(1432) at Saint Bavo Cathedral.]]

According to Genesis, Cain and Abel were the first and second sons of Adam and Eve,"She conceived and gave birth to Cain. ... Then she also gave birth to his brother Abel." (Holman Christian Standard Bible, HCSB).born after the Fall of Man."God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground." Gen 3:23 (HCSB).Their story is told in , the Qur'an at 5:26-32, and Moses 5:16-41.In all versions, Cain, a farmer,"Cain cultivated the land." Gen 4:2 (HCSB).commits the first murder by killing his brother Abel, a shepherd,"Abel became a shepherd." ().after God (called YHWH)

and others (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, BHS).rejects Cain's sacrifice but accepts Abel's.Relevant passage quoted in text below.

The oldest known copy of the biblical narration is from the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QGen^b = 4Q242, mid 1st century), inspected using infra-red photography and published by Jim R Davila as part of his doctoral dissertation in 1988.Jim R Davila, Unpublished Pentateuchal Manuscripts from Cave IV Qumran: 4QGenExa, 4QGenb-h, j-k, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1988. PaeleoJudaica, Davila's blog post for 4QGenb.Cain and Abel appear in a number of other texts,Jubilees 4:31; Patriarchs, Benjamin 7; Enoch 22:7.and the story is the subject of various interpretations.Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1:7:5 (c. 180) describes (unfavourably) a Gnostic interpretation. Church Fathers, Rabbinic commentators and more recent scholars have also proposed interpretations.Abel, the first murder victim, is sometimes seen as the first martyr;Notably by Jesus of Nazareth as quoted by (late mid 1st century), "The blood of righteous Abel," in a reference to many martyrs.while Cain, the first murderer, is sometimes seen as a progenitor of evil.Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer 21 (c. 833) and others.Modern scholars suggest the pericope may have been based on a Sumerian story representing the conflict between nomadic shepherds and settled farmers.Transliteration of original language version: Dumuzid and Enkimdu at Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) founded by Jeremy Allen Black from Oxford University. English translation at

Allusions to Cain and Abel as an archetype of fratricide (brother killing) persist in numerous references and retellings, through medieval art and Shakespearean works up to the present day.

Etymology

Cain and Abel are traditional English renderings of the Hebrew names Qayin () and Havel (). The original text did not provide vowels.BHS.Abel's name has the same three consonants as a root thought to have originally meant "breath", but is known from the Bible primarily as a metaphor for what is "elusive", especially the "vanity" of human enterprise.Brown Driver Briggs (BDB), p. 210.Julius Wellhausen, and many scholars following him, have proposed the name to be independent of the root.Julius Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, volume 3, (1887), p. 70.Eberhard Schrader had previously put forward the Akkadian (Old Assyrian dialect) ablu ("son") as a more likely etymology.Eberhard Schrader, Die Keilinschrift und das Alte Testament, 1872.In the Qur'an, Abel is named as H?b?l (?????). Cain is not named in the Qur'an, however Islamic tradition records his name as Q?b?l (?????). Cain is called Qayen in the Ethiopian version of Genesis.

The Greek of the New Testament refers to Cain three times,

; .using two syllables ka-in () for the name.Novum Testamentum Graece (NA27).

More recent scholarship has produced another theory, a more direct pun. Abel is here thought to derive from a reconstructed word meaning "herdsman", with the modern Arabic cognate ibil, now specifically referring only to "camels". Cain, on the other hand, is thought to be cognate to the mid-1st millennium BC South Arabian word qyn, meaning "metal smith".Richard S. Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11, pp. 24-25. ISBN 3788714786.This theory would make the names merely descriptions of the roles they take in the story?Abel working with livestock, and Cain with agriculture?and would parallel the names Adam ("man") and Eve ("life", Chavah in Hebrew).See Adam and Eve for details.

The name Abel has been used in many European languages as both a surname and first name. In English, however, even Cain features in 17th Century, Puritan-influenced families, who had a taste for biblical names, sometimes despite the reputation of the original character.For popularity in Thornton, Yorkshire see 'Thornton Village: History' [1], Brontë County.For a neutral comment regarding America see Myra Vanderpool Gormley, 'Given Names in Early America: Shaped by history, religion and traditions' [2], RootsWeb's Guide to Tracing Family Trees, (Los Angeles Times Syndicate, 1989).For general unpopularity note that, "There was a natural dislike of Cain, Delilah, Jezebel, Herod." Donald Lines Jacobus, Genealogy As Pastime and Profession, 2nd revised edition, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publication Company, 1978), p. 29. ISBN 9780806301884Contrary to popular belief, the surname McCain does not mean "Son of Cain" in Gaelic, rather it is a contraction (also McCann) of Mac Cathan. Gaelic cathan means "warrior", from cath "battle". 'Cain', Etymology Online.

Murder and motive

For convenience, the story can be considered in two sections ? 1. murder and motive and 2. confrontation and consequences.

The Qur'an (early 7th century) and Pearl of Great Price (1851) are both considerably later than Genesis;Mohammad was born c. 570.Franklin D. Richards, The Pearl of Great Price: Being a Choice Selection from the Revelations, Translations and Narrations of Joseph Smith, (Liverpool: KD Richards, 1851).and in both cases, the authors claimed to be prophetic interpreters of the Genesis account, not originators.

Bible

Qur'an

Pearl of Great Price

Motives

The inherent selfishness of Cain, his jealousy, rivalry, and aggression are central to the story. The disconnection between Cain and his higher nature is so great that he fails to understand and master his lower self even in the face of God's wisdom and hospitality. The account in The Qur'an [3], similar to one given in The Torah, also strongly implies that the motivation of the fratricide of Cain was due to the rejection of his offering to God, but this is an implication and not explicitly clear.

Though Genesis depicts Cain's motive in killing Abel as simply being one of jealousy concerning God's favoritism of Abel, this is not the view of many extra-biblical works. The Midrash, and the obscure First Adam and Eve all record that the real motive involved the desire of women. According to Midrashic tradition, Cain and Abel each had twin sisters, whom they were to marry. The Midrash records that Abel's promised wife was the more beautiful, and hence Cain desired to rid himself of Abel, whose presence was inconvenient. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ, there is a different view, found in part of their scripture, the Book of Moses (part of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible), which describes that Cain's motive is still jealousy, but it is Abel's livestock of which he is jealous. This translation also holds that it was Satan that "commanded" Cain to make the offering, thus making Cain's sacrifice vain and faithless.

Abel's death

's The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve.]]

In Christianity, comparisons are sometimes made between the death of Abel and that of Jesus, the former thus seen as being the first martyr. In , Jesus speaks of Abel as righteous. However, the Epistle to the Hebrews states that The blood of sprinkling ... [4] better things than that of Abel (), i.e., the blood of Jesus is interpreted as demanding mercy but that of Abel as demanding vengeance (hence the curse and mark).

Abel is invoked in the litany for the dying in Roman Catholic Church, and his sacrifice is mentioned in the Canon of the Mass with those of Abraham and Melchisedek. The Coptic Church commemorates him with a feast day on December 28.Holweck, F. G. A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints. St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1924.

Burial

According to the Qur'an, it was Cain who buried Abel, and he was prompted to do so by a single raven scratching the ground, on God's command. The Qur'an states that upon seeing the raven, Cain regretted his action [5], and that rather than being cursed by God, since he hadn't done so before, God chose to create a law against murder:

Underworld

In classical times, as well as more recently, Abel was regarded as the first innocent victim of the power of evil, and hence the first martyr. In the esoteric Book of Enoch (at 22:7), the soul of Abel is described as having been appointed as the chief of martyrs, crying for vengeance, for the destruction of the seed of Cain. This view is later repeated in the Testament of Abraham (at A:13 / B:11), where Abel has been raised to the position as the judge of the souls:

According to the Coptic Book of Adam and Eve (at 2:1-15), and the Syriac Cave of Treasures, Abel's body, after many days of mourning, was placed in the Cave of Treasures, before which Adam and Eve, and descendants, offered their prayers. In addition, the Sethite line of the Generations of Adam swear by Abel's blood to segregate themselves from the unrighteous.

Confrontation and Consequences

Bible

Qur'an

Pearl of Great Price

Comments

The story continues with God approaching Cain asking about Abel's whereabouts. In a response that has become a well-known saying, Cain answers, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Finally, seeing through Cain's deception, as "the voice of [6] blood is screaming to [7] from the ground", God curses Cain to wander the earth. Cain is overwhelmed by this and appeals in fear of being killed by other men, and so God places a mark on Cain so that he would not be killed, stating that "whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be upon him sevenfold". Cain then departs, "to the land wandering". Early translations instead stated that he departed "to the Land of Nod", which is generally considered a mistranslation of the Hebrew word Nod, meaning wandering. Despite being cursed to wander, Cain is later mentioned as fathering a lineage of children with an unnamed wife of unknown origin (Gen. 4:17), and founding a city, which he named Enoch after the name of his son.

Mark of Cain

Much has been written about the curse of Cain, and associated mark. The word translated as mark (`avah, ) could mean a sign, omen, warning, or remembrance.BDB, p. 16f. In the Bible, the same word is used to describe the stars as signs or omens, circumcision as a token of God's covenant with Abraham,). and the signs performed by Moses before Pharaoh.). Although most scholars believe the writer of this part of the story had a clear reference in mind that readers would understand, there is very little consensus today as to exactly what the mark could have been.

The Bible makes reference on several occasions to Kenites, who, in the Hebrew, are referred to as Qayin, i.e. in a highly cognate manner to Cain (Qayin). The Mark of Cain is thus believed to originally refer to some very identifying mark of the Kenite tribe, such as red hair, or a ritual tattoo of some kind, which was transferred to Cain as the tribe's eponym. The protection the mark is said to afford Cain (harming Cain involving the harm being returned sevenfold) is hence seen as some sort of protection that membership of the tribe offered, in a form such as the entire tribe attacking an individual who harms just one of their number.

Baptist and Catholic groups both consider the idea of God cursing an individual to be out of character, and hence take a different stance. Catholics officially view the curse being brought by the ground itself refusing to yield to Cain, whereas some Baptists view the curse as Cain's own aggression, something already present that God merely pointed out rather than added.

In Judaism, the mark is not a punishment but a sign of God's mercy. When Cain was sentenced to be a wanderer he didn't dispute the punishment but only begged that the terms of his sentence be altered slightly, protesting Whoever meets me will kill me! For reasons that aren't specified, God agrees to this request. He puts the mark on Cain as a sign to others that Cain should not be killed until he has had seven generations of children. Lamech, his descendant, thought that the mark was passed down to him and also that it multiplied. In , he confesses to his wife that he killed two men (possibly one), and that if his grandparent Cain was protected seven times, then he should have it seventy-seven times.

Wanderer

As Cain was ordered to wander the earth in punishment, a tradition arose that this punishment was to be forever, in a similar manner to the (much later) legends of the Flying Dutchman or the Wandering Jew. According to some Islamic sources, such as al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir and al-Tha'labi, he migrated to Yemen.

's painting titled "Cain flying before Jehovah's Curse", c. 1880, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.]]

Though variations on these traditions were strong in medieval times, with several claims of sightings being reported, they have generally gone out of favour. Nevertheless, both the Wandering Cain theme appeared in Mormon folklore (but not scripture). The last known claim of a sighting appears to have been in the United States in the year 1868, when he was reported to have visited a Mormon named O'Grady (see Desert News, September 23, 1868). Prior to this in 1836, another early Mormon - David W. Patten - claimed to have encountered a very tall, hairy, dark-skinned man in Tennessee who said that he was Cain. Patten claimed that Cain had earnestly sought death but was denied it, and that his mission was to destroy the souls of men. Patten's story is quoted in Spencer W. Kimball's The Miracle of Forgiveness.

Despite these later traditional beliefs of perpetual wandering, according to the earlier Book of Jubilees (chapter 4) Cain settled down, marrying his sister, Awan, resulting in his first son, Enoch (considered to be different to the more famous Enoch), approximately 196 years after the creation of Adam. Cain then established the first city, naming it after his son, built a house, and lived there until it collapsed on him, killing him in the same year that Adam died.

A medieval legend used to say that at the end, Cain arrived at the Moon where he eternally settled with a bundle of twigs. This was originated by popular fantasy interpreting the shadows on the Moon face. An example of this belief can be found in Dante Alighieri's Inferno (XX, 126Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, canto 20, line 126 and 127. The Dante Dartmouth Project contains the original text and centuries of commentary.

"For now doth Cain with fork of thorns confine

On either hemisphere, touching the wave

Beneath the towers of Seville. Yesternight

The moon was round."

Also in Paradiso, canto 2, line 51.

But tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots

Upon this body, which below on earth

Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint??

) where the expression "Cain and the twigs" is used as a synonym of "moon".

Origin

theory sees the story as composed of a number of layers, with the original layer deriving from the Sumerian tale of the wooing of Inanna. In the tale, seen as representing the ancient conflict between nomadic herders and settled agrarian farmers, Dumuzi, the god of shepherds, and Enkimdu, the god of farmers, are competing for the attention of Inanna, chief goddess. Dumuzi is brash and aggressive, but Enkimdu is placid and easy going, so Inanna favours Enkimdu. However, on hearing this, Dumuzi starts boasting about how great he is, and exhibits such strong charisma that Enkimdu tells Inanna to marry Dumuzi and then wanders away.

The biblical correspondence in this theory being God to Inanna, Abel, the shepherd, to Dumuzi, and Cain, the farmer, to Enkimdu, and equating only to the competitive part of the story, Cain wandering away, and the extra-biblical traditions concerning the involvement of a beautiful woman. The presence of sacrifices, rather than mere words, in the biblical story, is sometimes seen as simply the priesthood's spin on the story, to emphasise that one form of sacrifice is better than the other.

In later mythology, though still before 1500s BC, Dumuzi had become conflated with Enkimdu, and so acted as a general agricultural deity, though still retaining some of the earlier myths. In his more general role, since he was responsible for the yearly crop-cycle, Dumuzi became seen as a life-death-rebirth deity. Exactly how the myth fits in with the marriage of Dumuzi to Inanna is not clear, since the surviving copies of the myth abruptly begin with Inanna descending to the underworld for an unknown reason. Innana can only escape by exchanging herself for a god not in the underworld, and so considers each of them in turn. Dumuzi is only too glad she has gone, and so, in anger, she sends demons upon him, and he dies, thus releasing her. She then changes her mind, showing favour, and bringing Dumuzi back by persuading his sister to take his place for 6 months each year (hence starting the annual cycle).

This murder of Dumuzi is thought, critically, to be the source of the murder of Abel. Since God, unlike Inanna, was seen as being powerful enough not to get stuck in the underworld, he would have had no need to escape, and so no motive to kill Abel, hence the blame shifting to the jealous Cain/Enkimdu. The part of the story involving perpetual annual resurrection and death is not given to Abel, who is supposedly merely mortal.

Legacy and symbolism

In medieval Christian art, particularly in 16th century Germany, Cain is depicted as a stereotypical ringleted, bearded Jew, who killed Abel the blonde, European gentile symbolizing Christ. This traditional depiction has continued for centuries in some form, such as James Tissot's 19th century Cain leads Abel to Death, shown above. This was the result of an apparent necessity to resolve the problem of fratricide not involving an outsider, by explaining it as the result of a group historically vilified by Christianity.

[http://books.google.com.au/books?id=01LUWw4A7CgC&dq=outcasts+signs+of+otherness+in+northern+european+art+of+the+middle+ages&pg=PP1&ots=CjDM8SIdBR&sig=VCDKorx_hcfOXkurpavuVcu_gMw&prev=http://www.google.com.au/search%3Fhl%3Den%26as_qdr%3Dall%26q%3DOutcasts%253A%2BSigns%2Bof%2BOtherness%2Bin%2BNorthern%2BEuropean%2BArt%2Bof%2Bthe%2BMiddle%2BAges%26btnG%3DSearch%26meta%3D&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPA282,M1 Mellinkoff against text at Google Books, "fratricide" only found once?in Bibliography! The title of another work. AH]

have access to confirm this source. AH

Another view is taken in Latter-day Saint theology, where Cain is considered to be the quintessential Son of Perdition, the father of secret combinations (i.e. secret societies and organized crime), as well as the first to hold the title Master Mahan meaning master of [8] great secret, that [9] may murder and get gain.

Nessuno tocchi Caino ("Hands Off Cain") is an Italian association against death penalty.

Literature

As the first murderer and first murder victim, Cain and Abel have often formed the basis of tragic drama. Lord Byron rewrote and dramatized the story in the poem "Cain", viewing Cain as symbolic of a sanguinary temperament, provoked by Abel's hypocrisy and sanctimony.In Dante's Purgatory Cain is remembered by the souls in Purgatory in Canto XIV (14) on page 153, verse 133 saying "I shall be slain by all who find me!", Cain is facing the punishment that God has visited upon him for the sin of Envy, which is a similar play on the words in where he says, "I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden retells the Cain and Abel story in the setting of the late 19th and early 20th century western migration towards California. Also, his novelette Of Mice and Men draws elements from the story. Baudelaire is more sympathetic to Cain in his poem "Abel et Caïn" in the collection Les Fleurs du mal, where he depicts Cain as representing all the downtrodden people of the world. The poem's last lines exhort, "Race de Caïn, au ciel monte/Et sur la terre jette Dieu!" (In English: "Race of Cain, storm up the sky / And from the heavens cast down God!")Miguel de Unamuno's Abel Sánchez (1917) is a study on envy.Abel receives everything undeservingly, while his friend Joaquín is despised by God and society and envies him.Kane and Abel is a modern adaptation, a 1979 novel by British author Jeffrey Archer. In 1985, it was made into a CBS television miniseries titled Kane & Abel starring Peter Strauss as Rosnovski and Sam Neill as Kane.

Some form of legacy or curse of the name is often seen in literature: the monster Grendel in Beowulf is a descendant of Cain. In the epilogue to Agatha Christie's novel Ten Little Indians, the author refers to the Mark of Cain in laying out the clues. There is a Stephen King short story titled Cain Rose Up, in which a college youth goes on a killing spree while ruminating on the story of Cain and Abel. In the DC Comics (Vertigo division) universe Cain and Abel are a pair of fictional characters based on the Biblical Cain and Abel, inNeil Gaiman's Sandman series. In which Cain is constantly killing off his brother, despite the fact they are both immortals now.

Cain was traditionally considered to have red hair; the expression "Cain-coloured beard" is used in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Their names are often used in works of fiction simply as a reference, also. In Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, the character of Estragon tries to guess the names of two other characters. He guesses Abel and Cain. One of Jason Bourne's many names in the The Bourne Identity and its sequels was Cain, an operative name in the Treadstone 71 program.

In Daniel Quinn's book Ishmael, the biblical story is interpreted as a tale with roots in the emergence of agriculture, where Able seen as symbolic of the hunter-gatherer societies that was in majority, and Cain as the then new and emerging farming cultures.

Music

• An Australian band go by the name The Mark of Cain.
• The song "Abel and Cain" (???????), on the album set (2005), by D'espairsRay mentions Cain and Abel in the songtitle.
• The song "Innocent Bones", on the album The Shepherd's Dog (2007), by Iron & Wine mentions Cain and Abel.
• The song "Chapter Four", on the album Waking the Fallen (2003), by Avenged Sevenfold is about the story of Cain and Abel. Also, the band name is a reference to the verse "...the Lord said to him "If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold."
• Bruce Springsteen's album Darkness on the Edge of Town includes the haunting song "Adam Raised a Cain."
• The Hold Steady mention Cain and Abel in the song drugs/religeous-themed "Cattle And Creeping Things" from the album Separation Sunday (2005).
• Oasis have a song called "Guess God Thinks I'm Abel" from the album Don't Believe the Truth (2005).
• The 1990 single Blaze of Glory from the solo album of the same name by Jon Bon Jovi includes the line "I'm what Cain was to Abel".
• The film The Talented Mr. Ripley features Sinéad O'Connor's singing "Lullaby for Cain", with music by Gabriel Yared and lyrics by Anthony Minghella, who is also the director and screenplay writer of the film. The lyric relates to the biblical story of Cain and Abel.
• The song "Twist of Cain", on the album "Danzig" (1988), by Danzig, is about Cain, and the last 2 lines mention a Satanic influence: "Got a little Twist of Cain/From the God down below."
• In the US, the iTunes version of the Bloc Party album, A Weekend in the City (2007), includes a song called "Cain said to Abel" as a bonus track.
• Depeche Mode's single Barrel of a Gun, from the 1997 album Ultra, features the line "An unbearable pain, that leaves the Mark of Cain right here inside".
• The Killers song "Tranquilize", from their 2007 album Sawdust, mentions both Cain and Abel.
• Tom Waits, on his 2004 album Real Gone has a song titled Make it Rain which contains the line "I'm no Abel, I'm just Cain; Open up the Heavens and make it rain"
• Ted Leo and the Pharmacists have a song called "The Sons of Cain" from their album Living with the Living (2007).
• The Swedish band Tiamat has a song, simply called "Cain" on their album Prey from (2003).
• In the album "Every Waking Moment" by Citizen Cope, the song "John Lennon" mentioned Cain and Abel to reflect today's violence and conflict are rooted in "Abel and Cain/Pleasure and pain/Heroin and cocaine."
• The English band, Bloc Party have a B-side track called "Cain said to Abel".

Games

• Caine is a character fictionalized as the father of all vampires in White Wolf Game Studio's role-playing games set in the World of Darkness. His story is based on the biblical story of Cain, and is recounted in the Book of Nod and The Erciyes Fragments.
• The Command and Conquer universe features the "villain" (He can be seen as the opposite in many respects though)Kane; in the ending of the first game, and during a spinoff, Renegade, pieces from the Temples of Nod ( in Sarajevo and Cairo, respectively ), show Cain killing Abel.
• The FreeSpace series of games feature an alien race whose ships are named after evil beings and monsters. One of their most common cruisers is the Cain class.

• Xenogears features characters named Cain and Abel. Abel also appears in the spiritual successor to Xenogears, Xenosaga.

Television and film

• The Matrix Reloaded features two minor villains by the names of Cain and Abel. Both are supposedly vampires from an older version of the titular Matrix who were saved because of their difficulty to terminate. Abel is shot in the head by Persephone while Cain is sent to find Persephone's husband, and later killed in a fight with Neo.

See also

• The Cain Tradition