man, born of woman 1: the invention of religion

"and adam knew eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare cain, and said, i have gotten a man from the lord. and she again bare his brother abel. and abel was a keeper of sheep, but cain was a tiller of the ground. and in process of time it came to pass, that cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the lord. and abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. and the lord had respect unto abel and to his offering: but unto cain and to his offering he had not respect. and cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell." (genesis 4:1-5)

our history begins. the woman, now named eve, "the mother of all," mothers: ". . . she conceived, and bare cain, and said, i have gotten a man from the lord. and she again bare his brother abel, and able was a keeper of sheep, but cain was a tiller of the ground."

the first first born, the first two brothers, the first favourite son. now it is the woman who names, and cain's name is a proud statement of achievement while abel's means at best merely "brother" and perhaps merely "futile."

the futile second brother seems to ignore the curse on the ground, not eating of it but becoming a shepherd, precurser to david and the messiah.

hard-working, brow-sweating cain, however, tills the ground and invents religion: "cain brought of the fruit of the ground and offering unto the lord."

much of the strength of these stories is their spare emptiness. one of the few things helpful that i learned in seminary is that the why question is seldom helpful. this story does not present us with whys.

so we speculate, perhaps, why cain made this offering. he is not told to. leon cass, in one of the most insightful readings of genesis i have found, the beginning of wisdom, suggests that cain must have thought the holy one like himself, and hungry. (noah, released from the ark, also ". . . builded an altar unto the lord . . . and offered burnt offerings on the altar" (gen. 8:30), and in what can be seen as the ultimate ironic fulfillment of this passage as prophecy, jesus, released from the tomb, will prepare for the disciples "a fire of coals . . . , and fish laid thereon, and bread." (john 21:9))

"and abel, he also brought the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. and the lord had respect unto abel and to his offering: but unto cain and his offering he had not respect. and cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell."

i am tempted toward theodicy here, to quote later scriptures about the holy one's knowing the hearts of men (a theme which also crops in john's gospel (2:24-25)), but the text does not say anything about what the holy one knows about the brothers' hearts or why he respects one's sacrifice and not the others'. rather, i will suggest this story shows how limited man's knowledge is. we are, as eve said, "beguiled" by "shiny things" (the hebrew name for serpents), and nothing seems so shiny to us as our own good ideas about religion.

an excursus on eating

so much happens in these first chapters of genesis that it's easy to let some of the "most important themes slip by unheard. so, i want to take a moment to think about the role of eating in genesis.

the second commandment is about food:

"and god said, behold, i have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, i have given every green herb for meat: and it was so." (genesis 1:29-30)

(the first commandment, to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (genesis 1:28), is perhaps fulfilled, but in an unsatisfactory manner.)

so the man and the woman (it is not really accurate to call them adam and eve, since adam means both of them, male and female, and the name eve does not occur until after the fatal bite) sin by eating the forbidden fruit.

again and again eating, being fed, banqueting, or feasting will occur in the scriptural story. indeed the ultimate act of salvation will be celebrated in a holy meal.