Cain and Abel
One thing I noticed about the bible passage as compared to the N-Town play was there seemed to be a lot more detail about the events in the play. I understand that a play needs to be exciting and vivid, but it makes me wonder where they got some of their details from. For example, the play describes how Abel sacrificed a sheep, but Cain didn't believe he should tithe his best crops, so he offers "shrivelled sheaf" instead. However, Genesis 4 only mentioned that Cain tithed "of the fruits of the earth", which sounds like a pretty good offering. Because of this, the play gives a little more context to why God was able with Abel's gifts but not Cain's, but why did they decide that he would only offer his worst crops? Is it just this version of Genesis that takes out some important points, or are there other texts altogether that offer a fuller story? I don't doubt that the details of the story came from somewhere, but it was interesting to me to read which aspects of the story the play included versus what Genesis included.
Another question I had about the story overall is why did Cain get so mad that he wanted to kill his brother? Obviously God wasn't going to be as happy with his gift, so what could have led him to the point of murder? The only real explanation would be jealousy I suppose, but the way Cain turned so quickly toward his murderous rage seemed a little extreme to me.
Another question I had about the story overall is why did Cain get so mad that he wanted to kill his brother? Obviously God wasn't going to be as happy with his gift, so what could have led him to the point of murder? The only real explanation would be jealousy I suppose, but the way Cain turned so quickly toward his murderous rage seemed a little extreme to me.
There is definitely some poetic license being used in the N-town play and other retellings of the story. I agree that there has to be some sort of source where the writers got more information, because according to "The Staging of the First Murder in the Mystery Plays in England", the use of a jawbone as the murder weapon is quite widespread. This is a pretty random detail to me, which makes me think that there is some sort of alternate source which has this detail in it.
ReplyDeleteI was also skeptical about how the sacrifices made him so angry when he wasn't even seeking God's approval in the first place- he points out that God doesn't even eat or drink and therefore wouldn't need a sacrifice (114). Cain also never heard from God before killing Abel, so he couldn't have known with certainty that God rejected him. Cain only observed that his fire smelled bad when he chooses to murder. He might have been so unfamiliar with his emotions and how to interact with God that he didn't even need proof that God actually rejected his gift.
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