Cain, Abel, and After (4)

1. Cain, Abel, and After (4) Once expelled from the garden, Adam and Eve had sexual relations and their first son Cain was born. He was followed shortly afterward by Abel. Cain was a farmer and Abel a shepherd. Each offered a gift to God from his respective produce. Abel's offering was accepted by God but Cain's was not. Out of envy Cain killed Abel. God punished him by cursing his relationship to the ground, which would no longer bear fruit for him. So Cain was forced to become a wanderer.

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The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve, by William Blake (1757-1827) ca. 1826,Tate Gallery, London -- WebMuseum, Paris Adam and Eve are in the background, Eve outstretched over the dead Abel. Cain, who has killed his brother and dug a grave in which to bury him, prepares to run away.

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    The first murder is a continuation of the series of human perversions begun in Eden. Its immediate effect is to demonstrate the snowball effect of sin. Adam and Eve sinned against God and were cursed. The curse was passed on to their children. With the second generation death was no longer just a spiritual condition of alienation from God, but also a physical reality.

    The escalation of violence continued. Cain's offspring included Lamech, who was the prototype of violent attackers (4:17-24). He boasted to his two wives that he took revenge on a man by killing him, although he himself had only been slightly wounded.
    But even while violence was increasing, there was a parallel development. Culture and technology rapidly developed. Cain's son Enoch built the first city. Lamech's three sons were credited with various first-time achievements: Jabal for domestication of animals, Jubal for music, and Tubal-cain for copper and iron industries. By associating these developments with the notoriously sinful line of Cain was the writer making a negative judgment on these so-called advances? There was a tradition in Israel that a patriarchal, semi-nomadic, and unurbanized lifestyle kept one closest to God. The Yahwist writer may have been implicitly criticizing the cultural advancements of the Davidic monarchy by associating them with the line of Cain and Lamech.
    Certainly such momentous human achievements were not the work of single men from the same family. The text telescopes into a brief span developments that took many, many generations. But interestingly, the text does evidence the importance of these developments and places them in early prehistory. Archaeologists and anthropologists have confirmed the importance of these developments for the progress of civilization, saying that these developments occurred first in the Middle East.

    Chapter 4 ends with the mention of the birth of Seth, Adam and Eve's third son. The Yahwist tells us that at this time people began to call on the name of Yahweh.

Apkallu. Mesopotamian tradition likewise traces the arts and accomplishments of civilization back to primeval times. It recalls a line of seven apkallu figures, wise men who lived before the flood, and taught humanity the arts and crafts of civilization. Genesis 4, which also contains seven generations in the Cain genealogy, may retain a reflection of this tradition. For the pre-flood Mesopotamian tradition see the Sumerian King List (Pritchard 1969: 265-66). The seventh pre-flood king, Enmeduranki, who was taken to sit before the gods and given special wisdom, may be the model for Enoch in Genesis 5, who is the seventh in the Priestly genealogy.

Dumuzi and Enkimdu. A conflict story similar to Cain and Abel is found in Sumerian literature. In this tale the shepherd-god Dumuzi vies with the farmer-god Enkimdu for the favors of the goddess Inanna. Dumuzi quarrels with Enkimdu and wins the prize of Inanna's attention (see Pritchard 1969: 41-42). Both the biblical and Sumerian stories reflect the early conflict between shepherds and farmers over use of the precious arable land.