rogruth wrote:Wayne,
What brought on my question was that I was taught that Adam and Eve were the first two people and they had two sons, one of which killed his brother.
He was made to leave. If, as many were taught, there was only Adam and Eve and, at that time, their two sons, where did that other tribe come from?
IMHO many churches still evade that question.
Roger, let's look to the Bible for the answer to your question.
Genesis 1:27 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.Now there are two people.
Genesis 1:28
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it..."The two, Adam and Ever, are asked to make more people.
Genesis 4:1 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
4 Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced[a] a man with the help of the Lord.”Now there are three people.
Genesis 4:2
2 Next she bore his brother Abel.Now there are 4 people.
Genesis 4:8
8 Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.Now there are 3 people.
Genesis 4:25
25 Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, because Cain killed him.”Now there are 4 people.
Genesis 5:4
4 The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years; and he had other sons and daughters.How many people are there now? If Adam and Eve had a child every year of Adam's life there would be 4 + 800 people, men and women, just from Adam and Eve. How about all the children from the brother-sister marriages? At 15 years of age, they would start producing more people. Back then people lived 900 years, more or less. By the time Cain was ready to marry he had many choices amongst all his sisters and nieces.
Genesis 4:16-17
16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch.Cain went into banishment in “the land of wanderers ('Nod' in Hebrew) to the east of Eden,” taking with him his wife, an anonymous daughter or granddaughter of Adam and Eve. That he built a city would indicate he and his wife stopped wandering and lived in Enoch City. The Catholc Bible calls this, "Beginnings of Civilization."
There were no tribes at this time in Bible history.
