I think that we might be wandering into GD territory here, but I might as well put out the version that I’d heard, which differs from the commentaries that Wikipedia references:
The way I heard it, Cain was born with one twin sister, and Abel was born with two triplet sisters. Each assumed he was to marry a sister that was born with him. (contrary to the notion that twin-cest was worse than separate sibling incest) However, Cain, as the first-born, claimed that he was entitled to twice the wives that Abel was entitled to (in accord with the inheritance laws to be described later in the Bible, though of course, those don’t apply to wives), and Abel believed that since the “extra” was born with him, she was his by right. They fought, and Cain won.
In this version which I had heard, the sacrifices aren’t some sort of contest set up by Adam in relation to the dispute over the girl, but are instead simply offers of gratitude to G-d for their success in their craft. Abel, in giving G-d the best, did so properly, and Cain did not do so.
Ummm, guys? I’m working with the previously agreed-upon “Catholic version of 46 Old Testament Books and 27 New Testament Books”, so sources for all this un-canonical information would really be nice.
Hmm. Thanks, cmkeller, for the correction on professions. I should not have said “only.” However, I think my main point is still valid: while the other professions are mentioned, they are not as critical to the story as hunting, farming, and shepherding. And of those three, only shepherds seem to be favored. My apologies for the “only.” What I get for working away from home and my notes and texts.
On the question of sisters, etc., please note that (next week) Gen 5:4 says, “Adam … begot sons and daughters.” (ASIDE: I sort Cecil’s mail, and around every two or three months, some kid writes in the say they’ve found a fatal flaw in the bible story because there are no women born to Adam and Eve so how can… It gets old real fast.) The text is not written as Greek history (which set the basis for modern history writing.) Some later biblical books are written after contact with the Greeks, and are much more chronological in their telling. But in these earliest books, the story-telling order does not reflect the exact chronology. Hence, the birth of many children and the population growth could have happened before Cain went off to found a city.
The non-text stories that cmkeller has cited are called “midrash”, stories derived from the biblical text. There are midrashim (the plural) in the Talmud (written from 100 BCE to 200 CE, give or take, and based on much older oral traditions) and there are midrashim written today. Official midrashim were closed a century or two ago, I think, when the stories started to get out of hand. They are basically either attempts to explain confusing text or they are moral stories based on biblical characters. They have no particular “validity”, they’re just interesting interpretations over the centuries, some of them expressed by very learned sages/rabbis from very long ago.
For Orthodox Jews, much of the Talmud is taken to be Oral Law that was passed down as tradition from the time of Moses, and thus would have a layer of veracity taken on faith.
I’m confused about Cain’s fear of being killed. In an almost empty world with only his parents and siblings, why would Cain even have to worry about encountering anyone but his own wives and children if he is leaving the region of Eden? And since his own exile shows that murder is abhorred, why would he assume that anyone he met would kill him on sight?
The only reason I can think of is because they would be executing a murderer, following the law that is later written down by Moses. Why would God punish them sevenfold for doing that?
And what did Lamech’s poem mean? If I understand it, he killed only two people, so what does he mean when he says he’s avenged seventy-sevenfold?
I’m planning to hunt down the source. I realize that the sort of extra-biblical story I quoted was a little out of scope (hence the preface of my remarks possibly straying into GD territory), but I felt that with the competing versions already out there, I should put mine out too, as it resolves the questions raised by Trafs Fat 0g on the version he quoted.
Tony Sinclair:
G-d cursed him so that the ground would not yield its bounty wherever he happens to be. If people in the area where he is realize that his presence causes their crops to fail, they will detect that Cain is removed from G-d’s grace (“and from Your Face I will be hidden”) and he may be killed with impunity.
It might be notable that the matter of executing murderers is first raised not in the Mosaic law, but in Noah’s laws, and it gives a reason. It says in Genesis 9:6, “He who spills man’s blood, shall have his blood spilled by man, for in the image of G-d [G-d] made man.” Perhaps the implication of “from Your Face I will be hidden” means that part of the implied punishment was a removal (or concealment) of the “image of G-d” from Cain’s face, which would make him exempt from the sentiment in that passage. Perhaps the “sign” that G-d gives Cain for protection is the restoration of the G-dly form that properly defines humanity. (This is pure speculation on my part, and not from any source I am yet aware of. It just came to me when I was writing this post.)
The promise of sevenfold punishment occurs after Cain has now shown remorse (“my sin is too great to bear”). G-d accepts his repentance and while this will not abate the already-declared curses, G-d offers him protection that he did not have previously.
Simply poetic license. Lamech is trying to assure his wives that he is much worthier of divine protection than Cain was (so, a poetic doubling of the “seven” language), so they should not fear association with him following the killings he had just performed (which, BTW, the Jewish sources interpret as being accidental, not, as the translation quoted in this thread would imply, vengeful).
Cain’s response in verse 9 has always been problematic for me. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” rings of arrogance. “Keeping” is something that is done for a pet or some livestock, not a human being. The expectation was that Cain would be his brother’s brother, not his brother’s “keeper.” Personally, I never want to be anyone’s “keeper”. Friend, spouse, father, child, sibling, neighbor, customer, vendor…but not “keeper”.
From the Everett Fox translation: “I do not know. Am I the watcher of my brother?”
Chapter 4 is shot through with plot holes. Cain’s wife is one. But the part that jumped out at me was when Cain, the firstborn, feared that, “whoever finds me will kill me,” before he received the mark. Not “My brothers, sisters, cousins and clan”. “Whoever”. Something like that takes me out of the story: it seems odd that Cain would fear an anonymous crowd if he was the 3rd human ever put into existence.
So I assume that Cain and Able did not have Adam as a father in the original unwritten story. Why didn’t the original compiler of Genesis feel it unnecessary to shore up these plot holes? Were ancient audiences simply less demanding? My guess is that they weren’t. My guess is that the Bible transcribes an oral recital, but that most decent storytellers might go along with a Q&A after the event. And explaining these things away isn’t that hard.
But that’s just a guess. Why weren’t the gaping plot holes in Genesis fixed over time? It’s not like the authors of the Bible shied away from redaction.
Following Book 3, we see more of a Father who is quick to punish but also likely to soften his judgments, presumably out of love or caring. Such is the mark of Cain.
The word in Hebrew is “Shomer” and technically means “watcher” (or “caretaker”), not “keeper” in the sense of ownership as you seem to be interpreting the common translation.
Measure for Measure:
I’m not certain why you seem to feel that way, and even if I understood that, I don’t understand why you feel the “plot hole” of Cain’s and Abel’s parentage wasn’t “shored up by the original compiler”, since the Bible as we clearly have it says Adam was the father of Cain and Abel.
If it’s just the fact that he says “whoever,” I don’t think it’s necessary that Cain, who only has parents and siblings, would think in specific terms of future people being “cousins” or “clan”. He doesn’t expect Adam or Eve (or his presumed but non-textual sisters) to be the ones to kill him, it would be some future person who he doesn’t even have words for the relationship with them yet.
One, the redaction was not a single hand, or even a single time. Although the scribes had a reverence for their source material that generally precluded their own input, marginal explanatory notes did end up being incorporated into later copies, either inadvertently or deliberately (scribal glosses). Also, by the time this was occurring, there would have been a body of commentary available based on the various sources that were being drawn together. If a valuable and revered piece of interpretation was not to be lost, a particular version of events might well be preserved and incorporated even when it does not quite fit with an alternative (but just as valuable) source.
I’ve always thought of it as “What am I, the babysitter?”
I don’t see any plot holes - Genesis makes it clear (next chapter maybe) that Adam & Eve had other sons and daughters, so the origin of Cain’s wife is no mystery. And recall that people lived hundreds of years, so he was bound to eventually run into very distant relatives who would have been complete strangers to him.
The chronology in the next chapter says the first few generations lived 900+ years. If you figure women were fertile for the middle 600 years of their lives, and they had a child every three years or so, that would be about 200 children per woman.
At that rate, if half the children were women, it would take just five generations, easily within Cain’s lifetime, to have ten billion people. So even much more conservative estimates would allow for a lot of strangers.
If we can fill in the blanks about Eve having tons of other children, is there any reason why we couldn’t just as reasonably fill in the blanks with Yahweh creating tons of other people instead? I mean, I realize there is tradition that A&E were the great-grandparents of all humanity, but if I just read this without all my cultural baggage, I would assume that somehow the Earth was populated with lots of unrelated people who just never got mentioned because the *focus *is on the tribe Yahweh created starting with Adam and Eve. Even Genesis 1 is perfectly compatible with the interpretation that He made lots and lots of males and females, isn’t it?
A.) “The blanks” I’m referring to are where Cain’s wife came from, and who all these people who might want to kill him are. Given the way it’s written, it seems like Seth and all the other kids were born after Cain’s conversation with Yahweh. So it still seems reasonable to wonder if there were other people around.
B.) You don’t have to be so rude about it. I was excited to see these threads starting as I’ve meant to go ahead and read the whole darn book and try to understand the cultural influences, literary conventions and so on. Excuse me for not reading ahead and for asking a question brought up in my mind by finally looking at the text step by step.
I apologize for the seeming rudeness, I was merely using an expression for “invented from nowhere” that seemed humorously parallel to the first part of my sentence. My point remains that where the blank can be filled in by reference to an actual Biblical verse, then it’s more validly part of the Biblical millieu than a “fill-in” invented with no Biblical basis at all.
With all respect, what’s the difference between him speculating that there were people not descended from Adam, and the Midrash you referenced about Cain claiming the right to Abel’s triplet sisters? Wasn’t that ultimately pulled out of some ancient rabbi’s nether regions? And doesn’t the later verse about the Nephilim indicate that there were other races, not descended from Adam, that could mate with humans?
There actually is at least one set of rabbinic interpretations that, after the creation of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden, God created other peoples (including cities.) It’s not pulled out of the arse (nor even out of the rib cage, for that matter.) Alas, I’m not home so I don’t know the cite.
MODERATOR: Just a reminder to all, rude and insulting language directed at other posters is not appropriate in this forum. cmkeller’s remarks have already been called, and he’s apologized, so no further action from me is necessary… other than to remind folks that this is to be a civil and polite discussion.
Also reminder that it’s Friday night, so the traditional Jews will not be available for comment until well after sunset Saturday.
Not really, but I don’t want to get into GD territory explaining and defending the Talmud/Midrash. I understand that this is a Cafe Society thread, attempting to stick to the basic text, and I wouldn’t have mentioned any Midrash at all, except that Trans Fat 0g mentioned his problems with an equally-out-of-scope version of the story as presented on Wikipedia, and I wanted to offer him an alternative version which I’d heard that does not have those problems.
Not necessarily, but we’ll deal with that when we get to that chapter.