God: Where is your brother?

>God: Where is your brother?
>Cain: How should I know? Am I my brother's keeper?

Why was Cain so sassy?

low test beta

Cain had a weird relationship with God. According to the Biblical context, Cain was the first "real" human. Imagine existing in a world where the only other people who make up all of humanity, your parents, were hand-made by God.
And on top of that, Cain was a gardener. The only gardener, his plants were obviously very important to him, and when he gave his fruits to God they were rejected, that obviously hurt. He probably didn't really understand blood or life, so when his little brother's lamb was accepted that was more salt in the wound. First act of jealous rage, first murder.
Then God's like "hey where's Abel?"
Obviously a touchy subject to a guy just trying to understand the world. He just wanted God's love like everybody else. He was weak because it was a time when there was no need for strength

Would you be upset if God dissed you?

>God asks for some meat
>give Him some veggies instead
>sperg out and murder your brother

Cain was a chump.

>inb4 redditors come and ruin the thread

WaAaAAoWWWEE!! :D Hey guys what are we all talking about? The Bible? Neat stuff!! Can I join in!

He wasn't being "sassy," he was being defensive.

God rejected Cain's offering because it was meager, at least according the the Septuagint, which reads differently from the Masoretic text. In the Septuagint, God says, "Hast thou not sinned if thou hast rightly offered it, but not rightly divided it?" But God then tries to assuage Cain's resentment by reminding him he will rule over Abel (since he is the elder brother).

sadly this is probably the best thread on Veeky Forums right now

"CAIN?"
"God rejected my offering in favor of yours."

tbqh, God probably made Cain respond in a sassy way in order to make for a better story.

He did that shit all the time in the OT.

"Humanity" should be emphasized, since there were giants (the Nephilim) and other weird shit during that era, too (it's said a little bit after that story, in Gen 6:4 -- and even Gen 4:14 hints that there are more sentient humanoids/beings alive than Adam's family, too).

God only makes people stubborn in the Bible in order to have a pretense to give a demonstration of his strength and existence. Not just for teh lulz.

Tell me about Cain! Why does he bear the mask?!

top kek

>a demonstration of his strength and existence
But that's what we call "teh lulz", Κώστα.

I read that it was more a lesson of
>We, writers of the bible, prefer cattle people over fruit people. Let this story convince you of that.
Making people want to be cattle people and giving them a reason to look down on the fruit people.

Also, was Cain the first biblical human with daddy issues?

Nah, it's more like
>Some people did thing x, God didn't like them doing thing x and rained down heavens cold fury on them for it. So the lesson is: don't do thing x

Also, I like how, over the course of the bible, God mellows out and his punishments become increasingly less and less crude. Like how some time after the deluge people become evil and shitty again but He's like
>I'm not gonna deluge them again, that was a bit harsh
Like how parents let their 3rd child stay up later than their 1st child back when he was the same age.

God was all like REEEE WHERE ARE MY LAMB TENDIES and Cain was all like Eat your fucking vegetables you fucking neckbeard.

Is it possible that Cain got redpilled in a society only consisting of three other people and a God? If so, then the man must've been a total mongoloid.

you must mean genius

Cain always struck me as so much more "real" than other biblical figures. Someone actually human.

He told them nothing!

There are lots of ways of interpreting that scene.

God would later (from Exodus and Leviticus and onward) be a big fan of the exact kind of offerings that Abel was doing (i.e. firstborn calves). At that point when Genesis ch 4 is happening, though, there's literally no reason for him to prefer animal/lamb offerings.

So, an interpretation of God autistically wanting lamb tendies (and, importantly, not explaining why) is kind of accurate. And Cain wasn't just defending his livelihood, so to speak, but but essentially thinking, "listen here, you motherfucker: you *literally* just cursed my dad to eat plants from the ground for all his life. the least you could do is accept my fucking vegetables."

King Saul is pretty human to me, too. I mean, sure, he's a tall, handsome guy who temporarily had a lot of divine fortune. But God basically used his whole life as an example to say, "See? Kings can be really shitty."

1 Samuel chapter 28, especially in the context of the rest of the those historical books, is a great portrait of a guy caught in the middle of a lesson from God.

> Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto him, Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy mother's nakedness?

me too man, me too maybe because we can identify with him? it is somekind of archetype family in there...

also i always wondered what mark of cain actually look like? how did god mark him that wherever he would go everyone would be afraid and no one would kill him, was it somekind of symbolic mark(not physical)?

So what's the next step of your master plan?

It doesn't matter who he is. What matters are his vegetables.

Derailing this thread.

YOU'RE A BIG BROTHER'S KEEPER.

Why was God playing dumb? He damn well knew where Abel was.

with no survivors

For thou.

God wanted to see if Cain was going to be a tripping ass bitch. He was.

And by the 4th they barely interact.

He become gay :(

God is just going
>What an asshole this Cain is, I sure am right to smite his ass. He commited the first murder in the entirity of existence which is pretty bad I guess but wait till ya hear what he fucken does next. The asshole went ahead and FUCKIN TRIED TO DEFLECT MY QUESTION THAT FUCKING PIECE OF FILTH I'M GONNA SHOVE RIGHTEOUS THUNDER SO FAR UP HIS ASS FOR THAT THAT HE'S GONNA VOMIT HOLY SPARKS AND SET THAT LITTLE GAY ASS BEARD ON FIRE

Seems to me that God didn't care a lot about the murder but that his ego didn't allow one of his humans lying to his face.

Cain, Lot's wife, Thomas, Judas... Flawed characters are always more realistic and memorable.

The Jews. Cain became the Jews. Think about it. Wandering aimlessly, never settling down anywhere, everyone tries to kill them, but they never quite succeed, and they end up getting fucked over seven times harder. Egypt enslaved them, so they got their entire army swallowed by a river. Germany tried and got spit roasted by the US and USSR.

Cain was like "you gave me two things I could sacrifice, vegetables and my brother, what did you think I would do when the vegetables weren't good enough?"

He was giving him a chance to confess

I think Cain wasn't being honest about his sacrifice.

Everyone who is alive right now, know that you need to sacrifice something pretty substantial in order to get great rewards, whether it's time in school, or delaying instant gratification for some future gift.

Cain obviously didn't understand that Abel sacrificed everything he could, and didn't hold back, which is why he was rewarded so well.

The first-born animals represent the choice picks of the flock, i.e., those that are suitable as divine offerings. Abel offers his best to god as a sacrificial act of faith. Cain, however, appears to offer something less--at least no indication is given that his sacrifice was made from the "firstfruits" of his harvest. Insofar as the external act of worship is a reflection of the interior disposition of the worshiper, it is no surprise that God looked in favor of Abel's offering but not Cains. Cain is enraged by the favor shown to Abel and thinks himself the victim of injustice. Instead of trying to emulate his brother, he allows envy to take hold and finally decides to eliminate him. Cain thus follows the way of the devil, which is the way of envy that leads to murder.

God questions the sinner in order to draw forth contrition and give him an opportunity for confession. Cain refuses this mercy as Adam had done before him (Where are you? Gen 3:9)

>Cain thus follows the way of the devil

Depends on what kind of conception you have of the devil.

In Paradise Lost the devil is seen as an arrogant trickster, and the reason trickery is seen as more evil than anything else is because it is in direct opposition to the Logos of creation(e.g spoken Truth).

If you are a liar and deceitful, you are essentially making yourself into Hell.(Chaos and void).

>since there were giants (the Nephilim) and other weird shit during that era, too

Tell me more about these "Nephilim" and "other weird shit".

I have a running theory that the period of time Neanderthals (or some other large early hominid) coexisted with Homo Sapiens is longer than we thought, and Neanderthals didn't just "abruptly" die off or get their genes "bred out". Instead, Neanderthal populations slowly dwindled over thousands of years, hiding in particular geographic locations (that are mostly considered "forbidden" and "dangerous" in indigenous folklore) and at odds with humans, because early humans literally saw them as giant (8+ ft tall), scary, muscle-bound monsters that smelled insanely foul, kidnapped and ate people, and were just smart enough to fashion crude weapons and tools. The only reason Neanderthals died out (if there aren't still a handful today) is because Homo Sapiens (who always killed and fought with them out of fear/defense) started to swell in such great numbers and populate so many areas that the "habitats" of the Neanderthals gradually got encroached on and backed into corners until the only places left for them to live in seclusion were mountains and mountain caves where Homo Sapiens were usually too soft and weak to venture, at least until they developed mountain trekking gear.

Most ancient and old-world cultures, especially those near mountains, have stories of giants in their folklore. The interesting thing is that rarely are these giants purely supernatural entities. They are most often described in physically plausible ways that match up with Neanderthalensis, these descriptions are eerily similar around the world, and more importantly, they are always described as inhabiting a real geographic area.

If this theory holds water, then it could mean Homo Sapiens interacted with Neanderthals as recently as a couple hundred years ago, and that all or most of the mythology and folklore surrounding "giants" are/were more like real, cautionary tales and warnings to stay away from the places where the remnants of mankind's last true "monster" still lived.

The issue isn't why Cain's sacrifice was rejected but the fact that he responded to it with both envy and acting on it by murdering his own blood.

This.

>A proper sacrifice to me, your God and creator, is the life of a lowly creature, complex enough to be a significant life, but simple enough not to be a waste and disservice to man.
>How about some tomatoes?
>What? No, I just told you the rules.
>NNRRRRR SO SPITEFUL YOU WANT A BLOOD SACRIFICE WELL IT'S TIME FOR MURDER!

Jews descended from Seth.

Nephilim, according to scripture, were a crossbreed of angel and woman, and seen as abominations. Some of the angels from heaven were attracted to the women of earth and the idea of living and ruling here, so they did, forfeiting their divine roles. It's partly the reason for Noah's flood.

Nephilim were not crude or dumb, they were the opposite. Angels came and introduced man to a lot of technology, music, and astronomy, science, etc. Nephilim, being half angel, had a higher intellectual capacity and were the "great men and heroes of old" or something like that. I think that's in Exodus somewhere.

I see your theory, but they were actually the opposite of what you're thinking- they were superhuman, but abominable.

Shhh, I was enjoying the Evangelion vibes

Senpai, the lore of Evangelion is purposely convoluted, because the creator is a fucking troll who likes to see Ot*ku scum suffer.
You know that, right?

Anno has never actually said anything like that and this isn't an interesting or novel interpretation at all. You TVTropes types have such cowardly, sneering minds.

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Why did the nephilim go extinct if they were beings of superior intellect? They should've been able to foresee the coming flood, and prepare for it.

there were very few of them.
Also I don't think the flood couldve been predicted meteorologically, given it was a divine act.
Could also explain why the flood lasted almost a year long, instead the week or so it would take to kill anything else. We don't know what was going on for that year.

Of course this is just speculation, I'm just talking out of my ass here.

They didn't exactly go extinct. They just got diluted as hell.

The Anakim (the descendants of the true Nephilim) are a big plot point in Numbers and Deuteronomy, where some Israelite spies convince Moses not to go through a land because the Anakim are so large, strong, and dangerous.

Would the Nephilim be the inspiration for Tolkiens Numenoreans?

>people still don't understand that the point of the story is that not everyone can be a super star and sometimes you gotta eat shit and bear it for a while until you're on top

Cain is still wandering the Earth and is actually the final boss.

>God mellows out and his punishments become increasingly less and less crude
He sends Israel into destruction and captivity for idolatry . And after they reject Jesus, Jesus says God's going to bring down something even worse (which he does, in the wake of the Bar Kokhba rebellion). Revelation certainly doesn't give us a "mellow" depiction of God's wrath.

same goes for dragons buddy.

Cain should know, Abel is his alter-ego after all.

>Joseph hurried out for he was deeply stirred over his brother, and he sought a place to weep; and he entered his chamber and wept there.

Why was Joseph such a bitch?

Constantine is fine, fuck off

Why are you such an autist?

Was the Old Testament just one huge metaphor for filial piety? And then Jesus was just a Jew that had the mystical experience then expressed it in Judaic terms (since he didn't have any other religious language to use) in such a convincing way that they formed a religion around him?

if god is omnipotent, isn't he essentially an asshole

he constructs everything knowing full well in advance he'd eventually send down himself in the flesh, in the form of christ, in order to reconcile himself with his creations that he created knowing full well that they'd sin.

t. 13 year old atheist

not 13 nor an atheist. most of these thoughts are inspired by tarkovsky's andrei rublev. seems to me the only ways to reconcile this problem is that either
a) god acts in mysterious ways
b) god is more like YHWH from the shin megami tensei games and is an insecure asshole

...

Theodicy thread?
Theodicy thread.

Gimme your solutions, fucks

Evil is possible due to free will and the fall of man.
Universal sin and vicarious atonement as described in the karamazov brothers is the best literary example.

god doesn't know everything and isn't supremely powerful. this explains why he was pretty petty and only showed himself to a small group of sand assholes and why he slowly matures over the course of the bible.

or god is omnipotent and creates a structure that allows for the illusion of free will in order to allow humans to strive for a higher morality.

But God already knew how he would reply

Cain was an ok guy. He was mad at god for being unfair but he could not attack god so he hit his brother.to be angry is to be human

old tes God did not have the same powerlevels. He was still fighting other gods and even witches and wizards

yes. only other explanation is that there is higher morality that we do not know and it in evil could be good and vise versa
it some situations evil or death are the only options. is the maker of men's nature not responsible in any way?

Holdup, but didn't he create the world or wot

The Christian view is that these books were given to us by god and they had to given in a way that the people of the time could understand. The major theme of Genesis is repentance, and confession, and forgiveness. The point of the book is not that god knows everything or else the book would look very different because that's not the message that god is sending.

A potential takeaway from Exodus is that God does what he does to create good stories, so that the people hearing those stories are affected in ways that benefit him (e.g. forgetting about their old gods, or saying "*tsk* the israelites are so dumb, i would totally worship God better than them").

The question then becomes "why", although a couple of small plot points in Pentateuch+Deuteronomical history (i.e. Genesis to 2 Kings) suggest that there really were other gods and magic during that time period. And, furthermore, these gods seemed to be powered by the people who believed in them.

God during Genesis (and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the Pentateuch) had a big hand in things because there was a large amount of genuine belief in him carried through Adam, down to Abraham, down to Joseph, and so on. Exodus is also called "Names" in Hebrew, because the Hebrews remembered the names/stories of their ancestors.

It's only after the Hebrews get out of Egypt and arrive in proto-Israel that God begins really shifting to the sidelines. And that's mostly because, being so successful in wars/conquests, they forget God and stop caring so much, which in turn allows for long periods of time where bad shit happens but God doesn't do anything.

hey don't look at me. king saul still managed to find witches to work with and pharaoh's heart was still hardened. That is like asking "why did he need arc of the covenant on the battlefield to aid his people?"

apologetics. some muslims say the same stuff (in rare cases when they admit something is wrong) "yes its wrong but that is the wisdom god picked for people of those times, when he feels the need for new wisdom we will have a new hadith"

>they forget God and stop caring so much, which in turn allows for long periods of time where bad shit happens but God doesn't do anything.
it was more of an excuse "there is famine? well people must not be worshiping hard enough" "we lost the war? must not be worshiping hard enough"

fuck off constantine

when are we going to get the bible that's told through emojis for our new contemporary era.

What are you talking about? We know god is omniscient. He isn't asking Adam where he is in 3:9 because he doesn't know his location, but he's giving Adam a chance to reveal and confess what he did. It's the same deal with Cain. This idea of confession and forgiveness is echoed throughout the rest of the book with Esau forgiving Jacob and then the Pharoah forgiving Joseph and then Joseph forgiving his brothers on top of other minor instances that are slipping my mind right now.

What would you say is the point of Genesis if not this?

yesterday

>What are you talking about?
Im talking about pro slavery and genocide outlooks that are seen as bad by modern minds but still must be reconciled with God encouragement of it

Oh I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were retarded.

10/10 faced with this powerful arguments I have no choice but to concede

this is actually harder to read than the normal text

>but he's giving Adam a chance to reveal and confess what he did. It's the same deal with Cain.
Why does he need them to do anything when he already knows what they will do?

That is true of all emoj texts. its opens up door to needless interpretation and is less useful than hieroglyphs.

Free will

The idea is that god is setting the standard for what confession and repentance looks like, and in the case Cain, the lack of confession.

I'll burn these veggies, with no survivors.

constantine pls

this desu

why are you such a retard?

Fuck off Graham.

Doesn't this really make no sense if god exists outside of time? I mean, doesn't that mean he ALWAYS liked lamb tendies and just did that to fuck with Cain for no reason?

Well, it's not as if he was specifically fucking over Cain (Gen 4:5, at least the NRSV, says God gave no regard to Cain and his offering -- more bluntly, he was simply ignored). God merely favored Abel more than him, because Abel gave him the lamb tendies.

As another user said, Abel also gave the *best* of his lambs, whereas no distinguishing was made for the fruits Cain offered (if it were the firstfruits, that would have been acceptable, since it becomes one of the lesser offerings established in Exodus/Leviticus).

In a nutshell, even though we joke that God was playing favorites for no reason, the main takeaway is that Cain fucked up: he didn't offer any special fruit, he was angry with something God did, he was jealous of Abel, he *killed* Abel, and finally lied to God when asked of Abel's whereabouts.