Cain and Abel

This article is about the first and second sons of Adam and Eve. For other uses, see Cain and Abel (disambiguation).

"Abel", "Cain", and "My Brother's Keeper" redirect here. For other uses, see Abel (disambiguation), Cain (disambiguation), and My Brother's Keeper (disambiguation).

File:Peter Paul Rubens - Cain slaying Abel, 1608-1609.jpg

Cain slaying Abel by Peter Paul Rubens

Cain and Abel (Hebrew: הֶבֶל ,קַיִן Qayin, Hevel) were according to the Book of Genesis, two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain is described as a crop farmer and his younger brother Abel as a shepherd. Cain was the first human born and Abel was the first human to die. Cain committed the first murder by killing his brother. Exegeses of Genesis 4 by ancient and modern commentators have typically assumed that the motives were jealousy and anger. Although the Cain and Abel story is found in the Quran, the text refers to them simply as the sons of Adam (Arabic: ابني آدم), and neither of them is mentioned by name.

Analysis

A millennia-old explanation for Cain being capable of murder is that he may have been the offspring of a fallen angel or Satan himself, rather than being from Adam. Allusions to Cain and Abel as an archetype of fratricide appear in numerous references and retellings, through medieval art and Shakespearean works up to present day fiction.

Genesis narrative

File:Cain leadeth abel to death tissot.jpg

Cain leadeth Abel to death, by James Tissot

Hebrew Bible version:

"¹Adam knew his wife Eve intimately, and she conceived and bore Cain. She said, "I have had a male child with the LORD's help."

²Then she also gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel became a shepherd of a flock, but Cain cultivated the land. ³In the course of time Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the LORD. ⁴And Abel also presented [an offering] — some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, ⁵but He did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he was downcast.

⁶Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you furious? And why are you downcast? ⁷If you do right, won't you be accepted? But if thou do not do right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it."

⁸Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him."

― Genesis 4:1-8 (HCSB)

The Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, offers an alternate version of the seventh verse:

"If you offer properly, but divide improperly, have you not sinned? Be still; to you shall he submit, and you shall rule over him."

Later in the narrative, God asks Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" Cain replies, "I do not know: Am I my brother's keeper?"

"After this, God said to Cain, "What hast you done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth out to Me from the ground! So now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou farm the ground, it shall not yield good crops to you! Thou shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth! (Genesis 4:10-4:12)"

Origins

Cain and Abel are traditional English renderings of the Hebrew names Qayin (קין) and Hevel (הבל). The original text did not provide vowels. It has been proposed that the etymology of their names may be a direct pun on the roles they take in the Genesis narrative. Abel is thought to derive from a reconstructed word meaning "herdsman", with the modern Arabic cognate ibil now specifically referring only to "camels". Cain is thought to be cognate to the mid-1st millennium BC South Arabian word qyn, meaning "metalsmith". This theory would make the names descriptive of their roles, where Abel works with livestock, and Cain with agriculture—and would parallel the names Adam ("man," אדם) and Eve ("life-giver," חוה Chavah).

The oldest known copy of the Biblical narrative is from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and dates to the first century CE. Cain and Abel also appear in a number of other texts, and the story is the subject of various interpretations. Abel, the first murder victim, is sometimes seen as the first martyr; while Cain, the first murderer, is sometimes seen as an ancestor of evil. Some scholars suggest the pericope may have been based on a Sumerian story representing the conflict between nomadic shepherds and settled farmers. Modern scholars typically view the stories of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, to be about the development of civilization, during the age of agriculture. Not the beginnings of man, but when people first learned agriculture, replacing the ways of the hunter-gatherer.

Motives

File:Bouguereau-The First Mourning-1888.jpg

Adam and Eve mourn the death of Abel; oil on canvas 1888 painting by William Bouguereau

The Genesis narrative does not give a specific reason for the murder of Abel. Modern commentators typically assume that the motives were jealousy and anger due to God rejecting his offering, while accepting Abel's. Ancient exegetes, such as the Midrash and the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, suggest something even more sinister behind the killing. They supplement that the motive involved a desire for the most beautiful woman. According to Midrashic tradition, Cain and Abel each had twin sisters whom they were to marry. The Midrash states that Abel's promised wife, Aclima, was more beautiful. Since Cain would not consent to this arrangement, Adam suggested seeking God's blessing by means of a sacrifice. Whomever God blessed, would marry Aclima. When God openly rejected Cain's sacrifice, Cain slew his brother in a fit of jealousy and anger. Analysts have described Cain's relationship to his sister as being incestuous.

Abel

Abel
File:Feofan Abel.jpg A Christian icon of Abel
Righteous, First Martyr
Venerated in	Judaism, Christianity, Islam
Major shrine	Nabi Habeel Mosque, Damascus

Abel (Hebrew: הֶבֶל, Hevel; Arabic: هابيل, Hābīl) is Eve's second son. His name is composed in Hebrew of the same three consonants as a root speculated by people to have originally meant "breath", because rabbis postulated one of its roots thus, also "waste", but is used in the Hebrew Bible primarily as a metaphor for what is "elusive", especially the "vanity" (another definition by the rabbis of medieval France, Rashi in specific from his translation into Old French) of human beauty and work e.g. Hevel Hayophi (He-vel Ha-yo-fi) vanity is as beauty from the Song of Songs of Solomon. Julius Wellhausen, and many scholars following him, have proposed that the name is independent of the root. Eberhard Schrader had previously put forward the Akkadian (Old Assyrian dialect) ablu ("son") as a more likely etymology.

In Christianity, comparisons are sometimes made between the death of Abel and that of Jesus, the former thus seen as being the first martyr. In Matthew 23:35 Jesus speaks of Abel as "righteous", and the Epistle to the Hebrews states that "The blood of sprinkling ... [speaks] better things than that of Abel".(Hebrews 12:24) The blood of Jesus is interpreted as bringing mercy; but that of Abel as demanding vengeance (hence the curse and mark).

Abel is invoked in the litany for the dying in Roman Catholic Church, and his sacrifice is mentioned in the Canon of the Mass along with those of Abraham and Melchizedek. The Coptic Church commemorates him with a feast day on December 28.

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.

In the extra-biblical Book of Enoch (22:7), the soul of Abel is described as having been appointed as the chief of martyrs, crying for vengeance, for the destruction of the seed of Cain. This view is later repeated in the Testament of Abraham (A:13 / B:11), where Abel has been raised to the position as the judge of the souls.

According to Shi'a Muslim belief, Abel is buried in Nabi Habeel Mosque, located west of Damascus, in Syria.

Cain

Cain
File:Cain Henri Vidal Tuileries.jpg Cain, by Henri Vidal, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris
Known for	First murderer in human history
Spouse(s)	Awan, who was his sister
Children	Enoch
Parent(s)	Adam and Eve

Main article: Curse and mark of Cain

Cain (Hebrew: קַיִן, Qayin; Koine Κάïν, Ka-in; Ethiopian version: Qayen; Arabic: قابيل, Qābīl) is the first child of Eve, the first murderer, and the first human being to fall under a curse.

According to the biblical narrative in Genesis 4:1-16, Cain treacherously murdered his brother Abel, lied about the murder to God, and as a result was cursed and marked for life. With the earth left cursed to drink Abel's blood, Cain was no longer able to farm the land. Exegesis of the Hebrew narrative has Cain punished as a "fugitive and wanderer". Exegesis of the Septuagint's narrative, "groaning and shaking upon the earth" has Cain suffering from body tremors. Interpretations extend Cain's curse to his descendants, where they all died in the Great Deluge as retribution for the loss of Abel's potential offspring. Cain's curse involves receiving a mark from God, commonly referred to as the mark of Cain. This mark serves as God's promise to Cain for divine protection from premature death, with the stated purpose to prevent anyone from killing him. It is not known what the mark is, but it is assumed that the mark is visible.

The Targumim, rabbinic sources, and later speculations supplemented background details for the daughters of Adam and Eve. Such exegesis of Genesis 4 introduced Cain's wife as being his sister, a concept that has been accepted for at least 1800 years. This can be seen with Jubilees 4 which narrates that Cain settled down and married his sister Awan, who bore his first son, the first Enoch, approximately 196 years after the creation of Adam. Cain then establishes the first city, naming it after his son, builds a house, and lives there until it collapses on him, killing him in the same year that Adam dies.

Concerning the commandment for Cain to wander the earth, later traditions arose that this punishment was to be forever, as referenced in the legends of the Flying Dutchman or the Wandering Jew. According to some Islamic sources, such as al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir and al-Tha'labi, Cain migrated to Yemen. In Jewish tradition, Philo, Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan asserted that Adam was not the father of Cain. Rather, Eve was subject to adultery having been seduced by either Sammael, the Serpent (nahash, Hebrew: נחש) in the Garden of Eden, or the Devil himself. Christian exegesis of the "evil one" in 1 John 3:10-12 have also led some commentators, like Tertullian, to agree that Cain was the son of the Devil or some fallen angel. Thus, according to some interpreters, Cain was half-human and half-angelic, a Nephilim. Gnostic exegesis in the Apocryphon of John has Eve seduced by Yaldaboth. However, in the Hypostasis of the Archons, Eve is raped by a pair of Archons.

According to the Life of Adam and Eve, Cain fetched his mother a reed (Heb. qaneh) which is how he received his name Qayin (Cain). The symbolism of him fetching a reed may be a nod to his occupation as a farmer, as well as a commentary to his destructive nature. He is also described as "lustrous", which may reflect the Gnostic association of Cain with the sun.

Legacy and symbolism

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

A medieval legend has Cain arriving at the Moon, where he eternally settled with a bundle of twigs. This was originated by the popular fantasy of interpreting the shadows on the Moon as a 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 kenning for "moon".

In medieval Christian art, particularly in 16th century Germany, Cain is depicted as a stereotypical ringleted, bearded Jew, who killed Abel the blonde, European gentile symbolizing Christ. This traditional depiction has continued for centuries in some form, such as James Tissot's 19th century Cain leads Abel to Death.

In the treatise on Christian Hermeticism, Meditations on the Tarot: A journey into Christian Hermeticism, describes the Biblical account of Cain and Abel as a myth, i.e. it expresses, in a form narrated for a particular case, an "eternal" idea. It shows us how brothers can become mortal enemies through the very fact that they worship the same God in the same way. According to the author, the source of religious wars is revealed. It is not the difference in dogma or ritual which is the cause, but the "pretention to equality" or "the negation of hierarchy".

In Latter-day Saint theology, 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.

In Mormon folklore — a second-hand account relates that an early Mormon leader, David W. Patten, encountered a very tall, hairy, dark-skinned man in Tennessee who said that he was Cain. The account states that Cain had earnestly sought death but was denied it, and that his mission was to destroy the souls of men. The recollection of Patten's story is quoted in Spencer W. Kimball's The Miracle of Forgiveness, a popular book within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This widespread Mormon belief is further emphasized by an account from Salt Lake City in 1963 which stated that "One superstition is based on the old Mormon belief that Cain is a black man who wanders the earth begging people to kill him and take his curse upon themselves (M, 24, SLC, 1963)."

In culture

Literature

• As the first murderer and first murder victim in the Bible, Cain and Abel have often formed the basis of tragic drama. In the classic poem Beowulf, the monstrous Grendel and his mother are believed to be descended from Cain. Lord Byron rewrote and dramatized the story in the play "Cain", viewing Cain as symbolic of a sanguinary temperament, provoked by Abel's hypocrisy and sanctimony.
• In Dante's Purgatorio (early 14th century), Cain is remembered by the souls in Purgatory in Canto XIV (14).
• Cain was traditionally considered to have red hair; the expression "Cain-coloured beard" is used in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602). In addition, Shakespeare also references Cain and Abel in Act III Scene iii of Hamlet when Claudius says, "It hath the primal eldest curse upon't/ A brother's murder!" (Lines 40-41), and in Act V, Scene i when Hamlet and Horatio are standing with the Gravedigger, who digs up a skull and Hamlet says "And yet this knave jowls it to the ground/as if it were Cain's jawbone, that did the first murther!".
• Baudelaire is more sympathetic to Cain in his poem "Abel et Caïn" in the collection Les Fleurs du mal (1857), where he depicts Cain as representing all the downtrodden people of the world. The poem's last lines exhort, "Race de Caïn, au ciel monte/Et sur la terre jette Dieu!" (In English: "Race of Cain, storm up the sky / And cast God down to Earth!")
• Thomas Hardy in The Mayor of Casterbridge the protagonist Henchard compares himself in his suffering to Cain. (1886)
• Hermann Hesse briefly discussed the story of Cain and Abel from an unorthodox point of view in his novel Demian (1919) where he also referred to the gnostic group called the Cainites.
• In Thornton Wilder's play The Skin Of Our Teeth (1942), it is stated that Henry Antrobus' real name is Cain and he accidentally killed his brother Abel with a stone.
• John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden (1952) retells the Cain and Abel story in the setting of the late 19th and early 20th century western migration towards California.
• There is a Stephen King short story titled Cain Rose Up (1968), in which a college student goes on a killing spree while ruminating on the story of Cain and Abel.
• In the DC Comics (Vertigo division) universe, Cain and Abel are a pair of fictional characters based on the Biblical Cain and Abel. Cain is constantly killing off his brother, despite the fact they are both immortals.
• Kane and Abel (1979) is a modern adaptation, a 1979 novel by British author Jeffrey Archer.
• In Ishmael (1992), Daniel Quinn puts forth the idea of the story of Cain and Abel being an allegory describing the conflict between agricultural and pastoral peoples in the Fertile Crescent.
• In A Time for Everything (2004) by Karl Ove Knausgård, the story of Cain and Abel is retold with a focus on Cain. In this version, God's favouring of Abel is simultaneously a curse for sneaking into Eden past the Cherubs guarding the gate. It is suggested that Abel in fact wants Cain to kill him, or at least this is what Cain believes—though he later regrets his act, and takes his punishment willingly.
• In 2009 Portuguese writer José Saramago wrote a novel entitled Cain (2009), which tells an alternative version of the murder of Abel and the life of Cain afterwards.
• Fantasy author Karl Edward Wagner wrote a series of novels and stories about an immortal red-bearded warrior named Kane, who is modeled on the biblical Cain.
• Author Sylvia Day writes of Cain and Abel in her paranormal/fantasy Marked series titled Eve of Destruction (2009) set in modern times.

Movies

• In the 2009 movie Year One, the two main characters, Zed and Oh, meet Cain and Abel shortly after leaving their home forest, and witness Cain kill Abel. Cain then tells them that they have to escape with him or else risk being blamed for Abel's death, and then sells them into slavery. Zed and Oh meet Cain again later in the movie in Sodom, where Cain is a guard and apologizes for selling them into slavery, also convincing them to join the guard as well. Cain eventually is present at Zed and Oh's trial, where he reads the charges against them (slipping in the murder of Abel), and fights with the king in the final battle.
• In the 2012 Syfy Channel original movie "Boogeyman", the Boogeyman is revealed to be Cain, cursed to live forever with the guilt of killing his brother. In the film, he captures people to act as a "replacement" for his dead brother, who commit themselves to be responsible for Cain, and keep him from killing more.
• In the 1991 movie "New Jack City" the line "Am I my brother's keeper" is repeatedly asked

Music

• "Il Primo Omicido" by Alessandro Scarlatti (1707)
• The opera La mort d'Abel by Rodolphe Kreutzer (1810)
• "Blame it on Cain" (1976) appears on My Aim is True, the debut album by Elvis Costello
• "Cain's Blood" (1995) by 4 Runner uses Cain and Abel as a metaphor for the struggle between good and evil in the song's narrator
• "Twist of Cain" (2001) by Danzig places Cain's murder of his brother as the driving force in a murderer's mind, and ties Cain's murderous ways and, by association, all murders "to the god below", i.e., Satan
• Heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold gained their name from Genesis 4:24 and tell the story of Cain and Abel in the track "Chapter Four" (2003)
• The Oasis song "Guess God Thinks I'm Abel" from their 2005 album Don't Believe The Truth

Television

• The 1979 novel Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer was made into a CBS miniseries called Kane & Abel in 1985 starring Peter Strauss as Rosnovski and Sam Neill as Kane
• The character Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s series Kung Fu is modeled after the character of Cain; after killing, Caine is forced to wander the Earth, remorse-torn but unrepentant because of his sense of social justice
• In the series Supernatural, the protagonists Sam Winchester and Dean Winchester are both the descendants of Cain and Abel, making them the ideal vessels for Lucifer and Michael

Notes

^ a: Literally, the Lord (HCSB)
^ b: The bracketed text has been added for clarity (HCSB)
^ c: or fat calves, or milk Josephus — all plausible renderings the Hebrew consonants

See also

• Balbira & Kalmana
• Bereishit (parsha)#Cain and Abel
• Biblical figures in Islamic tradition#Cain and Abel
• Biblical narratives and the Quran#Cain and Abel (Qābīl and Hābīl)
• Cain and Abel in Islam
• The First Mourning

References

Bibliography

• BDB, Francis Brown; Samuel Rolles Driver, Charles Augustus Briggs,. The Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon : with an appendix containing the Biblical Aramaic; coded with the numbering system from "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible" (7. print. 1997 ed.). Peabody: Hendrickson. ISBN 9781565632066. 

• Byron, John (2011). Cain and Abel in text and tradition : Jewish and Christian interpretations of the first sibling rivalry. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9789004192522. http://books.google.com/books?id=NnnVmbnE-TcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

• Kugel, James L. (1998). Traditions of the Bible : a guide to the Bible as it was at the start of the common era. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674791510. 

• Luttikhuizen, Gerard P. (Editor) (2003). Eve's children : the biblical stories retold and interpreted in Jewish and Christian traditions (Vol. 5 ed.). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9789004126152. http://books.google.com/books?id=s1Wa2N2WrlAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=luttikhuizen+eve's+children&source=bl&ots=sGvkqMUOJK&sig=j3C5pc29sN_tRTiMT8pshHUHPDA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1lpOUMUFhZ-IArT7gKgF&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=luttikhuizen%20eve's%20children&f=false. 

Further reading

• Aptowitzer, Victor (1922). Kain und Abel in der agada: den Apokryphen, der hellenistischen, christlichen und muhammedanischen literatur (Vol. 1 ed.). R. Löwit. http://books.google.com/books?id=PGkQAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=kain+und+abel+victor&source=bl&ots=3E4XUnTn3-&sig=GApj4ENQQP8U6XlnQq5doGxmZM0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yFFOUOG7GaHviQKCuYDQAQ&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=kain%20und%20abel%20victor&f=false. 

• Glenthøj, Johannes Bartholdy (1997). Cain and Abel in Syriac and Greek writers : (4th - 6th centuries). Lovanii: Peeters. ISBN 9789068319095. http://books.google.com/books?id=0ViKPYpebc4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=cain+and+abel+glenthoj&source=bl&ots=mQeWBRgS7l&sig=Pc7nRZl1EFvYvsULmMYObCxlVMU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jVhOUL_NFIagigKx9YDgCg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=cain%20and%20abel%20glenthoj&f=false. 

External links

• Torah, Genesis, Chapters 1-6
• Texts on Wikisource:
  • Bible (Free) / Genesis 4
  • Book of Moses, Chapter 5
  • Cain
  • Abel
• King James Version
• Story of Cain and Abel in Sura The Table (Al Ma'ida)
• Qaheen / Cain and Hevel / Abel
• Parallel voweled Hebrew and King James Version
• Rashi on Genesis, Chapter 4, by Rashi
• Baudelaire's poem in French with English translations underneath