"The Land of Nod"?

[Seax_Blade]

First of all, I can't help but think about the Nod Brotherhood from the Command and Conquer series. Lol.

Okay but seriously. In the Bible Adam and Eve are supposed to be the first 2 people. They have Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel and then apparently goes off to the land of Nod? Where did this land and people come from?

I'm asking simply because one of my friends shared a pic on facebook of a guy with this question on a piece of paper. It made me wonder. In my previously Catholic upbringing this never crossed my mind.

Just curious :)

[monsno_leedra]

I was always told The Land of Nod is the place where the Nephilim lived. As to where it was located that is harder to say other than outside the borders of the Garden of Eden per lore. Yet realistically it can't be answered any more than we can say where Eden was either.

[thalassa]

One interpretation isn't that they are the only people, but that they are the only people fashioned in big-G, little -od's image, by his hand, for which he has made the paradisical Garden of Eden. Another is that Cain went out and got with (in various interpretations) demons/angels/whatnot, human-like apes, etc, creating either people (this was the basis in some cases for some effed up racism) or really bad juju entities.

The most common, traditional interpretation though, is that Cain was already married to one of the other progeny of Adam, and when he was banished to "the Land of Nod" (really a bad translation for being cursed to wander aimlessly, cut off from God) that he took his wife (and children), that his whole family was banished and they are the "people".

[monsno_leedra]

One interpretation isn't that they are the only people, but that they are the only people fashioned in big-G, little -od's image, by his hand, for which he has made the paradisical Garden of Eden. Another is that Cain went out and got with (in various interpretations) demons/angels/whatnot, human-like apes, etc, creating either people (this was the basis in some cases for some effed up racism) or really bad juju entities.

The most common, traditional interpretation though, is that Cain was already married to one of the other progeny of Adam, and when he was banished to "the Land of Nod" (really a bad translation for being cursed to wander aimlessly, cut off from God) that he took his wife (and children), that his whole family was banished and they are the "people".

I've heard of the other offspring of Adam but people usually then argue the Book of Adam and Eve back at me as to there being no other offspring. I like to mess with them occasionally and claim it was one of Lilith's daughter's he married, you know the first wife of Adam. Gets some interesting arguments / debates going at times.

[thalassa]

I've heard of the other offspring of Adam but people usually then argue the Book of Adam and Eve back at me as to there being no other offspring. I like to mess with them occasionally and claim it was one of Lilith's daughter's he married, you know the first wife of Adam. Gets some interesting arguments / debates going at times.

'Eh, people think all sorts of wacky stuff. Mostly because they don't pay attention to their own scholars. But the Lilith thing, lol...of course, that's Jewish mythology, not Christian mythology (at least not that is accepted by most Christians).



Sean--

This is from a Christian-answers site, regarding the idea that there were *other people* (usually called pre-Adamites):



First, Adam is called the “first man” (1 Corinthians 15:45). This is inconsistent with the idea that God created men before Adam. Second, according to La Peyrère, the Gentiles were to live outside of the Garden of Eden while Adam enjoyed paradise (a privilege which came with the responsibility of obeying the Law of Paradise—not eating the forbidden fruit). Genesis 2:5-8, however, says quite plainly that before God created “the man whom He had formed,” the very same man which He placed in the garden, there were no men upon the earth to cultivate the ground. Third, God created Eve for Adam because he was alone, there was no one else like him around (“It is not good for the man to be alone… but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him” Genesis 2:18, 20). Fourth, Adam named his wife “Eve” “because she was the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20). The list goes on, but these passages should suffice to refute La Peyrère’s misinterpretation.

As for Cain’s fear of being lynched, his marriage to an unknown woman and the fact that he founded a city (Genesis 4:14-17), Adam was almost 130 years old by the time that Cain killed Abel (Adam had Seth, his next son after Abel’s death, when he was about 130 years old; Genesis 4:25; 5:3). And we know that Adam had sons and daughters (Genesis 5:3). At 130 he could have had grandkids and great-grandkids by the time that Cain killed Abel. Cain had plenty of family members to be afraid of after killing his brother.

Cain apparently married a family member (a necessity back then) at some point before Abel’s murder. It seems odd to us today, but incest wasn’t outlawed by God until the Law of Moses. It may have been around that time that generations of degenerative genetic mutations began to take a toll on our DNA. God outlawed incest for our protection. It became (and remains) dangerous for close relatives to procreate because of shared genetic defects which become expressed in their children causing severe deformities and other problems.

As for Cain founding a city, if he lived to be the average age back then, he probably lived to be about 900 years old. By the time he died, his family would have been a small city. If Cain had a child at the age of 30, and his child had a child at the age of 30 and so on, Cain could have produced 30 generations by the time he died (30 generations times 30 years each equals 900 years).

http://www.gotquestions.org/pre-Adamic-race.html


(may not agree with the site, but they are fairly mainstream, if conservative, in their Christianity and fairly reputable)


There is also these variations of this most accepted/taught idea (that people don't pay attention to):

http://www.icr.org/article/cains-wife-it-really-does-matter/
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c004.html
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Cain-8217-s-Wife

here's an explaination of, yes, there were other people! http://israelect.com/reference/WillieMartin/Cain'sWife.htm

And, here's the Jewish explaination (because, IMO, if you want the OT explained, look at how the Torah is interpreted, it was their book first):
http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/960277/jewish/Whom-did-Cain-and-Abel-marry.htm

[monsno_leedra]

Interesting reads.

I had heard the blessing or kindness aspect of marrying siblings when used with the Noah story as well. Truthfully never really paid much attention to it though as it wasn't something I though about to much.

[Bacab]

Most likely, it is a metaphorical land of the forgotten or marginalized, and the people there probably refers to the descendants of Cain rather than they being already there when he arrived. How did he produce descendants? Jewish oral traditions say that part of the conflict between Cain and Abel was over a sister of theirs, and Cain stayed with her and had sons and daughters after he was punished by God. In any case, people don't have to take it literally when the Bible talks about where Cain travelled and his descendants. It's like trying to make sense of pagan myths. You just can't if you try to take them as actual events instead of as figurative tales and legends.

[B. de Corbin]

According to family lore (yes, I am an actual descendent of Cain), the Land of Nod was just around the block, where the prostitutes roamed. 8 Mile and Woodward, to be specific.

[Pathway Machine]

First of all, I can't help but think about the Nod Brotherhood from the Command and Conquer series. Lol.

Okay but seriously. In the Bible Adam and Eve are supposed to be the first 2 people. They have Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel and then apparently goes off to the land of Nod? Where did this land and people come from?

I'm asking simply because one of my friends shared a pic on facebook of a guy with this question on a piece of paper. It made me wonder. In my previously Catholic upbringing this never crossed my mind.

Just curious :)

One thing to keep in mind is that the early account is considerably condensed. So Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain, then Abel. They grew up, one becoming a farmer the other a sheepherder, respectively. So considerable time has passed. (Genesis 4:2 ) After some time the incident of Abel's murder by Cain took place. (Genesis 4:3, 4) The third named son, Seth, was born when Adam was 130 years old. (Genesis 4:25) In the meantime Adam gave birth to many sons and daughters. (Genesis 5:4, 5) Eve, whos name means "living" was to be the mother of every living person, so there couldn't have been any other race of people. (Genesis 3:20 / Acts 17:26)

Cain's wife was his relative.

There has been some confusion regarding him having met his wife in Nod, because of the wording of the older language in the 1611 King James Version's Genesis 4:16, 17, which reads "And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch." Actually, the Old English word knew was used also in a carnal sense, so modern translations for the same verses read: "With that Cain went away from the face of Jehovah and took up residence in the land of Fugitiveness (Nod means "fugitiveness") to the east of Eden. Afterward Cain had intercourse with his wife and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch."