Cain and Abel: Explanation Please. Pretty Pretty Please!

[Jenny A]

So what is the moral lesson of Cain and Abel?

Cain and Abel both make sacrifices to god. Abel is a hunter and brings meat. . . yum meat. Cain is a farmer and brings vegetables and grain. . . yum, yum, bread. But god is finds favor only in meat. God apparently demands blood. WHY?

The sacrifice of blood was established by God at the fall where He took an animal and killed it to literally cover what the sins of Adam and eve exposed.

From that moment on the shedding of blood was repersentive of the cost of sin.

Um? Are we reading the same Bible? God does not take the life any animal at the moment of the fall, though he did decree that Adam and Eve's life would be hard and that they would be mortal and die. He also curses the serpent and in a just-so sort of passage takes away it's legs. --- Or are you extrapolating from "And the Lord God made garments of skins for Adam and his wife, and clothed them." Genesis 3:21

This is like a father looking at the little hand made clay gifts of two sons and throwing bouquets at one and rejecting the other. What kind of good father would do that?

'We' are not God's children. Christ is. It is through Christ that we are 'adopted' by God. We are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.

God did not instruct his children, God instructed an ebolia patient in a sterialization process that one followed and the other did not. The one that followed instructions was welcomed, the one that did not was kept at arms length.

According to the Bible, God made us. How much more like children is necessary?

And, what the heck do you mean about ebolia patients? If your meaning is that God does not tell people how the world works--I agree, the God of the Bible certainly doesn't do that. But he does tell them how to worship him repeatedly, with emphasis, and occasionally set in stone.

Next Cain kills Abel. Not good. I get that. You don't get to kill your brother because daddy loves him best. But why does Cain get a pass with just exile and a you can't kill me card?
Later in the OT the penalty for murder, let alone fratricide, is death. Why doesn't Cain have to pay that price?

Did you see the movie noah? I think they got it right in that their was a division between the sons of cain and the sons of seth. Cain got a 'pass' because he was needed to contribute to the events that were to come.
History is not made up of only the sucessful, but rather the most vauable lessons history can teach are of short commings and failures.

No I didn't see Noah. The reviews are not promising. ---- So Cain got a pass so that he could father those other nasty people who didn't get to go in the ark? Seems an odd proceeding.

It seems to me that this is a tale about the arbitrariness of fate, not an all loving god. Anyone care to explain it differently?

What in the bible makes you believe that God is all loving?

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." 1 John 4:8 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 " For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt." Deuteronomy 10:17-19 "But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." Psalm 86:15

---- Speaking of sacrificial bribes. . .

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Jenny. Abel chose the best of his crops to offer back to God. Cain did not choose the best of his herd. Abel, but not Cain, found favour because he reserved the best for God. It's a wisdom tale about bringing the best of what God graces us with back to God, putting God first in our lives (out of recognition that without God we would have, and be, nothing). We then have a tale about the destructive force of envy, consuming Cain to the point of murder. Envy is, in many respects, the opposite of love; we find angst, and not happiness, in the good fortune of others. When envious, we no longer seek the best for others; rather we may seek to deprive others of that which we cannot have ourselves. It drags down people and society (even to the point of murder), rather than love which lifts up everyone (the lover and the loved).

It's as good an explanation as any I guess, though the difference in quality of gift really is not emphasized in the verses. The real difference appears to be meat versus vegetables.

Certainly it is a tale of envy. It's the root cause of the envy that puzzled me. But god's decision to grace some but not others has always puzzled me.

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So what is the moral lesson of Cain and Abel?

Cain and Abel both make sacrifices to god. Abel is a hunter and brings meat. . . yum meat. Cain is a farmer and brings vegetables and grain. . . yum, yum, bread. But god is finds favor only in meat. God apparently demands blood. WHY?

You should notice that Cain is not mentioned in the genealogy of Adam which means he was not Adams son.

Really? I don't think so:

" Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth[c] a man.” Later she gave birth to his brother Abel." Genesis 4:1-2

"Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth,[h] saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” 26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh." Genesis 4:25-26

The original sin was not about Eve eating fruit, but was about her having sexual relations with the serpent (before he was cursed, he was humanoid, not a snake). She then had sex with Adam, which is what caused them to realize they were naked.

Really? I can see the possible innuendo, but that's not what the Bible says and Genesis isn't shy of directly addressing sex. There is nothing about anyone having sex with the serpent or in connection with the fall except that they noticed they were naked.

The Bible says that "By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain". In other words, Abel had a revelation that the original sin was a "blood" sin (which is what semen is) and only blood could atone for it, but Cain thought the original sin was about fruit, therefore he offered fruit as a sacrifice.

Semen ain't blood, and you'll have to find me that garden of Edan sex, because I sure don't see it.

There is nothing about "By faith" Abel's sacrifice was better. What I do see is that god saw what Cain might do before he did it:

"Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” Genesis 4:6-7