After reading Beowulf, I was curious about what happened to Cain and Abel once they left the Garden of Eden. Why did Cain kill Abel? What was the mark of Cain exactly? And how in the world did Cain have little demon spawn descendants if he was literally the only man left on Earth…and his mother was the only woman? Part of the reason I was so curious was because I realized that although I have often heard the story of the Garden of Eden and the two brothers who were kicked out because of the sins of their parents, I actually lack a detailed knowledge about them. And so, my research began on a site about folklore and mythology: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html.
From the first website, I found the actual story of Cain and Abel in the book of Genesis. The story was a bit confusing and paradoxical to me, to be honest. The motive behind Cain’s murder of Abel appears to be jealousy and good old sibling rivalry. It seems that it was quite easy to talk directly to God back then, so the two brothers both offered sacrifices to him. Since Cain was a farmer, his sacrifices came from his land. Abel was a shepherd, so he sacrificed animals from his flock. God deems Abel’s sacrifice more worthy for some unknown reason, and that already confused me: after all, shouldn’t the Christian God be fair and kind and just? Both brothers gave what they had to give, but since God preferred meat over corn or vegetables or whatever Cain gave up, he liked Abel better. Nowhere did it say that Cain didn’t do his best or that he selfishly gave less than he could have, just that since all he had to bring were the products of his farming, God had “no respect” for his offering. Cain is understandably disappointed, but God doesn’t seem to get it. He asks Cain what’s wrong with him, and then insults him, saying that if he had done well, he would have been accepted. Now, if the story had mentioned Cain’s sin or what exactly was wrong with his offering or why he didn’t “do well,” I might understand this and see the moral behind it. However, no such information is offered so it seems that God just doesn’t think Cain is good enough for some reason. Then Cain makes his big mistake: he is so angry and jealous over the clear favoritism of God (perhaps the symbolic father figure?) that he decides to kill off Abel. I suppose his logic was that if he was the only brother left, he had to be the favorite, right? Wrong. His plan backfired (of course) when he tried to lie to God (not a good idea to lie to an omniscient being, but Cain doesn’t exactly seem like the sharpest crayon in the box in this story) about Abel’s whereabouts, saying that “he’s not his brother’s keeper.” (This, incidentally, reminded me of the Jodi Picoult novel My Sister’s Keeper…maybe the title came from this, since the protagonist in that story actually is keeping her sister alive, a clear opposite to Cain. Who knows.) Cain fails to admit to his sin and shows no sign of repentance, so the Lord metes out his punishment: the ground will no longer “yield its strength” to Cain, which I assume means he can no longer be a farmer, and he is cursed to be an eternal wanderer, cast out from God’s love and protection. And here Cain makes another major error: as he is going on about how terrible his punishment is (and it does kinda suck) he mentions that at least everyone he finds will kill him. Now, I assume that he meant the first person he finds, because it’s a bit disturbing to think that he could be killed multiple times. Also, I’m not sure why everyone who saw him would instinctively want to kill him. Maybe because no one back then liked homeless people? Which again begs the question: where in the world are all these other people coming from?! I thought it was just Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel? But I guess not, because * spoiler alert * Cain eventually gets married, so there must be someone else out there. Anyway, God decides to deprive Cain from the possible relief of death, giving him the legendary mark of Cain, which apparently makes it so that if anybody kills (or tries to kill, maybe?) Cain, “vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold”. Again, I’m not sure what that means exactly. Maybe that if someone stabs Cain, he will be stabbed seven times as many times as Cain was stabbed? Something like that. Anyway, then comes the really confusing paradoxical part: Cain was supposed to be a wanderer for life, but the Bible passage states that after this meeting with God, he “dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.” Well, that doesn’t quite add up. To dwell means to live in a specific place, and it has synonyms such as reside, inhabit, and remain. Basically, the opposite of wandering infinitely from place to place. Then, because even eternally cursed sinners with the symbol of their mistakes permanently emblazoned on their foreheads must have a happy ending, Cain gets married, has a kid, and builds a city. Once again, not sure how to reconcile the idea of having a family and founding a whole city with a curse of lifelong misfortune and nomadism, but I do know that it would suck to be the only son of the first murderer in all of history. Especially if your descendants are immortalized in literature as crazy killer demons.
(This is based on the King James version of the Bible. I’m not sure what the difference is between this and other versions, but maybe it is inaccurate or not complete and that’s why some parts of it were so confusing and morally ambiguous. After this story there are a few others on the website, each from various cultural backgrounds. While Cain kills Abel in all of them, the rest of the story varies hugely: the motive for killing is usually jealousy, but is manifested in different ways: God’s preference of one brother over the other in this story, Cain’s love for Abel’s wife in another, etc, and God’s punishment for Cain also changes or isn’t mentioned at all. I used the Bible story because I thought it was the original one, but it might not be. The different versions could be symbolic of how different cultures interpreted the crime of killing a family member, or it could just show how the story changed or was embellished in its retelling from one place and time to another. The other story which struck me the most was the Turkish version, which was quite short and did not even mention a punishment for Cain’s crime, only the motive: he loved Abel’s wife, who was prettier than the one God assigned to him. It ends by saying “thus because of a woman was the first blood shed upon the ground.” Obviously, the Turkish culture of the time was not exactly a fan of women. This Bible version answered some of my questions, though not all, but I’m sure the other versions would have given me different answers.)
upintheairika 