Page 337 - Foundations

descendants of Cain. The argument suggests that it was a violation of the will of God for these two
lines to intermarry, for the Cain line was wicked, while the Seth line was righteous. However, there
is no indication anywhere in the Bible that Yahweh had forbid the descendants of these two brothers
to intermarry.

It is not too difficult to pick apart this interpretation of the Genesis account. One of the foundational
errors upon which this view is predicated is the assumption that among the descendants of Adam
there were two distinct lines that did not intermarry. I understand how such a view arose. The Bible
names only three sons of Adam: Cain, Abel, and Seth. Cain murdered Abel, leaving only two
descendants of Adam whose names are recorded for us in the Bible. Furthermore, the book of Genesis
provides a partial genealogy of these two men. The Cain line is remarkable for its emphasis on earthly
technology and arts. It also includes another murderer, this being Lamech, who is the fifth generation
in descent from Cain.

By contrast, there are a number of godly men mentioned in the lineage of Seth. Among them are
Enoch who walked with God and then was translated, not seeing death, and Noah who was declared
righteous in his generation. The Bible, however, does not tell us that all of Cain’s descendants were
evil, or that all of Seth’s were righteous. In fact, both lines had produced thousands of descendants
by the time of Noah’s flood, Noah being the tenth generation of mankind with Adam being the first.
Of all the multitude of descendants of Seth only one man was declared righteous in the generation of
Noah. This leads to the obvious conclusion that the Sethite line was not as righteous as some would
suggest.

A further chink in the argument is uncovered when it is recognized that Adam actually had many
more sons than the three named, along with many daughters. All of Adam’s descendants were likely
to intermarry with one another for the pool of available suitors started off small.

Genesis 5:4-5
Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other
sons and daughters.

Imagine how many sons Adam could have had in 800 years. The strength and vitality of man (and
woman) was far greater in those days before the flood. It is not unreasonable to suggest that Adam
had as many as 100 sons, possibly more. To do so Eve would only have had to be pregnant 75 years
out of 800. Gideon lived a far shorter life and he had 70 sons (Judges 8:30).

The fact that Adam had other sons than Seth and Cain destroys the two lineage argument. In fact, the
fallacy of the Sethite and Cainite argument is revealed when one asks “Where did Seth and Cain get
their wives?” The only possible answer is that they married their sisters, who were all descended from
Adam and Eve.

Those who make the argument for “the sons of God” being a reference to the lineage of Seth, face
another obstacle when it comes to identifying the expression “daughters of men.” In the Hebrew the
actual expression is “benot ha adam.” The word “Adam” is both the name of mankind’s first patriarch
and the Hebrew word for “man.” It is quite difficult to wrest from the text any rationale that would