Defending Cain
Re-Reading the Biblical Tale
Some commentators, especially Christians, have a tendency to treat Cain as pure evil and Abel (pre-figuring Jesus) as pure good. Imagining myself as Cain’s defense attorney, here is my case for why both he and Abel are more complicated.
The Birth Order Defense
Abel not only imitates Cain, who invents Sacrifice, but one-ups him, by offering the wool of the best of his flock. Cain is unfairly positioned relative to Abel’s “second mover advantage.” Especially when we read Genesis, it seems like Cain’s birth order sets him up for failure.
Cain goes into the family business—tilling soil. Abel becomes a sheep herder, a genuinely new thing. Cain produces food, Abel clothing. Let’s say that God genuinely prefers the latter to the former as a sacrifice—how is this Cain’s fault. Abel lucks into his innovation simply by having to do something new.
The Nietzschean Defense
Cain’s aggression and competitiveness, even his envy, are not evil per se. In some contexts these are the very traits needed to ensure the community doesn’t starve. Abel’s passivity, meanwhile, is no virtue. Cain’s fraternal violence is misuse of his potential, but it’s no coincidence that he is the founder of the first city. To the extent that urban life is a precondition for growth, we need Cain’s energy to lift the world out of poverty, even if population growth and density also bring with them more crime, pollution, “civilization and its discontent.”
The Tragic Defense
Cain doesn’t know that he’s going to kill Abel because neither death nor murder have yet been witnessed.
God pledges to Adam and Eve that they will die the day they eat from the tree of knowledge, yet they survive. How should Cain know that his intent to dominate will end Abel’s life? Perhaps he simply wants Abel to say “uncle.” At the least, the result of Cain and Abel’s quarrel reads different as horsing around taken too far
Cain and Abel may literally be young kids or teens. And even if they are fully grown, their maturity level can’t have been high, seeing as they were the first human beings to ever be born to parents.
God Miscommunicates
Cain feels rejected by God, but God doesn’t reject his sacrifice. He simply pays heed to Abel’s and ignores Cain’s. I contend the reason for this is not because God rejects Cain, but because he seeks to elicit a different kind of sacrifice from him, namely, the sacrifice of his emotional reactivity, his urge for (divine) attention and approval. Had Cain successfully mastered this urge he would have not only found divine favor, but would have surpassed his brother, Abel. But God does not communicate clearly to Cain. If God had it would not have been a test.
Abel’s sacrifice finds favor not because God prefers Abel, but because God condescends to Abel—Abel needs the attention and affirmation, being the weaker of the two brothers. But Cain interprets God’s condescension towards Abel and God’s higher standards for himself as disapproval. Cain reacts incorrectly, but the whole thing might have been avoided had he not felt the need to compete for God’s love in the first place.
For my previous take on the story, read here.