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- Cain killed Abel out of jealousy because God favored Abel's offering over his. The quote "Sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it" is a warning and instruction from God to Cain, advising him to overcome his sinful inclinations and improve his actions.
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Dec 5, 2022 · The evil in Cain’s heart was further revealed when the Lord asked him, “Where is your brother Abel?” to which Cain replied, “I don’t know. . . . Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). In this response Cain tells a stone-cold lie and shows an amazing level of insolence.
- The Background: The Rejected Offering
- The Common Interpretation: Jealousy
- Destined For Evil: Life of Adam and Eve
- Premeditated and Gruesome: Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan
- A Theological Argument Gets Ugly: The Jerusalem Targums
- No Connection to The Offering: Genesis Rabbah
- A Complex Reading of Cain
Immediately after Cain and Abel’s birth announcement,the Torah tells us the two brothers brought offerings to YHWH from their respective areas of specialization: animal husbandry and agriculture: A reader might imagine that Cain should be rewarded since bringing an offering to YHWH is his idea, while Abel just follows suit. Nevertheless, YHWH’s rea...
The earliest and perhaps most natural answer we find in the second centuryB.C.E. book of Jubilees (4:2): At the beginning of the third jubilee, Cain killed Abel because the sacrifice of Abel was accepted, but the offering of Cain was not accepted. The Bible explores the theme of jealousy between brothers in the Joseph story, in which Jacob’s favori...
An extreme example of Cain-as-evil-incarnate appears in the retelling of the story in the Pseudepigraphic work, The Life of Adam and Eve, a Jewish apocalyptic work from the early to mid-first millenniumC.E. We first learn of Cain’s evil disposition upon his birth (21:3a–c): She gave birth to an infant and his color was that of the stars. He fell in...
The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, a sixth century Christian work (likely reworking a Jewish original), retells the story of Cain and Abel at great length. In this version, Adam rather than his sons give YHWH the first offering, and Cain does not even participate, whereas Abel encourages them. Abel’s piety brings on Satan’s hatred, who then t...
Rabbinic exegesis also attempts to fill out the story by adding details. One approach, found in all three of the Jerusalem Targums (mid to late 1st millenniumC.E.)presents the fight as a theological argument turned heated: Angered by this response, Cain doubles down and denies God’s involvement in the world entirely, using a phrase (bolded) that ho...
Genesis is silent about what happened in the field, We are never told whether Abel was entirely the victim of an aggressive brother or whether he himself may have done something to provoke the crisis. Moreover, nothing explicit in the Torah connects the killing of Abel with the previous story about sacrifices. Something else may have taken place to...
Cain’s “crime” is so well embedded in our consciousness that it is difficult to read this text with an open mind. What really happens in the field (v. 8)? Almost universally, Cain is maligned for committing first degree murder—but how would he have known what murder is? The text is unclear about what leads Cain to kill his brother. Is he a villain,...
Both brothers offered individual sacrifices to God; God accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's; out of jealousy, Cain slew Abel – the first ever case of murder committed upon the Earth. In Islam, the story of Cain and Abel serves as an admonition against murder, and promotes the sanctity of human life.
We have all heard the story of Cain and Abel. Two brothers bring their sacrifices to God; Abel's sacrifice is accepted, but Cain's sacrifice is not. Out of jealousy, Cain take's his brother out into the field and kills him. Because of Cain's sin, he is branded with a mark and sent away.
And Cain spoke to 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.1 In short, Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a farmer. Cain brought an offering to G‑d from the fruit of his harvest, and Abel brought from his firstborn sheep.
- Yehuda Shurpin
Cain slew his brother, because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous, 1Jo 3:12. In consequence of the enmity put between the Seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, the war broke out, which has been waged ever since.
Cain murders his brother, Abel, out of jealousy, found in Genesis 4. The two were sons of Adam and Eve, with two different responsibilities (each cornerstones of the neolythic economy,...
