Cain and Abel
|
Cain killing Abel, from a 15th century manuscript. |
Cain and
Abel (
Arabic: Qabil and Habil, قابيل و هابيل) are the first and second sons of
Adam and Eve, born after the
Fall of Man, whose 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. Genesis puts some emphasis on the occupations of the brothers; Abel tends flocks while Cain is a farmer.
Cain and Abel are
English renderings of the
Hebrew names
קַיִן /
קָיִן and
"ֶבֶל /
"ָבֶל, respectively, from the Bible. In the modern
Standard Hebrew transliteration, these are rendered
Qáyin and
Hével /
Hável, whereas in
Tiberian Hebrew they are rendered
Qáyin /
Qāyin and
Héḇel /
Hāḇel. In the Qur'an, Abel is named as
Hābīl (
هابيل); Cain is not named in the Qur'an, although
Islamic tradition records his name as
Qābīl (
قابيل). Cain is called
Qayen (ቃየን) in the Ethiopian version of Genesis, although in several other places such as
Jude 1:11, he is called by the variant
Qayel (ቃየል), by which name he is more usually referred to in sermons.
A once common English
folk etymology held that
Abel was composed from
ab and
el, effectively meaning
source of God. However, this is a fallacy, as the original Hebrew only contains the three letters
HVL (
"ָבֶל), which is quite different from
ABEL (
אבאל). Biblically, the word
Hevel (
Abel) appears in
Ecclesiastes in a context implying it should be translated "pointless" (the
King James Version translates it as "vanity", which at the time of translation had the same English meaning, but does no longer), and also appears, in the
masoretic text, at
1 Samuel (at 6:18) apparently with the meaning "lamentation". Both biblical uses are traditionally taken to imply that Abel's name is a
pun, in reference to Abel's brief life.
The etymology for Cain's name given in the Bible itself is possibly more for the sake of humour, rather than accuracy - "And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said I have gotten a man from the LORD". The word here translated "gotten" being
qanithi in the original Hebrew, a word derived from
qanah ("to get"), and hence a word-play on
qayin, though there is no
etymological relationship between these two words. (
See Allen C. Myers, et al.) Some have proposed the name Abel should be identified with the
Assyrian word
aplu, simply meaning "son".
Academic considerations have produced a different theory, a more direct pun.
Abel is here thought to derive from a hypothetically reconstructed word meaning "herdsman", with the modern
Arabic cognate ibil, which now more specifically means "camels".
Cain (
qayin /
qyn), on the other hand, is thought to be cognate to the mid-
1st millennium BC South Arabian word
qyn, meaning "metal
smith" (See Richard S. Hess,
Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11, ISBN 3-7887-1478-6. pp. 24-25). This theory would make their names merely descriptions of the roles they take in the story - Abel as a
pastoral farmer, and
Cain as an
agriculturist.
Summary
|
Cain leads Abel to Death, by James Tissot. |
The
Torah presents a brief account of the brothers. It states that Cain was a
tiller of the land while his younger brother
Abel was a
shepherd, and that one day they both offered a
sacrifice to God, Cain offering fruit and grain, and Abel offering the fat, fatlings, or milk as Josephus has it (the possible renderings of the consonantal Hebrew) from the firstborn of his flock. For an unspecified reason, God favors Abel's offering, and subsequently Cain murders Abel, for another unspecified reason, often assumed simply to be jealousy over God's favoritism. The Torah continues with God apparently unable to find either Abel or his body, or at least not admitting to doing so, and so questioning Cain about Abel's location. In a response that has become a well known saying, Cain answers
Am I my brother's keeper?.
Finally, in the Torah, seeing through Cain's deception, as
the voice of [Abel's] blood is screaming to [God] from the ground, God curses Cain to wander the earth. Cain is overwhelmed by this and appeals in fear of being killed by other men, and so God places a
mark on Cain so that he would not be killed, stating that
whomsoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be upon him sevenfold. Cain then departs,
to the land wandering. Early translations instead stated that he departed
to the Land of Nod, which is generally considered a mistranslation of the Hebrew word
Nod, meaning
wandering. Despite being cursed to wander Cain is later mentioned as fathering a lineage of children, and founding a city, which he named
Enoch after the name of his son.
Motives
Because Abel's sacrifice is described as "of the firstlings of his flock and from their choicest," while Cain's sacrifice is described without any elaboration, Jewish Biblical commentator
Rashi interprets Cain's offering as being of an inferior quality to Abel's. In this view, God's rejection of Cain's offering was simply a message that He wanted Cain to put in more effort in the future, and was not a reflection on who Cain was as a person. This explanation still leaves many questions unanswered, including why Cain would offer an inferior sacrifice in the first place and then kill his brother rather than working on his own character flaws.
The
New Testament, on the other hand, says that Abel made his offering one of
faith (
Hebrews 11:4), whereas Cain was inherently evil (
1 John 3:12).
Mormonism adds that Cain loved
Satan more than God.
Although Genesis depicts Cain's motive in killing Abel as simply being one of jealousy concerning God's favoritism of Abel, this is not the view of many extra-biblical works. The
Midrash, and the obscure
First Adam and Eve all record that the real motive involved the desire of women. According to Midrashic tradition, Cain and Abel each had twin sisters, whom they were to marry. The Midrash records that Abel's promised wife was the more beautiful, and hence Cain desired to rid himself of Abel, whose presence was inconvenient. In the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the
Community of Christ, there is a different view, found in part of their scripture, the
Book of Moses (part of the
Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible), which describes that Cain's motive is still jealousy, but it is Abel's livestock of which he is jealous.
The account in The Qur'an [5.27-32], similar to one given in The Torah, also strongly implies that the motivation of the
fratricide of Cain was due to the rejection of his offering to God, but this is an implication and not explicitly clear:
And relate to them with truth the story of the two sons of Adam, when they each offered an offering, and it was accepted from one of them and was not accepted from the other. The latter said, "I will surely kill thee" The former replied, "God accepts only from the righteous" [5.27]
"If thou stretch out thy hand against me to kill me, I shall not stretch out my hand against thee to kill thee. I do fear God, the Lord of the Universe" [5.28]
"I wish that thou shouldst bear the punishment of the sin against me as well as of thine own sin, and thus be among the inmates of the Fire, and that is the recompense of those who do wrong." [5.29]
But his evil self induced him to kill his brother, and so he killed him and became one of the losers. [5.30]
Then God sent a raven which scratched in the ground, that He might show him how to hide the corpse of his brother. He said, "Woe is me ! Am I not able to be even like this raven so that I may hide the corpse of my brother?" And then he became remorseful. [5.31]
Further amplification of the conflict is also provided in The Bible, Book of Wisdom, wherein
Wisdom, symbolised as the
Daughter of GOD, speaks. According to
Wisdom, Cain was an unjust man who abandoned God Given Wisdom in anger, and consequently, suffered the inevitable results:
But when the unjust man withdrew from her [i.e. Wisdom] in his anger, he perished through his fratricidal wrath. [Wisdom 10:2]
Abel's death
While the Torah merely states that Cain killed Abel, the Midrash records the tradition that the two brothers fought, until Abel, who was the stronger of the two, overcame Cain, but mercifully spared his life. Cain, however, took Abel unawares and killed him. The exact method of murder varies with some traditions proposing a stone, others a cane, and others by
strangulation. Medieval traditions viewed the murder weapon as being a
plough. The Qur'anic version is similar, stating that Abel refused to defend himself from Cain, and hence, in the view of some
liberal movements within Islam, Abel is the primary Qur'anic proponent of
pacifism and
non-violence.
In Christianity, comparisons are sometimes made between the death of Abel and that of
Jesus. In the
Gospel of Matthew (at 23:35),
Jesus speaks of Abel as
righteous. The
Epistle to the Hebrews however states that
The blood of sprinkling ... [speaks] better things than that of Abel (Hebrews 12:24), i.e. the blood of Jesus is interpreted as demanding
mercy (as per Christian belief about Jesus' death) but that of Abel as demanding
vengeance (hence the curse and mark).
Burial
The Midrash records the opinion that the place of murder was cursed to be desolate forever, with later Jewish tradition identifying it as
Damascus.
According to the Qur'an, it was Cain who buried Abel, and he was prompted to do so by a single
raven scratching the ground, on God's command. The Qur'an states that upon seeing the raven, Cain regretted his action, and that rather than being cursed by God, since he hadn't done so before, God chose to create a law against murder:
if anyone slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.
In the underworld
In classical times, as well as more recently, Abel was regarded as the first innocent victim of the power of evil, and hence the first
martyr. In the esoteric
Book of Enoch (at 22:7), the soul of Abel is described as having been appointed as the chief of martyrs in
Sheol, crying for vengeance, for the destruction of the seed of Cain. This view is later repeated in the
Testament of Abraham (at A:13 / B:11), where Abel has been raised to the position as the judge of the souls:
an awful man sitting upon the throne to judge all creatures, and examining the righteous and the sinners. He being the first to die as martyr, God brought him hither [to the place of judgment in the nether world] to give judgment, while Enoch, the heavenly scribe, stands at his side writing down the sin and the righteousness of each. For God said: I shall not judge you, but each man shall be judged by man. Being descendants of the first man, they shall be judged by his son until the great and glorious appearance of the Lord, when they will be judged by the twelve tribes of Israel, and then the last judgment by the Lord Himself shall be perfect and unchangeable.
According to the
Coptic Book of Adam and Eve (at 2:1-15), and the
Syriac Cave of Treasures, Abel's body, after many days of mourning, was placed in the
Cave of Treasures, before which Adam and Eve, and descendants, offered their prayers. In addition, the Sethite line of the
Generations of Adam swear by Abel's blood to segregate themselves from the
unrighteous.
Mark of Cain
Much has been written about the curse of Cain, and associated
mark. The word translated as
mark could mean a sign, omen, warning, or remembrance. In the Torah, the same word is used to describe the stars as signs or omens,
circumcision as a token of God's covenant with
Abraham, and the signs performed by
Moses before
Pharaoh. Although most scholars believe the writer of this part of the story had a clear reference in mind that readers would understand, there is very little consensus today as to exactly what the mark could have been.
In Judaism, the mark is not a punishment but a sign of God's mercy. When Cain was sentenced to be a wanderer he didn't dispute the punishment but only begged that the terms of his sentence be altered slightly:
Whoever meets me will kill me! For reasons that aren't specified, God agrees to this request. He puts the mark on Cain as a sign to others that Cain should not be killed until he has had seven generations of children. Jewish Biblical commentator
Rashi explains that after seven generations Cain was killed by his descendant
Lamech. (Gen. 4:24)
Early
Syriac Christianity interpreted the mark as a permanent change in skin colour, i.e. that Cain was turned black. This re-emerged amongst
Protestant groups, and the curse was often used by them in some attempts to justify
racism of one form or another, such as the
slave trade, banning
interracial marriage, and
apartheid. These views have since been disowned by most Protestant groups, many now pointing to the tale of
Snow-white Miriam as a counter argument, although
Christian Identity groups tend to support the interpretation though swapping blackness for the curse of Jewishness. It is significant to note that these interpretations were not, and are not, recognised by the
Mar Thoma groups,
Orthodox Christianity,
Roman Catholicism, or
Coptic Christianity.
|
15th century depiction of Cain and Abel, Speculum Humane Salvationis, Germany. |
In medieval Christian art, particularly in 16th century Germany, Cain is depicted as a stereotypical ringleted, bearded Jew, while Abel is a blonde, Christian gentile. This traditional depiction has continued for centuries in some form, such as James Tissot's 19th century
Cain leads Abel to Death, shown above. This was the result of an apparent necessity to resolve the problem of fratricide not involving an outsider, by explaining it as the result of a group historically vilified by Christianity.
Baptist and Catholic groups both consider the idea of God cursing an individual to be out of character, and hence take a different stance. Catholics officially view the curse being brought by the ground itself refusing to yield to Cain, whereas some Baptists view the curse as Cain's own aggression, something already present that God merely pointed out rather than added. Conversely, in popular culture, since Victorian times, Cain's bloodlust has often seen him being portrayed as the progenitor of
vampires. An even more extreme view is taken in
Latter-day Saint theology, where Cain is considered to be the quintessential
Son of Perdition, the father of
secret combinations (i.e. secret societies and
organized crime), as well as the first to hold the title
Master Mahan meaning
master of [the] great secret, that [he] may murder and get gain.
Wanderer
As, in the Torah, Cain was ordered to wander the earth in punishment, a tradition arose that this punishment was to be forever, in a similar manner to the (much later) legend of the
Flying Dutchman.
Though variations on these traditions were strong in mediaeval times, with several claims of
sightings being reported, they have generally gone out of favour. Nevertheless, both the Wandering Cain theme appeared in Mormon folklore (but not scripture). The last known claim of a
sighting appears to have been in the United States in the year 1868, when he was reported to have visited a Mormon named O'Grady (see Desert News, September 23, 1868). Prior to this in 1836, another early Mormon -
David W. Patten - claimed to have encountered a very tall, hairy, dark-skinned man in
Tennessee who said that he was Cain. Patten claimed that Cain had earnestly sought death but was denied it, and that his mission was to destroy the souls of men. Patten's story is quoted in
Spencer W. Kimball's
The Miracle of Forgiveness, which is popular among Mormons.
Despite these later traditional beliefs of perpetual wandering, according to the earlier
Book of Jubilees (chapter 4) Cain settled down, marrying his sister,
Awan, resulting in his first son,
Enoch (considered to be different to the more famous
Enoch), approximately 196 years after the creation of Adam. Cain then established the first city, naming it after his son, built a house, and lived there until it collapsed on him, killing him in the same year that
Methuselah died.
In scholarship, the prevailing theory is that the story is composed of a number of layers, with the original layer deriving from the
Sumerian tale of
the wooing of Inanna. In the tale, seen as representing the ancient conflict between nomadic herders and settled agrarian farmers,
Dumuzi, the god of shepherds, and
Enkimdu, the god of farmers, are competing for the attention of
Inanna, chief goddess. Dumuzi is brash and aggressive, but Enkimdu is placid and easy going, so Inanna favours Enkimdu. However, on hearing this, Dumuzi starts boasting about how great he is, and exhibits such strong
charisma that Enkimdu tells Inanna to marry Dumuzi and then wanders away.
The biblical correspondence in this theory being God to Inanna, Abel, the shepherd, to Dumuzi, and Cain, the farmer, to Enkimdu, and equating only to the competitive part of the story, Cain
wandering away, and the extra-biblical traditions concerning the involvement of a beautiful woman. The presence of sacrifices, rather than mere words, in the biblical story, is sometimes seen as simply the priesthood's spin on the story, to emphasise that one form of sacrifice is better than the other.
In later mythology, though still prior to
1500s BC, Dumuzi had become conflated with Enkimdu, and so acted as a general agricultural deity, though still retaining some of the earlier myths. In his more general role, since he was responsible for the yearly crop-cycle, Dumuzi became seen as a
life-death-rebirth deity. Exactly how the myth fits in with the marriage of Dumuzi to Inanna is not clear, since the surviving copies of the myth abruptly begin with Inanna descending to the underworld for an unknown reason. Innana can only escape by exchanging herself for a god not in the underworld, and so considers each of them in turn. Dumuzi is only too glad she has gone, and so, in anger, she sends demons upon him, and he dies, thus releasing her. She then changes her mind, showing favour, and bringing Dumuzi back by persuading his sister to take his place for 6 months each year (hence starting the annual cycle).
This murder of Dumuzi is thought, critically, to be the source of the murder of Abel. Since God, unlike Inanna, was seen as being powerful enough not to get stuck in the underworld, he would have had no need to escape, and so no motive to kill Abel, hence the blame shifting to the jealous Cain/Enkimdu. The part of the story involving perpetual annual resurrection and death is not given to Abel, who is supposedly merely mortal.
The Bible makes reference on several occasions to
Kenites, who, in the Hebrew, are referred to as
Qayin, i.e. in a highly
cognate manner to Cain (
Qayin). The
Mark of Cain is thus believed to originally refer to some very identifying mark of the Kenite tribe, such as
red hair, or a ritual
tattoo of some kind, which was transferred to Cain as the tribe's
eponym. The protection the mark is said to afford Cain (harming Cain involving the harm being returned
sevenfold) is hence seen as some sort of protection that membership of the tribe offered, in a form such as the entire tribe attacking an individual who harms just one of their number.
In popular culture, as the first murderer, and murder victim, Cain and Abel respectively have often formed the basis of tragic drama:
*The mark and story of Cain, as well as references to
Cainites, are explored in Herman Hesse's novel "Demian." The narrator deals with his shifting conception of good and evil, and engages with alternative interpretations of the story of Cain and Abel.
*
Grendel, son of Cain in the Anglo-Saxon
saga of
Beowulf*The story of Cain and Abel has been dramatised by
Lord Byron in
Cain.
*
Kane is the
anti-hero of a series of books and short stories by the late
Karl Edward Wagner in which the swordsman can never die save by violence, and whose eyes are the mark given to him by God.
*
Kane is the leader of the supposedly thousands of years old Brotherhood of Nod in the
computer game series
Command and Conquer.
*The death of Abel is the subject of a poem by
Gessner and a tragedy by
Legouvé.
*
John Steinbeck's
East of Eden is a retelling of the Cain and Abel story in the setting of the late
19th and early
20th century western migration towards
California.
*
Cain and Abel were the hosts of the
comic books "House of Mystery" and "House of Secrets", respectively, published by
DC comics in the 1960s. In
Alan Moore's run of the
Swamp Thing, these characters were shown to actually be the Biblical characters. They are recurring characters in
Neil Gaiman's
The Sandman.
*
Cogliostro, a
hellspawn in the
Spawn comics, is really Cain, the first person to go to
hell.
*
Abel Nightroad is the protagonist in the Japanese
Manga and Anime
Trinity Blood, and
Cain Nightlord is one of the antagonists.
*
Glen Jacobs, a professional wrestler for the
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), currently wrestles under the name "Kane". The Kane character is the storyline brother of
Mark Calaway, better known as "The Undertaker".
*In
Kaori Yuki's manga,
Godchild, the main character is named Cain.
*In the film
The Exorcism of Emily Rose, one of the six
demons that possesses Emily Rose is said to have once possessed Cain; this may be intended to suggest that Cain killed Abel only because he was possessed by a demon.
*
Joni Mitchell makes reference to the mark of Cain in the final song from her 1975 album
The Hissing of Summer Lawns,
Shadows and Light.
*Kain is also one of the two protagonists in the Legacy Of Kain videogame series. He is a powerful vampire, which relates him to the Victorian notion of the Mark of Cain being vampirism.
*Cain (spelled "Caine" within the setting) is also known as the father of all vampires in the Whitewolf "Vampire, the Masquerade" RPG, and is in a state of eternal rest. The vampires' idea of the end of times, which the vampires name Gehenna, is said to be when Caine's progeny, the brood of his brood known as the Antediluvians re-awaken, and devour all other vampires.
**According to the fictional
Book of Nod from the series, Cain killed Abel because he felt that God accepted Abel's offerings because they were what was dear to him, and Abel was most dear to Cain.
*Kain and Abel are two characters of the Cavalier (or Social Knight) class in the
first Fire Emblem game. In the
Fire Emblem series, it has thus become tradition to include two Cavalier-class characters with a bond of friendship or allegiance.
*In
The Simpsons,
Ned Flanders, disgusted by the movies that are being shown today, makes his own religious movie with
Rod and Todd Flanders (his children), and the movie tells the story of Cain and Abel.
*In the 2006 E3 trailer for the upcoming PS3 game "
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots", there is a brief clip where one of the game's antagonists is shown pointing (presumably at
Solid Snake) and saying "It was you who killed Abel and was cast out by Eve." This is most likely a reference to the fact that Solid Snake killed his cloned brother in MGS1.
*
Kain Highwind from the video game
Final Fantasy IV is likely named for Cain from the story of Cain and Abel. The Gameboy Advance remake of the game shows further evidence of this with the appearance of the weapon named, "Abel's Lance," found in the optional Lunar Ruins dungeon.
*In the video game
Xenogears, Abel is the lone survivor of the starship Eldridge, while Cain is one of the first thirteen descendants of a woman created by the Hawa system from the starship Eldridge. While the story resemble the Biblical story, the game didn't show that Abel was murdered by Cain, instead it only show that the woman that Abel loves was murdered by Cain.
*In the television series
Veronica Mars, Veronica's friend
Lilly Kane is murderered and a man named Abel Koontz is convicted of the crime. Wrongly thinking that Lilly's brother Duncan had killed her, Jake Kane (Lilly's father) had paid Abel to take the blame. If Veronica had not discovered the true murderer, Kane's actions would have killed Abel as Abel had been given the death penalty.
*In the webcomic
Zodiac Apocrytha, the main characters' story mirrors that of Cain and Abel. Taro Yodon kills his best friend (so close they could be called brothers) Kieogie. In turn he is punished to wander the earth, and is persecuted by many who identify him by a "mark".
*The Cain is a common class of Shivan Cruisers in the
Freespace Series.The story has also often been considered a source of musical inspiration:
*
Elton John sing the lines "Sodom meet Gommorah, Cain meet Abel" in the song
Tower Of Babel from the 1975 album
Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy*A reference to Cain occurs in
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by Robbie Robertson.
*The story of Cain and Abel appears in
Alanis Morissette's "No Avalon," a song about the value of life.
*The second song from
Bruce Springsteen's fourth album,
Darkness on the Edge of Town is called "Adam Raised a Cain".
* There's a song by Sixteen Horsepower called 'Black Soul Choir' which is about what it means to be Cain or Abel.
*U2's popular song, "In God's Country" from "The Joshua Tree" album, references "Sons of Cain".
* Sinead O'Conner's version of "Lullabye For Cain" appears in the opening credits of Anthony Minghella's 1999 film "The Talented Mr Ripley." The song is in reference to an illustrious American socialite Dickie being murdered out of jealousy by cowardly tryhard Tom, who considers Dickie to be his brother.
*
Liam Gallagher wrote the song "Guess God Thinks I'm Abel" for the 2005
Oasis album,
Don't Believe the Truth.
*The band
Avenged Sevenfold takes their name from the story, and recorded the song "Chapter Four" about it.
*
The Mark of Cain is a band from Adelaide,
South Australia.
*Cain is also the subject of two songs by the band Danzig: "Twist of Cain" and "Do You Wear the Mark?".
*Midnight Orchestra, a Christian goth metal band, has released a track called
Cain.
*
Buck-Tick also has a track called
Cain.
*
D'espairsRay has song on their
Coll:Set album titled "アベルとカイン", which is romanized as "Abel and Cain".
*The
Grateful Dead song "Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo" references Cain and Abel, saying Cain caught Abel cheating at cards and dice.
*Cain and Abel are mentioned right before the chorus of the
Dudley Boyz theme, "Turn the Tables" by
Saliva*
Bob Dylan references them in the song
Desolation Row "All except for Cain and Abel and the hunchback of Notre Dame, Everybody's making love or else expecting rain"
*A line in
Jon Bon Jovi's single as a solo artist, "Blaze Of Glory", reads as:
...I'm what Cain was to Abel...*A reference appears in Ricky Martin's "Copa de la Vida" on the album Vuelve: "Como Cain y Abel/Es un partido cruel/Tienes que pelear por una estrella"
*Singer-songwriter
Michael Johnson wrote a song called "Cain's Blood" about a man who tries to cope with his good and evil personalities ("half of my blood is Cain's blood, half of my blood is Abel's").
*A reference appears in Queen's "Miracle" on the album The Miracle: "The wonders of this world go on, the hanging Gardens of Babylon, Captain Cook and Cain and Abel, Jimi Hendrix to the Tower of Babel, It's a miracle..."
*A reference appears in Red Hot Chili Peppers' song "21st Century" on the album Stadium Arcadium: "Oh, oh oh, oh oh, like Cain and Abel, Oh, oh oh, oh oh time to run this table"
*The end of the chorus of Jerry Cantrell's "Chemical Tribe" on the album Degradation Trip reads, "Born in ending times, leaning more toward Cain than Abel". Also, in his song "Spiderbite", one of the lines reads, "Cain spider give to me pain".
*
Josh Kelley's album
Just Say The Word includes the song "Cain and Able", in which he sings, "I've been thinking about old Cain and Abel, Sitting at a breakfast table, Talking about the way things used to be, Well Abel looked at Cain and said, 'All that shit was in your head', I'd like to think Cain was hard to please"
*
Leonard Cohen's song 'Last year's man' refers to Cain, in the line "Some women wait for Jesus and some women wait for Cain".
*
Torah, Genesis, Chapters 1-6*
Rashi on Genesis, Chapter 4, by
Rashi*
Entry in Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)*
Analysis of Cain and Abel from Reading the Old Testament*
Cain's Mistake : Not Dividing Rightly*
Alternative theory about the story of Cain and Abel, by
Daniel Quinn*
Qaheen/Cain and Hevel/Abel*
Occult Path of the Cainites: From Cain to Antichrist, by Clinton Ortiz
