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Cain killed Abel and God cursed Cain, sentencing him to a life of transience. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod ( נוֹד , 'wandering'), where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch .
Apr 27, 2015 · According to the linked guess, Cain killed Abel by disemboweling him with the same knife Abel used for sacrificing animals, which makes it possible for a copious amount of blood to cry out from the ground.
Sep 19, 2015 · We're told: "The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and on his offering he did not look with favour" (verses 4-5). In many commentaries it's suggested that this is because Abel brought a blood sacrifice and Cain didn't.
- The Background: The Rejected Offering
- The Common Interpretation: Jealousy
- Destined For Evil: Life of Adam and Eve
- Premeditated and Gruesome: Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan
- A Theological Argument Gets Ugly: The Jerusalem Targums
- No Connection to The Offering: Genesis Rabbah
- A Complex Reading of Cain
Immediately after Cain and Abel’s birth announcement,the Torah tells us the two brothers brought offerings to YHWH from their respective areas of specialization: animal husbandry and agriculture: A reader might imagine that Cain should be rewarded since bringing an offering to YHWH is his idea, while Abel just follows suit. Nevertheless, YHWH’s rea...
The earliest and perhaps most natural answer we find in the second centuryB.C.E. book of Jubilees (4:2): At the beginning of the third jubilee, Cain killed Abel because the sacrifice of Abel was accepted, but the offering of Cain was not accepted. The Bible explores the theme of jealousy between brothers in the Joseph story, in which Jacob’s favori...
An extreme example of Cain-as-evil-incarnate appears in the retelling of the story in the Pseudepigraphic work, The Life of Adam and Eve, a Jewish apocalyptic work from the early to mid-first millenniumC.E. We first learn of Cain’s evil disposition upon his birth (21:3a–c): She gave birth to an infant and his color was that of the stars. He fell in...
The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, a sixth century Christian work (likely reworking a Jewish original), retells the story of Cain and Abel at great length. In this version, Adam rather than his sons give YHWH the first offering, and Cain does not even participate, whereas Abel encourages them. Abel’s piety brings on Satan’s hatred, who then t...
Rabbinic exegesis also attempts to fill out the story by adding details. One approach, found in all three of the Jerusalem Targums (mid to late 1st millenniumC.E.)presents the fight as a theological argument turned heated: Angered by this response, Cain doubles down and denies God’s involvement in the world entirely, using a phrase (bolded) that ho...
Genesis is silent about what happened in the field, We are never told whether Abel was entirely the victim of an aggressive brother or whether he himself may have done something to provoke the crisis. Moreover, nothing explicit in the Torah connects the killing of Abel with the previous story about sacrifices. Something else may have taken place to...
Cain’s “crime” is so well embedded in our consciousness that it is difficult to read this text with an open mind. What really happens in the field (v. 8)? Almost universally, Cain is maligned for committing first degree murder—but how would he have known what murder is? The text is unclear about what leads Cain to kill his brother. Is he a villain,...
Oct 9, 2015 · Abel was dependent on the farmer Cain for the staple, bread; thus, Cain was allowed to work him as needed and even to hit him in the course of training him to work properly. And that's what happened — except that he hit him until he died.
And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 And the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I do not know!” he answered. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 “What have you done?” replied the LORD.
Aug 19, 2021 · After he spoke with God, Cain took Abel for a walk in the fields and murdered him. Shortly after, God asked Cain where Abel had gone, and Cain tried to evade the question. But God knew the sin he committed against his brother, and punished him.
