Cain's Wife

One Frank R. Shipman, in The Christian Century, propounds a question which is a severe test of any man's biblical knowledge. Asks he: "Where did Cain get his wife?"

The Bible says that, until Adam, "there was not a man to till the ground" and that Eve was "the mother of all living." Now the only recorded children of Adam and Eve are Cain and Abel. Cain slew Abel. Mr. Shipman offers the following possible theories to explain the per- petuation of the human race: 1) Cain's wife was made, like Adam, from the dust or, like Eve, from her husband's rib. But Mr. Shipman "would see something grotesque in the idea of a Cain brought up through baby hood, childhood and youth to meet a ready-made bride." 2) Eve may have had daughters unmentioned in the Bible. But "for many years the human mind has shrunk sensitively away from the idea of confusing the beautiful relation of brother and sister with the other relation of husband and wife." 3) The "original autograph" theory -- i. e., the Bible as originally dictated by God, contained no mistakes and no hiati, but parts of it have been lost in transmission. But, says Mr. Shipman, "to conclude that the original autograph was perfect and entire, lacking nothing of being absolutely correct astronomy, geology, zoology, biology, geography, ethnography . . . constitutes a leap in literary supposition for which no one can give any reason." 4) Both the Adam-Eve story and the Cain story were ancient folk-tales brought together for certain literary and moral purposes, but without any idea that they should constitute an infallible chapter and an infallible book. "To such a reader [i. e., one who sees the book of Genesis in this light] it does not matter where Cain got his wife."

Why did Mr. Shipman write this article? It was not satire. It was not research. It was not irreverence. On the contrary, it was a reverent parable which endeavored to explain how a man could be a Christian without taking the Bible literally from Genesis to Revelations.