"Am I My Brother's Keeper?"

Romulus slew Remus.

Set slew Osiris.

Hodur slew Baldur.

And (spoiler alert!) Cain slew Abel.

Fratricide is just one of those things that happen when you're mythological.  In this particular example, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve.  Cain was a farmer, and Abel a shepherd.  Both brothers gave an offering to God, who (proving himself to once again be a bit of a jerk) accepted Abel's offering of meat and rejected Cain's offering of vegetables, likely on account of him not also offering holy ranch dip.  This drove Cain into a jealous rage, causing him to murder the shit out of his unsuspecting brother.  Abel gets to become the Bible's first martyr, whilst Cain gets a big, juicy curse.

I don't have a problem with this story, aside from the nagging idea that God must have made Cain out to be a homicidal prick in order for this to happen in the first place.  (Consequently the same problem I have with Judas, but we'll get to that later.)  The problem I have with this story is what comes after Cain is cursed and banished from the land:

"And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.  And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch." - Genesis 4:16-17

I'll give you one minute to read that over and figure out what's off.

...

Okay, so ... Cain has a wife?  Anybody wondering where she came from?

Basically we have two options here.  One: there's now inexplicably a bunch of people unrelated to Adam and Eve, even though Adam was the first man in Genesis 2:5-7.  This brings us back around to the bizarre contradiction in creation stories found in Genesis 1 and 2.  Or two: Cain is boinking his sister.

Well, as weird and disturbing as it is, it must be option number two.  Genesis 2 says Adam was the first man, made out of dust, and that Eve his rib-wife was created to keep him company.  Setting aside that little stumble in Genesis 1:27 (covered in my second post), we've gone strong with the idea that there's only one family up until this poi-

"And Cain said unto the LORD, my punishment is greater than I can bear.  Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face I shall be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me."

Oh, goddamnit.

Who are you worried about, Cain?  Your dad?  'Cause he's the only other dude around now, remember?  No, you don't, do you?  That's okay.  We'll all just smile and nod because there are no contradictions in the Bible, right?

And just to prove that I'm not the only one baffled by this (and for laughs, totally for laughs), here's an actual, certified priest trying to answer the same question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FcUzVKmLlk

Going to have to call the Pope, indeed.





As a little bonus story, Jewish Midrashic tradition (that is, a kind of set of Biblical footnotes that fill in some gaps in the text) says that Cain and Abel did each have sisters whom they were supposed to marry.  Cain had a twin sister, and Abel was one of a set of triplets with two sisters.  They each married their sisters, but Cain was jealous that Abel had an extra sister when he was the eldest (and therefore entitled to more incest, I guess.)  Cain's jealousy over this extra sister was another reason behind his murdering Abel.  I'm not sure if murdering your brother because you want to bone two of your sisters instead of just one is a better excuse for fratricide than because God rejected your veggie platter, but I'll leave that for you to decide.

And as another little aside, what I like to refer to as the extended fanfiction universe of the Bible (that is, all the traditions that have sprung up over the centuries that aren't in the actual book) tells a version of this story where Cain was actually the son of the snake from Genesis 3 - presumably from when Eve got really, really bored.  As I'm sure you're already aware, in the same extended fanfiction universe the snake is Satan in disguise.  So I suppose you could accept "He's the son of Satan" as an answer to the question, "Why did God make Cain a homicidal prick?" if you feel so inclined.  Just make sure to overlook the fact that, of the two of them, God has Satan outdone in the homicide department by a freaking landslide.  But that's a story for another day.