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LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON GENESIS 4:1–2 Why Did Cain Kill His Brother Abel?

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LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON GENESIS 4:1–2 Why Did Cain Kill His Brother Abel? CHAPTER ONE LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON GENESIS 4:1–2 You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit; What was a month old at Cain’s birth, that’s not five weeks old as yet? (Shakespeare—Love’s Labor’s Lost 4.2.40) Why did Cain kill his brother Abel? It is usually assumed by modern commentators that God’s rejection of Cain’s offering led him to kill his brother in a fit of jealousy.1 Such a conclusion is logical in light of the way the action in the story is arranged. But the fact is we are never told the specific reason for the murder. Ancient exegetes, as we will see later, also speculated over Cain’s motive and sometimes provided the same conclusion as modern interpreters. But some suggested that there was something more sinister behind the killing, that there was something inborn about Cain that led him to earn the title of first murderer. These interpreters pushed back past the actual murder to look, as would a good biographer, at what it was about Cain’s birth and childhood that led him to his moment of infamy. Correspond- ingly, they asked similar questions about Abel. The result was a devel- opment of traditions that became associated with the brothers’ births, names and occupations. Who was Cain’s father? As we noted in the introduction, Cain and Abel is a story of firsts. In Gen 4:1 we find the first ever account of sexual relations between humans with the end result being the first pregnancy. And Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and gave birth to Cain and she said, “I have gained a man with the help of the Lord.” 1 Anglea Y. Kim, “Cain and Abel in the Light of Envy: A study in the History of Interpretation of Envy in Genesis 4:1–16,” JSP (2001): 65–84. 12 chapter one The language describing Adam’s relations with Eve is the usual bibli- cal form of “knowing her” which is somewhat prosaic in comparison to the more graphic “entering into her” found elsewhere in Genesis (e.g. Abraham with Hagar 16:4; Jacob with Leah, Rachel, and Bilhah 29:23, 30; 30:4; Judah with Tamar 38:18).2 The description of Eve’s conceiving and giving birth also follows standard formulas, but what is unusual is the declaration made by Eve after giving birth to Cain, her first child. It is this statement that attracted the attention of later translators and interpreters and led them to speculate on the meaning of Eve’s words. In the Hebrew version of the story Eve declares that she has “gained a man with the Lord.” Most English translations will insert the phrase “with the help of ” (NRSV) to clarify how Eve received a man from the Lord. But the Hebrew is more ambiguous and difficult to translate than is sometimes appreciated. The problem centers on how one is to -While the majority of modern com .את־יהוה understand the phrase mentators suggest that the phrase be translated as “with the help of the is את Lord,” such a translation is without parallel. For instance, if the understood as a direct object marker rather than as a preposition, it is then possible to understand Cain as the fulfillment of the promise made to Eve in Gen 3:15 where God says the woman will have a child who crushes the head of the serpent.3 Such ambiguities in the Hebrew represented both a challenge and an opportunity to early translators and exegetes. A survey of extant translations from antiquity reveals that attempts were made to clear up the ambiguity, but were not always successful. The LXX, for instance, translates the phrase asδιὰ τοῦ θεοῦ “through God,” which would suggest some type of divine intervention.4 Sym- machus, on the other hand, simply translated it as σὺν κυρίῳ (“with the Lord”) which would lend more support to modern translations. While either of these translations may seem innocuous at first glance, both contain potential theological statements about the interaction 2 Susan Brayford, Genesis (Septuagint Commentary Series; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 248. 3 Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15 (WBC 1; Waco: Word, 1987), 102; Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis Chapters 1–5 (Luther´s Works, Vol. 1; Saint Louis, Mo: Concordia, 1958), 242. 4 Note also that the translator used θεοῦ rather than κυριοῦ which is the usual in the LXX; see John William Wevers, LXX: Notes on the יהוה Greek equivalent for Greek Text of Genesis (Septuagint and Cognate Studies 35; Atlanta, Ga: Scholars Press, 1993), 51. .
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