Genesis 1-4
Meyer Schapiro, “’Cain’s Jawbone That Did the First Murder’ (1942),” in Late Antique, Early Christian and Medieval Art: Selected Papers (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1979), pp. 249-265.
Glenn M. Miller, “Introduction,” The Great Irruption: Christ’s Work on the Cross (optional)
This week we start at the very beginning: Cain and Abel gave the first sacrifices. (In Jewish oral tradition, Adam told his sons to do so.) The intention is to focus not just on the first murder but on the nature of the sacrifice(s) God expects. We're reading the first 4 chapters of Genesis in order to include the Creation and the Fall. After all, Christ's death on the cross is often interpreted as a guilt or sin offering for the world. So we need to talk about (original) sin.
I assigned the Schapiro reading because I couldn't find an explanation of the usual arguments about Cain and Abel's sacrifices that I liked. Plus, I wanted to do something with some visual interest. So I will also be bringing another book which has ancient, medieval, and modern artistic interpretations of this famous story.
Why does God prefer Abel's first lamb to Cain's grains?
1. Maybe God's choice is entirely arbitrary. Remember that in Exodus God says he will bless whom he will bless.
2. Abel gave the best of his flock and with the right intentions. Cain just brought "some" of his produce, instead of the best. This is why God speaks to him, telling him to do better next time.
3. God requires blood. Remember that at this time God has provided "everything that grows from the Earth" for humans to eat. Only after the Flood does God allow humans to eat meat:
1Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.2The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands.3Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
4“But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.5And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
6“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man.
~ Genesis 9:1-6
The Miller reading was optional, but consider the argument he lays out at the beginning:
There is some point to the Universe.
There was some situation that needed "re-work."
There was some point to Christ's coming to earth.
There is some reason Christ's death [and resurrection] has seemed more[?] important than his earthly life.
So the reason we're going back to Old Testament sacrifice is to understand the contexts of Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection in order to better understand their importance to our own lives.
4 comments:
If the generations before Noah were not supposed to eat meat, what was Abel doing raising sheep?
I cannot imagine the sheep weren't used for food as well, but even so sheep can be sheered for wool, which is useful for making garments.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend, so some initial thoughts by me. (And, sorry, I'm not known for brevity...)
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First, it's useful to remember that the Noah story arc is part of the "pre-history" of Genesis, a narrative that has no historical grounding but has mythical importance and so is found here. Furthermore, the emphasis on sacrifice likely would be part of the priestly redaction in the Pentateuch.
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In his article, "From Canaanite Ritual to Jewish Passover and Christian Eucharist: Profiles in Courage", in the January/February publication of The Fourth R, John Van Hagen describes the Baal sacrifice of ancient Canaan in which a lamb, symbolizing Baal, would be killed and fully consumed to prevent a spring rain disastrous to crops. The bones would be carefully buried so Baal could rise again for autumnal rains essential for plowing.
Israelite ritual would transform the sacrifice of a lamb into Passover, a daring ritual that celebrated the "liberation from Egypt" even while Israel was captive to Babylon.
The transformation of this ritual into the Eucharist would challenge the holiness codes; Jesus' burial was likely unclean, eating human blood is unclean, and mixing of ethnicity and social class is unclean.
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Furthermore, the assertion that Jesus, a peasant criminal charged with treason, could have been "the Son of God" or resurrected challenged the Roman imperial narrative of divinity, virgin birth, and resurrection being attributed to emperors.
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I question the importance of Jesus' death and resurrection over or in place of Jesus life. I don't believe we can understand the power of the death and resurrection narrative without understanding the life of Jesus--the comma in the Apostle's Creed. Admittedly I come to this study with that bias. But I'm hoping to come away with a more nuanced incorporation of sacrifice in my ideology.
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Original sin can be seen as structural sin that we are born into, not a bad gene--to use a modern term as metaphor--we inherit by divine insistence.
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Imago Dei (image of God): What does this mean? What is the image of God imprinted on humanity?
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Genesis 9: God is abundantly generous with food sources. Survival seems guaranteed. Consolation after the whole flood/near annihilation of humanity thing? While God is incredibly generous, humanity is given some boundaries (don't drink blood or shed human blood). God also sets some boundaries for God's self--promising not to destroy the earth again.
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Adam, Eve (and the Serpent): Original textual translation of snake is better rendered as "Tempter" than as the mythical Devil that has developed. Again, story not historical.
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Genesis 4: Biblical narrative time and again has God favoring the youngest of two from Cain and Abel to Israel and Judah even while traditional family values would have given favor and inheritance to the eldest.
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Have fun tonight.
Update:
We took Anthony's point that this is a pre-history story, likely influenced by later. probably priestly prerogatives. Michael suggested that when it was first told and written down, the meaning of the story of Cain and Abel was easy to understand but has since been lost.
So we considered, What does it say about God? What does it say about us?
As to the first question, we debated whether God knew things would turn out the way they (supposedly) did. Did God make mistakes with the first Creation (necessitating the Flood)? Did God really not know the answers to the questions, "Why are you naked?" and "Where is your brother?"? Did God have a learning curve?
The idea that God might not be omniscient--at least in the ways in which we are used to defining it--brought us to free will and process theology. With process theology, God is imminent in the world, and God always has a preferred plan for us--but it is up to us to make the right decisions. Even if we make the "wrong" decision (from God's point of view), God comes up with a new best plan for us each time.
As to what we get out of this story, the consensus was that we are to give to God the best of ourselves and with the best intentions. Remember "the widow's mite."
Finally, we ended with a Lectio Divina on Romans 8:19-21:
The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
There were some translational issues, which led to a very interesting discussion about frustration that took us back to God's injunctions to Eve and the Snake in Genesis 3:15.
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