Cain and Abel

Cain killing Abel, from a 15th century manuscript.

According to the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, Cain and Abel were the first and, possibly, second sons of Adam and Eve, born after the Fall of Man (the only other child of Adam and Eve to be named in the Bible was Seth). Their story is told in the Hebrew Bible at Genesis 4 and in the Qur'an at 5:27-32. In both versions Cain commits the first murder by killing his brother after God rejects his sacrifice, but accepts Abel's. Genesis puts some emphasis on the occupations of the brothers; Abel tends flocks while Cain is a farmer.

Names

Cain and Abel are English renderings of the Hebrew names קַיִן / קָיִן and הֶבֶל / הָבֶל, respectively, from the Bible. In the modern Standard Hebrew transliteration, these are rendered Qáyin and Hével / Hável, whereas in Tiberian Hebrew they are rendered Qáyin / Qāyin and Héḇel / Hāḇel. In the Qur'an, Abel is named as Hābīl (هابيل); Cain is not named in the Qur'an, although Islamic tradition records his name as Qābīl (قابيل). Cain is called Qayen (ቃየን) in the Ethiopian version of Genesis, although in several other places such as Jude 1:11, he is called by the variant Qayel (ቃየል), by which name he is more usually referred to in sermons. Some have proposed the name Abel should be identified with the Assyrian word aplu, simply meaning "son".

A once common English folk etymology held that Abel was composed from ab and el, effectively meaning source of God. However, this is a fallacy, as the original Hebrew only contains the three letters HVL (הָבֶל), which is quite different from ABEL (אבאל). Biblically, the word Hevel (Abel) appears in Ecclesiastes in a context implying it should be translated "pointless" (the King James Version translates it as "vanity", which at the time of translation had the same English meaning, but does no longer), and also appears, in the masoretic text, at 1 Samuel (at 6:18) apparently with the meaning "lamentation". Both Biblical uses are traditionally taken to imply that Abel's name is a pun, in reference to Abel's brief life.

The etymology for Cain's name given in the Bible itself is possibly more for the sake of humour, rather than accuracy - "And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said I have gotten a man from the LORD". The word here translated "gotten" being qanithi in the original Hebrew, a word derived from qanah ("to get"), and hence a word-play on qayin, though there is no etymological relationship between these two words. (See Allen C. Myers, et al.)

Academic considerations have produced a different theory, a more direct pun. Abel is here thought to derive from a hypothetically reconstructed word meaning "herdsman", with the modern Arabic cognate ibil, which now more specifically means "camels". Cain (qayin / qyn), on the other hand, is thought to be cognate to the mid-1st millennium BC South Arabian word qyn, meaning "metal smith" (See Richard S. Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11, ISBN 3-7887-1478-6. pp. 24-25). This theory would make their names merely descriptions of the roles they take in the story - Abel as a pastoral farmer, and Cain as an agriculturist.

The story

Summary

Cain leads Abel to Death, by James Tissot.

Genesis (4:1-17) presents a brief account of the brothers. It states that Cain was a tiller of the land while his younger brother Abel was a shepherd, and that one day they both offered a sacrifice to God, Cain offering fruit and grain, and Abel offering the fat, fatlings, or milk as Josephus has it (the possible renderings of the consonantal Hebrew) from the firstborn of his flock. For an unspecified reason, God favors Abel's offering, and subsequently Cain murders Abel, for another unspecified reason, often assumed simply to be jealousy over God's favoritism. The story continues with God approaching Cain asking about Abel's whereabouts. In a response that has become a well-known saying, Cain answers, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Finally, seeing through Cain's deception, as "the voice of [Abel's] blood is screaming to [God] from the ground", God curses Cain to wander the earth. Cain is overwhelmed by this and appeals in fear of being killed by other men, and so God places a mark on Cain so that he would not be killed, stating that "whomsoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be upon him sevenfold". Cain then departs, "to the land wandering". Early translations instead stated that he departed "to the Land of Nod", which is generally considered a mistranslation of the Hebrew word Nod, meaning wandering. Despite being cursed to wander, Cain is later mentioned as fathering a lineage of children, and founding a city, which he named Enoch after the name of his son.

Motives

Because Abel's sacrifice is described as "from the female firstlings of his flock, even from their fat ones," while Cain's sacrifice is described without any elaboration, Jewish Biblical commentator Rashi interprets Cain's offering as being of an inferior quality to Abel's. In this view, God's rejection of Cain's offering was simply a message that He wanted Cain to put in more effort in the future, and was not a reflection on who Cain was as a person. This explanation still leaves many questions unanswered, including why Cain would offer an inferior sacrifice in the first place and then kill his brother rather than working on his own character flaws.

The New Testament, on the other hand, says that Abel made his offering one of faith (Hebrews 11:4), whereas Cain was inherently evil (1 John 3:12).

Although Genesis depicts Cain's motive in killing Abel as simply being one of jealousy concerning God's favoritism of Abel, this is not the view of many extra-biblical works. The Midrash, and the obscure First Adam and Eve all record that the real motive involved the desire of women. According to Midrashic tradition, Cain and Abel each had twin sisters, whom they were to marry. The Midrash records that Abel's promised wife was the more beautiful, and hence Cain desired to rid himself of Abel, whose presence was inconvenient. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ, there is a different view, found in part of their scripture, the Book of Moses (part of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible), which describes that Cain's motive is still jealousy, but it is Abel's livestock of which he is jealous.

The account in The Qur'an [5.27-32], similar to one given in The Torah, also strongly implies that the motivation of the fratricide of Cain was due to the rejection of his offering to God, but this is an implication and not explicitly clear:

And relate to them with truth the story of the two sons of Adam, when they each offered an offering, and it was accepted from one of them and was not accepted from the other. The latter said, "I will surely kill thee" The former replied, "God accepts only from the righteous" [5.27]

"If thou stretch out thy hand against me to kill me, I shall not stretch out my hand against thee to kill thee. I do fear God, the Lord of the Universe" [5.28]

"I wish that thou shouldst bear the punishment of the sin against me as well as of thine own sin, and thus be among the inmates of the Fire, and that is the recompense of those who do wrong." [5.29]

But his evil self induced him to kill his brother, and so he killed him and became one of the lost ones. [5.30]

Then God sent a raven which scratched in the ground, that He might show him how to hide the corpse of his brother. He said, "Woe is me ! Am I not able to be even like this raven so that I may hide the corpse of my brother?" And then he became remorseful. [5.31]

Further amplification of the conflict is also provided in Catholic/Orthodox Biblical Book of Wisdom, wherein Wisdom, symbolised as the Daughter of GOD, speaks. According to Wisdom, Cain was an unjust man who abandoned God Given Wisdom in anger, and consequently, suffered the inevitable results:

But when the unjust man withdrew from her [i.e. Wisdom] in his anger, he perished through his fratricidal wrath. [Wisdom 10:2]

The text also invites an analogical reading. Cain and Abel can be seen as representing the two dominant lifestyles that were available to the Ancestors of the Jews - agriculture (ie. Cain) and nomadic herding (ie. Abel). Agriculture, and the social patterns of settlement that go with it, eventually prevailed over the nomadic way of life, effectively 'killing' it. The story of Cain and Abel can therefore be seen as an account of an important part of the social history of Jewish society.

Abel's death

Detail of the Ghent Altarpiece (1432) at Saint Bavo Cathedral.

While the Torah merely states that Cain killed Abel, the Midrash records the tradition that the two brothers fought, until Abel, who was the stronger of the two, overcame Cain, but mercifully spared his life. Cain, however, took Abel who was unaware, and killed him. The exact method of murder varies with some traditions proposing a stone, others a cane, and others by strangulation. Medieval traditions viewed the murder weapon as being a plough. The Qur'anic version is similar, stating that Abel refused to defend himself from Cain, and hence, in the view of some liberal movements within Islam, Abel is the primary Qur'anic proponent of pacifism and non-violence.

In Christianity, comparisons are sometimes made between the death of Abel and that of Jesus. In the Gospel of Matthew (at 23:35), Jesus speaks of Abel as righteous. The Epistle to the Hebrews however states that The blood of sprinkling ... [speaks] better things than that of Abel (Hebrews 12:24), i.e. the blood of Jesus is interpreted as demanding mercy (as per Christian belief about Jesus' death) but that of Abel as demanding vengeance (hence the curse and mark).

William Blake's The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve.

Burial

The Midrash records the opinion that the place of murder was cursed to be desolate forever, with later Jewish tradition identifying it as Damascus.

According to the Qur'an, it was Cain who buried Abel, and he was prompted to do so by a single raven scratching the ground, on God's command. The Qur'an states that upon seeing the raven, Cain regretted his action, and that rather than being cursed by God, since he hadn't done so before, God chose to create a law against murder:

if anyone slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.

In the underworld

In classical times, as well as more recently, Abel was regarded as the first innocent victim of the power of evil, and hence the first martyr. In the esoteric Book of Enoch (at 22:7), the soul of Abel is described as having been appointed as the chief of martyrs in Sheol, crying for vengeance, for the destruction of the seed of Cain. This view is later repeated in the Testament of Abraham (at A:13 / B:11), where Abel has been raised to the position as the judge of the souls:

an awful man sitting upon the throne to judge all creatures, and examining the righteous and the sinners. He being the first to die as martyr, God brought him hither [to the place of judgment in the nether world] to give judgment, while Enoch, the heavenly scribe, stands at his side writing down the sin and the righteousness of each. For God said: I shall not judge you, but each man shall be judged by man. Being descendants of the first man, they shall be judged by his son until the great and glorious appearance of the Lord, when they will be judged by the twelve tribes of Israel, and then the last judgment by the Lord Himself shall be perfect and unchangeable.

According to the Coptic Book of Adam and Eve (at 2:1-15), and the Syriac Cave of Treasures, Abel's body, after many days of mourning, was placed in the Cave of Treasures, before which Adam and Eve, and descendants, offered their prayers. In addition, the Sethite line of the Generations of Adam swear by Abel's blood to segregate themselves from the unrighteous.

Mark of Cain

Main article: Curse and mark of Cain

Much has been written about the curse of Cain, and associated mark. The word translated as mark could mean a sign, omen, warning, or remembrance. In the Torah, the same word is used to describe the stars as signs or omens, circumcision as a token of God's covenant with Abraham, and the signs performed by Moses before Pharaoh. Although most scholars believe the writer of this part of the story had a clear reference in mind that readers would understand, there is very little consensus today as to exactly what the mark could have been.

In Judaism, the mark is not a punishment but a sign of God's mercy. When Cain was sentenced to be a wanderer he didn't dispute the punishment but only begged that the terms of his sentence be altered slightly, protesting Whoever meets me will kill me! For reasons that aren't specified, God agrees to this request. He puts the mark on Cain as a sign to others that Cain should not be killed until he has had seven generations of children. Jewish Biblical commentator Rashi explains that after seven generations (Cain, Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methushael, Lamech, Jabal/Jubal/Tubalcain) Cain was killed by his descendant Lamech. (Gen. 4:24)

Early Syriac Christianity interpreted the mark as a permanent change in skin colour, i.e. that Cain was turned black. This re-emerged amongst Protestant groups, and the curse was often used by them in some attempts to justify racism of one form or another, such as the slave trade, banning interracial marriage, and apartheid. These views have since been disowned by most Protestant groups, many now pointing to the tale of Snow-white Miriam as a counter argument, although Christian Identity groups tend to support the interpretation though swapping blackness for the curse of Jewishness. It is significant to note that these interpretations were not, and are not, recognized by the Mar Thoma groups, Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, or Coptic Christianity.

15th century depiction of Cain and Abel, Speculum Humane Salvationis, Germany.

In medieval Christian art, particularly in 16th century Germany, Cain is depicted as a stereotypical ringleted, bearded Jew, while Abel is a blonde, Christian gentile. This traditional depiction has continued for centuries in some form, such as James Tissot's 19th century Cain leads Abel to Death, shown above. This was the result of an apparent necessity to resolve the problem of fratricide not involving an outsider, by explaining it as the result of a group historically vilified by Christianity.

Baptist and Catholic groups both consider the idea of God cursing an individual to be out of character, and hence take a different stance. Catholics officially view the curse being brought by the ground itself refusing to yield to Cain, whereas some Baptists view the curse as Cain's own aggression, something already present that God merely pointed out rather than added. Conversely, in popular culture, since Victorian times, Cain's bloodlust has often seen him being portrayed as the progenitor of vampires. Another view is taken in Latter-day Saint theology, where Cain is considered to be the quintessential Son of Perdition, the father of secret combinations (i.e. secret societies and organized crime), as well as the first to hold the title Master Mahan meaning master of [the] great secret, that [he] may murder and get gain.

Wanderer

As, in the Torah, Cain was ordered to wander the earth in punishment, a tradition arose that this punishment was to be forever, in a similar manner to the (much later) legend of the Flying Dutchman.

File:Cormon F Cain flying before Jehovah's Curse.jpg

Fernand-Anne Piestre Cormon's painting titled "Cain flying before Jehovah's Curse", c. 1880, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Though variations on these traditions were strong in mediaeval times, with several claims of sightings being reported, they have generally gone out of favour. Nevertheless, both the Wandering Cain theme appeared in Mormon folklore (but not scripture). The last known claim of a sighting appears to have been in the United States in the year 1868, when he was reported to have visited a Mormon named O'Grady (see Desert News, September 23, 1868). Prior to this in 1836, another early Mormon - David W. Patten - claimed to have encountered a very tall, hairy, dark-skinned man in Tennessee who said that he was Cain. Patten claimed that Cain had earnestly sought death but was denied it, and that his mission was to destroy the souls of men. Patten's story is quoted in Spencer W. Kimball's The Miracle of Forgiveness, which is popular among Mormons.

Despite these later traditional beliefs of perpetual wandering, according to the earlier Book of Jubilees (chapter 4) Cain settled down, marrying his sister, Awan, resulting in his first son, Enoch (considered to be different to the more famous Enoch), approximately 196 years after the creation of Adam. Cain then established the first city, naming it after his son, built a house, and lived there until it collapsed on him, killing him in the same year that Adam died.

A medieval legend used to say that at the end Cain arrived to the Moon where he eternally settled with a bundle of twig on the back. This was originated by popular fantasy interpretating the shadows on the Moon face. An example of this belief can be found in Dante Alighieri's Inferno (XX, 126) where the expression "Cain and the twigs" is used as a synonym of "moon".

Origin

In scholarship, the prevailing theory is that the story is composed of a number of layers, with the original layer deriving from the Sumerian tale of the wooing of Inanna. In the tale, seen as representing the ancient conflict between nomadic herders and settled agrarian farmers, Dumuzi, the god of shepherds, and Enkimdu, the god of farmers, are competing for the attention of Inanna, chief goddess. Dumuzi is brash and aggressive, but Enkimdu is placid and easy going, so Inanna favours Enkimdu. However, on hearing this, Dumuzi starts boasting about how great he is, and exhibits such strong charisma that Enkimdu tells Inanna to marry Dumuzi and then wanders away.

The biblical correspondence in this theory being God to Inanna, Abel, the shepherd, to Dumuzi, and Cain, the farmer, to Enkimdu, and equating only to the competitive part of the story, Cain wandering away, and the extra-biblical traditions concerning the involvement of a beautiful woman. The presence of sacrifices, rather than mere words, in the biblical story, is sometimes seen as simply the priesthood's spin on the story, to emphasise that one form of sacrifice is better than the other.

In later mythology, though still prior to 1500s BC, Dumuzi had become conflated with Enkimdu, and so acted as a general agricultural deity, though still retaining some of the earlier myths. In his more general role, since he was responsible for the yearly crop-cycle, Dumuzi became seen as a life-death-rebirth deity. Exactly how the myth fits in with the marriage of Dumuzi to Inanna is not clear, since the surviving copies of the myth abruptly begin with Inanna descending to the underworld for an unknown reason. Innana can only escape by exchanging herself for a god not in the underworld, and so considers each of them in turn. Dumuzi is only too glad she has gone, and so, in anger, she sends demons upon him, and he dies, thus releasing her. She then changes her mind, showing favour, and bringing Dumuzi back by persuading his sister to take his place for 6 months each year (hence starting the annual cycle).

This murder of Dumuzi is thought, critically, to be the source of the murder of Abel. Since God, unlike Inanna, was seen as being powerful enough not to get stuck in the underworld, he would have had no need to escape, and so no motive to kill Abel, hence the blame shifting to the jealous Cain/Enkimdu. The part of the story involving perpetual annual resurrection and death is not given to Abel, who is supposedly merely mortal.

The Bible makes reference on several occasions to Kenites, who, in the Hebrew, are referred to as Qayin, i.e. in a highly cognate manner to Cain (Qayin). The Mark of Cain is thus believed to originally refer to some very identifying mark of the Kenite tribe, such as red hair, or a ritual tattoo of some kind, which was transferred to Cain as the tribe's eponym. The protection the mark is said to afford Cain (harming Cain involving the harm being returned sevenfold) is hence seen as some sort of protection that membership of the tribe offered, in a form such as the entire tribe attacking an individual who harms just one of their number.

In popular culture

• Adam Raised a Cain is the second track on Bruce Springsteen's album Darkness on the Edge of Town.
• The title of the season 3 House episode "Cane and Able" is a pun of Cain and Abel.
• Cain and Abel are mentioned twice in the lyrics of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "21st Century." The song was featured on the 2006 album "Stadium Arcadium."
• There is an episode of the British scifi comedy "Red Dwarf" that has a character named Abel, a senile, drug-addicted android. Abel saved the crew by taking an escape ship and bombarding an enemy ship with a "nega-drive," which contains all of an android's negative emotions. The nameless simulant, an android made to look like a human, crashed his ship into Abel's in a fit of rage, killing them both.
• In the Bloc Party song "Cain Said To Abel". The song was a bonus iTunes track included with the American version of "A Weekend In The City"
• In videogames there is a "Legacy of Kain" series of video games (including "Soul Reaver"), which plays on the vampire/bloodlust angle of Cain's character
• In the Avenged Sevenfold song "Chapter Four".
• In an episode of "Titus," Christopher Titus comments "Cain slew Abel. Oh, happy, happy Cain."
• In Megadeth's song "Truth Be Told" from the album "The System Has Failed" makes reference to Cain and Abel "When Cain Struck down Abel, A family broken"
• In the book/anime/manga Trinity Blood, two of the characters are named Cain and Abel (a sister is named Seth). They are strongly based on the Biblical tale - Cain at one point kills Abel.
• In The Simpsons' espisode, Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass, Ned Flanders films an independent movie with his sons as Cain and Abel. Before filming begins Todd asks Ned: "If Cain and Abel were Adam and Eve's only children, how did they make more babies?" And Rod asks: "Did they make babies with their mother or with each other?" Annoyed, Ned replies: "Your mouth is hopin' for a soapin' boy, now stop asking silly questions and go kill your brother!"
• In the Oasis song "Guess God Thinks I'm Abel" - from the album Don't Believe the Truth
• Cain and Abel are the names of two knight brothers from The Fire Emblem games Ankokuryu to Hikari no Tsurugi and Monshou no Nazo.
• In the Bob Dylan song "Desolation Row." On his famous Highway 61 Revisited album.
• "Twist of Cain" by the band Danzig off of their debut album and "Bodies" off of Danzig III contain strong references.
• In the Elton John song, "The One" (written by Bernie Tauplin), one lyric states "For each man in his time is Cain", which pertains to Cain being outcasted and forced to walk the world alone for the rest of his life.
• Bloc Party's "Cain Said To Abel", a b-side of "A Weekend in the City".

Literature

As the first murderer and first murder victim, Cain and Abel have often formed the basis of tragic drama. Their names are often used in works of fiction simply as a reference, also. Some notable explorations or references to Cain and Abel include:

• In the Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game, Cain is said to have killed his brother on the understanding that God wished Cain and Abel to make a blood sacrifice of something most dear to them, and that Cain sacrificed Abel as his most beloved thing to give to God. Cain (spelled "Caine" in this case) later becomes the first vampire.
• Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, when Estragon tries to get Pozzo's attention, he tries names; Cain and Abel. Pozzo responds to both and this represents all humankind.
• In Cain's Book, Alexander Trocchi, the anti-hero, Joe Necchi, is, like Cain, also seemingly condemned to wander. In this instance the 'mark' of Cain is figured by the mark of heroin addiction.
• In Beowulf, the monster Grendel is a descendant of Cain.
• Lord Byron wrote the poem "Cain" dramatising Cain and Abel's story.
• John Steinbeck's East of Eden is a retelling of the Cain and Abel story in the setting of the late 19th and early 20th century western migration towards California. Also, his novellette Of Mice and Men draws elements from the story.
• Kane and Abel is the title of a novel written by British author Jeffrey Archer. It is a story about two ambitious men (born on the same day but unrelated) who developed a rivalry whilst never actually knowing each other. Published in the United Kingdom in 1979, it reached Number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list when it was published in the U.S. a year after.
• Baudelaire's poem "Abel and Cain" in his collection Les Fleurs du Mal sees Cain as representing all the downtrodden people of the world. The poem's last lines exhort, "Race of Cain, storm up the sky / And from the heavens cast down God!"
• Cain and Abel feature frequently in the surreal graphic novel cyclus The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. In the dreamworld Cain is engaged in eternal fratricide, Abel being revived after each murder: "Cain: Now, why would I give you an exploding present? What kind of a brother would I be if I did that? Abel: The kind who kills me whenever he's mad at me, or bored, or just in a louzy mood! " (The Sandman #2, Imperfect Hosts).
• The mark and story of Cain, as well as references to Cainites, are explored in Herman Hesse's novel Demian. The narrator deals with his shifting conception of good and evil, and engages with alternative interpretations of the story of Cain and Abel.

External links

• Torah, Genesis, Chapters 1-6
• Rashi on Genesis, Chapter 4, by Rashi
• Baudelaire's poem in French with English translations underneath
• Genesis, Chapter 4 from Young's Literal Translation
• Entry in Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)
• Analysis of Cain and Abel from Reading the Old Testament
• Cain's Mistake : Not Dividing Rightly
• Alternative theory about the story of Cain and Abel, by Daniel Quinn
• Qaheen/Cain and Hevel/Abel
• Occult Path of the Cainites: From Cain to Antichrist, by Clinton Ortiz