The Line of Cain (continued)

Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal--he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother's name was Jubal--he was the father of all who play the harp and flute. Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah.

I delayed writing this post because of something I will discuss at length below, but first, I think it is important for us to remember that according to the Genesis account, the line of Cain ended with the Flood.

This is of vital significance to our understanding the above passage, as it renders null and void a literal reading of "father" (i.e. the ancestor of a line of people). Jabal was not, in any sense, considered in the ancient Israeli mind to be the ancestor of a race of people with the "innate" knowledge of living in tents and raising livestock. Jubal, likewise, was not, in any sense, considered to be the ancestor of a race of people with an exclusive talent for playing the harp and flute.

A healthier reading of this passage from Genesis 4 should take into account the possibility that Jabal and Jubal were the first to do the things that they did, as Tubal-Cain was (perhaps) the first to forge tools out of bronze and iron (though the passage does not explicitly state this), but they passed on the skills they learned to others, perhaps even others outside their clan. It should be inferred here, as I have hinted in previous posts, that the descendants of Cain represent a departure from the kind of nomadic, agrarian lifestyle that Cain's father and brother Abel had pursued. Left without recourse to the fruit of the ground, Cain and his descendants would have had to invent ways to eke out a living for themselves--primarily by selling skills they had honed from non-agrarian pursuits.

We today have a term for this exchange of special services for food or other goods: capitalism. Yes, I know some of you balk at the idea that capitalism has anything to do with the line of Cain, but I would like to point out 2 things: (1) that capitalism has never, even from its outset, depended on the production of fruits and vegetables for its commerce and (2) that one of the hallmarks of capitalism is the creation of so-called "industrial centers" . . . otherwise known as cities. Capitalism prides itself on inventiveness--"new" goods, "new" services, "new" and "improved" technologies--to the extent that farming itself is becoming more and more unusual in our culture (or, at least, farming as it was done for centuries upon centuries before the mid-1800s). The family-owned pasture or homestead has given way to the corporately owned franchise, which sells processed foods of dubious nutritional value to a public that, in general, knows little about the raising and harvest of agricultural goods.

It is this sort of impersonal relationship, the cold exchange of dubious services for personal gain, that is represented in the above passage from Genesis 4. Cain was a murderer--and he passed on the callousness toward human life he had nurtured within his own soul to an entire line of descendants. Thus, even though the direct line of Cain's descendants ended with the destruction of the human race by floodwater, he still has "children" even to this day.

Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah.

Here we come to the crux of what I have been wrestling with in regard to this text.

My wife and I have talked off and on about the merits of monogamy and polygamy ever since we first met, and each of us has done our share of reading on the topic (much of it either inconclusive or, to our minds, untrustworthy). It is no secret that polygamy constitutes a large number of the marriages within the Hebrew Bible--Abraham, Jacob, Esau, Judah, Joseph, Moses, King David, and so on--and while Christians often quote the following passage from Genesis 2 to support monogamy (as well as several other scriptures), there are plenty of other verses from the Old Testament that describe God as "blessing" someone with many wives:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

This passage is mentioned by Jesus in the New Testament (see the Gospel of Matthew), which prompts many Christian Bible students--amateur or professional--to say that monogamy is God's ideal (or perfect) will for the human race. In fact, St. Paul seems to confirm this view when he says in his first letter to Timothy that elders and deacons should be husbands of only one wife.

However . . .

One thing my wife and I have learned over the years is that whenever we read a biblical exegesis (or reading/study of a particular Bible passage or topic), we need to consider the attitude of the author as well as what the author says. Paul was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when he wrote those words to Timothy, and Jesus was speaking the word of truth when he quoted Genesis 2:24 to the Pharisees who were trying to trick him into saying something repulsive about marriage and divorce . . . but what about the Christian writers 20 centuries later who quote those verses in their publications and on the internet?

I agree with the position that monogamy is God's ideal for marriage--after all, the Bible does explicitly say that God created one man and one woman--but I am troubled at the extent to which this position is argued in Christian circles out of fear. Christianity is, in general, losing its once total hold over the culture of the United States, and I think that, for many people, the prospect of a nation (and indeed a world) in which Christianity is no longer a dominant religion represents a serious challenge to their faith. But Christianity's growth through the first thousand years of its existence had less to do with popularity than with truth, and therefore, our arguments, whatever they may be, must have their basis in truth and conviction, not fear and self-interest.

I love my wife (she is the only woman I have ever loved, at least in that sense), and I know, deep within my soul, that the moment we began to interact sexually was the moment that God began to look upon us as "married." Maybe he always looked upon us that way--it is my view, at least, that from the moment of our birth we were designed to be together--but whatever the case, our union was not consummated until we began to interact sexually. Both of us understood, at least unconsciously, that a sexual union was the end of "singleness" and the beginning of "marriage," in God's sight if in no one else's, which explains for us, in part, why we never gave ourselves in that way to anyone else.

Not many couples, married or not, take sexuality this seriously, but we do, and I wish that everyone else in our culture did as well. Think about it: If you were to understand yourself as "married" to someone you had given yourself to 10 or 15 years ago, even for only one night, I think you would also understand the extent to which you may have had to cut off the natural yearnings of your body and/or soul for that person in order to remain faithful to your current spouse. That is the power of sexuality--it unites us spiritually with another person as fully as it does emotionally and physically, and I am not convinced that in God's eyes we ever stop being "married" to that other person.

I am not saying that if you lost your virginity to someone you did not eventually marry, you are damned to a life of constant yearnings and temptations to infidelity--as I said, if you are in Christ, I believe the Holy Spirit is more than capable of rendering you a loyal, and monogamous, spouse--but I am saying that in God's eyes, the giving of our bodies and souls to others, in whatever guise, is deadly serious business. If you give your body away to someone, under any circumstances, you had better be certain that it is an act of love and holiness, because if it isn't, you may still find yourself bound to that person--for better or worse.