As his obituary in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph notes, Professor Hamblin was a long-standing Vice-President of the Biblical Creation Society and well known for his Christian testimony. I personally remember hearing him speak on the subject of creation many years ago at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He will be sadly missed and our prayers are with his family.

Finally, despite one or two minor technical glitches, yesterday’s interview with American Family Radio went well. For those who missed it, you can now catch up on the AFR website.

Do also take the opportunity to visit the websites of Biblical Creation Ministries (BCM), the organization for which I work as a Researcher and Lecturer, and our sister group, the Biblical Creation Society (BCS). You’ll find lots of helpful information there too.

If you’re interested in buying my book, The New Creationism: Building Scientific Theories on a Biblical Foundation, copies are available in the USA from Evangelical Press (EP). However, the EP website is currently under reconstruction, so for now visit the website of the Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service (phone: 717 249 0231) where copies are currently available at a discounted price of $11.50 (down from $15.99).

I’d also like to commend to you a great new DVD that I’ve been working on. Set in Stone is a lavish documentary filmed on location around Great Britain and looking at the geological evidence for earth’s catastrophic past. You can read more about it in this post and watch a trailer here. Copies will be available in the USA very soon and I’ll post more details on my blog when I have them.

American Family Radio broadcasts on approximately 200 stations in 40 states and also offers live streaming on its website. Hope you can join us.

Well, maybe. But a fascinating new study by researchers at Ohio State University raises big questions about that whole approach.

Reported on the Science Daily website under the headline “When It Comes to Accepting Evolution, Gut Feelings Trump Facts”, the researchers showed that intuitive “gut feelings” about the “rightness” of evolution were at least as important as knowledge level in determining what people believed.

David Haury, associate professor of education at Ohio State and one of the study’s co-authors, said: “The whole idea behind acceptance of evolution has been the assumption that if people understood it – if they really knew it – they would see the logic and accept it.”

But Haury went on to point out that their study of trainee biology teachers at two Korean universities showed that “intuitive cognition has a significant impact on what people end up accepting, no matter how much they know.”

In other words, students with greater knowledge of evolutionary theory were no more likely to accept it, unless they also had a strong “gut” feeling about its rightness.

Interestingly, the Science Daily report says: “For the subjects of this study, belonging to a religion had almost no additional impact on beliefs about evolution, beyond subjects’ feelings of certainty.”

Perhaps what this study reveals is that none of us – whether believer or non-believer – is quite as rational and objective as we like to think. And perhaps – dare I add? – “gut feelings” are a better guide than pure rationalism in some cases?

The study is published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

This brings the tally so far to seventeen separate sources, all pre-dating the modern creationist movement and all drawing exactly the same deduction from Scripture that Ken Ham does. Just one such source would be sufficient to show that Ken Ham did not invent the idea that Cain’s wife was his sister, but I have now documented seventeen. How many nails does a coffin lid need?

Martin Luther (1483-1546), Commentary on Genesis:

Miserable, therefore, was that going out of Cain indeed. It was a departure full of tears. He was compelled to leave forever his home and his parents, who now gave to him, a solitary man and a “vagabond,” their daughter as his wife, to live with him as his companion; but they knew not what would become either of their son or of their daughter. In consequence of losing three children at one time their grief is so much greater. No other explanation suggests itself for the subsequent statement “Cain knew his wife.”

John Calvin (1509-1564), Commentary on Genesis:

And Cain knew his wife. From the context we may gather that Cain, before he slew his brother, had married a wife; otherwise Moses would now have related something respecting his marriage; because it would be a fact worthy to be recorded, that any one of his sisters could be found, who would not shrink with horror from committing herself into the hand of one whom she knew to be defiled with a brother’s blood; and while a free choice was still given her, should rather choose spontaneously to follow an exile and a fugitive, than to remain in her father’s family. Moreover, he relates it as a prodigy that Cain, having shaken off the terror he had mentioned, should have thought of having children: “Ad sobolem gignendam animum applicuisse.” for it is remarkable, that he who imagined himself to have as many enemies as there were men in the world, did not rather hide himself in some remote solitude. It is also contrary to nature, that he being astounded with fear; and feeling that God was opposed to him, could enjoy any pleasure. Indeed, it seems to me doubtful, whether he had previously had any children; for there would be nothing absurd in saying, that reference is here made especially to those who were born after the crime was committed, as to a detestable seed who would fully participate in the sanguinary disposition, and the savage manners of their father. This, however, is without controversy, that many persons, as well males as females, are omitted in this narrative; it being the design of Moses only to follow one line of his progeny, until he should come to Lamech. The house of Cain, therefore, was more populous than Moses states; but because of the memorable history of Lamech, which he is about to subjoin, he only adverts to one line of descendents, and passes over the rest in silence.

John Gill (1697-1771), Commentary on Genesis:

And Cain knew his wife… Who this woman was is not certain, nor whether it was his first wife or not; whether his sister, or one that descended from Adam by another of his sons, since this was about the one hundred and thirtieth year of the creation. At first indeed Cain could marry no other than his sister; but whether he married Abel’s twin sister, or his own twin sister, is disputed; the Jews say, that Cain’s twin sister was not a beautiful woman, and therefore he said, I will kill my brother and take his wife: on the other hand, the Arabic writers say, that Adam would have had Cain married Abel’s twin sister, whom they call Awin; and Abel have married Cain’s twin sister, whom they call Azron; but Cain would not, because his own sister was the handsomest; and this they take to be the occasion of the quarrel, which issued in the murder of Abel.

Adam Clarke (1760-1832), Commentary on Genesis:

Most people who read this account wonder why Cain should dread being killed, when it does not appear to them that there were any inhabitants on the earth at that time besides himself and his parents. To correct this mistake, let it be observed that the death of Abel took place in the one hundred and twenty-eighth or one hundred and twenty-ninth year of the world. Now, “supposing Adam and Eve to have had no other sons than Cain and Abel in the year of the world one hundred and twenty-eight, yet as they had daughters married to these sons, their descendants would make a considerable figure on the earth. Supposing them to have been married in the nineteenth year of the world, they might easily have had each eight children, some males and some females, in the twenty-fifth year. In the fiftieth year there might proceed from them in a direct line sixty-four persons; in the seventy-fourth year there would be five hundred and twelve; in the ninety-eighth year, four thousand and ninety-six; in the one hundred and twenty-second they would amount to thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight: if to these we add the other children descended from Cain and Abel, their children, and their children’s children, we shall have, in the aforesaid one hundred and twenty-eight years four hundred and twenty-one thousand one hundred and sixty-four men capable of generation, without reckoning the women either old or young, or such as are under the age of seventeen.” See Dodd.

But this calculation may be disputed, because there is no evidence that the antediluvian patriarchs began to have children before they were sixty-five years of age. Now, supposing that Adam at one hundred and thirty years of age had one hundred and thirty children, which is quite possible, and each of these a child at sixty-five years of age, and one in each successive year, the whole, in the one hundred and thirtieth year of the world, would amount to one thousand two hundred and nineteen persons; a number sufficient to found several villages, and to excite the apprehensions under which Cain appeared at this time to labour.

John Kitto (1804-1854), Daily Bible Illustrations from Genesis:

Cain, we know, was married, which was probably the case also with Abel. They must, therefore, from the necessity of the case, have had sisters, with whom they contracted marriage, although neither their names, nor the fact of their birth, are recorded. One would like to have had some information respecting the first daughters of Eve. There is an old tradition, that Cain and Abel had respectively twin sisters, and that the twin of Cain became the bride of Abel, and the twin of Abel, the bride of Cain. She who was born with Cain is, in Arabian tradition, called Achima, and she born with Abel, Lebuda; but the Oriental Christians know them as Azrun and Ovain.

Johann F. K. Keil (1807-1888) and Franz Delitzsch (1813-1890), Commentary on Genesis:

The name Nod denotes a land of flight and banishment, in contrast with Eden, the land of delight, where Jehovah walked with men. There Cain knew his wife. The text assumes it as self-evident that she accompanied him in his exile; also, that she was a daughter of Adam, and consequently a sister of Cain. The marriage of brothers and sisters was inevitable in the case of the children of the first men, if the human race was actually to descend from a single pair, and may therefore be justified in the face of the Mosaic prohibition of such marriages, on the ground that the sons and daughters of Adam represented not merely the family but the genus, and that it was not till after the rise of several families that the bands of fraternal and conjugal love became distinct from one another, and assumed fixed and mutually exclusive forms, the violation of which is sin. (Comp. Lev 18.)

Franz Delitzsch (1813-1890), A New Commentary on Genesis:

Whence had Cain his wife? Did he find in the land of Nod human beings of both sexes? Impossible, for the actual unity of the human race is a fundamental doctrine of Scripture which is never broken through, and intends the descendants of Adam to be regarded as the entire human race. In any case we must regard Cain’s wife as a daughter of Adam (v.4). In saying this however free play is left to the imagination, and the narrative appears without disguise to be but a fragment of some lost connected history. It is quite unjustifiable reproach of Karl Hase, that Cain’s marriage with his sister involves the origin of mankind in incest. If the human race was to be propagated from a single pair, such closely related marriages were unavoidable. The notion of incest was originally limited to the reciprocal relation of parents and children, and afterwards extended (but not everywhere equally) in proportion as the possibility of conjugal connections was diversified. For marriage, according to its essential definition (ii. 24 sq.), was to be a new generic and social beginning, accompanied with a breaking off from the Toledoth from which the husband and wife originated.

August Dillmann (1823-1894), Genesis Critically & Exegetically Expounded:

It is not stated where Cain obtained a wife. In the original document, to which ver. 1 and ver. 17 ff. belonged, there may possibly have been mention previously of other sons and daughters of the man, or of a multiplication of the race. According to the context as it lies before us, we can only think of a daughter of Adam, therefore of a sister of Cain. The offensiveness of marriage between sisters and brothers is naturally absent in the case of the earliest ages of the human race.

H. D. M. Spence (1836-1917) and J. S. Exell (1849-1954) (editors), The Pulpit Commentary:

And Cain knew his wife. Who must have been his sister, and married before the death of Abel, as “after that event it can scarcely be supposed that any woman would be willing to connect herself with such a miserable fratricide” (Bush). Though afterwards forbidden, the tendency of Divine legislation on the subject of marriage being always in the direction of enlarging rather than restricting the circle of prohibited relationships, the union of brothers and sisters at the first was clearly indispensable, if the race was to multiply outwards from a common stock.

W. H. Griffith-Thomas (1861-1924), Genesis: A Devotional Commentary:

As to the perennial question of Cain’s wife, it is sufficient to say that she was either his sister or some other relative. In the absence of any law there would, of course, have been no sin in the marriage of a sister, and it is worthy of mention that within historic times the marriage of brother and sister was in practice in the royal family of Egypt, in order to secure unquestioned royalty of blood in the descent; and this was the case when the civilisation of Egypt was at its highest.

J. G. Murphy (1867), A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Genesis:

The wife of Cain was of necessity his sister, though this was forbidden in after times, for wise and holy reasons, when the necessity no longer existed.

H. C. Leupold (1891-1972), Exposition of Genesis:

Cain’s wife must have been his sister who followed him into exile; for Adam had sons and daughters according to 5:4. Nor can marriage to a sister at this early stage of the development of the human race be considered wrong or unnatural. If according to divine purpose the human race is to develop from one pair, then the marriage of brothers and sisters as well as of other close relatives will for a time be a necessity. Later on the nations may see fit to classify such unions as incestuous and seek to keep the human race from running its shoots back to the parent stem; and so they further its natural spread. But in the earlier history of mankind the union of those closely related was not abhorred. Abraham’s wife was his half-sister (20:12); cf. also 24:4 and 28:2.

According to modern geology, our world is over four and a half billion years old, and its geological features have been sculpted over vast eons of time. Everyone knows that planet earth is unimaginably ancient. It’s common knowledge that geological forces have acted slowly over millions of years to form the rocks beneath our feet. But what if what everyone ‘knows’ is wrong?

This remarkable programme takes the viewer on a visual odyssey of discovery like no other. Shot on location across Britain, it takes in some of the most spectacular countryside, beautiful coastlines and awe inspiring landscapes these islands have to offer. From the stormy shores of South Wales to the dramatic Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, from the granite tors of Dartmoor to the windswept uplands of the Peak District, we visit an array of sites that have inspired generations of geologists and helped us to unravel the mysteries of the earth’s past.

Most significantly, we pay a visit to Siccar Point in Scotland, made famous by the pioneering naturalist James Hutton, whose observations here sparked an earthquake in the science of geology that still reverberates to this day. Along the way, we will pose some intriguing questions. Were the rocks around us formed slowly and gradually – or suddenly during catastrophic events? Did the history of the world unfold over vast eras of time or much shorter periods? And what do the rocks really tell us about the geological history of our world?

The DVD comes with a fully referenced transcript with over 150 citations from the scientific literature. Copies will shortly be available from the Truth in Science webshop for £12.95 each plus £1.75 for postage and packing. For advance orders, please contact Truth in Science.

Of course, that was nonsense. I responded by pointing out that a number of commentators as far back as the fourth century had made exactly the same deduction. Even a cursory examination of the sources available to me has yielded the following:

Methodius of Olympus (died c.311), The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity, 1.2:

For truly by a great stretch of power the plant of virginity was sent down to men from heaven, and for this reason it was not revealed to the first generations. For the race of mankind was still very small in number; and it was necessary that it should first be increased in number, and then brought to perfection. Therefore the men of old times thought it nothing unseemly to take their own sisters for wives, until the law coming separated them, and by forbidding that which at first had seemed to be right, declared it to be a sin, calling him cursed who should “uncover the nakedness” of his sister; …

John Chrysostom (c.347-407), Homilies on Genesis, 20.3:

But perhaps someone will say: How is it that Cain had a wife when Sacred Scripture nowhere makes mention of another woman? Don’t be surprised at this dearly beloved: it has so far given no list of women anywhere in a precise manner; instead, Sacred Scripture while avoiding superfluous details mentions the males in turn, though not even all of them, telling us about them in rather summary fashion when it says that so-and-so had sons and daughters and then he died. So it is likely in this case too that Eve gave birth to a daughter after Cain and Abel, and Cain took her for her wife. You see, since it was in the beginning and the human race had to increase from them on, it was permissible to marry their own sisters.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430), The City of God, 15.16:

As, therefore, the human race, subsequently to the first marriage of the man who was made of dust, and his wife who was made out of his side, required the union of males and females in order that it might multiply, and as there were no human beings except those who had been born of these two, men took their sisters for wives – an act which was as certainly dictated by necessity in these ancient days as afterwards it was condemned by the prohibitions of religion.

Theodoret of Cyrus (c.393–457), The Questions on the Octateuch Volume I: On Genesis and Exodus (HT: Todd Wood):

Whom did Cain marry?
His sister, of course. At the time, this was not an offense, no law forbidding it, especially since there was no other way to provide for the increase of the race. … [God] formed one man from the earth, created one woman from him, and filled the whole world with their offspring. To achieve this goal, he allowed intercourse of brother and sister in the beginning, but when the races had increased, he made this kind of marriage unlawful.

John Bunyan (1628-1688), An Exposition on the First Ten Chapters of Genesis, And Part of the Eleventh:

Cain’s wife was his sister, or near kinswoman; for she sprang of the same loins with himself; because his mother was “the mother of all living” (Gen 3:20).

Evidence is no match, though, for a closed mind and the person I was sparring with persisted in stating that the idea was original with Ken Ham. However, for those with open minds I thought these extracts from Christian commentators on the identity of Cain’s wife might be of interest.

Oh, and if you happen to know of any others, please get in touch. I’d love to add them to the list.

As I wind down for the holidays may I take this opportunity to wish all my readers a very happy Christmas and a blessed New Year. There are exciting things afoot – so see you in 2012!

This reminds me a great deal of the work that Leonard Brand, Raul Esperante and colleagues have been doing on the remarkable fossil whales of the Pisco Formation of Peru. I’m looking forward to seeing some publications on this latest discovery.

Also, take a look at Todd Wood’s essay, ‘What I would like to hear an evolutionary creationist say’. Written for the Colossian Forum, it is a characteristically honest and heartfelt piece that says some things that we all need to hear.