Balbira & Kalmana
According to the Seder Hadorot, Balbira and Kalmana were the respective wives and twin sisters of Cain and Abel.[1][2] In an effort to explain where Cain and Abel acquired wives, some traditional sources write that each child of Adam and Eve was born with a twin who became their mate. According to the Seder HaDorot, the wife and twin sister of Cain was named Kalmana and the wife and twin of Abel was Balbira.[1]
The sister of Cain is already named Kalmana in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius (first Greek redaction) II.1.,[3] and Calmana in the Golden Legend. The poet Petrus Riga (1140-1209) included Calmana in his famous poem Aurora, and this could have been a source for her appearance in Peter Comestor's Historia Scholastica. Comestor's Biblical narrative text then served as the standard textbook for Biblical education for centuries.
In the Book of Jubilees IV, they are named as Azura and Awan.[4]
See also
- List of names for the Biblical nameless
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Seder Hadorot 8a
- ↑ Abarbanel Gen. 4,1 as cited by Codex Judaica
- ↑ A.C. Lolos, Die Apokalypse des Ps.-Methodios. Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 83. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1976.
- ↑ http://www.yahwehsword.org/book_of_jubilees/book_of_jubilees_chapter_04.htm