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According to Genesis 5:

3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 5 Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.

6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father[b] of Enosh. 7 After he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Altogether, Seth lived a total of 912 years, and then he died.

If we continue reading, we see that we are descendants of Seth as his genealogy leads to the birth of Noah. God destroyed other families and spared only the house of Noah (8 people), from whom the earth was repopulated.

Adam->Seth-> ... ->Methuselah->Lamech->Noah->(Noah's Sons)-> .... ->Us

Genesis 7:23- Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark

Cain's descendants and Seth's siblings' descendants were therefore wiped out.

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    You're assuming, it seems, that Seth's descendants were inbred. Or that only the male line counts. (Well, that's an assumption you'd share with the authors of the Bible, so fair enough, I suppose.) Or something.
    – TRiG
    Aug 28, 2013 at 11:19
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    As @TRiG says, one of Cain's descendants could still have been an ancestor of Noah. Cain's great^10 granddaughter could have been Noah's mum. Aug 28, 2013 at 11:56
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    It is also possible that one of the four wives on the ark was a descendant of Cain in some way.
    – Narnian
    Aug 28, 2013 at 14:42
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    According to LDS theology, Cain himself is still roaming the earth.
    – ShemSeger
    Oct 26, 2014 at 2:36
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    I wrote an answer saying that there is zero information to answer this question, but as this question keeps attracting answers which think we can say, it should be closed as a Truth Question.
    – curiousdannii
    Jan 19, 2015 at 0:02

4 Answers 4

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Your answer seems correct. As God has never approved of being unequally yoked. Cain's descendants followed after Cain and dwelt in his city (Gen 4:17). God never wanted people to live clustered in cities, where sin would abound, and there are various examples of this throughout Genesis. God's people stayed in the wilderness, tilling the ground and doing the work God had commanded to them as a blessing, even though the ground was now cursed. These were the people that began "calling on the name of the LORD." (Gen 4:25)

You could see the striking difference between the people that followed God and obeyed His commandments and those that did not.

From this point you can infer that Noah and his sons, being righteous in the eyes of God, would not mix with those who did evil in the eyes of God. If this is so, then Noah and his 3 sons would have wives that loved the LORD and were not of the lineage of Cain.

Of course it could also be that one or more of the wives were descendants of Cain that decided to follow in the way of the LORD. Nevertheless, the Bible offers no such insight on this matter. So the true answer is we do not know, but I'm definitely more inclined to say that they all were destroyed.

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    This answer is based on the false idea that the descendants of people who reject God can never repent. We have absolutely no information about the families of Noah and his sons' wives (or any of his ancestors' wives).
    – curiousdannii
    Jan 19, 2015 at 0:01
  • @curiousdannii I understand where you're coming from. However, we do have information about Noah and his sons and know where they came from. What we do not have is information about his daughters-in-law. We know they feared God, however they could have repented, like you said. The last paragraph is where the answer is, and I assume you didn't read it. Please read it friend. Jan 19, 2015 at 13:34
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    How exactly do you know the daughters feared God?
    – curiousdannii
    Jan 19, 2015 at 22:31
  • @curiousdannii Why was God destroying the Earth in the flood? Was it not because of the wickedness of man? Why would God ask Noah to go in with his sons and their wives if they were also wicked? Also, had they not feared the Lord, they would not have agreed to go in the ark. By faith they listened to the Word of God through Noah. By faith they went in the ark. By faith, they worked on the ark. Faith in the Lord. There is plenty of evidence that they loved the Lord and feared Him. What evidence is there otherwise? Jan 21, 2015 at 13:20
  • There is no real evidence either way, except statements saying no one but Noah was blameless. All we know is that they went in the ark. Perhaps like Lot's family, they were saved despite their lack of faith. I'm just saying that we can't say anything with certainly, and I don't think we can really say anything with a strong lack of doubt.
    – curiousdannii
    Jan 21, 2015 at 13:24
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Whether or not Cain has any DNA remaining in any or all of the humans now existant on earth, it can be unequivocally stated that Cain has no "descendants." A descendant - at least in a legal sense - implies legitimacy to which the Bible itself does not lend credence.

Abraham, for example, is technically the ancestor of Ishmael, but after he was kicked out, was not reckoned as a descendant.

Noah is reckoned as a descendant of Seth, regardless of whether or not a daughter in the line of Cain was a grandmother of some relation. Cain's line was wiped out with the flood, as were the Nephilim.

Cain's legacy was to be "a restless wanderer on the earth." This would imply that any progeny would not necessarily have his legacy, and hence while he may be an ancestor, his children are not "descedants."

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We cannot know. We know nothing about Noah's female ancestors or his sons' wives. Maybe one (or more) of them was a descendant of Cain, maybe not. The Bible simply doesn't tell us enough to know either way.

The idea that Seth's righteous family wouldn't intermarry with Cain's unrighteous family is unsupportable from the Bible, because Seth's righteous family didn't exist. At the time of Noah God said he was the only righteous person. The only other one we know for certain is righteous was Enoch. I've asked before why people call Seth's line righteous and no one has given any good reason why it should be.

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The Bible is silent on this matter. The Bible doesn't mention explicitly that only the descendants of Cain are destroyed in the flood. Therefore, we can only speculate.

There are other less authentic books apart from the books of the Bible. These books sometimes help us to understand the accounts written in Genesis better and in more detail. According to Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan and other books like Life of Adam and Eve, the descendants of Cain lived completely isolated from the descendants of Seth. It was the descendants of Cain who were wicked and God wiped them from the earth by flood, saving only the descendants of Seth, who were only eight people when the flood happened. The descendants of Cain were numerous because unlike the descendants of Seth, they were very active sexually and reproduced rapidly, resulting in large population.

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    those apocryphal texts are surely interesting reading ... but the conclusion that only a few Sethian descendants existed because "unlike the descendants of Seth, they were very active sexually and reproduced rapidly" seems tenuous
    – warren
    Dec 17, 2013 at 14:28
  • Or maybe the descendants of Cain exterminated the rest of the descendants of Seth (besides Noah and co), hence why "violence filled the earth". Apr 11, 2019 at 4:07

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