So how did the book explain the whole killed-in-secret thing, rather than on the altar, and denying he knew what was up with Abel when questioned?
An oddity of the Cain as son-of-serpent story: obscure as it is, this myth is incorporated into a lot of white supremacy mythology. To them, non-white races are descended from demonseed Cain while whites are descended through Seth. (How the flood didn’t mess this up I don’t know, but we’re talking white supremacists here, not logicians.)
Bippy the Beardless:
Do you then make no distinction between murder and execution? Because G-d clearly stated that eating of the Tree of Knowledge was a crime punishable by death.
It is also thought (in these same circles) that the Mark of Cain which God puts on Cain as punishment is black skin. Still have the problem of the flood, and I don’t know how they rationalize that, but incidentally, there is a whole racist connection to the story of Noah as well. After the flood is over, there is a night where Noah ends up drunk and naked. Ham sees him (and, we are led to believe, mocks him), but after being told, his brothers Shem and Japheth cover Noah up. When Noah wakes up, and knows about what his “younger son” has done to him, he curses Canaan, Ham’s son, and says he shall be his brothers’ servant (and his children his brother’s children’s servants, and so on). Ham’s descendants, according to tradition, are supposed to have populated Africa, since in Hebrew Ham, pronounced Chom, means “hot”. It is believed in white supremacist circles that Africans descended through Canaan specifically, and thus deserved to be slaves. Sorry for the massive hijack.
Fang:
Which is odd, because anyone reading that passage in context would understand that the mark was for Cain’s protection, not his punishment.
Chaim Mattis Keller
I agree with Guinastasia. The fact that Cain tried to hide Abel’s death indicates that he knew that he had done something wrong.
Well I have to admit that if I’m probably not very likely to walk up to a black guy and start a fight, so the mark must work. (OTOH, I’ve never walked up to a white guy to start a fight either- maybe I’m just a coward.)
His crime was murder, and by the time the story was set down, and read, the people reading/hearing it would have long known that murder was wrong, ala Noone Special
No that was not clearly stated, what was stated was:
“but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
The punishment is implied, granted, but he could as easily said, do not drink the anti-freeze or you will surely die. He never said I will execute you if you eat from that tree, but told them they would die, which would mean nothing to people who have never seen death before. It should have meant nothing to God too, but that is another topic altogether 
FordPrefect:
Okay, that’s true - the statement could be taken as either a warning of punishment or as a warning of consequence. What it cannot be defined as, though, is murder, which is the point that I was trying to make to Bippy the Beardless.
Hold on to your towel, frood.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Re: What was Cain’s crime?
In killing Abel, he offed one-quarter of the population of the Earth, becoming in effect history’s greatest mass murderer.
Jaws 4.
– Playing Devil’s (or in this case Cain’s) advocate –
Cain was embarrassed that he had sacrificed his brother, because he enjoyed it, not because he knew it was wrong. The fact that he enjoyed killing proved that it was God’s will.
God’s action in removing immortality from man is tantamount to murder because it is a prerequisite of all murder. God provides the means (mortality) and the reason (knowledge of Good and Evil), so must be considered an accomplice in every such act.
This thread has strayed from the OP (which has been answered) enough that I feel I can give a little IMHO perspective.
For a while now, I’ve thought that this is one of the most touching stories in the Bible, because it is told more or less from Cain’s perspective. Like Cain, we don’t know why God prefered Able’s sacrifice. Things went wrong for Cain, and he couldn’t explain why, so he lashed out at his brother. God punishes him justly (since Cain obviously did know what he did was wrong), but has mercy on him (the mark). God also provides the moral of the story, as a warning to Cain before he murders: “And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” IOW, we all get angry when life goes wrong and we don’t know what we’ve done to cause it. At those times, we’re tempted to sin, to lash out at those around us, but we don’t have to give in to that temptation. If we resist the temptation, we grow, and do better as a result.
Plus all that sociology stuff Mirage pointed out. A lot of Scripture is opaque or meaningless except as historical matter or defining a certain tradition, but there are plenty of little (and big)gems of ancient literature in there.
I never thought of it that way.
Ironic you can be history’s greatest mass murderer, percentage wise, while only killing a single person.
According to Dante, he is also a traitor, even though I believe he is imprisoned in the violence section of hell. However, the part of hell that imprisons those who betray relatives is named after him.
What about the people in the land of Nod? Didn’t someone go and get a wife from there? And where did they come from anyway? Did J_____h create them and if so, were they ever in the Garden of Good and Evil?
So many questions, so little thyme.