Note: A version of this article previously appeared on my Patheos blog several years ago. It has been revised and updated for Theopolis. I originally wrote it to introduce Theopolitan reading to a different audience. Much of what is here will be familiar for those who have read James Jordan on the topic, but you may still find some tweaks and few new ideas.
The story of Cain and Abel is well-known for being the first murder case in the history of the world. That, of course, assumes that we take the story as a history, which is exactly how we should take the text. Yet sometimes we tend to think of this story as only composed of the details that are explicitly given. In this two-part article, I want to treat the text as a historical account in which it is possible to infer surrounding details that may only be hinted at in the biblical text.
We’ll take on the role of investigators examining the story of Cain and Abel as a biblical crime scene. From the clues in the text, we’ll need to reconstruct the players and witnesses, the setting, and the actions of the scene. We will attempt to answer the questions that one would consider at any scene of a crime: who, when, where, and why?
To do this, we are assuming that the text can work in this way—that it is, in fact, a record of an actual event, and that the record, though complete enough for the purposes intended, nevertheless holds clues for us to uncover that may lead to a fuller picture.
In this first part, we’ll set the scene of the crime and identify the players before considering each action in the scene in part two.
Reconstructions of biblical history require some speculation. Hopefully, our guesses will not be unfounded but will follow reasonably from the clues present. Of course, there is always some uncertainty in any reconstruction, as there is even when interpreting hard physical evidence at a modern crime scene.
1.1. The Place
First, let’s consider the geography. Where is the scene of the crime? Alright, so the title of this post is kind of a spoiler, but let’s look at the clues to see why Eden’s Gate is our likely scene before the crime, though not the scene of the crime itself. It is where the crime is conceived of.
To show this, we need to backtrack a little bit in the text. The first piece of evidence is the geography of Eden at creation. The creation account implies that the Garden of Eden is on the side of a mountain. A single river flows “out of Eden” and divides into four rivers (Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates) within the garden. The four rivers flow from the Garden into the world (Gen 2:10). It hardly requires saying that water flows downhill. The picture, then, is that life-giving water originated on an Edenic mountain and flowed through the garden so that it was not the source of life but the point of its dispersion to the four corners of the world.[1]
The Garden of Eden is also the sanctuary, the place where God comes to meet with man. In addition to the motif of sanctuaries being water sources (e.g., Ezek 47:1) or located on mountains like Sinai, we find in the garden two fruit-bearing trees set apart from all other trees of the garden as a sacramental meal—food with spiritual consequences. Adam’s first task in the garden was to “serve” and to “guard” it, which is the duty assigned to new priests at their ordination (Lev 8:35). When Adam fell and was expelled from the Garden of Eden, the cherubim replaced Adam as guardian and were stationed at the eastern entrance of the garden, armed with fire and sword (Gen 3:24).
You may recall that cherubim also guarded the throne of YHWH in the tabernacle (oriented with its entrance facing east, Ex 27:13), two embroidered into the fabric of the veil between the Holy Place and Holy of Holies, and two bowing low with wings outstretched over the cover of the Ark of the Covenant (Ex 25:18; 26:1). The cherubim also bear YHWH on his chariot, which is a mobile throne (Ezek 10:1–20).
Notice that the cherubim who replace Adam as sanctuary guardians stand at the east side of the garden. Later, we will see that when God judges Cain and expels him from the land of Eden, Cain moves further toward the east to Nod. Symbolically speaking, eastward movement is movement downward and away from the presence of God because it is movement downward and away from God’s sanctuary garden. Thus, before Cain was driven east of Eden, he and Abel were dwelling in the land of Eden just east of the garden.
Middle ground is priestly ground, mediating between God and his creation. Eden stands between heaven and earth and is analogous to the firmament, which stands between and mediates waters above and the earth below. In the same way, the Holy Place of both tabernacle and temple is middle ground between the Holy of Holies and the Courtyard of Israel. This idea may be reflected in the Sumerian word, EDIN, which means “steppe” or “plain.” But in one Sumerian myth, intriguingly titled “The Debate Between Grain and Sheep,” EDIN refers to the land near the “mountain of heaven and earth.” Here it appears with a qualifier as an-edin, meaning “high plain” (i.e., between the mountain of the gods and the valley of the world).[2]
The final clue pointing us to Eden’s Gate is that the offerings of Cain and Abel are called minchah, or “gift.” They are not olah, or “ascension” offerings, which are so called because the offering is consumed in fire and transformed into smoke which ascends to God’s presence (so usually incorrectly translated as “whole burnt offering”). The Scripture makes no mention of ascensions until Noah, and likewise mentions no altars until Noah (Gen 8:20). Altars are holy mountains in miniature built to model the sanctuary. But before God removed Eden from the face of the earth in the flood, there was no need to model it because there existed a geographical location where mankind could meet with God. Even though the flaming sword barred humanity from entering the sanctuary after Adam’s expulsion, it is most probable that people still came to meet God at its gate.
The tabernacle is a mirror image of this, where Israel offered sacrifices in exactly this way: at the gate of the sanctuary, at the entrance of the tent guarded by cherubim (Lev 1:3–9). The offerings of the Levitical priesthood passed through fire and sword. That is, they were cut up and then burnt at the sanctuary gate, and their smoke rose to YHWH’s presence. That is, the smoke filled the sanctuary (cf. Ex 19:18; 2 Chr 7:1–3; Rev 18:8).
Thus, we can surmise that Cain and Abel, bearing gifts, bore them in prototypical fashion to the gate of Eden so that their gifts might pass through the fire and sword of the guardian cherubim into the sanctuary presence of YHWH. They likely used no altar (which is why I chose the image I did for this article), and the fire of the guardian sword consumed their gifts. At least, one of their gifts…
1.2. Two of a Kind
The two major players in our story are, of course, Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve. We know they are brothers, and we know Cain is the elder of the two. What more can we deduce? Just as a note, I am leaving aside all fanciful theories of Cain being the biological seed of Satan, though he certainly shows himself to be the spiritual seed of the serpent.
First, here’s an interesting comparison:
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have acquired a man from YHWH.” And again, she bore his brother Abel (Gen 4:1–2a)
[A]nd Rebekah his wife conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
the older shall serve the younger.” (Gen 25:21–23).[3]
Many commentators simply dismiss, or do not even mention, the possibility that Cain and Abel may have been twins,[4] but I think the idea warrants further consideration. There is only one act of Adam “knowing” Eve and one instance of conception mentioned in the first verses of Genesis 4, yet there are two births. This is not conclusive, but it is suggestive. The text does not explicitly tell us how soon Abel’s birth followed Cain’s, but the language “again she bore” could indicate quick succession. When we combine this with the hints that there is more than a mere family of four in the picture (which we will consider shortly), the possibility that Cain and Abel are twins becomes more intriguing.
Whether or not they were twins, the closeness of their births to one another resembles twin pairs like Jacob and Esau or Perez and Zerah (Gen 28:27–30). The twin dynamic found in those pairs also appears with Cain and Abel, with the younger surpassing the elder in some way. In the case of Jacob and Esau, God tells Rebekah before their birth that the elder will serve the younger, but this does not work itself out until Isaac gives the blessing to Jacob. In the case of Perez and Zerah, the reversal occurs at the birth itself. Zerah puts his hand forth from the womb first, but Perez immediately supplants him! The significance of these similarities is that Scripture likewise presents Cain and Abel almost as equals, with Cain holding only a slight age advantage.
Cain becomes a worker of the ground, employed in carrying out one of the commandments of God to “serve” the ground. Abel is the first shepherd, and it would seem from the text that sheep is his only livestock, for general animal husbandry is not introduced until Cain’s descendant Jabal (Gen 4:20). Both occupations are perfectly legitimate; there is no reason given that God should favor one over the other.
1.3. A Growing Family
How old are the brothers? Seth is born to Eve “in replacement of Abel” when Adam is 130 years old. We may suppose that Seth was therefore born shortly after Abel’s murder.
Is there any more reason to believe there are other people living by now? Absolutely. Immediately after Cain is expelled from the land of Eden, he settles in Nod. He conceives a son with his wife and dedicates the first city by the name of his son, Enoch. Where Cain got his wife has long been a standard question arising naturally from the story. The most obvious answer is that if Eve is “the mother of all living,” then Cain’s wife must be a sister or another close relative. There must, therefore, have already been some growing community in the Adamic clan by the time that Cain left for Nod.
It seems unlikely that Eve bore Cain and Abel in quick succession and then left off bearing children for some 100 years until Seth. It is likely that Adam and Eve continued to have children, both sons and daughters (Gen 5:4), after the two eldest were born. Furthermore, when God passes judgment on Cain, Cain is worried that “everyone who finds me will kill me.” He is evidently worried not only about Adam killing him, but “everyone,” which implies that there are men other than Adam who could take vengeance on him for Abel’s blood.
Why then is the birth of Seth important after Abel’s death and Cain’s expulsion? Why not simply pass the birthright to the next son in line? I think the best answer is that all the men (and likely most of the women) of the Adamic clan departed Eden with Cain to build his city of Enoch. The chronology in our story also supports the picture that there was an Adamic clan community at the time of the crime.
1.4. Cutting Off of Days
When does the murder of Abel happen? We’ve seen from details in the context that it likely took place after a community has sprung up around the entrance of Eden. It seems reasonable to speculate that it took place shortly before the birth of Seth. More specifically, Genesis 4:3 says that Cain and Abel brought their gifts to YHWH “at the cutting off of days.”[5] English translations usually read “in the course of time” or something similar, but the Hebrew could instead indicate to us a definite point of time, probably a time of year.
The word for “end,” qets, is etymologically related to qtsts, “to cut or trim,” which is likely related to qatsir, meaning “harvest” and qtsr, which means “cutting or reaping.” Therefore, most likely this is referring to the “cutting off” or end of the year at harvest time. The Israelite feast at the end of the agricultural calendar year is “in-gathering” (Ex 34:22), which later gets subsumed into the Feast of Booths (Deut 16:13) ten days after the Day of Atonements (Lev 23:26, 33).
Israel’s festal calendar is not fully formed as it will be in Leviticus, but agricultural events like sowing and harvest become the template for the festal rhythm of the year. The ruling lights of the fourth day of creation already mark “festival times,” and God has already established a holy day of rest (Gen 1:14; 2:3). It is safe to suppose that Adam and his children observed some kinds of set times for offering and worship.
Either a prototypical firstfruits or an in-gathering festival setting will fit our story. Cain brings an offering of his harvest of the ground, and the wording of “the cutting off of days” presses us to the conclusion that an end-of-harvest festival is the chronological setting.
So far, we have established the probability that Cain and Abel, two firstborn of a growing Adamic clan, brought gifts to God at the harvest-end festival. We have seen that Adam’s family has likely expanded not only to four persons but to many more—sons and daughters of the Adamic clan. If this is the case, then the offering of gifts at the end of harvest would not be a merely private event. It is a harvest festival, and the whole clan would be gathered at Eden’s gate to celebrate. The two firstborn, Cain and Abel, would be acting in the role of priestly representatives of the community, offering on behalf of all the people. In Part 2 we’ll begin to look at the events that are recounted in Genesis 4.
Christopher is a Pastoral Intern at Immanuel Reformed Church in Birmingham, AL, where he resides with his wife Ellyn and their four children, Stephen, Eliana, Beata and Claire. He holds a certificate in Biblical, Liturgical, & Cultural Studies from Theopolis Institute. He has been published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (JETS). Christopher holds a BS in History and Theology from Elmhurst University. He is the executive editor of the Theopolis Blog.
NOTES
[1] Later, Ezekiel will speak of Eden as “the holy mountain of God” (Ezek 28:13–14).
[2] The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. This 3rd ct. BC text personifies the two products of agriculture as sisters embroiled in a sibling rivalry. The rivalry is resolved by the god Enki commanding Sheep to worship Grain.
[3] Compare with Romans 9:10, which Doug Moo translates, “Rebecca, when she conceived children in one act of intercourse with Isaac, our ancestor”; in Douglas J. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 2d ed. (NICNT; Eerdmans, 2018), 590, emphasis added.
[4] E.g., Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11 (Fortress Press, 1994), 292, and Gordon Wenham, Genesis 1–15 (Zondervan, 1987), 102. John Goldingay entertains the possibility in Genesis (Baker, 2020), 95.
[5] This is how James B. Jordan translates it in Trees and Thorns (Athanasius Press, 2020), 303.