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The story of Cain and Abel

(4th chapter in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament)

How the story might have come about:

It was more than 3000 years ago in the land of Palestine, the land where Jesus was to be born many centuries later.

At that time, most of the people there did not live in houses but in tents; and they lived together with their flocks of sheep and goats, with which they wandered far and wide, always in search of pasture, for their animals lived on the grasses and leaves of all kinds of plants and shrubs that they found in the steppe regions and on the edge of the deserts there.

The ground was stony in many places. But even where the soil was better, almost everything dried up in the summer months when there was no rain.

Then even the good soil was hard and dry. The animals then ate the dried grass, but they struggled to survive the hot days of the long summer. Because the last rain fell in mid-May and it was not until October that the dry season came to an end and people danced outside with joy, feeling the pattering drops of water on their skin when the first rain fell. Now they knew that a difficult time for people and animals was over and that the landscape would soon be green and blooming again. The animals would soon have enough to eat again and the mothers would give enough milk to feed their young. And the people would also have plenty to eat again.

But there were already people in this country who no longer moved around with their animals and slept in tents, but who had built permanent huts in which they lived.

But what did these people live on?

In places where the ground was not rocky and stony, i.e. where there was good soil, they had loosened the ground and sown seeds in the soil or planted seedlings. Edible herbs, vegetables, cereals, vines and fruit trees then grew there. They were able to live off these plants and their fruits. But to do so, they had to stay in their cultivated fields and gardens, because they had to look after and protect them.

They could no longer move around like the wandering shepherds.

Because they cultivated the land, they were later called "farmers".

A farmer knew: this piece of land, on which I had loosened the soil with my own hands and sown good seeds, on which I had laboriously pulled up perennials, grass, thistles and other plants that threatened to suffocate my seeds, where I had repeatedly dragged buckets full of water in rainless months to prevent the young plants from drying out: this piece of land and the plants that grow on it belong to me. These plants, from whose fruits I live, are green and promise a good harvest because of my toil and care. This gave rise to a sense of ownership of the land, plants and trees that had not previously existed in the culture of the nomadic herders.

This kind of possessiveness was something new. And because the nomadic herders were not familiar with it, conflicts arose.

In the dry season, when it was difficult for the nomadic herders to keep their animals alive, the temptation was great to lead their animals into the farmers' fields, where they could find plenty of lush greenery.

Moreover, they had no understanding of the idea that a piece of land and plants could be viewed as one's own property. For them, the land and the plants that grew on it had always belonged to everyone - just as the sun's rays and the air and the water of rivers and lakes belong to everyone.
All these things could not be owned according to them and therefore, according to their values, it was not an offense to lead their animals to where there was good food for them: even if it was the farmers' fields.

But the anger of the farmers was great when they found their laboriously cultivated and irrigated fields eaten away by the foreign animals. No harvest meant no food, meant that they were threatened with famine.

For this reason, the farmers repeatedly banded together and stalked the wandering shepherds and killed them. For many centuries, there was bitter hostility between the farmers and the migrant shepherds - even in the land of Israel.

But at that time there was an old priest living among the farmers in the country, whose soul was pained by the hatred and hostility between the two groups of people. And since he knew that the old story of Adam and Eve was well known to these people, he told the following story as a continuation of the Adam and Eve story during a harvest festival:

The man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have produced a man with the help of the LORD."

Next she bore his brother Abel. Abel became a keeper of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the soil.

In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the soil,

while Abel, for his part, brought one of the best firstlings of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not. Cain greatly resented this and was crestfallen.

So the LORD said to Cain: "Why are you so resentful and crestfallen?

If you do well, you can hold up your head; but if not, sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master."

Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let us go out in the field." When they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the LORD asked Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" He answered, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"

The LORD then said: "What have you done! Listen: your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil! Therefore you shall be banned from the soil that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. If you till the soil, it shall no longer give you its produce. You shall become a restless wanderer on the earth."

Cain said to the LORD: "My punishment is too great to bear.

Since you have now banished me from the soil, and I must avoid your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, anyone may kill me at sight."

Not so!" the LORD said to him. "If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold." So the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest anyone should kill him at sight.

And after the story, he added: "God wants you to recognize that you farmers and the migrant shepherds have the same original parents: Adam and Eve. And that you are brothers in the eyes of God!

Manfred Hanglberger (www.hanglberger-manfed.de)

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A similar story:

>>> The Tower of Babel (Gen 11)

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