Did Cain and Abel use stone tools?

Question

According to the Bible, Cain was a farmer and Abel a shepherd. Its very hard to perform these crafts with stone tools. One also wonders from where they gained knowledge of agriculture and animal husbandry.

If Cain and Abel had metallurgical skills, why is there so much evidence that our ancestors used stone tools?

Answer 1

Being that it is a fable, you can modernize and say they used machetes.

Answer 2

I wasn't aware that metal tools were required to take care of sheep. Somehow people up through the Middle Ages managed to do it with wooden staffs and similar non-metal tools.



If you read through the early chapters of Genesis, it assigns the "invention" of metal tools to Tubalcain, who was a fifth generation descendant from Adam. Such tools appear to have been around quite early in human history. But they were not universal used or known. Such as many of the American Indian tribes were still using stone tools in the 15th and 16th century, or the Amazon tribes that still live in stone age conditions today. Their lack of metal tools does not mean that no one knows how to make them.



Just because some people invented metal tools and farmed does not mean that every human world wide did the same. Even the Bible acknowledged that there were difference in technology and lifestyle among different groups. In the book of Judges, one of the reasons the Philistines where able to control the Israelites was because they preventing any of the Israelites from being able to understand how to make metal items. This was late during what we be considered the Bronze Age, and the Israelites were still limited to stone tools for much of their work.



Where did Cain and Abel gain their knowledge of agriculture and animal husbandry? Probably the same way that evolution says man gained the knowledge. Common sense, trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn't.

Answer 3

Number 1: You're wrong about about it being "very hard" to perform those skills with stone tools; it was done just fine in ancient history. Both survival skills are pretty hard even with mechanized metal tools, but Can & Abel didn't need metallurgy.



Number 2: The story of Cain and Abel was not a history lesson, so don't try mixing it up with human history and thinking you have come up with some grand reason why the Bible is false.

Answer 4

Stone, wood, bone and antler tools were used for farming from before 10,000BC to about 3,000BC, by which time farming had spread across the whole of Europe. I've seen a sickle made from flint and bone and it cuts well enough.



If Cain and Abel had existed, they would have managed with stone tools for farming. What tools do you need for herding sheep? A stick and a dog?

Answer 5

The time before people used tools made of metal. It´s really pretty arbitrary, but the stone age is held to last (in different cultures, I should think) to the moment bronze tools are in widespread use. Matthew: Now I know you really are a troll, and not a real believer.

Answer 6

"According to the Bible, Cain was a farmer and Abel a shepherd. Its very hard to perform these crafts with stone tools."



Not really...



Besides tilling the ground, you don't really need tools for either of those professions...

Answer 7

Yet another inconsistency in the common belief system.



From a rational point of view, we can say that the people who wrote the bible simply assumed that mankind had always used metal tools. They would not have been recording history by dates or by ages or even by technological discoveries. They didn't know that mankind once used stone tools, lived in caves and resembled hairy apes.

Answer 8

yh and the same of ur ancestors make it possible to be learning today.God dat create them will not leave them to work with stone tool,they might av all the things that is needed because they are intelligent

Answer 9

Cain means "smith". Down the genealogies, you will encounter "Tubal-Cain who was a worker of metals".

Answer 10

Oh... some religionists had a theory about that. They claim that man had metal tools and whatnot before the flood but after the flood they all forgot...



Yeah, right...

Answer 11

In answer to the second part of your question - because it's not true.Not in anyway.

Answer 12

Yes....Cain is that old and he is Mccain and that is why.