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 CHAPTER FOUR
Cain and Abel, Genesis 4:1 - 4:26.

THE FACTS!

Adam and Eve do it.

Eve has a child named Cain and she says, "I have gotten a man from the Lord."

Cain offered God a fruit basket. Unless it was a vegetable bouquet.

Abel offered God dead baby sheep fat.

God disses Cain but gives up mad props to Abel.

Cain gets mad.

God asks Cain why he's so mad and warns him not to be controlled by his desires.

Cain talks with Abel.

Cain kills Abel.

God pretends not to know what happened to Abel.

Cain lies and smart mouths God.

God stops pretending and curses Cain.

Cain whines that the punishment for killing his own brother is too severe.

God marks Cain so anyone that slays Cain will have sevenfold vengeances done to him.

Cain goes out to live in Nod which is Cannery Row.

Cain has sex with some nameless broad and has a son named Enoch.

Enoch beshat Irad; Irad beshat Mehujael; Mehujael beshat Methusael; Methusael beshat Lamech.

Lamech marries two chicks, Adah and Zillah.

Adah beshat Jabal and Jubal.

Jabal is father of all who dwell in tents and have cattle.

His brother, Jubal, is the father of all who handle the harp and organ.

Zillah beshat Tubal-cain and his sister Naamah.

Tubal-cain instructs all in the arts of brass and iron.

Lamech brags to his honeys that he killed a man and another man.

Lamech thinks his street cred should be greater than his great-great-great-grandfather Cain and anyone killing him should get seventy-seven fold vengeances done to him. Badass!

Back to Adam, he has sex again with Eve.

Eve beshat Seth.

Seth beshat Enos.

Men begin to call upon the name of the Lord.

STUDY QUESTIONS!
Question God and Religion!

The Bible says Adam knew Eve. How many people have you known? I think a good line to use on a girl if you're in High School is to tell her if she's had sex with less than 5 guys, it makes her a prude and more than 10, it makes her a slut. She won't want to be a prude, so she'll have sex with you! And if she's already done more than 5 guys, she's going to do you too no matter what you say!

Why does Eve give God the credit when she gives birth to Cain? Is this the first example of someone doing something and pointing to the sky with both fingers and spiking the baby?

Do you think Abel could afford real sheep or were his electric?

Cain offers God 'the fruit of the ground'. Did he offer God a rock? No wonder God was angry!

Why does God give Abel respect for baby sheep fat? It sounds disgusting! And sad!

What does God mean when he says "if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door"? Does that mean when I write a story that isn't as funny and full of action as it should be, I'm sinning? Not that that ever happens. It was just a made-up example.

What do you think Cain and Abel talked about before Cain murdered Abel? Do you think maybe Abel said something that would justify Cain killing him, such as "Nyah nyah! God likes me better!"?

Have you ever seen anybody on Perry Mason take the stand and answer one of Perry's questions with, "Am I my so and so's keeper?" where so-and-so is the murder victim? I bet Perry would get so angry he'd win the case on the spot!

God curses Cain with one of his typical curses where the earth isn't going to yield anything unto him anymore. Do you suppose this is God's way of getting Cain to stop tilling the ground so that maybe Cain's next offering will be delicious instead of healthy or dirt?

For a murderer, Cain sure does whine when his sentence is handed down to him. Hasn't he ever heard the phrase, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime"? I guess he hasn't unless Adam or Eve made it up! They could have since they did a crime and are doing time too.

Why does Cain worry about people finding him and slaying him? Who else is there besides Adam and Eve and Cain? I'm starting to believe that when God made man and woman in his own image in Section One, he made a whole lot of men and women all over the world. And then in Chapter Two when he makes Adam and Eden, he's just being more specific about possibly his favorite Man. That's too much stuff I just had to make up to explain the meager descriptions in The Bible. Is there more that I'm missing?

Since Cain is such a baby, God marks him with a mark that identifies him as the guy you shouldn't kill or else you'll get vengeanced sevenfold. What if someone stabbed Cain in the back? Would God forgive them and say, "Oops, my bad!"?

Cain ends up in the land of Nod. Why isn't Nod within the presence of the Lord? Doesn't God rule over everything? Where did Nod come from? It wasn't in the Geography Lesson earlier. I'm starting to think The Bible writers shouldn't have been so stingy on the details. Maybe they had a jerky editor who thought they were putting in too much!

I hate editors. Do you think God hates editors too?

Cain knows his wife. But how did he know her? I don't mean like that! I know the birds and the bugs! Where do you think he knew her from? The Bible doesn't name her but the only other woman in the book is Eve. Would that be wrong?

Cain's children and grandchildren are named Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methusael and Lamech. What was he thinking?

Lamech marries two women, Adah and Zillah. Where are they finding all of these strange women?

Does Jabal get a degree in business and tent pitching while his brother Jubal got the liberal arts degree?

Does "he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ" sound dirty to you too?

Why does Lamech brag about killing a few guys? Is he trying to make a reputation for himself? Why is any of this stuff even relevant? Is this some sort of foreshadowing for a future war between the evil, badass Lamech and his descendants versus the goody-goody Seth's Lamech and his descendants?

Seth names his son Enos. Do you think he'll marry Daisy Duke? Why did his spin-off fail?

"Am I my brother's keeper?" is 238th on the list of most typical responses to the question, "Did you kill that person?" The top five are "It wasn't me.", "That's not me on that video.", "I'll kill you too!", and "Stop asking me all those stupid questions, ya Columbo jerk!"

God used to butt into daily affairs all the time. Some think he stopped when his son was killed but they're mistaken. He still interferes in mankind's business all the time! It's just the people he talks to now are called schizophrenics instead of prophets.

John Steinbeck's East of Eden has dozens of characters whose names all begin with a 'C' or an 'A'. I bet that's important!

Having two wives isn't as great as it sounds! It sounds like you get to have lots of sex with different women but sounds can be deceiving. In most marriages, wives stop having sex with their husbands, so with two wives, you'll have even less sex than in a normal marriage!

ESSAY ASSIGNMENT.
Choose one.

A. Create a dialogue between Cain and Abel in which the power shifts a number of times from one brother to the other up until Cain kills Abel.
B. Using your imagination and poor logic skills, develop an argument as to why God prefers Abel's sheep over Cain's fruits since The Bible doesn't give any compelling reason.
C. Write a defense of Cain's fratricide. Define fratricide however you want since I just hope I spelled it correctly.

DRAWING TIME!

The Bible isn't specific as to how Cain slew Abel. Draw your interpretation of the event. Be as graphic as possible!

WHAT DID CHRISTIAN LITERALISTS LEARN?

If you kill your brother, God will turn you into Bruce Banner.

KNOW THY ENEMY

Now is that part where accepting that Adam and Eve weren't the first Man and Woman really comes in handy when those darn Atheists try to trip you up. "Where did Cain find a woman to wive?" they'll say in that super smug way that people with facts behind their statements have of saying things. If you're an Informed Literalist, you'll say he married one of Adam and Eve's later sons because, according to the New Testament, all of mankind has to have been descended from Adam and Eve to be filled with Original Sin and need to be saved from Original Sin. If any of the other people God had made who weren't born of his Special Man and Woman (like Cain's wife), they would get a free pass and not have to believe in Jesus because they wouldn't be tainted by Adam's Sin!

Some Informed Literalists may actually use the New Testament itself to attack this Literalist line of thinking! But you have to be careful when reading the New Testament because much of the New Testament is just new people's interpretations of the Divine Word! It gets really postmodern and confusing later! I'll explain that more when we get to the New Testament!

For now, I'll just point out that even if the entire world were full of men and women created by God, only the people currently in the world are descendants of Adam and Eve! This is because of the Flood and the Noah Chapter. See? All those other people without Adam's Fruit Eating Taint have now been drowned! So it all works out and you don't need all of these other rationalizations to make Cain's wife not appear to be a refutation of the Holy Word of the Bible!