Bad Theology

Text for today: Genesis 4 iii-xvii

When Cain and Abel attempt to propitiate the landlord who evicted their parents, Cain's offering of produce from the ground is rejected in favour of Abel's animal sacrifice. God lectures Cain that he must rule over sin, and Cain kills his brother. God responds by cutting Cain off from the ground which is his living, and Cain emigrates to the east of Eden. After a period of wandering, he founds a city.

God arbitrarily rejects Cain's sacrifice, presumably because it does not satisfy His taste for blood. Cain's subsequent killing of Abel may be seen as a well-meaning effort to satisfy God's insatiate lust: it is not Abel's spirit but his blood which God hears crying from the ground. Asked where Abel is, Cain responds with the literal truth: he only knows where Abel's body is, and no theologian would maintain that the body is the person. Cain then asks pointedly, "Am I my brother's keeper?" - an implicit rebuke to God for failing to take care of His own. Infuriated at Cain's insolence, God denies him his living and sentences him to exile and homelessness, setting a mark on him as a warning to anyone who thinks of laying hands on God's property.

Having "settled in the land of Nod," a Hebrew idiom for wandering, Cain founds a city. He achieves this civilised state because he has left God's presence, which at this time evidently did not extend very far beyond Eden. Presumably the people among whom Cain settled were the creations of those other gods whose existence is implied at Genesis 3 xxii, or else had evolved naturally, outside God's notice, while He was absorbed in playing with His theme park.