The Myths of Cain

I grew up in a Christian culture that unofficially believed that Cain was cursed to wander the earth as a vagabond forever. And that the rest of mankind was warned, by the mark that God set upon him, not to kill him or risk suffering an even greater threat. These stories insisted that Cain was alive and well today. There were also stories circulating of early church leaders having seen him in one instance or another.

I always thought that was an odd concept. Why would a murderer be transfigured and allowed to walk the earth like John the Beloved and the three Nephite apostles? I also wondered how he would have survived the flood. Did he walk along the bottom of the ocean, zombie style? Did he cling to the outside of the ark? Things just didn't add up.

The more I studied, the more I realized that there is nothing in the scriptures that supports this notion. Nor was there any official doctrine of the church that supported this idea. To the contrary, the scriptures are clear that Noah and his family (8 people) were the only humans who survived the flood.

1 Peter 3:20 

20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

The Flood of Noah and his Companions (1911) by Léon Comerre

Another tradition is that Cain lived up to, and was killed by the flood. But that would make him the oldest living man in history - at around 1650 years. And it is pretty clear that Methuselah holds that record at 969 years.

My favorite answer to this puzzle comes from the Book of Jubilees Chapter 4: 29-31

29. And at the close of the nineteenth jubilee, in the seventh week in the sixth year thereof, Adam died, and all his sons buried him in the land of his creation, and he was the first to be buried in the earth.
30. And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore was it written concerning the tree of knowledge: 'On the day that ye eat thereof ye shall die.' For this reason he did not complete the years of this day; for he died during it.
31. At the close of this jubilee Cain was killed after him in the same year; for his house fell upon him and he died in the midst of his house, and he was killed by its stones; for with a stone he had killed Abel, and by a stone was he killed in righteous judgment.

Cain (1880) by the French painter Fernand-Anne Piestre Cormon

I don't see why this source should be doubted. The narrative in the Book of Jubilees mirrors the canonical scriptures almost exactly, but with greater detail. And the extra detail seems ordinary, not fanciful or mythical. (I don't know why I gravitate to the mundane instead of the fantastic. But I have to admit, I do.)

Cain lived almost as long as his father, dying the same year as Adam in a house collapse. Was it an earthquake? Maybe. There are so many clues that point to the world being much more seismically active before the flood. (Read: Why Did the Pre-Flood Civilization Build Megalithic)

I also like the nice poetic justice. Cain suffered death by stone, just like his brother Abel did.

But wait a minute. Did Cain use a rock? The canonical scriptures don't say anywhere which murder weapon Cain used. Why does everyone just believe and accept that it was a stone. It is not like they were Neanderthals. It is probably sources like the Book of Jubilees that provide us with that detail. So maybe it was a stone after all.