Cain | |
---|---|
Born | 64-70 AM |
Died | 930 AM (aged 860-866) |
Spouse | Aclima |
Children | Enoch |
Parents | |
Relatives | In Genesis: Abel (sibling) Seth (sibling) Irad (grandson) Mehujael (great-grandson) Methushael (great-great-grandson) Lamech (great-great-great-grandson) Jabal (great-great-great-great-grandson) Tubal-Cain (great-great-great-great-grandson) Naamah (great-great-great-great-granddaughter) According to later traditions: Aclima (sibling) Azura (sibling) |
Cain [lower-alpha 1] is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He is the elder brother of Abel, and the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, the first couple within the Bible. [1] He was a farmer who gave an offering of his crops to God. However, God was not pleased and favored Abel's offering over Cain's. Out of jealousy, Cain killed his brother, for which he was punished by God with the curse and mark of Cain. He had several children, starting with Enoch and including Lamech.
The narrative is notably unclear on God's reason for rejecting Cain's sacrifice. Some traditional interpretations consider Cain to be the originator of evil, violence, or greed. According to Genesis, Cain was the first human born and the first murderer.
Some modern scholars view the Cain and Abel narrative as a symbolic, etiological tale [2] to explain how agriculture replaced foraging [3] using name puns (Abel's name is related to a word for "herder" and Cain's to a word for "metalsmith"). [4] Scholars date the story to between the 9th century BCE [5] and first decades of the 4th century BCE, [6] and note the similarity to other Mesopotamian stories, especially the Sumerian myth of the Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzid. [7]
A question arising early in the story is why God rejected Cain's sacrifice. The text states that "In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor." [8] Noteworthy is the difference in the type of sacrifice: fruits of the soil are renewable and bloodless, while fat-portions are set apart for the Lord [9] and taken from the firstborn, pointing to an act of faith, since it is not guaranteed there will be more. The Midrash suggest that although Abel brought the best meat from his flock, Cain did not set aside for God the best of his harvest. [10]
Similar to the internalized spiritual death God warns Adam and Eve off from eating the forbidden fruit—they do not physically die immediately, but over the course of time their bodies age and die—the Lord warns Cain that his inappropriate anger is waiting to consume him: "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must rule over it. [11]
According to Genesis 4:1–16, Cain treacherously murdered his brother, Abel, lied about the murder to God, and as a result, was cursed and marked for life. With the earth left cursed to drink Abel's blood, Cain was no longer able to farm the land. He becomes a "fugitive and wanderer", and receives a mark from God - commonly referred to as the mark of Cain - so that no one can enact vengeance on him. [12]
Exegesis of the Septuagint's narrative, "groaning and shaking upon the earth" has Cain suffering from body tremors. [13] Interpretations extend Cain's curse to his descendants, where they all died in the Great Deluge as retribution for the loss of Abel's potential offspring. [14]
The Pearl of Great Price, a Mormon book of scripture, describes the descendants of Cain as dark-skinned, [15] : 12 and church president Brigham Young stated, "What is the mark? You will see it on the countenance of every African you ever did see...." [16] [17] In another biblical account, Ham discovered his father Noah drunk and naked in his tent. Because of this, Noah cursed Ham's son, Canaan to be "servants of servants". [18] [19] : 125 Although the scriptures do not mention Ham's skin color, some doctrines associated the curse with black people and used it to justify slavery. [19] : 125
One popular theory regarding the name of Cain connects it to the verb "kana" (קנהqnh), meaning "to get" and used by Eve in Genesis 4:1 when she says after bearing Cain, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." In this viewpoint, articulated by Nachmanides in the thirteenth century, Cain's name presages his role of mastery, power, and sin. [20] In one of the Legends of the Jews , Cain is the fruit of a union between Eve and Satan, who is also the angel Samael and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and Eve exclaims at Cain's birth, "I have gotten a man through an angel of the Lord." [21] According to the Life of Adam and Eve (c. 1st century CE), Cain fetched his mother a reed ( qaneh ) which is how he received his name Qayin (Cain). The symbolism of him fetching a reed may be a nod to his occupation as a farmer, as well as a commentary to his destructive nature. He is also described as "lustrous", which may reflect the Gnostic association of Cain with the sun. [22]
Cain is described as a city-builder, [23] and the forefather of tent-dwelling pastoralists, all lyre and pipe players, and bronze and iron smiths. [24]
In an alternate translation of Genesis 4:17, endorsed by a minority of modern commentators, Cain's son Enoch builds a city and names it after his son, Irad. Such a city could correspond with Eridu, one of the most ancient cities known. [25] Philo observes that it makes no sense for Cain, the third human on Earth, to have founded an actual city. Instead, he argues, the city symbolizes an unrighteous philosophy. [26]
In the New Testament, Cain is cited as an example of unrighteousness in 1 John 3:12 and Jude 1:11. The Targumim, rabbinic sources, and later speculations supplemented background details for the daughters of Adam and Eve. [27] Such exegesis of Genesis 4 introduced Cain's wife as being his sister, a concept that has been accepted for at least 1,800 years. [28] This can be seen with Jubilees 4 which narrates that Cain settled down and married his sister Awan, who bore their first son, the first Enoch, approximately 196 years after the creation of Adam. Cain then establishes the first city, naming it after his son, builds a house, and lives there until it collapses on him, killing him [29] on the same year of Adam's death. [30]
In this alternative reading of the text, the ground could be personified as a character. This reading is evidenced by given human qualities, like a mouth, in the scripture. The ground is also the only subject of an active verb in the verse that states, "It opens its mouth to take the blood." This suggests that the ground reacted to the situation. By that logic, the ground could then potentially be an accomplice to the murder of Abel (Jordstad 708). The reaction from the ground raises the question, "Does the intimate connection between humans and the ground mean that the ground mirrors or aids human action, regardless of the nature of that action?" [31]
In Jewish tradition, Philo, Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan asserted that Adam was not the father of Cain. Rather, Eve was subject to adultery having been seduced by Sammael, [32] [33] the serpent [34] (nahash, Hebrew : נחש) in the Garden of Eden, [35] the devil himself. [27] Christian exegesis of the "evil one" in 1 John 3:10–12 have also led some commentators, like Tertullian, to agree that Cain was the son of the devil [36] or some fallen angel. Thus, according to some interpreters, Cain was half-human and half-angelic, one of the Nephilim (Genesis 6). Gnostic exegesis in the Apocryphon of John has Eve seduced by Yaldabaoth. However, in the Hypostasis of the Archons , Eve is raped by a pair of Archons. [37]
Pseudo-Philo, a Jewish work of the first century CE, narrates that Cain murdered his brother at the age of 15. After escaping to the Land of Nod, Cain fathered four sons: Enoch, Olad, Lizpha and Fosal; and two daughters: Citha and Maac (the latter five aren't mentioned in the Bible). Cain died at the age of 730, leaving his corrupt descendants spreading evil on earth. [38] According to the Book of Jubilees, Cain murdered his brother with a stone. Afterwards, Cain was killed by the same instrument he used against his brother; his house fell on him and he was killed by its stones. [39] A heavenly law was cited after the narrative of Cain's death saying:
With the instrument with which a man kills his neighbour with the same shall he be killed; after the manner that he wounded him, in like manner shall they deal with him. [40]
A Talmudic tradition says that after Cain had murdered his brother, God made a horn grow on his head. Later, Cain was killed at the hands of his great-grandson Lamech, who mistook him for a wild beast. [41] A Christian version of this tradition from the time of the Crusades holds that the slaying of Cain by Lamech took place on a mound called "Cain Mons" (i.e. Mount Cain), which is a corruption of "Caymont", a Crusader fort in Tel Yokneam in modern-day Israel. [42]
The story of Cain and Abel is also made reference to in chapter 19 of 1 Meqabyan, a book considered canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. [43] In this text, Cain killed Abel because he desired Abel's wife.
According to the Mandaean scriptures including the Qolastā, the Book of John and Genzā Rabbā, Abel is cognate with the angelic soteriological figure Hibil Ziwa [44] who taught John the Baptist. [45]
In the book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches by Charles Godfrey Leland, Cain is a lunar figure. [46]
According to Rashid who cites a midrash by Rabanus Maurus, Cain died from an arrow shot by a blindfolded man. [47]
The following family tree of the line of Cain is compiled from a variety of biblical and extra-biblical texts.
Various early commentators have said that Cain and Abel have sisters, usually twin sisters. According to Rabbi Joshua ben Karha as quoted in Genesis Rabbah, "Only two entered the bed, and seven left it: Cain and his twin sister, Abel and his two twin sisters." [48] [49]
The Book of Genesis does not give a specific reason for the murder of Abel. Modern commentators typically assume that the motives were jealousy and anger due to God rejecting Cain's offering, while accepting Abel's. [50] The First Epistle of John says the following:
Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous."
Ancient exegetes, such as the Midrash and the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan , tell that the motive involved a desire for the most beautiful woman. According to Midrashic tradition, Cain and Abel each had twin sisters; each was to marry the other's. The Midrash states that Abel's promised wife, Aclima, was more beautiful than Awan, Cain's promised wife. And so, after Cain would not consent to this arrangement, Adam suggested seeking God's blessing by means of a sacrifice. Whoever God blessed would marry Aclima. When God openly rejected Cain's sacrifice, Cain slew his brother in a fit of jealousy and anger. [50] [51] Rabbinical exegetes have discussed whether Cain's incestuous relationship with his sister was in violation of halakha . [52]
A millennia-old explanation for Cain being capable of murder is that he may have been the offspring of a fallen angel or Satan himself, rather than being the son of Adam. [35] [27] [37]
A medieval legend has Cain arriving at the Moon, where he eternally settled with a bundle of twigs. This was originated by the popular fantasy of interpreting the shadows on the Moon as a face. An example of this belief can be found in Dante Alighieri's Inferno (XX, 126 [53] ) where the expression "Cain and the twigs" is used as a kenning for "moon".
In Latter-day Saint theology, Cain is considered to be the quintessential Son of Perdition, the father of secret combinations (i.e. secret societies and organized crime), as well as the first to hold the title Master Mahan meaning master of [the] great secret, that [he] may murder and get gain. [54]
In Mormon folklore a second-hand account relates that an early Mormon leader, David W. Patten, encountered a very tall, hairy, dark-skinned man in Tennessee who said that he was Cain. The account states that Cain had earnestly sought death but was denied it, and that his mission was to destroy the souls of men. [55] [56] The recollection of Patten's story is quoted in Spencer W. Kimball's The Miracle of Forgiveness , a popular book within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [57] This widespread Mormon belief is further emphasized by an account from Salt Lake City in 1963 which stated that "One superstition is based on the old Mormon belief that Cain is a black man who wanders the earth begging people to kill him and take his curse upon themselves (M, 24, SLC, 1963)." [58]
Freud's theory of fratricide is explained by the Oedipus or Electra complex through Carl Jung's supplementation. [59]
There were other, minor traditions concerning Cain and Abel, of both older and newer date. The apocryphal Life of Adam and Eve tells of Eve having a dream in which Cain drank his brother's blood. In an attempt to prevent the prophecy from happening the two young men are separated and given different jobs. [60]
The author Daniel Quinn, first in his book Ishmael and later in The Story of B , proposes that the story of Cain and Abel is an account of early Semitic herdsmen observing the beginnings of what he calls totalitarian agriculture, with Cain representing the first 'modern' agriculturists and Abel the pastoralists. [61]
Abel is a Biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He was a younger brother of Cain, and the second son of Adam and Eve, the first couple in Biblical history. He was a shepherd who offered his firstborn flock up to God as an offering. God accepted his offering but not his brother's. Cain then killed Abel out of jealousy.
The Adamic language, according to Jewish tradition and some Christians, is the language spoken by Adam in the Garden of Eden. It is variously interpreted as either the language used by God to address Adam, or the language invented by Adam with which he named all things, as in the second Genesis creation narrative.
The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, Bereshit. Genesis is an account of the creation of the world, the early history of humanity, and the origins of the Jewish people.
Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. According to the Hebrew Bible, he had two brothers: Cain and Abel. According to Genesis 4:25, Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, and Eve believed that God had appointed him as a replacement for Abel.
In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices, each from his own fields, to God. God regarded Abel's offering, but not Cain's. Cain killed Abel and God cursed Cain, sentencing him to a life of transience. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod, where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.
The Land of Nod is a place mentioned in the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, located "on the east of Eden" (qiḏmaṯ-ʿḖḏen), where Cain was exiled by God after Cain had murdered his brother Abel. According to Genesis 4:16:
And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
וַיֵּ֥צֵא קַ֖יִן מִלִּפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה וַיֵּ֥שֶׁב בְּאֶֽרֶץ־נֹ֖וד קִדְמַת־עֵֽדֶן׃
The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan is a 6th-century Christian extracanonical work found in Ge'ez, translated from an Arabic original.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Kenites/Qenites were a tribe in the ancient Levant. They settled in the towns and cities in the northeastern Negev in an area known as the "Negev of the Kenites" near Arad, and played an important role in the history of ancient Israel. One of the most recognized Kenites is Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, who was a shepherd and a priest in the land of Midian. Certain groups of Kenites settled among the Israelite population, including the descendants of Moses's brother-in-law, although the Kenites descended from Rechab maintained a distinct, nomadic lifestyle for some time.
The Book of Moses, dictated by Joseph Smith, is part of the scriptural canon for some denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement. The book begins with the "Visions of Moses", a prologue to the story of the creation and the fall of man, and continues with material corresponding to the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible's (JST) first six chapters of the Book of Genesis, interrupted by two chapters of "extracts from the prophecy of Enoch".
The doctrine of the serpent seed, also known as the dual-seed or the two-seedline doctrine, is a controversial and fringe Christian religious belief which explains the biblical account of the fall of man by stating that the Serpent mated with Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the offspring of their union was Cain. This event resulted in the creation of two races of people: the wicked descendants of the Serpent who were destined for damnation, and the righteous descendants of Adam who were destined to have eternal life. The doctrine frames human history as a conflict between these two races in which the descendants of Adam will eventually triumph over the descendants of the Serpent.
The curse of Cain and the mark of Cain are phrases that originated in the story of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis. In the stories, if someone harmed Cain, the damage would come back sevenfold. Some interpretations view this as a physical mark, whereas other interpretations see the "mark" as a sign, and not as a physical mark on Cain himself. The King James Version of the Bible reads "set a mark upon Cain".
Bereshit, Bereishit, Bereshis, Bereishis, or B'reshith is the first weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. The parashah consists of Genesis 1:1–6:8.
Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems.
Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story of the Abrahamic religions, she was the first woman. Eve is known also as Adam's wife.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that Adam and Eve were the first man and the first woman to live on the earth and that their fall was an essential step in the plan of salvation. Adam in particular is a central figure in Mormon cosmology.
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. They also provide the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin, which are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam.
Enoch is a person in the Book of Genesis. He is described as a son of Cain, and father of Irad.
Adamah is a word, translatable as ground or earth, which occurs in the Genesis creation narrative. The etymological link between the word adamah and the word adam is used to reinforce the teleological link between humankind and the ground, emphasising both the way in which man was created to cultivate the world, and how he originated from the "dust of the ground". Because man is both made from the adamah and inhabits it, his duty to realise his own potential is linked to a corresponding duty to the earth. In Eden, the adamah has primarily positive connotations, although Adam's close relationship with the adamah has been interpreted as likening him to the serpent, which crawls upon the ground, thus emphasising his animal nature.
The primeval history is the name given by biblical scholars to the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. These chapters convey the story of the first years of the world's existence.
Cain and Abel, also known as The Murder of Abel, and The Death of Abel, is an oil painting by the Venetian painter Tintoretto, made around 1550–1553, and kept in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.