PARALLEL GUIDE 5 Cain and Abel Summary: Immediately after humanity’s expulsion from Eden, sin proliferates. This chapter continues the verse by verse approach, this time with the Cain and Abel story. Then it reviews the subsequent series of literary fragments that show sin pervading all creation. It ends by discussing the transcendence and immanence of God. Learning Objectives • Read Genesis 4:1-16 and 4:17-6:4 • Explain the meaning of the story of Cain and Abel • Tell why Enoch and Elijah became messianic figures • Understand the main point about God’s grace in relationship to human righteousness • Understand why Greek philosophy tends to speak of God as “without passions” and why this poses a problem for Christian theology Assignments to Deepen Your Understanding 1. In Hebrew poetry, “each verse consists of two statements, the second parallel to the first. The second half of the verse may repeat the same thought as the first half . or it may be some other kind of parallel thought.” Psalm 8:3-4 is an example. Write a four-verse poem about your understanding of the Cain and Abel story. Use the Hebrew poetic form described above. 2. Read Genesis 4:8-16 several times. Check the passage in other translations and look up the passage in a commentary. What did the passage mean to the author and what do scholars say about it? How does it fit in the context of the entire Book of Genesis? Preparing for Your Seminar Scripture can evoke memories. Notice what memories came to you as you were reading the chapter on Cain and Abel. Add them to the “Autobiography” section of your notebook. Decide how you might share your reaction to the chapter with the members of your group. Where do you see rivalry between siblings or competition between groups coveting the same land or the same promise? Identify places in our culture that parallel the Cain and Abel story. Chapter 5 CAIN AND ABEL The story of Cain and Abel shows sin, first described as a rebellion against God, immediately becoming the destruction of a fellow human being. The story itself is tied together with other fragments of tradition in a rather confusing way. The J writer has an overall intention: to show the spread of sin until the whole creation becomes infected with it. J puts together the sources more or less as they stood, not editing them into a smooth story which hangs together at all points. We see attached to the main account a second short account of Cain and a genealogy of his descendants which seems to have an etiological purpose, but we find tucked away in it a fragment of an ancient song which serves J’s purpose of showing the deepening of sin. Read Genesis 4:1-16 These first two verses set the stage for the story. Cain and Abel are born, and it is noted that Abel is a shepherd and Cain a farmer. The etymology (sources of words or meanings of words) of the name “Cain” is typical of J’s style. We find again and again the name of a person or place “explained,” though the explanation frequently does not appear to be strictly accurate. In this case, the name “Cain,” which means “spear” in Hebrew, is explained by a play on words: “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” “Cain” (Hebrew, qayin) sounds something like the verb “to get” (Hebrew, qanah). The meaning of the name “Abel,” if it has any meaning, is not known, but it does sound like the Hebrew word for “futility,” and, as it turns out, Abel’s life is futile. The Main Story Cain is a farmer, one who tills the ground and plants crops, and Abel is a shepherd. This draws attention to the conflict between the ways of life of the settled farmer and the nomadic shepherd. Shepherds had to be always on the move (which is what “nomad” means: one who moves about, usually living in tents, rather than settling down in one spot and building a permanent dwelling). This was because grazing land was rather scarce in the ancient Near East, and sheep eat the grass down to the roots. Shepherds could stay in one spot until the sheep had eaten all the grass; then they had to move on to another site. Farmers did not like to have shepherds come to their area because sheep ruined the pasture land for cattle, and also because the way of life of the shepherd was different from that of the settled community. Genesis 4:1-2 Contests for the land between these two groups were frequent and often bloody. Sometimes a peaceable arrangement was made by which the nomads bought grazing rights so that they could graze their sheep on the stubble that was left in the field after the harvest. Sometimes a settled culture would encourage nomads to come into the area to form a buffer zone between them and hostile neighbors. (This is apparently what happened in the case of the Hebrew tribes who were allowed to graze their flocks in the land of Goshen, east of the main Egyptian centers along the Nile. We read about this in the last section of Genesis, the story of Joseph.) Usually, however, such peaceful means were not found, and there was a conflict between the two groups. Genesis 4:3-7 The “offerings” which Cain and Abel make are obviously sacrifices. This means that by this time—that is, the time of the writer—people were relating to God by means of cultic activities. There was no cult—that is, no formal “religious” activity by means of which human beings and God are brought into relationship—in the garden. God walked in the garden and spoke directly to the man and the woman. The J writer does not explain how cultic worship began—this story is not about that issue. Its purpose is not to give a detailed history of human activity, putting in every point that would be required; instead, it tells us about the spread of sin. J shows in this story, for example, how sin moves from a human overreaching of the status of creature in an attempt to rival God, to the killing of one’s brother even in a religious setting. The farmer, Cain, offers some of his crop to YHWH; Abel offers YHWH the meat and fat (the fat was supposed to be especially desirable to God!) of the firstborn of his flock. By the time the J writer was telling this story, Israelite worship had long included both types of sacrifice—the “cereal offering” and the “meat offering.” (The Hebrews, who had been sheepherding nomads, had settled in Canaan and had blended their culture with the agricultural ways of life on the land.) The words used to describe the two offerings are the same ones which appear in later legislation. That is, Cain offers what a farmer is supposed to offer; Abel brings what a shepherd is supposed to bring. Our trouble begins in the second half of verse 4. Most translations say that the Lord “accepted” or “looked with favor” on Abel’s sacrifice but not at Cain’s. The verb, however, is a generic “do” or “make.” All we can say for sure is that God’s reaction to Abel’s offering—whatever that reaction was—was opposite to the reaction to Cain’s sacrifice. The point J is making has nothing to do with the offerings themselves, nor with the manner in which each came before God. The point is that sometimes we neither know nor understand why things happen. Cain is angry and his face falls. This is clear enough. But YHWH’s words to Cain— translated in the English as “ . if you do well, will you not be accepted?”—literally reads either “. if you do well, will you not be able to lift up?” or “. if you do well, you are able to lift up.” What does this mean? Verse 7 uses a vivid figure of speech. “Sin is lurking at the door”—“to couch” is to lie in ambush, to lurk. The imagery is of an animal waiting to pounce on its victim. “Its desire is for you, but you must master it”— sin is waiting to pounce on you, but you are able to overcome it. (One is reminded of I Peter 5:8—“Like a roaring lion, your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.”) God is warning Cain that in this moment of anger, of indignation, and of jealousy, he is susceptible to sin. Cain must be as aware of sin as he would be aware of danger from a wild animal. The Hebrew of verse 8 reads, “Cain said to Abel his brother, and when they were in the field. .” This is obviously not correct. The King James Bible has it, “And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field . .” The Septuagint is probably closer to what was originally written when it corrects the text to read, “Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field. .” (This is the translation used in the NRSV.) Cain, you remember, was a farmer. When he takes Abel out to the field, he is taking him to the site of Cain’s work which he has offered to God. This is the horror of the story which J undoubtedly wants us to understand: Cain is about to kill his brother “at the altar”—on the site of Cain’s sacrifice to YHWH! This is not merely a disagreement between rival brothers, but a religious battle.