Everyone knows about Cain and Abel, but what about Adam and Eve's 54 other kids
The story of Adam and Eve's other children is an often overlooked one, and when it comes
to their daughters, things get pretty weird. The Bible has a reputation as a single, infallible document, but it actually took a long time
for the early Christian church to decide which stories to include in the sacred text
Over the course of more than 400 years, lots of freshly-minted Christians wrote books that
didn't make the final cut. of them is called the Book of the Daughters of Adam. In 494 AD, Pope Gillesius included it on a
list of texts that he wanted everyone to know were not church-approved. The book reportedly gave Adam's
daughters names and life stories, and it wasn't the only text to do so. Literature about Adam and
his family had been a popular subject for hundreds of years, as explained by the book The Many Faces
of Christ, a thousand-year story of the survival and influence of the lost gospels. Other texts
that touch upon Adam and Eve's daughters include the Jewish Book of Jubilees and the Conflict of
Adam and Eve with Satan, among others. Everyone knows about their sons Cain and Abel, but clearly
people wanted to know a little something about these women. Women, women, women, women, women
women, women. Unfortunately, the books of the Daughters of Adam is lost to history
but one text that has survived is the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, which was included in the Forgotten Books of Eden in 1926. This book is unambiguous about
when Adam and Eve's first daughter shows up. After they've been thrown out of Eden and Eve
gets pregnant, she goes into labor, just like in the book of Genesis. But in the Bible
she only gives birth to a son, while the conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan says
"...and God looked at his maidservant Eve and delivered her, and she brought forth her firstborn
son, and with him, a daughter." So, according to this unofficial version, the first live birth on
earth was twins, and one of them was a girl. According to the text, after eight days
Adam and Eve finally got around to naming the kids. The boy was named Cain, just like in the Bible
while the girl was named Lelua. With an entire world to populate, Adam and Eve couldn't stop at
just two children. According to the conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, after the twins Cain and
Lelua finished breastfeeding, Eve again conceived, and when her days were accomplished, she brought
forth another son and daughter, and they named their son Abel and their daughter Aclea. The text
doesn't seem interested in these two twins, at least surrounding their birth. There's no explanation
for what either of their names mean or why they were given them and there no hint about whether there was any inter conflict An interesting note from the end of the chapter on Abel and Aclea birth is that it reports After the birth of these Eve ceased from childbearing This is true at least until
after Abel's murder, when she gives birth to her son Seth as kind of a replacement
At that point, we learn that there weren't any more offspring, although this is a direct contradiction to what's in the Bible
One of the things the official Bible does a terrible job of explaining is where Cain's
wife comes from. He just suddenly has one, even though at that point, the only people in the world
are Cain and his parents. So unless he married his mom, where did this wife come from? If Cain
had sisters, then he at least had options. It might be grossed out at the prospect of him
marrying his sister, but at least he didn't marry his twin, Lelua. For her part, Lelua didn't remain
unspoken for. She married Abel before he was killed. In fact, the conflict of Adam and Eve
with Satan even claims that Lelua was the cause of Abel's murder. Cain, who hated her even as an
embryo, got mad when Satan told him that Adam and Eve were going to have Lelua marry Abel
while Cain would be stuck with Aclea. Cain wasn't happy about this because Lelua was apparently much
more attractive than her sister. Other texts traced the disagreement to Abel and Aclea having
a triplet sister and claimed the fight was over who would get a second wife. According to the conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, Cain was always a jerk to Abel when they
were growing up. So when Satan appeared and told him that his younger brother was going to get to
marry his sister, who was essentially the most beautiful woman on Earth at the time, it sent
Cain over the edge. Fortunately, Satan had just the solution for him. All Cain had to do was
eliminate the other male competition on the planet, and he'd get to choose his sister as his wife
The text says that Cain tried to kill Abel multiple times. It doesn't explain how or why
he failed, although it might have something to do with the fact that at the time, they were barely
even teenagers. Maybe killing your own brother is more of a grown man's game. Adam and Eve
eventually decided that their sons needed wives. When Cain found out it was true that he had to
marry Aclea, he cursed his mother. After the brothers made offerings to God and Abel's was
accepted and Cain's rejected, just like in the official Bible, Cain took Abel for a stroll and
then killed him. The Bible tells us that after Cain killed Abel, he was banished to wander in the
land of Nod. This is when an unexplained, unnamed wife appears, as described by Genesis 4
verse 17. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch
And he built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch
That the first and last time Cain wife is mentioned after being conjured seemingly out of thin air and not even given a name The conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan goes into much more detail
Adam and Eve weren't particularly happy about one son killing the other, but at least as
far as Cain was concerned, it worked out, as he got to marry his twin sister, Lelua
The land of Nod isn't mentioned here, only that Cain took Lelua away to live near the
place he killed Abel. To modern sensibilities, that sounds like a premise straight out of a horror movie, and
Since there was still a whole planet to populate, it got worse for Lelua, as the text explains
His sister bore him children, who in their turn began to multiply by degrees until they filled that place
The book of Genesis mentions that Cain and his wife had a son named Enoch
and that Cain built a city and named it after his son. But other sources have expanded on those stories, almost as a sort of biblical fan fiction
In this case, it was the great Jewish historian Josephus, who lived in the Middle East in the 1st century AD
His work Antiquities of the Jews adds some details about what Cain got up to in Enoch
and from there we can infer what Lelua's life would have been like. Short answer? It was terrible
Cain had learned nothing from his punishment for killing his brother. He did well for himself in Enoch as he accumulated great wealth
but he got it by means of violence, robbery, and pillaging. He became a leader of men, but he led them into wickedness
He invents weights, measures, and property boundaries, which may sound innocent enough
though it did lead to people practicing so-called cunning craftiness. So Lelua would have been married to the most important guy in the city with lots of money
but all of it procured through evil means. With Abel dead and Cain banished, this left no more brothers for Ackley to marry
After Adam and Eve took seven years to deal with their grief, they decided to have another kid
It was a boy, and they named him Seth. According to the conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, when Seth was nine
Satan appeared and tempted him, but Seth wasn't swayed, and he went home and told his parents
This is when Adam decided that his prepubescent son needed a wife to keep him in line and make
sure that if Satan tempted Seth again, he would continue to hold strong
This seems like a lot of pressure to put on a wife, but things were obviously very different
back then. The only wife available to Seth was, of course, Acleo
Let's spare a thought for this girl who apparently was so undesirable that her brother murdered
her twin so that he didn't have to marry her, and now she's stuck in a cave with her parents
Now, nobody bothers to ask her if she wants to marry this new brother. The text does at least give us Seth's thoughts about the matchmaking by noting
Seth however did not wish to marry but in obedience to his father and mother he said not a word While the Bible doesn mention where Cain wife came from the apocryphal additions to
the story do make sense, even if they kind of have to jump through hoops to make everything fit
Since Lelua and Achlea aren't mentioned in the official Bible, most people haven't heard
of them. This could lead to the question, were there even more children? Weirdly, the Bible actually does say something about this
According to Genesis 5, verse 4, After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters
That's right. While the official version of the Bible doesn't mention Lelua or Aclea, it does indeed say
that Adam went on to have daughters. In 800 years, he can have a lot of kids
Thus, according to accepted scripture, Adam and Eve could theoretically have had any number
of daughters. This is where the conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan goes against something the Bible
says directly, since it states that Adam and Eve only had five kids and that Seth was the last
Jewish tradition records just how many kids Adam and Eve had, as they were apparently a
total of 56 children, 33 sons, and 23 daughters. This makes sense, as God did tell them to be fruitful and multiply
Five kids just wouldn't cut it. Since the Bible is an anthology of books written by different people, it contradicts itself
a lot. But one of the things it's clear about very early on is that incest is not okay
You probably know the Ten Commandments, but there are actually many more commandments that God gave to Moses
The Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen, ten commandments. When it comes to incest, God does not leave any room for doubt. According to Leviticus 18
verse 6, no one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord. God then
lists 11 different variations of incest and why each one specifically is unacceptable
The key one in Lelua and Akhlea's situations is Leviticus 18, verse 9
Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father's daughter or your mother's daughter
whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere. This is essentially repeated in Leviticus chapter 20, verse 17, when God declares
If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace
So is this just another case of biblical contradiction? From one perspective, Cain and Lelua didn't break God's commandment because it hadn't yet been decreed
So at the time, they technically weren't doing anything wrong. It's a bit creepy
Very creepy