According to the account that we read in Genesis, Adam & Eve had three sons: Cain, Abel, and Seth. In this post, we will discover who Adam & Eve’s sons were and what role they played in the Biblical narrative. We will see that the Bible is like a great tapestry with fine detail that is connected throughout. Each thread has a purpose in the grander scheme of things. In the same way, the sons of Adam and Eve tell us something about God’s great big story of redemption.
Adam and Eve were the first couple created by God and they are believed to have started the human population. Adam named the woman Eve (meaning = life), and she was known as the mother of all living. They had at least three sons and more children too:
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1. Soon after leaving the Garden, with the help of the Lord, Eve gave birth to a child and called him Cain. Cain was their first son and he worked the ground to grow food with his father.
2. They also had a second son and named him Abel. He worked as a shepherd of flocks.
3. A while later, they had another son and gave him the name Seth.
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4. Genesis 5:4 tells us that Adam fathered other sons and daughters too.
These are all the children of Adam that we know of from the Biblical account.
Between big events
A lot of times when modern people read the Bible, they jump from one big event to the next. For example, someone might recall:
It starts in the Garden of Eden
Somewhere along the way, we find Abraham’s promise
And then the Red Sea splits
But this misses crucial parts of the story. This kind of sporadic recollection is natural and perhaps it happens because certain stories connect with us on a deeper level than others. Yet it is between the Garden of Eden, The Fall of Sin, and Noah’s ark that we find the finer details of Adam & Eve’s family tree.
What did God first say about Adam & Eve having children?
In the Garden of Eden, human beings were created in God’s own likeness. This means that the first man, Adam, and the human race, were made in the image of God or the likeness of God (Gen 1:27). God blessed the people He made and gave them great freedom. The first thing God said to the people was about procreation: “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth.” (Gen 1:28).
But there was one specific rule they had to obey: “Do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil”. That tree had fruit that would cause them to die so God’s rule was put in place to protect humankind. Along came the serpent, who tempted Eve and convinced her to disobey God and pick some of the forbidden fruit. After Eve took the fruit of the tree and shared it with Adam, everything changed.
The consequences of sin entered the picture and nothing was the same again. Adam & Eve were banished from the Garden and this is where they began building a family.
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How we know Cain & Abel, the first two sons of Adam & Eve
Within the tapestry of the creation account, Cain and Abel play the roles of the individuals in the story to whom you and I can relate the most. While Adam and Eve are somewhat deified because of the way they walked with God and knew life before sin, their children are people like us.
They are born into a world where sin exists.
They suffer consequences from their bad decisions.
They know struggle and hardship.
The story of Cain that we read about in Genesis 4 is the story of the first murder in the world.
As mentioned above, Cain was a worker of the ground (also see Sons of Cain in the Bible), and his younger brother, Abel, was a keeper of sheep.
The Genesis story tells us how both sons made an offering to God. Cain gave some of the land’s produce – which was an offering of the fruit of the ground.
But Cain’s offering did not please God as much as the offering made by Abel. Abel’s offering was a firstborn lamb, which must have been a very valuable and meaningful thing to give up. Cain’s first sin has been said to be selfishness or hoarding (the opposite of generosity) because he did not offer all that he could. After both offerings were made, God warned Cain to be careful because sin was threatening to control him.
This situation enraged Cain because he was jealous of his brother, so he proceeded to attack Abel and kill him.
A heartwrenching dialogue between God and Cain follows the act of murder. God says “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” (Gen 4:10). In the end, God punishes Cain and sends him away to the land of Nod.
Abel’s murder would go down in human history as the prime example of wickedness and evil. This is unfortunately how the first two sons of Adam and Eve are remembered.
Understanding Genesis
It is valuable at this point to have a quick, basic Theology lesson:
Genesis is the first book in the Old Testament and the first thing you’ll see when you open a Bible. It is a dense, historical book that tells us a lot about the character of God and His relationship with people. Genesis begins with the story of creation and how God made the first humans. The genre of the book is historical narrative and it reads like a story that is packed to the brim with little details.
Did you know that the story of creation is in the Bible twice? Genesis 1 and 2 tell the same story in different ways.
We need to remember that the Bible, as we know it, is a fairly modern document. For the longest time, the Bible was not a printed book but a collection of handwritten scrolls that were copied by scribes. The other important facet to keep in mind is that people did not have access to the Bible like we do today.
We can quickly look up a Bible verse by opening the app on our phones, but was not until the 1500s that the Bible was printed and translated into languages that “common people” could read and understand. For the longest time, the Bible was only in the possession of the church and read aloud during worship services.
Something unique happens when we read Genesis aloud.
If we think about it, ancient cultures around the world all had their own stories of origin or creation tales. Such stories were told around the fire by elders as the rest of the community listened. Stories have a way of connecting us to a sense of purpose or meaning.
Listening to a story gives the listener a unique experience as they imagine things playing out before their eyes. We might have lost that spark of imagination now that we have the text in our own hands, so it is important to bear all these pieces of history in mind as we read.
This is not to say that Genesis is just a story or tale
The Bible clearly tells us that every part of it is there for a reason and “all of Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). But what we need to realize is that the Bible was most probably an oral tradition or account before it was ever written down.
For the purpose of this article, the whole of Genesis matters because it gives us insight into the world that Adam and Eve’s sons lived in and the events surrounding their lives. Adam’s sons became the fathers of the human race. They were fruitful, multiplied, and filled the earth – according to God’s first command. The question of how they were able to do so has baffled readers of the Bible for many centuries.
Who was Cain’s wife?
Did the sons have sexual relations with close relatives?
Did that lead to genetic disorders?
Did people live such long lives that by the time Cain looked for a wife, the face of the earth was populated?
These questions remain without direct answers, but we will do well to remember the words in Titus 3:9 at this point:
” Avoid foolish debates. genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law (Old Testament), because they are unprofitable and worthless.”
A better question to ask is: What does this mean for us today? It is the main question of our faith development when we can consider how the stories in the Bible affect our own daily lives.
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What role do the sons of Adam & Eve play in the rest of the Bible?
Interestingly, there are quite a few times later in the Bible when people refer back to Adam and Eve’s sons – This helps us to view them within the larger picture of God’s story. By looking at these examples we will see the following:
Abel’s blood symbolizes when righteous people die
Cain’s actions symbolize wickedness and sin
Abel’s offering is seen as an act of faith
Abel’s blood symbolizes the old way and is contrasted with Jesus’ blood which is the new way
1. Jesus Christ talked about the blood of Abel and likened it to other times when God’s people were killed
Matthew 23:35 “And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.”
Luke 11:50-52 “Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary.”
2. John talks about Cain as an example of what followers of Christ should not do
1 John 3:11-12 “For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.”
3. In the book of Hebrews, Abel and Cain are mentioned two times. Once to describe an act of faith (Abel’s offering) and another to compare Abel’s blood to the blood of Christ
Hebrews 11:4 “By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did”
Hebrews 12:23-24 “You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”
4. Jude mentions “the way of Cain” to describe people who choose to sin
Jude 1:10-11 “Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct—as irrational animals do—will destroy them.
Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.”
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The sons of Adam and Eve in the Bible
In summary, there is much that we can learn from the children of Adam and Eve. By looking at the Genesis account of the days of Adam, we can grow in understanding. We discovered what the Bible tells us about Adam & Eve’s sons and focused especially on Cain and Abel. Some theological insight was given into how we can read Genesis to get the most out of the text and to answer questions we may have. Lastly, the role that the sons of Adam & Eve play in the rest of the Bible was explored. We saw how Abel’s blood and Cain’s actions still carry a lot of meaning today.
The Bible tells us a lot about the children that God gave Adam and Eve. Their broken nature in a sinful world sounds all too familiar. We get to learn from their mistakes and see how their decisions (the good and the bad) affected their relationships with God and one another. My prayer is that this exploration of Genesis reminds you that God is a kind Creator who gives us the opportunities to do the right thing, again and again. The Fall of Sin and Abel’s blood is synonymous with hopelessness, but the coming Kingdom and the blood of Christ speak a better word (Heb 12:24).
Eljoh Hartzer is combining theology and art to nurture faith journeys across generations. She is a Masters-level Practical Theologian with the University of Stellenbosch. She is also a writer and editor in the niche of Christianity and children's content and she illustrates children's books. Eljoh resides in the Swartland area in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
You can follow Eljoh on LinkedIn or Instagram.
