Walking With Christ

Genesis 4:8
Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.(ESV)

While I was walking in my own wilderness, one of the most plaguing questions for me, and one I loved to use as a weapon against Christians, is from Genesis.

Cain killed Able then went to town and chose a wife. Cain and Able are the only children of Adam and Eve listed at this point. Where did the town come from?

A lot of Christians couldn’t answer this question. I heard “I don’t know” quite a bit. The three most common answers to this after “I don’t know” are that Adam and Eve had other children besides Cain and Able that were born before them or possibly born in the garden, and God may have created other people besides Adam and Eve. We know that not all of the children of Adam and Eve are listed in the bible. We also know that the bible does not tell us everything. There are a lot of subjects that the bible doesn’t really touch on. Both answers seem plausible on the surface.

All three answers are wrong. Let me explain.

Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God(ESV)

Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned(ESV)

Cain and Able were the first children of Adam and Eve. We don’t know what age Adam and Eve were when Cain and Able were born. We just know that they were the first. Cain and Able were both born after the fall and we were kicked out of the garden. If Cain or Able had been born before the fall then they would not have inherited sin from Adam. This also tells us that no other children were born in the garden for the same reason. This logic also applies to the idea that God created people other than Adam and Eve, because they did not sin with Adam and Eve. They would have been free from sin.

In Romans 3:23, it says “all” have sinned. In Romans 5:12, it says “through one man”.

Genesis 3:20
The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.(ESV)

Eve could not be called the mother of all living if God had created other people besides Adam and Eve.

The short answer about where the town came from is that there was no town. Cain built the first town listed in the bible (Genesis 4:17) after he left his family. His wife had to have been a sister or niece.