According to the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, Cain and Abel were the first and, possibly, second sons of Adam and Eve, born after the Fall of Man. Abel tends flocks while Cain is a farmer. Their story is told in the Hebrew Bible at Genesis 4 and in the Qur'an at 5:27-32. In both versions Cain commits the first murder by killing his brother after God rejects his sacrifice, but accepts Abel's. after this god sends Cain into the wilderness to wander and to be alone. Cain pleeds with god that the people in the wild will kill him. so with this god grants Cain a mark that would protect him.

Why would god accept one sacrafice and not the other?
What was the mark the god put on Cain?
and...
Why would god protect Cain after he murdered Abel?

Because the Old Testament god was notoriously cruel and fickle?

--Jaylemurph

really? is that why He forgave cain? is that why He set His seal of protection over Him?

yeah... that was a big display of His cruelty...

i don't think God is a vegetarian... lol... i can't recall any part of the Bible where He accepts vegetables as sacrifice...

it doesn't say what the mark is that He put on cain... but we know that whatever it was... people knew what it meant...

God protected Cain because God is a forgiving God... if you sincerely want to be forgiven...

No, but the sheer number of dead bodies at the end of the Old Testament slain by god directly or at the behest of god is staggering. It argues against him being merciful per se.
But of course, they were heathens. It's always been tacitly okay to kill them in the Christian tradition.

--Jaylemurph

The Gods who created Adam. The tribe of men, are not the one true God of the universe. The one true God "Jahovah" created the entire "Cosmos" and everything in it.

The Anak Lords who came to earth from the heaven or outer space, created man from the dust of the earth using DNA molecules. Taken from the original humanoids who dwelt on the earth.

The Anak Lords worship the god "Jahovah". The blood and flesh of a ram, was always preferred over the fruit and vegetables as a burnt offering.

Cain plays a part in the mystery, of the creation, of man kind. You see Cain was banished from the face of the earth for killing his twin brother Abel.

The mark was changing Cain back into the original humanoid. He is the creature misery who dwells within the earth crust. He wanders to and fro within it.

When the first drops of Ables blood hit the earths soil, he became one with the earth. "Jahovah" new it, and Lucifer took his soul. Lucifer protect Cain and his descendants.

A holy war is coming and the descendants of Cain shall meet mankind on the plain fields in Meggido. Armageddon in Egyptian.

Lucifer refused to bow down to this new race of men, created from the dust of the earth. 1/3 of "Jahovahs" angels fell to earth with him. They are the evil Gen.

The race of mankind, are all Gods living in the shells of mortals. We are all spirits on a human journey. Lucifer never experinece the touch of flesh. Lucifer is pure spirit.

The story is an allegory: Cain represents the landowners (the rich); Abel represents the nomads (the poor). It's a classic story of the rich and powerful oppressing the poor.

God accepted Abel's sacrifice, because he wasn't greedy, like his brother Cain. God wanted to protect Cain (whoever Cain may represent) until his alotted days in this world have reached their conclusion; it is then that God punishes evil-doers like Cain, when their earthly existence has ceased.

..and are those who follow the Anak Lords the Anoraks? Or the Anorak Lords?

--Jaylemurph

Very un- intelligent.

But it was /clever/.
More clever than anything that's been put forth about the Annunaki or whatever it is you're calling them.

--Jaylemurph

My time is short. I will not answer all who think they are clever, but only wield a cleaver.

On to more important tasks than saving the unenlightened?

--Jaylemurph

1) God likes blood sacrifices (just look at Jesus)
2) Since God put a hit out on Abel, and Cain killed him, Cain developed a reputation as a hitman, which was his "mark"
3) Well, they didn't have a lot going on as far as a good gene pool and Adam and Eve werre getting on in age, so it would have been bad to kill Cain

Or....could it be myth?

sacrafices have requirements unto the lord..cain did not want to offer up unto the lord those requirements inwhich the lord had set..therefore makingcains offering displeasing..but cain was giving the knowledge of acceptence..gen 4:7 the lord told cain if thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted. cain rebelled much like ppl do today..he choose to kill abel instead of abiding to the words the lord had spoken to him. according to the scriptures god has requirments even unto this day on what is, is not acceptable unto him.


as for the mark text does not go into great details as you read through the bible this mark or one simular to is used. ppl knew he had been marked by god.

it seems as if cain had regret for his actions ..gen 4:13 cain said unto the lord my punishment is greater than i can bear. god could have destroyed cain instead god showed mercy.. but also left cain a reminder of he doings.

Thank you Hippi. Even some catholic bishops and cardinals accept the fact that the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Job, etc. are allegorical myths

In fact, so are the stories of Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus....but I don't think many catholic clergy would go quite that far.

Any time there is a thread on here that assumes the historicality of the bible I just have to shake my head. Don't you people get it....the bible is full of allegorical myths. The writers of the bible were not historians, they were a collection of mystics, religious teachers, religious fanatics, political opportunists and just plain loonies. Most of them would laugh at us today for believing in the factuality of their stories...the best writers meant the stories as myths to teach us deeper truths - the worst writers wrote in God's name to justify their political decisions (which explains a lot of the killing of heathens).

God does not require blood sacrifice (Abel, Isaac -almost, first-born Egyptians, Jesus et. al).....those are just examples of literary license to make a point.

Speaking for myself, I'd be much more worried about my soul if I believed that the God of the Bible was real and that the Bible described historical events. The fact that these stories are myths, legends and propoganda give hope to the entire world.

The story of Cain and Abel is a moral lesson i think, Its a story that shows and supports the fact that God will forgive all sin's if we ask him to and it's heart felt......

According to some midrash, the mark was a horn on Cain's head.

He also couldn't have been to well protected as these legends also mention him being killed by Lamech.

Look at who Cain became. It is your interpretation that said that God did not accept the sacrifice. What happened was God did not choose Cain's sacrifice first. God had to accept it, there was no other sacrifices. But, you become confused when you put your own interpretation to the meaning of the words. What did God say to Cain after he was cast out of the world he was in which was the world outside of the garden that Adam and Eve thrust him into because of their actions.
Cain, who was the firstborn and therefore the inheritor of the belongings of Adam and Eve, could have thought that it was out of order for his sacrifice to be chosen second. It might be a custom in the Eastern world to interpret the order of acceptance of the 'gift' as being a blessing. The acceptance of Abel's 'gift' set the tone for the behavior of the psyche of mankind. In other words, the God of creation accepted the sacrifice of animals people think when they read that story so they continue killing animals and it grows into the humans are just animals and we need a sacrifice.
Cain was a farmer. Isn't there becoming a shortage of aerable plantable land now? And people are hard set against natural plants and vegetarians. But God is trying to save Cain now, don't you see. We, in this world, have progressed and need different cures for things because of the way we have progressed and we find that nature supplies most if not all of the cures, but we have progressed too far into our diseases to naturally cure them and we have to fall back on our memory which is getting a little Alzheimeric. We are killing Cain! And what does the bible say that will happen to the slayers of Cain? How many times do you think you can die?

The mark of Cain is a mentality, the physical actions of the person. Each person leaves a mark on the world. See, Cain showed remorse, you know, 'God I can't take this! Everybody who sees me will kill me!'
God said, 'If you do well, you won't be killed.'

God did not cast him of any Paradise, he was already out. Is that where God reserved the choice of acceptance or did God make the sign of Cain the acceptance of the growth of nature? Probably both.

God said in the bible something like, 'I don't think I ever needed sacrifices, but I guess you had to survive; especially when Noah rode all that time in the ark. So, we'll do it for now, but remember, there's Cain and I gave him some power. See, I was hungry and it smelled good that barbecue and all and, man, I had to have some; see, my senses told me to eat and when I smelled that my appetite went through the roof. Man, I just gorged on that animal fat and meat and became lazy and well, I figured out how to stop all of this hardening of the arteries and stuff that gave me skin rashes and zits and I better hurry up and get some of that that Cain had so I can get some relief from this. I don't know, we've got plenty of stuff that you can buy to cure it and doctor's to see and Cain is sort of disappearing and well, the stash in my saucer is getting low, so I'll just buzz on over to Wal-Mart and pick up some of that man-made stuff. Wait, I've got to be at work tommorrow at 8, the gas is low in my saucer, and I have to get home and teach and preach, man I just don't know if I have time for this. Really stressful, you know.'

Mentality. How you interpret things. Does God want animal sacrifice or something that grows from the earth He created and He told you would heal and if anybody killed the mentality they would die how many times? A thousand cattle on a hill are His, but which one does He want?

and more likely the story is literal and means just what it says...

Which is why we're all massively inbred and riddled with genetic disease?
The human race could not have survived coming from only two people, full stop. We would have died out long ago.

--Jaylemurph

God did not accept Cains offering because Cain offered poor quality goods.
Abel offered a newborn lamb, something that could be worth alot to a herder.
The mark is not described in the bible, at least not that i remember...

Here's another question relating to that story that most people never address....

If it's Adam and Eve as the first two people ever created and they only have two sons, WHO ARE THE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE WILD THAT CAIN IS SO FRIGHTENED OF?

Also, how did he find a wife? At this point, Eve should be the only female in existence.....

Oh, wait that's two (amongst a whole plethora of questions).

IMO, anyone who takes the Bible in a purely literal sense is doing themselves and their chosen religion a disservice. It is meant to be a book of moral lessons, not a word for word instruction manual. And, most certainly NOT an historically accurate timeline.

According to the Book of Nod, the mark God put upon Cain was that of the undead. It is said that Cain incountered Adam's first wife, Lilith, after God banished him from paradice. . .Lilith took cain under her wing so to speak, and thus the Vampire race was created. Link >>>>>
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/8736/nod.html

I think that this story of Cain and Able is also proof that Violence is human nature as well as good vs evil, rich vs poor and so on. . . .

I don't know much about the Bible but regardless of whether the story is supposed to be taken figuratively or not, if Cain was asking for death and God wanted to punish him wouldn't it be a better punishment to give him the opposite of what he requested?

Having not read the Bible I have no clue why Cain's sacrifice wasn't accepted and what his mark was, but the punishment seems obvious to me.

I believe that there is alot missing from the bible that's why it dose not make sense. Why would GOD want anyone to kill something to make him happy? Were did all those people come from if Adam and Eve were the only people besides their two sons. One brother kills the other brother he is sent out to the desert and low and behold "people" were the heck did they come from and a town. Now also in the bible GOD wanted someone to sacrifice his first born (son) to prove his love for him and his belif in him. WHAT GOD WOULD ASK THAT!!!!!!

The reason is simple.
Cain knew this too. He could have easily traded w/his brother some veggies for a lamb. But he tried to approach God on his terms - instead of the terms God had already set up.
The Bible clearly states that sacrifices to God, were to be Lambs - not veggies. That is why when we Zip forwards into time, Jesus is called the "Lamb of God" and why his body was broken and his blood was spilled.

Because this is where you take heed to Jesus words when he said the devil ruled the earth since the beginning of adam and eve. Common sense can point out that the old testament god and the new testament God are different Gods. The old testament depiction of God is the adversary Lucifer i believe and the New Testament God that Jesus talks about is an Holy Spirit and energy which you see evryday and not see. Remember the days of Noah when man praised False Gods (fallen angels) and Genesis story is older then that being of the times when False Gods were worshipped. So its not hard to believe that the God stated in the Garden of Eden times very well could be the False God and his rule of that time.

With that being said the devil is the wise serpent or dragon beings who gave us knowledge in return for our freedom.

The way that i understand the story,Abels sacrifice was acceptable to God because he gave the best of his flock willingly,greatfully and with all his heart! Cains was not acceptable because he gave second best and didn,t even do that willingly,he only gave because he thought he had to!And Cain was marked and driven away from home and family not because of his unacceptable sacrifice, but because he,d become jelous of his brother and murdered him!Cains sacrifise would have been just as acceptable as Abels had he willingly and greatfully given his best! The sin was jelousy and murder!

Actually most of those who wrote the Bible were just plain old scribes working at the behest of the their rulers. It's hard to imagine, given the great number of times the stories of the Bible have been written, rewritten, and re-rewritten, how many scribal errors accumulated along the way. The Bible (and especially the Old Testament) took a long time to become the form we know today, and a significant number of the stories and scriptures were recorded long after the events they depict.

I wholeheartedly agree that the original authors of the Bible would have a merry laugh at us today. This is particularly true of the Old Testament, which is a collection of fables and allegories and ancient Jewish laws the original authors crafted to legitimize the kingdom of Judah and the Davidic line--and to warn those who strayed that Yahweh would surely smite them!

I dont know if this applies to this thread but I think it sums it up nicely.

On the whole, we're a murderous race.

According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming.

-Jim Butcher

My brain hurts trying to understand a lot of these replies. It comes down to this... we don't know. The Bible is not all-inclusive and we are left without the details sometimes. Read it, think about it, read what others have to say about it, then accept what it has told you - that's my advice.

Becouse cain did not offer the best of what he had. Abel did.

From what I've read, Cain is always getting the short end of things, eg: ugly wife, sacrifice not being accpeted. I guess that's why he snapped. he must have felt unfavored and underhanded.

but the all knowing god. I assumed he expected or was he expecting this to happen.

and I agreed, none of them fallen humans and his siblings would have seen it coming cause it's the first kill.



and people insisted Bible was a peaceful holy book >.< all that sacrifice and killing.

Moved to appropriate section of this forum.

I take the story at face value. Literally.

Whatever Cain did, it was not what he was suppose to do and hence it wasn't accepted.

Just because Adam was created in God's image, doesn't mean that there weren't other 'human-like' people that weren't. Neanderthal and homosapiens lived side-by-side. These could have been the people that Cain went to when he left his family.

there is an big difference between humans killing and GOD killing people. He is god whole point is he knows what he is doing and we cant even think at his level.

Its never ok in gods eyes for a man to kill another man especially in his name.

And the reference for this theory is .........................

Thats going a bit too far, is it not. There are plenty of accurate historical references in the bible, but who they were written by was not , nutters, religious nuts, or political nuts. infact we dont know who wrote them. especially the new testment. where in history does an author not leave his surname, or something they could be recognised by, besides their first names

infact, it can be traced back on genetic level and dna level, that we did come from one source, a man and a woman. there is scientific evidence for this.

If I remember correctly, science also said that these genetic 'Adam and Eve's existed at different times.

However, I always thought that the mark might be the number 6 and/or 7. Lamech (Cain's descendent who had two wives) lived to 777. Also, this quote from the Bible

23 Lamech said to his wives,
"Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
wives of Lamech, hear my words.
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for injuring me.

24 If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech seventy-seven times."

Shows seven was common in Cain and his descendents life. Lamech was also the 5th descendant of Cain- 5 being the number of chaos. The amount of times I find the weirdest connections in things is staggering, especially when these things tend to appear random.

You go in to it on a molecular level, and you will find out that our it can all be traced to to a man and woman, and their genetic pool.

i thought the bible was just lessons n stories not factual

Why would god accept one sacrafice and not the other? The Bible does not explicitly say. However, when Cain brings his offering, it says that he just "brought some of the fruits of the soil" (v3). Then in verse 3, it says "But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock" (v4). I personally think it a dead giveaway that Abel's offering is preceded by the term "fat portions" from the "firstborn" - in other words, he gave the best he had. Cain's offering is not described, but the contrast between Abel's commentary and Cain's implies to me that Cain did not give the best he had, was indeed making a token gesture only and didn't really care about giving.

Someone mentioned that God only cared for blood sacrifice, which is wrong, considering that the Old Testament is also filled with descriptions of grain-offerings (among others). And these were all acceptable just as much as animals.

What was the mark the god put on Cain? The Bible does not say, and there is no way for it to be known, either explicitly or implicitly.

and...
Why would god protect Cain after he murdered Abel? If you look through the Bible, whenever God casts judgement upon something, it is always followed by an act of Grace. The exact nature of the Grace is different each time, but there is always Grace. In this instance, God promises to keep Cain free from harm as part of the Grace bestowed upon him. This is the way that God works throughout the Bible. People can comment all they like that God was always after blood, but mostly they forget the cases of Grace, which are just as numerous and bigger (the biggest Grace of all was the actions God took upon himself when he came down as a human and died for us). But that's another argument.

As to whether Cain and Abel is allegory or not, it is hard to say. I would probably say that it is allegory, considering the poetic nature of the first 11 chapters of Genesis is filled with figurative and expressive language. Just as all the stories in Genesis 1-11 are also probably allegory. HOWEVER, I would not be surprised if this account of Cain and Abel is based on a real event that may have happened. That's altogether possible.

Whether allegorical or real, the learning I get from the passage is exactly the same, so I personally don't think it matters a great deal.

Man, if you only knew the truth!