At that time people began to evoke the name of the Lord.” There it is, almost everything that we know of Seth: Contrary to biblical custom, it is he and not his spouse who gives the name Enosh to their son. Then, in the next verse, the text tells us, “To Seth also, a son is born, and he named him Enosh. Suddenly, without minding the non sequitur, the text informs us that Adam returned to his wife, knew her, and she gave birth to a son whom she named Seth: “because God has granted me a new future in place of Abel, killed by Cain” (Genesis 4:25). When? A hundred and thirty years, or seven generations, after their first family tragedy and shortly after the death of Cain himself, who is killed by his great-great-grandson Lemech.

Abel died unmarried Cain had children and grandchildren.Īfter the murder of the younger brother and the flight of his assassin, the text tells us little else about Adam and Eve. The first murder and the first death in human history.

The elder and his rejected offerings, the younger and his accepted ones. That is equally true of their two sons, Cain and Abel. The text provides us with numerous elements about Adam and Eve’s origin, their life as first couple and first parents, their sojourn in paradise and, later, in exile. Descended from the same line, no one is superior to another. Scripture says so, and we are bound to believe it, if only to impose upon ourselves an essential lesson: that of equality. Each one of us is their direct descendant. In the story of the first man and the first woman, we are intrigued by a character about whom we are told very little.Īdam and Eve, we know. According to extrabiblical legend, the dying man sent his youngest son back to paradise to obtain anointing oil from the Tree of Knowledge. An obedient son, Seth (shown twice) listens to his dying father’s last wish, dons his cap and sets out the door to fulfill Adam’s request, in this 15th-century illumination from the Book of Hours of Catherine of Cleves.

Mister x seth