Biblical question.

[Wabi Sabi]

This is an honest question and not meant to offend anyone:

 

We are not Christians, but I've recently started reading some stories from a children's Bible to my kids because the stories have such important cultural and historical significance. Today we read about Cain and Able. A couple of questions came up that I could not answer.

 

(1) Why was God displeased with Cain's offering? If he worked in the fields it would be natural for him to give an offering from his crops rather than a sheep, right?

 

(2) When Cain was banished he cried out that he couldn't be left to wander the world to be killed by anyone who passed him on the road. Ds immediately wanted to know who "anyone" was. Wouldn't everyone on earth at that point be either his sibling or his parent? My oldest also wanted to know who Adam and Eve's children married- their own siblings?

 

How would someone who takes the Bible literally explain these questions? Many thanks in advance.

[TrulySusan]

1. Cain's offering was fruit of the ground. He didn't bring God his best, rather fruit that had already fallen off the tree. Abel's lamb was his best and was honoring to God.

 

2. Excellent question-no idea about the answer.

[PentecostalMom]

Well, if you take the Bible literally there are no answers for lots of things. I am a Christian and there are so many things that cannot be explained. You will get individual interpretations. One is that God made more people than just Adam and Eve but the Bible does not literally say that. Honestly, I do not have a pat answer and I think that there are many things you will encounter that you have to made your own interpretations about. Some think that Christians will be taken from the earth before the anti-Christ comes, others do not. Sometimes I just have to be content to know that there is an all-knowing God and I am not intended to know everything.

[happypamama]

My interpretation is something like this (and I think those are great questions, if for no other reason than the historical context; on the flip side, we have really enjoyed integrating our favorite well-known Bible stories with SOTW1 this year, seeing how the events in the Bible fit in with the larger picture of the world):

 

1. Cain brought God the leftovers, not the first, not the best. He didn't make giving to God his top priority.

 

2. One interpretation is that God made Adam and Eve with all of the genetic traits, and He made it so that technically, yes, they were marrying their siblings, but they were no more genetically related than a husband and wife are today. (I'm not really sure how that works with scientific laws, which I believe that God set up, but I also believe that He can, and does sometimes, suspend those laws, and this might be a case of that.) If people were living hundreds of years back then, literally, it's very possible that families grew large quickly, and some of them may have moved to other locations by the time Cain killed Abel, hence Cain's concern.

 

I do think there are many ways to interpret parts of the Bible, and I agree with PentecostalMom that sometimes we just have to put our trust in God's overall plan and accept that we won't know everything here on Earth.

[Ellie]

(2) When Cain was banished he cried out that he couldn't be left to wander the world to be killed by anyone who passed him on the road. Ds immediately wanted to know who "anyone" was. Wouldn't everyone on earth at that point be either his sibling or his parent? My oldest also wanted to know who Adam and Eve's children married- their own siblings?

 

Cain and Abel were not Adam and Eve's only children. They lived for hundreds of years, you know, and since one of their main jobs was to be fruitful and multiply well, you can see that there would need not only for there to be more children, but also for those children to be able to marry each other. Which is what most Bible scholars believe happened.

[Melissa in Australia]

it says somewhere in Genesis that Cain took his sister as his wife.

 

It is understood that Adam and Eve had quite a few children

[vonfirmath]

Yes. Cain married his sibling.

 

God made Adam and Eve perfect. The world has degenerated since then, the point where, a LONG time in the future -- when He gave the law through Moses (Leviticus 18), God forbid the intermarriage of those who were too closely related.

 

Moses parents were closely related. Exodus 6:20 says that his mother was his father's aunt (His father's father's sister)

[Ipsey]

There is also a broad school of thought that God required blood sacrifice and that's why God rejected Cain's sacrifice. Many Christian scholars think that the sacrifices were to be a "type" or symbol of Christ's sacrifice to come. People were supposed to be taught from the beginning that sin required blood for expiation.

If you Google, you'll find that this perspective is pretty common, together with the "first fruits" concept.

It's the one I've been taught in a number of Bible believing churches.

[Ellie]

it says somewhere in Genesis that Cain took his sister as his wife.

 

Do you have the reference for that? Because I don't think the Bible says that.

 

It is understood that Adam and Eve had quite a few children

 

 

:iagree:

 

Genesis 5:4: The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters.

[ladydusk]

I think a better explaination for why God didn't accept Cain's offering is found in 1 John 3:11-12 "And why did Cain kill him [Abel]? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's were righteous." Cain's heart was not right and his offering was not accepted - not necessarily because of the quality or lack thereof of the offering itself.

[JenniferB]

"For even in the sacrifices which Abel and Cain first offered, God looked not at their gifts, but at their hearts, so that he was acceptable in his gift who was acceptable in his heart. Abel, peaceable and righteous in sacrificing in innocence to God, taught others also, when they bring their gift to the altar, thus to come with the fear of God, with a simple heart, with the law of righteousness, with the peace of concord. With reason did he, who was such in respect of God's sacrifice, become subsequently himself a sacrifice to God; so that he who first set forth martyrdom, and initiated the Lord's passion by the glory of his blood, had both the Lord's righteousness and His peace. Finally, such are crowned by the Lord, such will be avenged with the Lord in the day of judgment; but the quarrelsome and disunited, and he who has not peace with his brethren, in accordance with what the blessed apostle and the Holy Scripture testifies, even if he have been slain for the name of Christ, shall not be able to escape the crime of fraternal dissension, because, as it is written, He who hates his brother is a murderer 1 John 3:15 and no murderer attains to the kingdom of heaven, nor does he live with God. He cannot be with Christ, who had rather be an imitator of Judas than of Christ. How great is the sin which cannot even be washed away by a baptism of blood— how heinous the crime which cannot be expiated by martyrdom!"

 

St. Cyprian of Carthage - Treatise on the Lord's Prayer 24.

 

This quote is used for reflection of 2nd Monday of Great Lent. I think that's so timely you asked this very question just before Lent (on the eastern calendar.) We are heading into Lent and the Church reminds us of many humbling themes at this time of year. The brother of the Prodigal Son was jealous of him, much like Cain was of Abel. They are similar stories about heart conditions and which one is pleasing to God (humble, innocent, repentant) and which one does not please God (angry and jealous.)

 

Here is a link about the Sunday of the Prodigal Son (this Sunday) if you want to dig deeper:

 

http://oca.org/saints/lives/2013/03/03/3-sunday-of-the-prodigal-son

 

Sent from my iPhone - please forgive any grammar/spelling errors.

 

Regarding Q#2 - I would say we don't know if the family of Adam and Eve were literally the first and only family on Earth at the time, but it's the Spiritual lessons that are important to us as Orthodox Christians how these lessons and stories and characters point us to Christ.