Cain and Abel - The TRUE Story

by Dutchie 14 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Matty

  RunningMan - LMAO!!!!

  I guess it was just for the wool, but you have clearly highlighted some fringe benefits!
• 

  teenyuck

  Runningman, that was my question.

  The other issue is the wool....where the heck did Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel come up with a spinning wheel? Was Adam an inventor?

  A handspindle is defined as any implement that can be twisted or rotated by hand to twist fibers together into yarn. Handspindles can be divided into two general categories: a dropspindle, in which the thread is formed as the spindle spins while gravity pulls it to the ground; or a suspended spindle, where the spindle is spun on a set surface like a top and the thread is created by pulling the fiber away from the spindle. Spindle spinning is an art form – whereas modern spinning mills can produce large quantities or yarn in short periods of time, the types of yarn that can be spun are limited by the mechanics of the machines themselves - they cannot rival handspun yarns in delicacy and versatility. At one point, handspinners in India were able to spin almost half a million yards of yarn from a single pound of cotton (Hochberg). In handspinning, you can design the exact kind of yarn you desire with any variations in texture or color or thickness that you wish – your only limitation is your own skill level in spinning.

  Most authors agree that the practice of spinning fibers to form thread and yarns has been in existence for over 10,000 years. The spinning wheel, the tool most commonly associated with the art of spinning, was not introduced to Europe until in the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance. Thus, the dropspindle was the primary spinning tool used to spin all the threads for clothing and fabrics from Egyptian mummy wrappings to tapestries, and even the ropes and sails for ships, for almost 9000 years.

  Whorls from hand spindles have been dated back to 5000 BCE in Middle Eastern excavation sites. Bette Hochberg in her book Handspindles puts forth the theory that, since the wheel is generally agreed upon to have been invented somewhere around 3500 BCE, it is possible that the use of dropspindles helped man to discover the wheel. By observing the process of rotation as it applied to the whorl of a spindle, early man might have made experimented with that rotation by placing it upon a vertical plane instead of a horizontal one and thus created the wheel.

  This is from the A HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF SPINNING website.

  That whole story is so screwed up, it makes me mad. The inconsistencies in the bible are too many to brush off.
• 

  RunningMan

  Ah, well, if it's inconsistencies that you want....

  THE LAND OF NOD
  The Bible says that Cain was banished to the "Land of Nod". With only four people on the planet, why would there be another country?

  The New World Translation makes things even worse. It translates this name, not as the Land of Nod, but as the Land of Fugitiveness. Not only is this suspect grammatically, but it raises the problem: If there are only four people on the planet, and there has never before been a crime, there would be no fugitives, let alone enough of them to require their own “Land”.

  CAIN’S SENTENCE
  The Bible is pretty generous with the death penalty. It is prescribed for just about everything from blasphemy to false prophesying. It is especially adamant about murder. Yet, for some reason, with God himself acting as judge, Cain was not sentenced to death, even though he killed 25% of the population of the earth. You would think that God would want to make an example of him. This is an interesting precedent, that advocates of capital punishment might want to consider.
  As part of his sentence, Cain must become a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. So, he moves away, gets married, has children, and founds a city. That doesn’t sound like either a fugitive or a wanderer. So, apparently, Cain’s only punishment was the requirement to move to another region.

  That’s not much of a punishment. In my life, I have moved several times. By my count, I have at least four free murders coming.

  THE SIGN
  Cain was concerned that someone would find him and kill him. It is also implied that there would be people around who knew he was a killer, but did not know that God had let him off.

  This issue raises numerous concerns. First of all, why would anyone kill him? There was no man-made or god-made law that prescribed the death penalty for murderers. Cain had been judged by God and received his sentence. Everyone on the planet must have known it. Why would Cain think that there would be people who would kill him? Besides, who would be Abel’s avenger? His father and mother would have known the story, and Cain was his only brother. It is almost as if the story writer has forgotten how many people occupy the earth, and feels that Abel would have close relatives or friends who would come seeking revenge.

  Likewise, why would Cain need identification? I am getting tired of mentioning that there were only four people around at the time.

  Finally, where would he get the idea of revenge? There had never been any crime before, so obviously, there would never have been revenge up to this point. His concern seems to be based on a fairly well developed tradition of law, punishment and vengeance. These traditions were still centuries in the future.

  THE CITY OF ENOCH
  After Cain's banishment, he founds the city of Enoch. This is my favorite part of the story. Consider the list of problems that arise from this simple phrase:
  · Cain was a fugitive and a wanderer. How could he found a city?
  · The progress of civilization to the point of urbanization was still well into the future.
  · What would be his purpose in building a city? There are numerous reasons to build a city, including things like protection, specialization of trades, or being a center for distribution. Considering the population at the time (one family of about three generations), none of these reasons would exist.
  · Where would he get the people to inhabit the city? Enoch was the third generation from Adam. If Adam and Eve had ten surviving children, and each of their children paired up and had ten children, the world population would be 62. Even if you made some ridiculous assumptions about reproduction, the number would still not be enough to populate a village, let alone a city.
  · Where would they get the surrounding population? In the early days of civilization, before the automation of agriculture, it was impossible for urban centers to achieve populations of greater than 1% or 2% of the region’s total population. It required 50-100 farmers to grow enough food to support themselves and one city dweller. Huge cities, like Athens and Rome, did not develop until many centuries later, and even then, they sat upon world empires. If the city of Enoch was very small, say 1,000 in population, the surrounding region must have had a population of between 50,000 and 100,000. This is approximately 1,000 times the population implied by the Bible. So, once again, I must ask, where did they get the people?

  CAIN’S WIFE
  So, now we must answer the age old question: Where did Cain get his wife?

  The story implies, in many respects including this one, that there were other people around and about. Yet, the Bible story does not allow for this. All persons are descended from Adam and Eve. There were no other people. So, Cain must have married an ape. That's where we get the ape-man.

  Actually, he could only have married his sister.

  This raises some interesting questions. For example, how does one go about courting one’s sister? I don’t suppose their courtship took the normal course, i.e. Cain meeting her at a party and chatting her up. I expect his pick up line looked something like this: “So, baby, if I were the only man on earth, would you go out out with me?” I bet it worked every time.

  Then you have to wonder, did he ask her father for her hand? And, would Adam have declined, perhaps objecting to Cain’s religion (he was a bad sacrificer), or maybe to the fact that he was not just a convict, he was the world’s first and only convict?
• 

  teenyuck

  Great breakdown Runningman!! I am printing this out so I have some arguements to pass on to my JW mother.
• 

  Matty

  You've brought up so many arguments that I have never even thought of. RunningMan you are Priceless, just Priceless.

  I was always led to believe that Adam and Eve had numerous unmentioned siblings, and that Cain married one of them. As well as the one you've mentioned what about "Hey baby, I just killed your brother, how about doing the nasty with me?". Hmm... Not one of the best chat-up lines I could think of!