or no evidence that man, physiologically
considered, was becoming an inferior creature--at least, insofar as his
inherited vigor was concerned: and the same may well have applied to the
animal world.
But then came the Flood, which reduced the world's population to eight souls,
all of whom had now accumulated some damaged genes and were also first-degree
relatives, i.e., Noah and his three sons. The sons and daughters of the
next generation would therefore be also marrying near relatives, and one
could only expect as a consequence that evidence of decreased viability
would begin to show up, while the potential hazard from cosmic radiation
would greatly increase. This could be the answer to Hollander's final query:
inbreeding of a greatly reduced population, and exposure to cosmic radiation
at a new level--both as a consequence of the Flood. This is, of course,
precisely what did happen and precisely at a rate commensurate with the
discovery of modern genetics resulting from experimental inbreeding. Within
ten generations (compare Glass's figures) the life span of post-Flood
individuals, insofar as they are represented by those whose ages are given
in the Bible, had rapidly declined until it was only about one eighth of
the pre-Flood period, thereafter slowly leveling off first to 120 and later
to three score and ten. (22)
All this makes perfectly good sense and accords very satisfyingly with modern
findings, provided that one accepts the whole biblical record just as it
stands.
It has been proposed by some who have due regard
to the Word of God that Cain married the offspring of some other human creatures
who were not descendants of Adam. (23) They argue this on the ground that
Cain would not have expressed any fear of being killed by people who might
find him unless there really were people outside his immediate family in
Adam. But this assumption need not be made at all, because Cain would not
necessarily have knowledge of whether there were or were not other people
in the world; even if he had never seen any, he might very well suppose
that there were, the supposition being all that was needed to make him afraid.
He was simply a man living in fear of suffering at someone else's hand what
he had caused his brother to suffer. He had no way of knowing whether there
were or were not other people in the world: his conscience served to people
it even if no other people had existed.
At the same time, very serious theological problems would arise if Cain
had married outside the family of Adam, since his children and his descendants
would no longer be strictly "in Adam." This difficulty has been
met by some writers by proposing that the Flood destroyed all except those
who belonged to Adam's family. It is possible, of course, that this is so,
but this vast population must still presumably come to the judgment
with all those whom the Flood destroyed, and how then will they be judged?
It does not appear to me that the Bible allows for such a contingency. As
I see it, the redemption that is in Christ was as applicable to Adam and
Cain and all the rest of the patriarchs as it is to ourselves. Would we
not then be faced with a kind of half-applicability to Cain's children,
and a quarter-applicability to his grandchildren, and so on as the line
was diluted--until there is no applicability at all? The very statement
of the situation itself points up the theological problem that such a circumstance
would bring about.
To some extent the above interpretation of the identity of Cain's wife has
been held as an accommodation to anthropological theory which postulates
sub-humans and near-humans at a period in time far antedating the "traditional"
date for the creation of Adam. I do not know the answer to the present conflict
between secular and biblical anthropology, although I am sure we shall see
the answer in due time: but I believe that the Bible itself has gone out
of its way to try to make it clear that Adam really was the only man
at the time of his creation and Eve the only woman at the time of her
formation. Genesis 2:5 tells us that there was not a man to till the ground.
Genesis 2:18 tells us that Adam was quite alone and that this was not good
for him. Then in Genesis 2:20 we are told that although God brought creatures
to Adam who might have been a potential mate for him, there was not found
one that was suitable. Finally, as though the point had still not been made
quite clear, we are told in Genesis 3:20 that Eve became (so the
Hebrew) the mother of all living
Almost any one of these statements by itself might be thought by some people
sufficient to settle the issue. But surely their cumulative effect is about
as conclusive as to the intent of Scripture as any such series of statements
could possibly be. I believe, therefore, that the only position one can
reasonably take in the matter of Cain's wife is that she was one of Adam
and Eve's daughters, i.e., a sister of his for we are told that Adam and
Eve had daughters as well as sons. (24) From there on, everything makes
good sense if one accepts the record as it stands.
One further point only remains to be underscored. This is the perfectly
proper absence (if all that we have said thus far is true) of the slightest
indication that Cain was contravening any existing prohibition against a
brother-sister marriage. His action in destroying his brother is condemned
in no uncertain terms, but there is no reference whatever to the existence
of any prohibition against incest as appears several thousands of years
later in the Book of Leviticus. This not only suggests that the prohibition
did not exist, not at that time being required, but that the writer who
recorded the events of Cain's life lived at a time when brother-sister marriages
were still not viewed as sinful at all.
This absence of any condemnatory note, in a record which elsewhere judges
its "heroes" in no uncertain terms when they contravene the laws
of God, can only be reasonably accounted for on the grounds that this record
as we have it is a contemporary or near-contemporary one and not something
concocted by a self-righteous priestly community living some thousands of
years after the event. Had they been members of such a hierarchy and had
they been knowledgeable enough to realize that the prohibition was not necessary
in Cain's time, one might reasonably expect they would have added in parenthesis
at the appropriate place in the record some little note to the effect that
"at that time there were no laws against incest." As the record
stands, one gets the feeling that the writer was totally unaware of any
potential hazard in brother-sister marriage.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it seems to me that the circumstances
surrounding the identity of Cain's wife have a significance in the light
of Christian faith for the following reasons. First, we know from modern
genetics why incestuous relations are most likely to be damaging to the
offspring. But we also know that by chance such relations may not be
damaging, a fact which demonstrates clearly that under certain circumstances
brother-sister marriage might be not merely acceptable but greatly to be
preferred from certain points of view.
Second, our present understanding of the processes of mutation, whereby
the gene make-up of two proposed marriage partners has become damaged, also
allows us to extrapolate backward into the past and say, with some measure
of assurance, that the further back we go, the less likely are the offspring
to suffer the consequences of inbreeding.
Third, the Bible supplies us with a piece of historic information--namely,
the account of the Flood and how the world's population was reduced to eight
souls--which provides a key to the sudden loss of vitality in terms of longevity
which Scripture states immediately followed the re-peopling of the world.
Fourth, the events recorded in the first few chapters of Genesis indicate
that inbreeding was either comparatively harmless or was carried out with
decreasing frequency as the centuries rolled by from Adam to Noah. In the
case of Cain and his sister, both of whom were siblings in Adam and Eve's
family, the amount of genetic damage carried in the genes must have been
very small indeed. At least this is true if we believe, as I do, that Adam
and Eve themselves were created perfect at first, with no damaged genes.
In short, the circumstances are all of a piece. If we allow the record to
speak for itself, and if on the basis of this record we draw these quite
reasonable conclusions, there is a ring of truth which accords perfectly
with the assured findings of modern human genetics; and this is illuminatingly
illustrated from the subsequent history of, not only single families, but
whole tribes of both civilized and primitive peoples, in both modern and
more distant times.
AT THE TIME this is written, the official position
of anthropology is that man is half a million or more years old. The actual
figure is of no consequence--it is its order of magnitude that counts. The
biblical chronology has been worked out by evangelical scholars like John
Urquhart, Martin Anstey, Philip Mauro, F. A. Jones, and of course Bishop
Ussher, who have concluded that the period which has elapsed since the creation
of Adam is between 6,000 and 10,000 years. The conflict here between secular
science and the Bible seems irreconcilable; one assumes that the data of
one or the other are being mistakenly interpreted or that there were other
human beings besides Adam who not only far antedated him but also probably
survived to be his contemporaries.
One of the earliest presentations of the latter alternative is to be found,
curiously enough, in a book which was published before any fossil remains
had been unearthed and actually labeled as pre-Adamite man. This book was
published originally in 1862 and went through at least five editions. It
was written by a Mrs. George J. C. Duncan and is titled Pre-Adamite Man:
Or the Story of Our Old Planet and Its Inhabitants Told by Scripture and
Science. The publisher was Nisbet and Co., London. Mrs. Duncan argued
first that the evidence that this earth is very old was unquestionable,
and she therefore adopted the view that the days of Genesis were ages. From
this she concluded that the age in which Adam appeared may have seen many
other creatures not unlike himself but not of his line; it was such creatures
as these whom Cain feared would murder him and from among whom he took his
wife. She also believed that they were sinful but "not after the similitude
of Adam" (Rom. 5:14). Some of these "people" may have been
brought to Adam as potential mates but he, in his perfect state, did not
accept any of them as suitable. Although such non-Adamic races may have
multiplied considerably, they were presumably overwhelmed by the Flood.
Nevertheless, some of their "blood" must be assumed to remain
with us to this day, conveyed over the Flood in the family of Noah. Even
in the time of Cain this extra-Adamite population may have been large enough
that Cain would think to build a city as a defense against suspected attack.
Such in very broad outline was Mrs. Duncan's thesis, and for a while it
appears from newspaper reviews of the time to have been much discussed.
Yet in the long run, very few Bible students took it up seriously--partly
because it created some critical problems for the theology of redemption.
In 1871 a book was published anonymously, entitled Primeval Man Unveiled:
Or the Anthropology of the Bible. The publisher was Hamilton, Adams of London,
and the author was probably James Gall. In this volume the author--who had
not at the time of writing it seen Mrs. Duncan's volume, though he acknowledges
having seen it while his own work was on press--took the view that Satan
was lord of a created order of beings who were angels in spirit but enjoyed
also the possession of manlike physical bodies. When these beings were condemned
and Satan robbed of his privileged position as lord of creation, these beings
who acknowledged Satan's lordship were as it were, disembodied and reduced
to that state which brings them to our notice in the New Testament as demons.
This author therefore held that we might expect to find human-like creatures
antedating the appearance of Adam. These again intruded unnaturally into
the physical order through the agency of some of Adam's descendants especially
at the time of the Flood.
Both these volumes are of interest; both were written by people who had
great reverence for the Word of God and sought to bring to bear upon it
usefully what they considered relevant findings of geologists and anthropologists.
Of the two, it appears to me that James Gall created fewer theological problems.
But at present I am persuaded that the attribution to fossil remains of
(a) human status and (b) tremendous antiquity is not yet completely justified.
Neither the methods of establishing genetic relationships of fossil remains
nor the methods of dating these remains yet allow of absolute certainty.
Until this certainty is achieved, it is too soon to decide the issue one
way or the other; it is better to hold fast to a faith in the Word of God
which has often been challenged in similar ways in the past only to be completely
vindicated when sufficient evidence became available, as has happened so
frequently from archaeology. It is true that we may still be troubled with
problems of interpretation of the Word of God. But if the past teaches us
anything, it is surely this, that whenever the evidence from archaeology
is unmistakable, it tends always to support the most literal interpretation
of Scripture that can be allowed in the light of other Scripture. Archaeology
has not supported allegorical interpretations of Scripture, but it has
encouraged the most literal interpretation that the text will allow.
At the present moment there is little agreement among anthropologists as
a whole. They are still searching for a time-frame within which to arrange
their data, a time-frame that is sufficiently dependable to compel assent
among authorities of all schools. At present the diversity of opinion
is considerable.
I am persuaded that the student of the Bible will do well to hold his ground
in the meantime.
References:
1. Felipe de Ayala: quoted by Victor W. von Haggen, Realm of the Incas,
Mentor Books, New York 1957, p. 125
2. Blitzer, Charles; "The Age of the Kings," in Great Ages of Man, Time Inc., New York, 1967, p. 168.
3. Hale, John R, "The Renaissance," in Great Ages of Man, Time Inc., New York, 1965.
4. Murdock, George P., Our Primitive Contemporaries, Macmillan, New York, 1951, p. 417.
5. Alii of Hawaiians: according to Dr. Gorden Brown, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Toronto; Singhalese: Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, Murray, London, 1891, vol. 1, p. 50.
6. Murdock, George P. ref. 4. p. 106.
7. Reclus, Elie, Primitive Folk: Studies in Comparative Ethnology, Scott, London, n.d., p. 200
8. Glass, Bentley, "A Biologic View of Human History," in Sci. Amer. (Dec. 1951), p. 367.
9. Darwin's family: see Donald W. Patten, The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch, Pacific Meridian Publ. Co., Seattle, I , p. 2 , fn 16.
10. Hollander., Willard F.; "Lethal Heredity, in Sci. Amer. (July 1952), pp. 59-60.
11. Ibid., p. 60.
12. The wording of Genesis 3:14 ("above all cattle...") may quite
justifiably be taken to imply that other animals for some reason were involved
in this judgment, a conclusion which would presuppose at least some moral
responsibility on their part. It could be argued that in Jonah 3:8 It is
assumed that the animals were partly involved in Nineveh's wickedness, the
animals also being dressed in sackcloth. The lamb for the sacrifice on the
Day of Atonement was to be a lamb of the first year, which again might suggest
something analogous to an "age of accountability." The ox that
gored a man was to be stoned to death, not merely slaughtered. It is conceivable
that thus was merely to punish the owner by rendering the slaughtered animal
unfit for food, since it would not be properly bled: and the hide itself
would probably be marred. On the other hand, it might be argued that the
ox itself was being punished. Such passages as these are certainly not unequivocal,
but they provide interesting possibilities for further discussion.
13. Inbreeding of corn: Gordon W. Whaley, "The Gifts of Hybridity,"
in Sci. Monthly (Jan. 1950), p. 12.
14. Lebzelter Viktor, Rassengesciche de Menscherit, Salzburg, 1932, p. 27. U. of Chicago Press, 1948. p. 80.
15. Choukoutien diversity : see Franz Weudenreich, Apes, Giants, and Man, U. of Chicago Press 1948, p. 86.
16. Shull, Franklin, Evolution, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1936, p. 146.
17. Ballinger, W. L., Diseases of the Nose, Throat, and Ear, Lea and Febiger, Philadelphia, 8th ed. p. 823
18. Dench, E. B., Diseases of the Ear, Appleton, New York, 1921, p. 694.
19. Lajou, Analytical Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, p. 450: the documentation is unfortunately incomplete.
20. "Risks to Offspring of Incest," in The Lancet, London (Feb. 25, 1967), p. 436.
21. See "Genealogies of the Bible," in The Doorway Papers, Vol. VII.
22. 0n this see "Longevity in Antiquity and Its Bearing on Chronology," Part I in The Doorway Papers, Vol. V.
23. See the next chapter, "Was Cain's Wife
of the Line of Adam?"
24. 0ne further scriptural reference may be mentioned. In Acts 17:26 we
are told that God derived all nations that dwell on the face of the
earth "from one." In the usual Authorized version rendering the
verse reads, "of one blood," but the best manuscripts do not have
the word blood. This could therefore be taken to mean in the most
literal sense that all nations have had their ultimate origins, not merely
in Adam and Eve, but even more specifically--since Eve was taken out of
Adam--in one man, Adam. This would leave even less room for any multiple-origins
theory. I was interested to find this view reflected in the Jesuit commentator
Henricus-Renckent's book, Israel's Concept of the Beginning, Herder
and Herder, New York, 1964, p. 225.
Corrections, May 3, 1997.