Cain: Difference between revisions

For other uses, see Cain (disambiguation).

In stories common to the Abrahamic religions, Cain or Káyin (קַיִן / קָיִן "spear" Standard Hebrew Qáyin, Tiberian Hebrew Qáyin / Qāyin; Arabic قايين Qāyīn in the Arabic Bible; قابيل Qābīl in Islam) is the eldest son of Adam and Eve, and the first man born in creation according to Genesis.

The Hebrew word for Cain, qayin, originally meant a lance or spear, although the word has become associated with the word qanah, meaning "to obtain," or "to provoke to jealousy" because of a word-play in Gen. 4:1 between qayin and qanithi, a derivative of qanah ("And Adam had sex with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Qayin, and said, 'I have obtained [qanithi] a man from YHWH.'"). Qayin was also the name of an ancient tribe friendly to Israel, also referred to as the Kenites, from whom some scholars attribute the stories about Cain.

According to the Bible, Cain was a tiller of the land while his younger brother Abel was a shepherd. God's rejection of Cain's sacrifice (korban in Hebrew) of fruit and grain in preference to Abel's blood sacrifice of a lamb drove Cain to murder his brother in a jealous rage. When God later questioned Cain as to his brother's whereabouts, Cain answered, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

God decreed that Cain could no longer till the ground, and that instead he must be a fugitive wanderer. Cain protested that he would be killed by those he encountered, in reply to which God gave Cain a special mark and decreed that any who killed him would suffer vengeance "sevenfold." Cain then settled in the Land of Nod, east of Eden. See Cain and Abel for a fuller story and some exploration of the mythological significance.

According to the Book of Jubilees 4:9, Cain married his sister Awan, and the couple had their first son Enoch approximately 196 years after the creation of Adam. He then established the first city, naming it after his son Enoch. According to the Book of Jubilees 4:31, Cain died when his house collapsed on him, in the same year that Methuselah died.

The nature of Cain's mark is unspecified in the Bible. In popular mythology, however, the mark has been thought to be a mark on the forehead, or possibly red hair. Formerly, a widespread belief was that the mark of Cain was black skin. This idea was used as an argument in favor of slavery; however, that view has generally fallen out of favor as racist.

Cain is also thought to have fathered the Biblical races of giants and monsters—the so-called children of Cain. This tradition has no basis in the Bible itself, which portrays Cain's descendants as ordinary human beings and states that the giants were born of the union of the "sons of God" (generally interpreted as fallen angels) with the daughters of men.

Qabil (Cain in Islam)

The story of Cain and Abel is also told in the Qur'an (5:27-32), where Cain is not named; however, in Islamic tradition he is called Qabil, while Abel is called Habil. In the Qur'an, as in the Bible, Qabil's sacrifice was rejected whereas Habil's was accepted, and Qabil, enraged, killed his brother and became evil. God then sent a crow that scratched in the earth, to prompt Qabil to bury his brother; seeing it, he said "Woe is me! Was I not even able to be as this raven, and hide the naked body of my brother?" and he regretted his deed. It was on this account, according to the Qur'an, that God ordained for the Children of Israel that "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."

No mention is made of the mark of Cain, or of Cain's later wanderings.

See Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an.

Cain in Mormonism

The Book of Moses, considered scripture by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and also (as part of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible) by the Community of Christ, contains a slightly different version of the Cain story.

In the Book of Moses account, Cain is not the firstborn; Adam and Eve have many (unnamed) sons and daughters before his birth. Cain "loves Satan more than God," and he sacrifices to God only because Satan commands it. Cain wants to kill Abel for his livestock, so he enters into a secret pact with Satan, in which Satan promises to obey Cain's commands and to deliver Abel into his hands. The rest of the story is essentially the same as the biblical account.

Because of his pact with Satan, Cain is considered the father of "secret combinations," a term used extensively in the Book of Mormon in reference to secret societies and organized crime. Cain is the first to hold the title Master Mahan, which he explains as meaning "master of this great secret, that I may murder and get gain."

In Latter-day Saint theology, Cain is Satan's master. In Moses 5:23-24, the Lord tells Cain, "And thou shalt rule over him [Satan]; for from this time forth thou shalt be the father of his lies; thou shalt be called Perdition; for thou wast also before the world." Cain is considered to be the most evil human being ever to walk the earth, the quintessential Son of Perdition (though this title is not technically appropriate since Cain is Perdition himself).

Mormon folklore holds that Cain was cursed with immortality and still walks the earth today. This is not mentioned in Mormon scripture and is apparently based largely on an account by early Mormon apostle David W. Patten. Patten claimed to have encountered a very tall, hairy, dark-skinned man in Tennessee who said that he was Cain, that he 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 very popular book The Miracle of Forgiveness, which is how most Mormons are aware of it. Some have connected Cain, as described by Patten, with Bigfoot.

See also

• Cainites - a small gnostic Christian sect of the 2nd century.
• Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, Lamech, Jabal, Jubal, Tubalcain and Noemi - the descendants of Cain, also known as the Cainites.
• East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
• Caine - father of all vampires in the World of Darkness
• Kane - leader of the Brotherhood of Nod in Command & Conquer
• Cain, most notably seen in the Sandman series, is a fictional character from DC Comics based on the biblical Cain
• Kaine, a fictional character from Marvel Comics and clone of Spider-Man
• Kain, a fictional character from Edios Games entitled the Legacy of Kain series
• Cogliostro, a hellspawn in the Spawn comics, is really Cain, the first one to go to hell.