101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

yth #31:
Cain built a city east of Eden.
The Myth: And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the
land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and
bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his
son, Enoch. And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael
begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech. (Gen. 4:16–18)
The Reality: The four possible sites for the mythological first city are Heliopolis
or Thebes in Egypt or Eridu or Bad-tibira in Mesopotamia.
When God discovered that Cain murdered Abel, he declared,“When thou tillest
the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a
vagabond shalt thou be in the earth” (Gen. 4:12). Yet, almost immediately thereafter
Cain built the first city, a sign of permanence inconsistent with being a fugitive and
vagabond. That contradiction underscores the confusion of the biblical editors over
the identity of Cain.
Initially, Cain stood in for Osiris (oldest son of the heavens and the earth). In
Egyptian tradition, Osiris wandered far and wide to teach skills to humanity. He also
built the first city at the site of the primeval hill and each Egyptian cult center claimed
to be the place where Osiris built the city. In the Mesopotamian tradition, cities were
built at the instigation of the gods with humans doing the dirty work. Various texts
refer to five cities being built in the earliest times: Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larak, Sippur, and
Shurrupak, all of which date to early in the third millennium B.C.
In Hebrew, the name “Cain” means“smith” or“metalworker.” Smiths were artisans
and the repositories of crafts knowledge. The early Egyptian myths do not talk about
metalworkers, but in Mesopotamia, one of the first cities, Bad-tibira, means“fort of the
metalworkers” or“wall of the metalworkers.”
Genesis gives few clues about the identity of the city built by Cain. It lies east of
Eden in a land called Nod, and Cain named the city after his son. His son’s name was
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