"Now Adam knew Eve his wife" (Genesis 4:1)
Yes, he though he knew her. But it's really impossible to know a woman.
Adam and Eve were originally one flesh and blood. And after sleeping with her he must have got a nasty feeling of having f***ed himself. This was an outrageous case of incest! One of many described so vividly in the Bible. I ask you, could such vicious relations give a start to a healthy generation?
Really, soon we'll have a chance to see that the first children of Adam and Eve were totally immoral. So that it took a Flood to wash all this dirt from the face of the earth.
But wasn't God aware of the results incest could bring? That it causes a blight to both physical and mental strenght of the children?
It stands in the Laws that He dictated to Moses during the Exodus that incest is a sin that causes death penalty. (Leviticus 18)
Why didn't the Lord take the trouble to make a dozen of cousins for Adam and Eve, so that incest with them would be not so dangerous.
I'm not trying to argue with God, I'm only trying to think. Couldn't God work for an extra week? The young couple had nothing: no home, no roof, no fridge, no stove, no TV-set, no mobil phones to get in touch with God or the Serpent... Can life be called so without these wonderful and useful things? Oh, they even had no neighboors, and it's no life without them indeed.
And I'm not kidding. After the creation of Eve the Lord didn't produce anything else. Not a single nail, or axe, or brick, or button. He even didn't invent the wheel. He made no fire and didn't teach the humans how to use it. The building of such a great construction as the Ark He thrust upon Noah quite thoughtlessly. As a result, the beasts had to sail in bad conditions which were a danger to theil health and life.
As we learn from the books of the Scripture, God did not create anything since then. But He destroyed a lot.
The stately Tower of Babylon, the highly-developed cities of Sodom and Homorrah were ruined - and other less-known places of interest.
And there are also some rumours - though personnally I don't believe them - that Titanic drowned according to God's will.
I can hear someone protesting: all that man has invented, became possible only with God's help. He gives peolpe strength, wisdom and health so that they could do it.
And I'm not going to deny that. I know quite well some examples of God's help. Everyone can see what great support came from God to the people who created nuclear and neutron bombs, and constructed gas chambers. Really, nothing goes on without God's will in this world!
"...and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” (Genesis 4:1)
Naive Eve (or maybe not so naive at all...) couldn't make out how the little man had got into her belly. She surely couldn't trace a connection between this and Adam's strange acts with her. Only the Lord could have put the child into her. And though Eve had nobody to share her joy with, her faith in the miracle of the divine conception filled her with pride and love for God.
The Bible describes several cases of such miraculous "immaculate" conceptions. Some biblical husbands were so old and frail that they had no power to indulge in various vices. And others, able to do it, sometimes didn't want to - like the notorious Onan. And some were absent for a long time - or just preferred to sleep soundly.
Some women of the Bible were no longer young, some were young but still infertile. It's astounding that one of each two women who was to meet an Angel, had suffered from infertility before. In this area the Bible surpasses all the books in the world ever written.
A more detailed account of this you shall find in the chapter "Biblical curiosities".
No doubt, these poor women were infertile according to God's will. But God would eventually open their wombs for their good behaviour and loyalty. And He sent to the woman a young Archangel - or even two, if the case was too complicated. No miraculous conception (and they count up to ten in the Scripture!) could be made without meeting an Angel first! You can read about it yourself.
All those angelical business trips seem to me rather strange. Couldn't the Lord just send a mental order to the chosen woman to make her pregnant in the twinkling of a bedpost? We know that it was easy for God to work such wonders. Was there any need to distract the busy Angels from their important duties and spend resources on travel and other charges?
And here's another blasphemous idea: why didn't miraculous conceptions affect the lasting of incubation? Why did these woman bear their Wunderkinder as long as if it were an ordinary pregnancy? Why couldn't God insert them a half-stuff?
I'd also like to remark that Angelical conceptions were different from usual human ones. Angels were afraid of getting laid with daughters of man because women's passionate embraces could harm their subtle physical constitution. So the conception was brought into life in a twisted, unnatural form - not through ... but through the ears.
To bring the chosen lady into extasy, an Angel just needed to whisper a few tender angelical words in her ear. And that's that - she concieved!
It was probably the origin of the famous saying: a woman loves with her ears.
Biblical Angels were not very demanding. They didn't prefer young blondes at all. On the contrary, they liked to visit women who already had some experience to share with Angels! And we'll see it further on.
After Cain, Eve gave birth to Abel, Seth and lots of other sons and daughters.
"And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for God has appointed another seed for me" (Genesis 4:25)
It's just another evidence that God used to sow His seed on other men's fields...
"Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. <...> And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him". (Genesis 4:2-5; 4:8)
We don't know why, but from the first pages of the Holy Book the scribes seem trying to convince the reader that the Wise God is really not so wise at all. Look how many blunders He had made for rather a short period:
First, He tried to make light without having made an appropiate sourse of light. Second - He made the sky firm and unpleasant to the touch. Third - instead of making one decent star, He made hundreds, but so tiny that they are still unseen by the daylight. Fourth, on making pigs He didn't wash them well, so the poor animals are still considered unclean. Fifth, He forgot to burn the man He had made out of clay, so men have to pour into himself quite an amount of wine daily - in order to prevent himself from cracking from dryness. Sixth, He planted the forbidden trees within the sinners' reach. And He ordered the cherub with a burn-and-turn sword to guard them only after the fall of man... In general, He had made quite a lot of illogical and incomprehensible things.
And now let's go into details of the first murder in the world history - the case of Cain who killed his brother Abel.
And we're going to ask the main accused person:
"Good God, why did You encourage Cain to kill his brother? Why didn't You have regard for the elder brother gifts as well? He had grown them in the sweat of his face, and brought them to You sincerely, with a hope that You would bless him - or at least say a couple of words to cheer him up. But You pushed away the loyal plowman and didn't accept his gifts. But You took with grace the mutton and lard from the younger brother.
All right, You may prefer fat meat to tasteless bread. But was it so hard to accept both gifts cordially, bless the brothers and let them go in peace? And after they'd be gone, late in the night - to throw away the bare bones and the untouched bread into the litterbox?..
Any of Your slaves, even not the cleverest one, would do exactly this! And You, in Your enormous pride, made Cain jealous, caused a quarrel between the brothers, then a fight, then a murder".
And take notice, honourable jururs, that poor ignorant Cain acted in the heat of passion, and an irresistible Higher power drove him to the crime. So if you want to judge Cain, then judge his Supreme Provoker, too! And award Him to exile, and put Cain's mark also on His celestial forehead!
But still, I cannot but pun in my humple opinion that this deed of our narrow-minded God was reasonable in a way - at least in the standpoint of the ancient Jews.
As they were mostly shepherds and nomads, they looked down on tillers of the land and considered their labour to be despicable and disagreeable to God. These views reflected in the myth of Cain and Abel. And the Egyptians who tilled the fertile soil of the Nile riverside, despiced the Semitic tribes of shepherds, "for every shepherd is loathsome to the Egyptians." (Genesis 46:34)
"And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD..." (Genesis 4:16)
What a herecy! Can one go out of His presence or go away from His face? God is everywhere, even there where the entrance is strictly forbidden! He's near us, around us, inside us, inside everything - even things that we've thrown out and forgotten! So can one go out from one's own presence?..