Questions raised by the biblical Cain and Abel story

 This is the draft of what I'm going to be editing and handing in Tuesday for my Hebrew Scriptures class. Again, this is my intellectual property, and you have no right to claim it as your own, especially if you're attempting to steal this and hand it in for a grade. I am posting this so that I may add my own voice to the discussion about this passage. Also, it is a draft at this stage, and has all of the faults and rough edges associated with drafts.

There are many strange and puzzling tales in the book of Genesis, but perhaps none as well known or as troubling as the story that exists in Genesis 4:1 through 4:18.  It is commonly known as the story of Cain and Abel.  The first part of this essay will deal with issues raised by, and through the reading of the text, where the second part will attempt to determine the source—according to the Documentary Hypothesis—of this portion of the text.

The first question that I have about this story is why did God prefer Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s?  God says to Cain “If you do well, will you not be accepted?”, since Cain obviously hasn’t been accepted, what has he done wrong?  One idea that was brought up in class discussion is that Cain isn’t the son of Adam, but rather of Satan, who was the serpent in Eden that seduced Eve and made her eat the fruit.  This theory is supported by the fact that a snake can be a phallic symbol, and the serpent is a tempter, like Satan.  Cain’s unholy parentage is then the reason that God does not accept his sacrifice.

The commentary in The New Oxford Annotated Bible makes no attempt to answer this question, but has a rather interesting thing to say about the name “Abel”.  The same word appears in translation in the book of Ecclesiastes as “vanity” or “emptiness”, “His name anticipates his destiny” says the commentary.  This, to me, was cryptic and confusing.  Was Abel destined to be killed all along?  If he was vain, wouldn’t God have preferred the sacrifice of the other brother?  Did Abel actually commit the sin of vanity? 

There is a case to be made for the interpretation that God knew Cain would murder his brother before it happened.  God says to Cain “sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”  This sounds like a warning.  God seems to know that Cain will have the urge to murder his brother, and God wants him to overcome it.  Perhaps Cain is the one that has been chosen by God, and Abel matters less to Him.  After all, Cain is the one who has the chance to make a decision and has the opportunity to prove himself.  Abel doesn’t have to earn God’s ‘favor’, so that may make him less important. 

The second burning question is, after Cain leaves, he settles down and marries.  Who does he marry?  Eve is the only other woman on Earth at this time in history, or at least she’s supposed to be.  Are there other people that exist independently of Adam and Eve, and their sons?  If so, when were they created, and why wasn’t their creation mentioned?  One possible answer that was mentioned in class discussion is that Cain and Abel each had a twin sister, and it was one of those sisters that Cain married. 

But then, after the sentence about Cain’s marriage, comes a description of him as the builder of the first city.  Since a city isn’t built just for one family—that is, Cain’s family—it reinforces the implication that there are other peoples in existence on the Earth.  This brings back all the questions that I mentioned above about the origins of these people.  My answer as to who these people are is based on the lack of knowledge that the ancient writers of the Pentateuch had about the theory of evolution.  I would say that human beings evolved, and spread out into their own little groups across the land.  Cain has simply encountered some of these people and married into their society.  But then wouldn’t the writers of this have mentioned the creation of these other groups of people along with Adam and Eve?  There seems to be no relation between the people Cain finds and the family he comes from.  Another theory, from my own head, involves the myth of Adam’s first wife, Lilith.  This myth says that she left Adam and went away to a land where she had many children by demons that lived there.  After this incident, God created Eve with the hope that she would be a better wife.  Perhaps Lilith’s children are the people that Cain found. 

Even before Cain leaves to wander the Earth, however, he seems to have knowledge of other people in existence; he says to God, “…anyone who meets me may kill me.”  He would have no reason to say something like that if there weren’t other people around.

This story, I believe, comes from the J source. The way that God acts in this story is characteristic of the J source—he speaks and interacts directly with the humans.  In other sources, God conveys his messages through angels or dreams (Coogan, 45).  God speaks directly to Cain after the sacrifice and after the murder, and even engaging in argument with Cain when He says “Not so!  Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.”  This is a very humanlike trait—it’s so unlike a deity to need to argue with a lesser creature like a human.  This type of characterization is typical of the J source.

Another reason that I think this is from the J source is that the God character is referred to as “the Lord” and that only occurs in the Yahwist source.  In the Yahwist source, God is referred to by His personal name, “YHWH”, as opposed to the other sources, in which He is called “Elohim” or some variant of that. 

Close readings of the Biblical text often raise more questions than it does answers, but I hope that the answers and interpretations presented here may help further the discussion about this section of Genesis.