The Treachery Of Cain And Abel In The Book Of Genesis

In John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, the characters of Charles and Cal act as parallels when taking into account the Genesis story of Cain & Abel. The Genesis story of Cain & Abel tells the story of Adam & Eve’s twin sons. Cain, tiller of the ground, was characterized as the ‘evil’ brother, with unsound thoughts and tendencies. While Abel, keeper of the sheep, was characterized as the ‘good’ brother embodying a light pureness and divinity, making him the complete opposite of his brother Cain. Each brother brought offerings to God, and while Abel’s offering of the firstlings of his flock was respected by God, Cain’s offering of the fruit from the ground was not respected. From the rejection God gave Cain, Cain soon grew jealous of his brother Abel,

A tale of two brothers. Cain slays Abel out of wrath. Cain and Abel are two brothers and the sons of Adam and Eve. God gave Cain the job of a farmer and Abel the job of a shepherd. When Cain and Abel find out that they both have to sacrifice a lamb to God, Abel sacrifices his best lamb to God while Cain sacrifices some extra wheat he has. Cain becomes angry at Abel and God because God favored Abel’s sacrifice. Cain then leads Abel to a field and slays him out of rage. These events take place in Genesis’ book Cain and Abel. Genesis interprets the human experience in many ways throughout the story. Genesis interprets the human experience in the story by showing jealousy, attention seeking, and that crime will be punished.

Gandhi once said, “I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul”.

One example of family dysfunction is the story of Cain and Abel. The social and historical dynamics that created this dysfunctional family is the different offerings Cain and Abel brought to God, Cain’s being the fruit of the soil and Abel’s being the firstling of his flock. It is debatable why the Lord paid heed to Abel and his offering and not to Cain but it may be because Cain’s offering was not the best from the land while Abel’s offering was the firstling of its flock. This means it had the most fat indicating that it was the best of the flock and it was a blood sacrifice while Abel’s was not. This is also the first example of the prevalence of the younger son over the older one special favor over their older brothers. The purpose of this story might serve to highlight the importance of blood sacrifices to God as well as the threat of jealousy especially between brothers. Another family dynamic is the relationship between Abraham and Isaac. Isaac is the first born son of Abraham. Isaac was given to Abraham as a blessing from God after Sarah and Abraham were not able to have children until they were 100 and 90. It is also important to note that Abraham at one point identifies Sarah as his half-sister. After Isaac being given to Abraham God tests Abraham by having him sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering without any explanation from God. The relationship between Sarah and Abraham and her maid Hagar and on Ishmael are also an interesting “family dynamic.” Sarai offered

Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Torah, is for many people a book of innocent stories about the Creation, and the noble Patriarchs that follow the will of God. However, Genesis has much more to provide to humankind than stories; whether or not one takes Genesis as history, it does give insight into the lives and customs of the primeval Jewish people. Fundamentally, the Book of Genesis focuses on the family. The Book follows the descendants of Adam through the Patriarchs, offering a look into each family, and the dynamics surrounding them. Genesis, and much of the Torah, are unique in that it portrays the Lord’s chosen not as upright and noble people, but people with deep, distinctly human flaws, flaws that many families today can relate

Cain and Abel were much like any sibling pair that you would see today. In one specific way, they were vastly different. Cain was a worker of the field and Abel tended to the sheep. Both Cain and Abel were sons of Adam and Eve, obviously. Cain was the oldest and Abel was youngest.

Looking at genesis chapter 5 we see a genealogy which predominantly runs along a set format that is consistent in its style, there are three exceptions to that format in this chapter. The format is after A lived for number of years, he became the father of B then lived another number of years having other sons and daughters, A lived a total of years, and then he died. This gives us the pattern of full and meaningful lives which end with completion, we are given the one exception to this which gives us the suggestion that maybe death is not the last word for us, perhaps there is more.

According to the Bible, we are all descendants of a murderer. The book of Genesis, opens with Adam, Eve and their first two children, Cain and Abel. Out of jealousy when god favors Abel gifts over his own, Cain kills his younger brother. Cain, who is allowed to live by the forgiveness of god, is considered to be the ancestor of every person on Earth. It is significant that we as a race we are descended from Cain. The significance of our inherited traits are shown by the lack of understanding, communication and fairness that is shown by Cain and from humanity as a whole.

God then talks to Cain about being angry and he explains to him “...if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door…” Cain is overwhelmed by anger when his sacrifice was not good enough for God, but God wants to show him that the best comes for people who work hard. Cain’s anger leads him to do unbelievable things. After they sacrifice their works, Cain asks Able to go into the field with him. While in the field Cain hits and kills his brother. The King James Version says, “thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.”

The world that was lost when Adam and Eve sinned was in many ways perfect. In that world there was no good or evil. Everything just existed and went about life not worrying about how their actions would affect everyone. However, when they sinned they were kicked out of the garden they were exposed to evil.

Explanation: In Genesis 15-17 you can find God’s promise of a son to Abram and also that his seed will be blessed. Later on, you find where Sarai tries to take things into her own hands but things do not go exactly as she planned but God still made good all his promises.

Cain expresses various weaknesses and strengths throughout the story of himself and his brother. Within the story, his weaknesses seemed to overpower the significance of the strengths. The one attribute that stood out the most on each side of the spectrum was his love to please God and his jealousy created by not receiving the same love from God. I believe that it is significant that Cain’s weaknesses are shown in the story. It proves a case where most humans can find relatable and tell of a similar experience, granted that they are not banished and have to live out a life of suffering.

You know the rest of the story, God put Adam to sleep and took a rib from his chest and closed up his flesh and made a woman and brought her to him. Yes, she was fully grown, she was not a baby that he (Adam) had to nurse to adulthood and then marry her. God in his infinite wisdom created man and woman. The two of them (Adam and Eve) were created fully grown. God told them to be fruitful and multiply, thus babies were being born and nursed to adulthood.

A carving in ivory depicted the story of Cain and Abel. The carving was split up into three parts on the piece of ivory. In the first part it shows Cain and Abel giving an offering to God. Since Cain was a farmer he offered up some of his wheat crop to God but it wasn’t the best of his crops, it was the lesser of his crops. Abel offered his best lamb since he was a herder. In the carving you can see the hand of God over Abel’s offering because he choose Abel’s offering, and took favor of Abel. In the second part we see Cain killing Abel because he was jealous and angry that God favored Abel. Finally, in the third part we see God punishing Cain for killing Abel. This carving reminds me of my brother and me when we were younger. As young children

Seeming to directly correlate with conflict, murder goes beyond a fight that ends badly: the social phenomena is a result of combined race, gender, and class inequalities, or seemed inequalities, that permeate themselves through power and conflict. The story of Cain and Abel is one of the earliest accounts of homicide, and the Roman Republic viewed homicide as a family matter, not one that needed government intervention. Throughout history, homicide has shifted as power and conflict have held different connotations and the understanding has allowed murder to be seen as significant today. “Homicides, as well as other negative interactions such as hostile takeovers or warfare, may require a reformulation and interpretation of standard network measures of centrality, power, and cohesive subgroupings”, Andrew Papachristos proposes in Murder by Structure: Dominance Relations and the Social Structure of Gang Homicide (121). Conflict and power are two integral ideas that shape everyday life and help give meaning to seemingly incomprehensible acts, such as homicide. Historically, murder was an issue of dominance, as “[d]isputes about honor and reputation [were] ultimately founded on issues of dominance—that is, claims between disputants concerning who lords power or status over whom” (80). Today, the same idea holds true as power leads to conflict, murder not excepted. M. Smith and M. Zahn in Homicide: A Sourcebook of Social Research describe homicides as “extreme manifestations of