10...WHERE THERE'S FIRE THERE'S SMOKE
 (Based on GEN 4 & 5. Read more there.)

We're using our imagination to re-tell biblical stories with deep & lasting meaning. Some call them myths, i.e. profoundly though not necessarily literally true, others think of them as parables. Tales of  how everything & everybody begins, & what happens in a garden. Next thing we know, Adam & Eve, who've been put out of Eden for their own good, are having a family. First, a son called 'Cain', which may mean ‘blacksmith’ & then another son they call 'Abel' (which may mean ‘cattle-herder’). Cain tills the ground & needs sharp tools! Growing food for yourself & your family is a very important task. Abel raises sheep & cattle, also important for food & family  & also needs the food Cain grows. One day Cain & Abel have a falling out over offerings they make to YHWH. On stones as an altar Cain burns some of his crops, while Abel burns an animal from his flocks. Somehow Cain thinks God is accepting Abel's offering more than his. Maybe there’s more smoke going up from Abel's animal than Cain's crop! Cain attacks Abel & hits him hard enough to kill him. Then he buries his body. You can’t hide that kind of thing from YHWH, who of course sees what happens. He asks Cain, "Where's your brother?" Cain just shrugs & pretends he doesn't know. He says to God, rather rudely, "I don't know! Am I my brother's keeper?" (That's become a famous saying about not wanting to share responsibility for what's happening to someone else.) YHWH is not impressed! Not at all! He says to Cain, "I can hear your brother Abel's blood crying out to me from the ground!" Then, just as He's already banned Adam & Eve from Eden, now God bans Cain from the land he's been farming. Because he's killed Abel & is trying to shrug it off & cover it up by not admitting to it. Cain becomes a wanderer over the land. God puts some kind of mark on him, maybe a scar on his forehead, or something like that, so people will beware of him. Or, is it to keep Cain safe from others taking further vengeance on him, a mark to indicate YHWH’s already punished him enough by expelling him from his lands? Anyway, in this sad story of two brothers we have a reminder human beings can't always get on with each other, & that many die at the hands of others, even those close to them. In other stories told by our ancient story-tellers, there will be more & more tales about people killing & being killed by each other. All is not well on earth!

Adam and Eve go on to have two more sons, Enoch, then Seth. We're told Adam & Eve later 'have other sons & daughters' too. Back then, disappointingly, no-one bothers to name most of the girls & women in our stories. Though they count in God's eyes, in that patriarchal society their place is to play second fiddle to the menfolk! (When we come to N.T. times, we'll find not much changes despite Jesus' efforts on women’s behalf!)  By the way, because most of the women are left out of the stories people still sometimes ask, "If there are only men in the story, whom did they marry?” The simple answer is, from among the women who've been left out (we might say ‘air-brushed’ out) including from other families & clans who don't ever get into the story either! Truth is, when YHWH creates humankind, He makes us all 'in His own image' [GEN 1:27] which means we’re meant to be so like God people can tell just by looking at us & the way we live that we are God's children. But the tales of Adam & Eve disobeying God in the garden, & then Cain killing Abel, remind us people (including ourselves!) & things don't always turn out to be whom or what God means them to be. It’s quite a bit later that Jesus lives out God's image & shows us how to do the same by loving each other as God does. But that's another story.... Next time: There Came a Great Flood

Question: Do we ever feel God is unfairly treating someone else better than us & feel aggrieved? Where to from there?