It's one of my favorite "fairy tales" in the Bible. There's so much to be gotten out of it, if you take the time. So for the few who may be interested:
To summarize, Cain killed his brother Abel because he was jealous that God seemed to be favoring Abel over him. God accepted Abel’s offerings but rejected Cain’s. Cain gets jealous and kills Abel. And Cain puts the famous question to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Then God punishes him and sends him away with a “mark,” so everyone will know him. And the moral we get is: yes, according to God, you are responsible for your brother (brother also meaning your fellow man). But I find so much more there.
So, taking the story on its own terms, we should remember that Cain and Abel are the first human beings not made by God but produced by natural parents. The first fully human being is a murderer—and the second his victim. It’s the first murder and it’s the first death. And when God banishes Cain he goes and becomes the first builder of a city. It’s almost as if to say that this kind of violence is foundational for the rise of civilization. Could be the first inkling of survival of the fittest.
Abel apparently did no wrong. He was a just man, living a good life. But he’s left unprotected by God. Why? Cain brings God a fruit offering, or vegetables, because he’s a farmer. Abel’s a shepherd and kills an animal. Abel’s offering is preferred. Poor Cain! It’s his idea. “Let’s make a sacrifice!” Nobody had ever thought of that before. He basically invented religion. Their father and mother had been cast out of Eden, removed from the presence of God. Cain tries to engage God again through prayer and sacrifice. But then his brother ups him. God likes meat. He prefers a double cheeseburger over a salad. If I were Cain, my face would fall too. No wonder Cain is so wrought up. He’s a vegan and his carnivorous-Nazi brother bests him with his offering.
But it’s almost as if he doesn’t quite know what he’s getting into. Cain suggests to Abel a token sacrifice to God in appreciation, and Abel spills innocent blood. And God approves! Cain says nothing. Consumed by humiliation, suspicious that life is failure, unwilling to meet God's challenge in the eye, he looks to retaliate. If God favors Abel, he reasons, then I will kill him, and show that I too can judge and reject. You like blood sacrifices, well, here’s a blood sacrifice for you. Does God precipitate the murder by an arbitrary choice of one offering over another? (Some traditions say that Cain’s offering was made in bad faith, or prompted by Satan, but the text doesn’t show that, so I’m not going there.)
So what did Abel do? Did he perhaps gloat? Did he taunt Cain? It doesn’t say. However, when Cain kills Abel, it’s not really about Abel, not to me. It’s about striking back at God. And part of the power of the story, is the poignant line: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” This is one of a series of disingenuous questions that run through Genesis—God and others asking questions to which they know the answers. God’s disingenuous question just before was, “Where is your brother?” At first Cain lies—“I don’t know.” They both knew what Cain had done. The biblical text says, “Your brother’s blood calls out from the ground”—as if to say, “Forensic evidence is going to get you.” But then comes the unforgettable “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Shall I shepherd the shepherd?) That’s a remark that has staying power and seems morally ambivalent. We all know that yes, you are. But then again, there’s an extent beyond which we are not. That’s the thing that makes stories like this, with all their rich incoherencies and problems, just as stinging and relevant today as they were back then.
In asking that question, which is sarcastic, Cain is saying, “you created me. You made me this way. If you don’t like the way I’m behaving, you should have stopped me. What is your responsibility, Lord of the Universe, Creator of us all? Where is your responsibility?” And God is silent. If we are contemptuous of Cain for not being his brother’s keeper, why should he not then be contemptuous of God for not being the keeper of his sons? He lets Cain kill and lets Abel be killed. I would even say that God almost plants the idea in Cain’s head. It’s God who says to Cain “Watch out for sin,” after he rejects Cain's offering. It’s a little like saying, “Don’t eat that fruit over there” or “Don’t open the seventh door. You can open the first six. But don’t open the seventh.”
But none of these characters really existed. If they had, then we could question their motives like that. The only motives we really need to question are the storyteller's. When doing so, I come up with this. When God asks Cain where his brother is, it's not just a question. It's not asking where Abel is in space and time; it's both a question and a statement to Cain and to us (because that's the storyteller's intent), and what it's stating is that the redemptive soul should know where his brother is--in a sense, that's what makes him our brother in the first place. The strong self seeks to love, and to love is to expand to include another, to see his well-being and his "place" as our vital concern. So the real question was, Where is your brother's place in your heart and your soul, Cain? When Cain answers "I know not," he's lying on the literal truth, but the lie reveals a deeper truth. Cain has failed to know where Abel is.
Cain's descent into evil begins with his disappointment at failed sacrifice and the collapse of his spirit that follows. This turns into a catastrophic self-loathing, a deterioration of the structure of his psyche that threatens not just to bring him down but to make him take everything else with him. In order to kill Abel, Cain must first ignore Abel's humanity, his place, and reduce him to the level of a symbol--a symbol of his own failure.
"Am I my brother's keeper?" merely drives the point home. We can't ignore the wordplay: the word "keeper" was used when Adam was put into the garden "to work and to keep it." Cain tilled the land like his father, and so, he too was a keeper of it. But he failed to understand that we are to expand beyond our own selves and see to the flourishing of our world, to be a caretaker of humanity, beginning with our brothers.
Finally, we learn of Cain's punishment. Had God merely struck him dead, his demise would have been just another turn of the pinwheel of life and death. Instead God leaves him alive to roam the world, a ghost, living on only as a symbol--just as Cain turned Abel into a symbol.
Cain's act is an acute commentary on the connection between insecurity and evil that is the real message here. In this world, you will succeed on the basis of your actions, and you will be judged in ways that do not always seem fair. Your failures, however, carry the risk of undermining your sense of self, leading you to evil. Do not let this happen, for you can always overcome it through the power of your redemptive spirit. And by "spirit," I'm merely referring to a part of yourself, not a religious or supernatural term.
To summarize, Cain killed his brother Abel because he was jealous that God seemed to be favoring Abel over him. God accepted Abel’s offerings but rejected Cain’s. Cain gets jealous and kills Abel. And Cain puts the famous question to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Then God punishes him and sends him away with a “mark,” so everyone will know him. And the moral we get is: yes, according to God, you are responsible for your brother (brother also meaning your fellow man). But I find so much more there.
So, taking the story on its own terms, we should remember that Cain and Abel are the first human beings not made by God but produced by natural parents. The first fully human being is a murderer—and the second his victim. It’s the first murder and it’s the first death. And when God banishes Cain he goes and becomes the first builder of a city. It’s almost as if to say that this kind of violence is foundational for the rise of civilization. Could be the first inkling of survival of the fittest.
Abel apparently did no wrong. He was a just man, living a good life. But he’s left unprotected by God. Why? Cain brings God a fruit offering, or vegetables, because he’s a farmer. Abel’s a shepherd and kills an animal. Abel’s offering is preferred. Poor Cain! It’s his idea. “Let’s make a sacrifice!” Nobody had ever thought of that before. He basically invented religion. Their father and mother had been cast out of Eden, removed from the presence of God. Cain tries to engage God again through prayer and sacrifice. But then his brother ups him. God likes meat. He prefers a double cheeseburger over a salad. If I were Cain, my face would fall too. No wonder Cain is so wrought up. He’s a vegan and his carnivorous-Nazi brother bests him with his offering.
But it’s almost as if he doesn’t quite know what he’s getting into. Cain suggests to Abel a token sacrifice to God in appreciation, and Abel spills innocent blood. And God approves! Cain says nothing. Consumed by humiliation, suspicious that life is failure, unwilling to meet God's challenge in the eye, he looks to retaliate. If God favors Abel, he reasons, then I will kill him, and show that I too can judge and reject. You like blood sacrifices, well, here’s a blood sacrifice for you. Does God precipitate the murder by an arbitrary choice of one offering over another? (Some traditions say that Cain’s offering was made in bad faith, or prompted by Satan, but the text doesn’t show that, so I’m not going there.)
So what did Abel do? Did he perhaps gloat? Did he taunt Cain? It doesn’t say. However, when Cain kills Abel, it’s not really about Abel, not to me. It’s about striking back at God. And part of the power of the story, is the poignant line: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” This is one of a series of disingenuous questions that run through Genesis—God and others asking questions to which they know the answers. God’s disingenuous question just before was, “Where is your brother?” At first Cain lies—“I don’t know.” They both knew what Cain had done. The biblical text says, “Your brother’s blood calls out from the ground”—as if to say, “Forensic evidence is going to get you.” But then comes the unforgettable “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Shall I shepherd the shepherd?) That’s a remark that has staying power and seems morally ambivalent. We all know that yes, you are. But then again, there’s an extent beyond which we are not. That’s the thing that makes stories like this, with all their rich incoherencies and problems, just as stinging and relevant today as they were back then.
In asking that question, which is sarcastic, Cain is saying, “you created me. You made me this way. If you don’t like the way I’m behaving, you should have stopped me. What is your responsibility, Lord of the Universe, Creator of us all? Where is your responsibility?” And God is silent. If we are contemptuous of Cain for not being his brother’s keeper, why should he not then be contemptuous of God for not being the keeper of his sons? He lets Cain kill and lets Abel be killed. I would even say that God almost plants the idea in Cain’s head. It’s God who says to Cain “Watch out for sin,” after he rejects Cain's offering. It’s a little like saying, “Don’t eat that fruit over there” or “Don’t open the seventh door. You can open the first six. But don’t open the seventh.”
But none of these characters really existed. If they had, then we could question their motives like that. The only motives we really need to question are the storyteller's. When doing so, I come up with this. When God asks Cain where his brother is, it's not just a question. It's not asking where Abel is in space and time; it's both a question and a statement to Cain and to us (because that's the storyteller's intent), and what it's stating is that the redemptive soul should know where his brother is--in a sense, that's what makes him our brother in the first place. The strong self seeks to love, and to love is to expand to include another, to see his well-being and his "place" as our vital concern. So the real question was, Where is your brother's place in your heart and your soul, Cain? When Cain answers "I know not," he's lying on the literal truth, but the lie reveals a deeper truth. Cain has failed to know where Abel is.
Cain's descent into evil begins with his disappointment at failed sacrifice and the collapse of his spirit that follows. This turns into a catastrophic self-loathing, a deterioration of the structure of his psyche that threatens not just to bring him down but to make him take everything else with him. In order to kill Abel, Cain must first ignore Abel's humanity, his place, and reduce him to the level of a symbol--a symbol of his own failure.
"Am I my brother's keeper?" merely drives the point home. We can't ignore the wordplay: the word "keeper" was used when Adam was put into the garden "to work and to keep it." Cain tilled the land like his father, and so, he too was a keeper of it. But he failed to understand that we are to expand beyond our own selves and see to the flourishing of our world, to be a caretaker of humanity, beginning with our brothers.
Finally, we learn of Cain's punishment. Had God merely struck him dead, his demise would have been just another turn of the pinwheel of life and death. Instead God leaves him alive to roam the world, a ghost, living on only as a symbol--just as Cain turned Abel into a symbol.
Cain's act is an acute commentary on the connection between insecurity and evil that is the real message here. In this world, you will succeed on the basis of your actions, and you will be judged in ways that do not always seem fair. Your failures, however, carry the risk of undermining your sense of self, leading you to evil. Do not let this happen, for you can always overcome it through the power of your redemptive spirit. And by "spirit," I'm merely referring to a part of yourself, not a religious or supernatural term.
