Genesis Chapter 4
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
And Cain talked with Abel his brother : and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
“Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.
And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.
And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.
And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.
And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.
And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.
And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.
"And Adam knew Eve his wife;
and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said,
“I have gotten a man from the Lord.”
This is after Adam and Eve have been chased out of the garden of Eden. What’s really cool about this—I really think that the Cain and Abel story is the most profound story I’ve ever read, especially given that you can tell it in 15 seconds. I won’t, because I tend not to tell stories in 15 seconds, as you may have noticed. But you can read the whole thing that quickly. It’s so densely packed that it’s actually unbelievable.
Ok, so the first thing is that Adam and Eve are not the first two human beings. Cain and Abel are the first two human beings. Adam and Eve were made by God, and they were born in paradise. It’s like, what kind of human beings are those? You don’t know any human beings like that.Human beings aren’t born in paradise and made by God. Human beings are born of other human beings. That’s the first thing. It’s post-fall. We’re out in history, now. We’re not in some archetypal beyond—although we are still, to some degree. Not to the degree that was the case with the story of Adam and Eve. We’ve already been thrown out of the garden; we’re already self-conscious; we’re already awake; we’re already covered; we’re already working. We’re full-fledged human beings. So you have the first two human beings: Cain and Abel; prototypical human beings.
What’s cool is that humanity enters history at the end of the story of Adam and Eve, and then the archetypal patterns for human behaviour are instantaneously presented.It’s absolutely mind boggling, and it’s not a very nice story. They’re hostile brothers. They’ve got their hands around each other’s throats, so to speak, or at least that’s the case in one direction. It’s a story of the first two human beings engaged in a fratricidal struggle, that ends in the death of the best one of them. That’s the story of human beings in history. If that doesn’t give you nightmares, you didn’t understand the damn story.
Now, in these hostile brother stories, which are very, very common, often the older brother—Cain—has some advantages. He’s the older brother, and, in an agricultural community, the older brother generally inherited the land, and not the younger brothers. And the reason for that was, well, let’s say you have like eight sons, and you have enough land to support a bit of a family, and you divide among your eight sons, and they have eight sons, and they divide it among their eight sons. Soon, everyone has a little postage stamp that they can stand on and starve to death on. And so that just doesn’t work. You hand the land in a piece to the eldest son, and that’s just how it is. It’s tough luck for the rest of them, but at least they know they’re gonna have to go and make their own way. It’s not fair, but there’s no way of making it fair.
Well, you might say the oldest son has an additional stake in the stability of the current hierarchy. He has more of a stake in the status quo. That makes him more of an emblematic representative of the status quo, and, perhaps, more likely to be blind in its favor. It’s something like that. That motif creeps up very frequently in the hostile brothers archetypal struggle. The story of Cain and Abel fits this pattern, because Cain is the one who won’t budge, and who won’t move. He’s stubborn. Whereas the younger son, who’s Abel, is often the one who’s more…Not so much of a revolutionary, but, perhaps, more of a balance between the revolutionary and the traditions, whereas the older son tends to be more traditionalist-authoritarian—in these metaphorical representations, at least.
"And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord."
There’s the first human being: Cain. I told you that the Mesopotamians thought that mankind was made out of the blood of the worst demon that the great goddess of chaos could imagine. Well, the first human being is a murderer, and not only a murderer, but a murderer of his own brother. And so, you know, the Old Testament, that’s a hell of a harsh book. And you might think, well, maybe that’s a little bit too much to bear. And then you might think, yea, and maybe it’s true, too. So that’s something to think about.
Human beings are amazing creatures. To think about us as a plague on the planet is its own kind of bloody catastrophe—malevolent, low, quasi-genocidal metaphor. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t without our problems. The fact that this book, that sits at the cornerstone of our culture, would present the first man as a murderer of his brother, is something that should really set you back on your heels.
