Now we come to the story of Cain and Abel and what a story it is! Cain is Adam and Eve's firstborn; Abel is the younger brother. Cain is a farmer; Abel is a shepherd. One day they decide to bring offerings to God. Cain brings some of the crops and Abel slaughters a fine sheep. But God, for some unexplained reason, rejects Cain and his offering in favor of Abel's.
Naturally Cain isn't happy about this and God can see it. But instead of explaining to Cain why both he and his offering were rejected, God gives Cain a warning about not letting his temper get the best of him. A little while later the two brothers are out in the field and Cain kills Abel. Now God gets involved. He asks Cain where Abel is. Cain says, "Not my day to watch him," or in the traditional wording "Am I my brother's keeper?"
Now here's where things get interesting. God tells Cain that he is exiled. Cain says that he can't bear to be separated from God and this punishment is too harsh. Wonder what kind of bedtime stories he's heard from his parents about this God figure? He certainly isn't afraid of him. He's more afraid of being killed by other people (What other people?). So God puts a mark on him so that if anyone sees him they will know not to mess with him. And Cain becomes a wanderer.
If this had been a story about anyone other than God, say about a parent or a grandparent favoring one child over another, say instead of an offering of grain and fruits, little Cain proudly brought home a project he made in school only to have it thrown in the trash while his brother's artwork went on the refrigerator, there'd be no doubt as where the blame lies. But this is GOD. You can't criticize him. You know, it's funny, people like to say "God is love" but that sentiment does not appear in the early books of the Bible. God never says in Genesis the things he later says in some of the prophets about loving and caring for his people. He has no tender words for Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. If I recall correctly, the only time God uses the word "love" in Genesis is to say to Abraham, "take your son Isaac, whom you love . . ." Pastor is always talking about not reading things into the text that are not there. Yet it is OK to read "love" into the text when it is conspicuously absent from the text. Something dark and dreadful drove Cain to murder his brother. It wasn't just a moment of insanity. And it's interesting that the first murder took place in a religious context.
Meanwhile Pastor had a problem. Who were all these people that Cain was afraid might kill him? He starts out by trotting out the "s"-word. Science. In this case archaeology. Archaeology verifies the Bible because agriculture came before herding. Um, not exactly. Archaeology sometimes verifies the Bible and sometimes it doesn't. In this case trying to make it fit is like putting Cinderella's glass slipper on her stepsisters' feet--yes, you can make it fit but you've got to do some chopping. As long as you ignore the blood running out you're fine and dandy. In this case, there is abundant evidence from all parts of the world that humans went through a long period of hunter-gathering prior to the invention of agriculture. The Cro-Magnons were not farmers or shepherds; neither were the Neanderthals or other early human species (which the Bible also fails to mention). But Genesis ignores that and leaps right into farming and herding; next comes cities. There's a whole chunk of human prehistory missing.
According to Pastor, it's been figured out that by the time of Noah's flood (stay tuned for that!) there were about 120,000 humans on the earth, all descended from Adam and Eve. Since back then everyone lived for several centuries instead of decades if Eve had a baby or two once every two years by the time she died (and remember, she was fully mature at one year of age!) that's a lot of babies. My thinking is that it wouldn't be long before she'd be telling Adam go sleep outside the cave. The big problem with what he said about pre-flood longevity is that neither paleontology nor archaeology support this notion. If I understand correctly it is possible to determine roughly how old a person was when he or she died. I am not aware of any skeletons whose owners were determined to be around five or six hundred years old when they died. On the contrary, it seems that early humans lived even shorter lives than people today.
Which again brings us to the Flood. See, it is not only biology that conflicts with the Bible (or at least the way Pastor says it ought to be interpreted), it is also geology, archaeology, and paleontology. And he is taking a big gamble that nobody who has an advanced degree in these sciences is going to walk through the doors of his church. He's probably right. But it's awful hard to sit back and keep my mouth shut.
Naturally Cain isn't happy about this and God can see it. But instead of explaining to Cain why both he and his offering were rejected, God gives Cain a warning about not letting his temper get the best of him. A little while later the two brothers are out in the field and Cain kills Abel. Now God gets involved. He asks Cain where Abel is. Cain says, "Not my day to watch him," or in the traditional wording "Am I my brother's keeper?"
Now here's where things get interesting. God tells Cain that he is exiled. Cain says that he can't bear to be separated from God and this punishment is too harsh. Wonder what kind of bedtime stories he's heard from his parents about this God figure? He certainly isn't afraid of him. He's more afraid of being killed by other people (What other people?). So God puts a mark on him so that if anyone sees him they will know not to mess with him. And Cain becomes a wanderer.
If this had been a story about anyone other than God, say about a parent or a grandparent favoring one child over another, say instead of an offering of grain and fruits, little Cain proudly brought home a project he made in school only to have it thrown in the trash while his brother's artwork went on the refrigerator, there'd be no doubt as where the blame lies. But this is GOD. You can't criticize him. You know, it's funny, people like to say "God is love" but that sentiment does not appear in the early books of the Bible. God never says in Genesis the things he later says in some of the prophets about loving and caring for his people. He has no tender words for Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. If I recall correctly, the only time God uses the word "love" in Genesis is to say to Abraham, "take your son Isaac, whom you love . . ." Pastor is always talking about not reading things into the text that are not there. Yet it is OK to read "love" into the text when it is conspicuously absent from the text. Something dark and dreadful drove Cain to murder his brother. It wasn't just a moment of insanity. And it's interesting that the first murder took place in a religious context.
Meanwhile Pastor had a problem. Who were all these people that Cain was afraid might kill him? He starts out by trotting out the "s"-word. Science. In this case archaeology. Archaeology verifies the Bible because agriculture came before herding. Um, not exactly. Archaeology sometimes verifies the Bible and sometimes it doesn't. In this case trying to make it fit is like putting Cinderella's glass slipper on her stepsisters' feet--yes, you can make it fit but you've got to do some chopping. As long as you ignore the blood running out you're fine and dandy. In this case, there is abundant evidence from all parts of the world that humans went through a long period of hunter-gathering prior to the invention of agriculture. The Cro-Magnons were not farmers or shepherds; neither were the Neanderthals or other early human species (which the Bible also fails to mention). But Genesis ignores that and leaps right into farming and herding; next comes cities. There's a whole chunk of human prehistory missing.
According to Pastor, it's been figured out that by the time of Noah's flood (stay tuned for that!) there were about 120,000 humans on the earth, all descended from Adam and Eve. Since back then everyone lived for several centuries instead of decades if Eve had a baby or two once every two years by the time she died (and remember, she was fully mature at one year of age!) that's a lot of babies. My thinking is that it wouldn't be long before she'd be telling Adam go sleep outside the cave. The big problem with what he said about pre-flood longevity is that neither paleontology nor archaeology support this notion. If I understand correctly it is possible to determine roughly how old a person was when he or she died. I am not aware of any skeletons whose owners were determined to be around five or six hundred years old when they died. On the contrary, it seems that early humans lived even shorter lives than people today.
Which again brings us to the Flood. See, it is not only biology that conflicts with the Bible (or at least the way Pastor says it ought to be interpreted), it is also geology, archaeology, and paleontology. And he is taking a big gamble that nobody who has an advanced degree in these sciences is going to walk through the doors of his church. He's probably right. But it's awful hard to sit back and keep my mouth shut.
