Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Cain and Abel

If a man had sons by two wives and disliked the mother of the eldest, it was still forbidden for him to come back the right to any son but the first wizard. This natural law was violated many times, but the principle endured: "It was through the first sons that family lines continued and that tradition was upheld, and in that sense the first phallic issue remained special in the eyes of beau ideal" (Ward, 1991, p. 137).

Interestingly, though, it is the firstborn in the shield of Cain and Abel who is the criminal and who is non favored in the eyes of God. The Bible is not clear as to wherefore Cain is not favored before he kills Abel. The text states that both Cain and Abel brought an offering to the Lord: "But unto Cain and his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell" (Genesis 4.5). The tensions that develop between the brothers fall to the murder of Abel, after which Cain is cast out and his progeny cursed.

The base of Cain and Abel has meaning beyond relations between siblings. God did not want rational creatures to have dominion o'er adept some other but only over irrational creatures, the animals ("God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase, fill the earth and oppress it, have dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves on the earth" [Genesis 1:28]). The bring of murder is an extreme example of having dominion over another. The lawsuit why this could happen at all is that Adam and eventide


had fallen from grace and had convey take advantage through sexual reproduction: "So Cain, when another form of carnal desire, envy, overcame his rational judgment, murdered his brother, exemplifying the craving for power that now dominates and distorts the whole structure of human relationships" (Pagels, 1988: 114). another(prenominal) important case of sibling tensions can be engraft in the story of the sons of Noah. After they had survived the Flood, the troika brothers would diverge because of the under introduction of Ham, the youngest (or perhaps the middle son, since there is some argument over this point).
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For that matter, there is some uncertainty about the meaning of the sin committed by Ham - it seems to have been accidental that he saw his father naked, and what this means in any case is open to some dispute. The results are not in dispute, though - whatever Ham saw, he told his brothers about it, compounding his curse and angering them. The other brothers joined with their father against Ham, and Ham's son, Canaan, and his progeny were cursed. The descendants of the three sons of Noah would become the three major divisions of peoples known to the ancient world - those of the Arabian peninsula, the north of Africa, and the people of the Caucasus region (Genesis 10:10).

The torment of human relationships is seen in various sibling relationships in which bingle brother seeks dominion over others. One of the most lucid such instances is seen in the story of the twins Esau and Jacob. Even with twins, one child is honest-to-god than the other. Esau is the firstborn, but Jacob becomes involved in a devious scheme with his mother to cheat Esau out of his just place, meaning taking both his inheritance and his role as leader of the family. Jacob succeeds in this scheme. Esau is not blameless, for he sells his birthright and then breaks the tradition and the law himself. Jacob is able to fool his father because the older man is blind. Having sold his birthright, Esau grows to hate hi
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