Onslaught against Innocence: Cain, Abel and the Yahwist

While in Genesis 2-11 the Yahwist confronts the issue of evil through a sequence of stories on the progressive deterioration of the divine-human relationship, in Genesis 4 he describes the initial slaughter of one human being by another as fratricidal. This book provides a close reading of J's story by using literary criticism and psychological criticism, and shows that the biblical author has more than an "archaeological" design. His characters - including God, Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel, plus minor character - are paradigmatic, as they allow J to proceed with a fine analytical feel for the nature of evil as performed by "homo" as "homini lupus." No imaginative "mimesis" of evil has ever been recounted with such an economy of means and such depth of psychological insight.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations; Introduction; The Object of This Book; The Yahwist as Author; Date of Composition; Authorial Omniscience; A Matter of Temporality; The Anthropological Dimension Cain Is an Agriculturist and Abel Is a Shepherd; The Brothers' Sacrifices from a Phenomenological Viewpoint; The Introduction of Sin into the World; A Crux Interpretum--Verse 7; The First Crime; A Woman's Glory and Her Sons' Competition; The Oedipal Cain; In the Field; Alienation; The Theological Dimension Kinship Relations Belong to the Sacred; Soul Murder; God's Favoritism?; Sacrifice Revisited; The Divine and Human in Reciprocity; God's Power--To Be Interpreted; The Psychological Dimension; Violence and the Sign upon Cain; Two in One; No Rehabilitation of Cain; Cain--A Tragic Figure?; The Psychology of Abel, the Kin of Cain; Paranoia; Cain Builds the First City; Genealogy and Culture; Cain's Genealogy in Genesis 4 (and 5); The Yahwist and the Origin of Culture and Civilization; The Song of Lamech; Hope Has the Last Word; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index of Ancient Sources; Author Index.