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?