Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 4-7.

My first thought when I started today’s blog was, “How long until I forget that it is no longer 2021?”  followed by, “How long until I do not have to think to type 2022 instead of 2021?”

I find it interesting that in today’s passage that the account gives so much information about the descendants of Cain.  If the story about Noah and the Flood is to be taken literally, no one alive today is a descendant of Cain.  This would seem to make the fact that the sons of Lamech were the first to do certain things of no particular significance.  If all of their descendants perished in the Flood, why is it significant that Jabal was the first to be a nomadic herdsman? Or that Jubal the first to make and use stringed and wind instruments? or that Tubal-Cain was the first to make metal tools?  Then, while discussing the events which led up to the Flood, the account speaks of the Nephilim.  They were apparently the offspring from when the “sons of God” had children by the daughters of humans.  This would not be significant, except that the passage seems to say that there were Nephilim on the Earth after the Flood.  All of this makes me wonder if we are intended to take it literally when later in the passage it tells us that every living thing which dwells on the land perished in the Flood.  I want to be clear that I am not saying that I believe that not all life that dwells upon the land and was not in the Ark perished in the Flood.  I am merely saying that these little comments make me wonder.  Much of this ambiguity stems from the fact that the Bible was written in Ancient Hebrew, and, based on what we know from more recent languages, it is probable that many words used in the Bible changed meaning to one degree or another from the oldest time they were used in the Bible to the most recent time they were used.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.