Yesterday, I picked up a bible we had lying around in the house, and just read the first few pages. Being as it's a religious book, I thought that everything written down in it is there for some reason or other, and yet, when i read it, it didn't seem to show or prove anything. For example:

"Abel became a shepherd, but Cain was a farmer. After sometime, Cain brought some of his harvest and gave it as an offering to the lord. Then Abel brought the first lamb born to one of his sheep, killed it, and gave the best parts of it as an offering to the lord. The lord was pleased with Abel, and accepted his offering, but he rejected Cain's. Cain became furious, and scowled in anger.

Then the lord said " 'Why are you angry? If you had done the right thing, you would be smiling, but because you have done evil, sin is at your door. It wants to rule you, but you must overcome it.'"

What is that meant to show? It appears that Cain had a nice idea, left an offering for his lord, abel copied him, and then got the credit for it. And then when cain gets a bit pissed off by this, God rubs it in even more?

It doesn't show any moral principles, and neither does it show God as a loving, caring entity, but rather as a (and please take no offence from this) manipulative and temperamental sod.

Could anybody illuminate for me?

http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/cainabel.htm

Or just google "cain and abel explained"

hope this helps.

Many thanks. Doesn't actually say that his crops were mediocre in the book though, 'twas what confused me.

What's to be said? I guess God likes blood sacrifices.

quote:Originally posted by Craftian:

What's to be said? I guess God likes blood sacrifices.

http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif)That's a scary thought! http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif)

One of my most recent studies was on the story surrounding Cain and Abel. Assuming that it's true (for speculation sake), there's a lot of unanswered questions:

No. 1: In the bible is states that any offering that is pure (given with pure intentions) is no better or worse than any other offering, so there really didn't seem to be any clear reason why god would refuse Cains offering and not Abels.

- The only explanation I've been able to come up with for this is that there are stories in other religious texts about Cain and Abel and suggest that the two brothers had been fueding all their lives, and that they had other siblings. Different sources also suggest that the parents (Adam and Eve) attempted to seperate them by having Cain do one thing and Abel another: herding and harvesting.

And though it's not much of an explanation, the common assumption of most religious scholars (according to various texts) is that Abel had brought him the best of his crop, whereas Cain hadn't due to a disease that had wiped out the majority of the crop and left little food for the family.

No. 2: If god is infallible and omniscient why does he seem confused that Cain is upset?

- The common explanation for this is simply that they say that this was gods first time creating beings with freewill and that he was still figuring out how they worked, using the mishap in the garden of Eden as an example: god didn't realize that beings with freewill need adversity to live happily, therefore they were doomed to make the poor choice eventually.

No. 3: Cain killed Abel with a bone, blugeoning(sp) him to death; but was it really murder?

How could Cain have known hitting Abel with the bone over and over again would kill him when there had never been a death before? At least no human deaths. You could say that he'd seen dead animals, but up until then it's quite possible no one ever considered death.

In which case, the murder was really an accident.

No. 4: Cain is marked by god and exiled out to live in the land of Nod for the rest of his life alone. But what was the mark? Some people believe it was a large black dog that followed him everywhere, as a consolation. Some other people believe it was a large black mark on his forehead in various shapes. Others think he may have been given horns like a Pan.

In any case, The Land of Nod (I found this pretty interesting) is a cultural term and "nod" literally means "wanderment". So, basically Cain was cast into a state of permanent wanderment alone, but not to any particular place.

Also, god seems to change his mind about Cain being alone because later on there's an unnamed female character who appears as his companion. She's speculated to be a sister.

And once again god seems to change his mind about him having to wander forever, since it clearly states that Cain founded the first city ever built. Eventually he settled and supposedly devoid of spiritual wealth he filled his life with building this city.

Then stories of his death are garbled. It's said, if it were true, the most reoccuring story is that he dies on some kind of building accident. A roof falls in and he's stoned to death. But, there's also speculation that - if the mark was horns - one of his sons (he's stated to have later had children) accidentally mistook him for a ram or something.

The bottom line, is (and this is one of the reasons I initially became so facinated by this story) that if it's all completely true god was/is fallible, feeling, and capable of learning, and was still working out the kinks of his creation. He not only make mistakes in this story (and throughout the bible, but particularily in Genesis) but there were things he simply didn't understand: like why Cain would be jealous of gods attention to Abel.

Not that I even really believe any of this is true, but it is interesting. Anyways, what I would like to address though is the way you say

"It doesn't show any moral principles, and neither does it show God as a loving, caring entity, but rather as a (and please take no offence from this) manipulative and temperamental sod."

- Whether or not god does exists or if he does as a man in the sky, or a giant black hole, or everything, or whatever that doesn't entail that he has any particular attachment to his creation. How many times have to tried to draw a picture that didn't come out perfect so you just threw it away or something. You, I, we could all very well be gods mistake, somewhere a proverbial crumpled up piece of paper in some golden waste basket.

Or may be he's just busy, has a day job, thinks you're an asshole, doesn't care, has better things to do, and can do whatever he wants as far as you're concerned.

After all this isn't Santa Claus we're talking about. This is a complex character mythological, scientific, anthropological, biblical, whatever you want to call it. It's not ready to be pegged, so there's no sense in trying to reason with it.

Cheers,

Lost

The deity portrayed in the old testament IS a petty motherfucker and nothing like my god. You want an even better example of this bullshit, read the book of Job.

LostCause- Is there any further development of the Cain and Able narrative in the other Judaic texts outside of Genesis?

quote:Originally posted by ArmsMerchant:

You want an even better example of this bullshit, read the book of Job.

nothin' beats God makin' bar bets with the devil. A slurred ass "FUCK YOU Satan I bet I can kill his whole FAMILY WITH HIS HOUSE and he'd still love me. bitch ass"

quote:Originally posted by ArmsMerchant:

The deity portrayed in the old testament IS a petty motherfucker and nothing like my god. You want an even better example of this bullshit, read the book of Job.

God does some pretty cool stuff in the OT- I can't remember which prophet it was, but his wife (Gomer?) had left him and become a temple prostitute for one of the foreign gods. The Hebrew God tells this guy to go and get back together with his wife, so that God could demonstrate the sort of relationship he had with Israel.

This is what my Chumash says:

Genesis 4:3-5

From the subtle contrast between the simple description of Cain's offering and the more specific description of Abel's offering - "from the firtlings of his flock and from their choicest" - the Sages dericve that Cain's offerning was from the inferior portions of the crop, while Abel chose only the finest of his flock. Therefore, Abel's sacrifice was accepted but not Cain's. (Ibn Ezra; Radak)

quote:Originally posted by inquisitor_11:

LostCause- Is there any further development of the Cain and Able narrative in the other Judaic texts outside of Genesis?

Yes.

Cheers,

Lost

Care to elaborate?

http://www.geocities.com/llfptfu/bloody.html

Thanks, LostCause (and the rest of you, too), that was very interesting reading. Some of my difficulties in comprehending this passage arise from the fact that my understanding is based on "the good news illustrated bible." I don't know how much the different copies of the bible vary, but in this particular edition, it mentions nothing about the quality or quantity of Cain's offering.

Now, as to your point about God not necessarily being an altogether caring chap, this is something I have frequently considered. If there is a God, I can see no reason for why he would care about humanity. What I was questioning is how come this character has been interpreted as the loving, caring father that he is to the vast majority of Christians in the world today.

The few vicars and Christians I've met have always claimed that God loves us all immensely, and we will go to heaven, as long as we believe in him. I merely wished to understand the other persons point of view, to be able to see how a God who banishes his creations from him for something as petty as giving an imperfect offering.

Again though, thanks to you all.

[This message has been edited by Ditchman (edited 06-09-2004).]

I'm not saying that god (assuming one exists) isn't a loving fatherlike figure. I'm just saying that there's a great possibility that he's not.

I think one of the main reasons it's become such a conception that god is a loving entity is because if he does exist and he doesn't love us it sort of makes our existance pointless, considering the creator of our existance dictates our purpose and worth and... other such things as well... If you understand what I'm getting at.

Oi vey... It's early...

O wait... It's only 1:49pm...

Shite.

Cheers,

Lost

Personally, I don't believe in a God, but I don't believe against there being any deities either. However, assuming the mentality of someone who believes in god(s), how could the old testament and the new testament Gods be the same character? One was infallible the other (as you highlighted) was not, one is full of love, the other is enraged by a second rate offering.

But what if God does hate us? Not intending to sound too much like Tyler Durden, but should we really care? To pets, we are as Gods. But if you were to one day go to the end of your garden, open the door on your guinnea pigs cage, and never do anything for it again, would the guinnea pig care? Would it sit around waiting for signs that we still love it, and argue with the other guinnea pigs (assuming it would do anything other than eat dandelions and squeak annoyingly) that we are still great and loving?

If a god did create us, surely this being would be far to complex for us to understand, and the intelligent gap would be more like the gap between a guinnea pig and a human, as opposed to a dog and a human. Yet it is the dog we act more like, pining and moaning. You'd think after he supposedly flooded the world we'd have taken a hint... Bollocks, I'm rambling. Never mind.