Genesis 4

Let the Begetting Begin . . . sort of Ah, Cain and Able. Meat versus Plant . . . just kidding. First I would like to mention how important the version you are reading is. I have a (free) version on my Kobo, which I will deleting shortly. It's awful and in one sentence managed to turn a lovely birth moment (Eve and Cain) into something that goes beyond implying that she (Eve) now thinks she is just like God. Yikes. Needless to say version matters. So Cain and Able give sacrifices to God. The idea of a live sacrifice in itself is something I am not comfortable with. I'll be honest, why Cain's offering is not satisfactory is not all that clear to me. I am guessing it's because Able brought his fattest, best calf, and Cain just brought what he could find. But I feel like that's only a guess. Then Cain kills Able and lies to God and is a bit of a smart mouth about the whole thing. I'd think that when talking to the Creator you'd know better than to sass and lie. So Cain gets tossed out of his homeland and because he fears for his life God affords him protection against anyone who might wish to kill him by saying they will suffer 7 times more than Cain. I just find the whole thing strange. God is justifiably angry at Cain. Cain does not apologize or seem at all ashamed of his actions, but is scared for his own life? Well yes, you just killed your own brother and technically 1/4 of the human population at this point, so you should be afraid. So instead he is sent away from home and told he can no longer grow food. Cain goes to the land of Nod. and finds himself a wife . . . Where does she comes from? Cain is the son of Adam and Eve, the first two people on earth. I guess we are to presume that God has created more people to start things off. If that is the case how can we all be descend from Adam and Eve? I suspect there are many texts written about this, and I think it's a safe bet that I'll be reading one of them in the next half a dozen years, but for now there seems to be a loophole here. Next we read about a bit of begetting. Cain and his wife have a son Enoch, Enoch has Irad, Irad > Mehujael, Mehujael > Methushael, Methushael > Lamech. Lamech takes two wives and we even get to know their names, Adah and Zillah. Adah > Jabel (tents and livestock) and Jubal (lyre and pipe). Zillah > Tubal-cain (bronze and iron tools) and his sister Naamah. There is a brief interlude when we find out that Lamech has killed a man for striking and or wounding him and as Cain would be avenged sevenfold he should be avenged seventy sevenfold. I really don't follow this. and then after eight generations we pop back to Adam and Even and their new son Seth, Ables' replacement.. There are two lines coming from Adam and Eve, Cain's line and Seth's line. We visit Seth's line of the family in Chapter five. We still have to ignore the fact that there are magic women. I am very unhappy with this chapter. Beki