Cain and Abel just an analogy?

[Warrenton]

You needed only but to ask
(Origen Adamantius of Alexandria)

I’m sorry for referencing you Origen in my earlier post.

Although he was later declared a heretic, he remains one of the earliest surviving apologists for the Christian faith. He was not declared a heretic for his views on Genesis, either. Indeed, his syncretic approach - his efforts to unify Christianity with Greek and Roman thought was copied by many subsequent apologists, including St. Augustine.

But your position could also be supported by St. Augustine.

There is a balance that the Church has always maintained, and individuals fall somewhere to either extreme.

One does not want to take allegory to the point where the Old Testament is viewed as a myth, and one does not want to assert historical accuracy in a situation where the faith appears ridiculous. St. Augustine and Origen and St. Chrysostom personify the balance.

 

[hockeyfan]

Why? Cain simply married one of his sisters. There was no prohibition on incest at the time.

It is possible, but it does not answer one really important question. Who was Cain afraid would kill him if he was exiled away from Adam, Eve, and his family?

It says after Seth was born was when he lived 800 more years and had other sons and daughters. So if we are to take a literal approach to Genesis, then the spouse of Seth and Cain would have come from their younger sisters.

Since there are no clear timelines in Genesis, we don’t know when this city building happened exactly. It could have housed all children of Adam and Eve, or part of it.

Your first paragraph makes a good point about how if a literal approach was taken then any such sisters would have come after Abel’s death. It leads to a problem, if taken literally. In Genesis chap. 4, when God punishes Cain, Cain complains that if he leaves his home to be a wanderer, someone will kill him. At this point, there is only Adam, Eve, and Seth. If Cain were to leave, he should have nothing to worry about, as he just parted from the whole human race.

Your second paragraph does have a Biblical problem if taken literally. Cain was forced to leave and become a wanderer. If Cain formed a village with his brothers and sisters, that would defeat the punishment God inflicted upon Cain.

Please provide any textual evidence that Genesis is to be taken as anything other than historical. (I should tell you that I have asked for this several times on the CAF and have yet to receive an answer. I’m not talking about a satisfactory answer, I mean any answer at all.)

I believe I already have, by using Pope John Paul 2 but I will repost it anyway.

ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP961022.HTM

Textual? As in the bible text? It’s not exactly a treatise on the allegorical context of itself, is it.

Will you settle for the Catechism? The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.264 Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.265

(And I am in two minds about heretics, seeing as one of our monarchs happily went round burning people for making the heretical mistake of following the catholic faith)

Also a good citing.

I’m not particularly impressed with the quotation from the CCC considering it was authored by Cardinal Schoenborn who also permitted a homoerotic depiction of the Last Supper to be displayed on diocesan property. It is also not the textual evidence needed to reject Genesis as anything other than literal.

Logical fallacy. Ad hominem attack. It was fine when you said that a heritic is not reliable because you are pointing out their bad credentials. The problem is that you say that Cardinal Schoeborn’s misbehavior has any correlation to the accuracy of the document. As disgusting as letting pedophiles go is, it is unimportant in a conversation about this. The Catechism is a key document of the modern Church.

The Church teaches that, although not every passage in the Bible is to be taken literally, it should be taken literally unless there is something about the context that makes a literal interpretation impossible or very unlikely. All I am asking for is something in the text itself that would satisfy this principle. What is it about the text that makes it impossible or unlikely that it was meant to be taken literally.

You asked for a citation, now I am going to. Where does the Church teach that though some Bible passages shouldn’t be taken literally, it should be taken literally unless there is something about the context that makes a literal interpretation impossible or unlikely?

Second off, even if you were to find such a doctrine, how do the first 5 chapters of Genesis not qualify?

 

[Warrenton]

I believe I already have, by using Pope John Paul 2 but I will repost it anyway

I read the citation with interest. What does describing an actual figuratively really mean?

Does it mean that the people represented in Genesis are not actual people? Or does it mean that they are actual people, but their surroundings are not described accurately? Or does it mean that the even happened, but not by the people that the story says did the deeds?

Or something else?

 

[EJM]

That is exactly what I said. The word was shoved in their direction, but they still all waffled on regardless. So God sends his son, sits them down, and carefully explains to them, in parables so perhaps they may, through viewing the stories in versions they could understand, finally get the point.

Genesis had already tried, Isaiah had already tried. Figuring it might take a bit more oomph, we get the Son, just to make sure, Finally they get it and one of the world’s most successful belief systems is born. To make people understand anything you have to speak to them in a language they will understood. A few are given the gift of insight and understanding, but the rest usually need a little bit more help.

But to assume that the entire Old Testament is fact is just that, an assumption, an assumption to which even, and particularly, the original church never subscribed. In fact, understanding many of the original stories as allegories (I refer to Old Testament, not new, I see a considerable difference between first and second hand accounts of what was palpably a real person - after all, something happened 2,000 years ago that changed the course of history for all mankind) actually enriches them. I have learned a great deal, not just about my faith, my beliefs, my religion and God, but also about myself, human nature and the power of the spirit. In fact, again I agree with Jung. The symbolism of archetypes in culture can, in one image, a snake, a tree, Eden, are far more powerful than any simple one ‘historical fact’. An archetype can express a thousand words in just one potent image.

I really want to discuss Noah and middle eastern flood mythologies… But I’ll steer clear of that for a while I think

If you read the scripture I shared, you will see that Jesus did not speak to them in parables so they would have a new way to understand. Rather, He spoke such to those people so they would not understand. He said their hearts were dull. Notice how He then explained the parables to His disciples so that they would understand. Read His Words and believe what He says.

I’m sorry you think that the witness of the scriptures that God gave to Israel are just fables to help you learn, but the accounts can all be taken as true events. His Word is true, just as He Himself is.

 

[jeffinjapan]

My son’s religious ed teacher told the class (allegedly) that the story of Cain and Abel was only an analogy. I understood it to have been an actual event consisting of two men who were brothers who actually existed. Any clarity on Catholic teaching would be great.
Thanks!
Sandra

The Church says we are to understand scripture in its literal sense unless there is sufficient reason to not accept the literal meaning.

Concerning Cain and Able, there is no such reason to not believe that Cain and Able were actual brothers and one was killed by the other.

So yes, the story of Cain and Able really happened.

 

[jofa]

The Church says we are to understand scripture in its literal sense unless there is sufficient reason to not accept the literal meaning.

Concerning Cain and Able, there is no such reason to not believe that Cain and Able were actual brothers and one was killed by the other.

So yes, the story of Cain and Able really happened.

Thank you so much - it’s what I suspected!

 

[garysibio]

I’m sure others have thought of this before but it occurred to me today for the first time. The genealogy of Jesus given in Luke 3 treats those between Adam and Noah in exactly the same manner as those after Noah. There is no distinction between the two groups which allows for one group to be historical and the other an analogy.

Who is the last person, actually Persons, listed in the genealogy? It’s God. You cannot maintain any semblance of reason and say that God exists and Adam didn’t.

 

[StarSapphire]

“to understand scripture in its literal sense unless there is sufficient reason to not accept the literal meaning”

Exactly, and a verbal socio-cultural history that collated actual histories and verbal cultural narratives is very good reason to think there are parts of it that do not have a literal meaning. If anything, a completely literal understanding of Genesis actually limits its ability to teach us about God and faith. The archetypes it engages, and the pre-history events it probably relates to, particularly the flood, are consistent right across the Middle East and North Africa’. These obviously record a verbal narrative through which, before words were written down and stories passed from generation to generation around the village fire, children learned about God, about growing up, about the evil in their nature, the good in their nature, jealously, love, They related to a catastrophic flood that their distant ancestors would have had experience of (probably the flooding of the Mediterranean when it became filled by the sea).

I genuinely see sufficient reason to see an allegorical meaning. In fact I can think of no better way of primarily understanding what God is (it’s the only tract of the bible until you get to Jesus where S/He comes across as the type of father than Jesus made him out to be - awe-inspiring, loving, infinite). It also helps us understand the evil and good in our own nature, the world around us, everything. Cain and Abel particularly are powerful archetypes - brothers, bound in love, then one betrays the other. This is a hugely powerful image to be warned of the duality of our nature, to be warned against darker impulses. In fact, far more effective than any one actual, historical story.

Over thousands of years verbal histories blended with cultural histories, and by the time they were written down they would be one and the same. Some would be real history, other allegory. It in no way dents or shakes my faith, at all, in fact it helped me understand original sin much better (that we are born with the capability for evil) than Sunday classes ever did. And because these archetypes are universal, and powerful, that is one of the reasons the old testament, thousands of years down the line, still actually means something, even to people who’ve never read the bible. The Mark of Cain, the image of the sneaky Snake. These are images that even speak to atheists, that mean something to them even though they would rather deny it.

Moreover, we gain nothing by closing our minds. To ask, enquire, and then decide it is not allegory, that’s fine. But not to ask? I do not agree Jesus only spoke in parables so his disciples would understand. He said himself he spoke in parables because if he did not the People would not understand. that they could not see truth. Stories, allegories, myths, legends, real histories, through this complex matrix humans learn and pass their knowledge on.

 

[garysibio]

“to understand scripture in its literal sense unless there is sufficient reason to not accept the literal meaning”

Exactly, and a verbal socio-cultural history that collated actual histories and verbal cultural narratives is very good reason to think there are parts of it that do not have a literal meaning. If anything, a completely literal understanding of Genesis actually limits its ability to teach us about God and faith. The archetypes it engages, and the pre-history events it probably relates to, particularly the flood, are consistent right across the Middle East and North Africa’. These obviously record a verbal narrative through which, before words were written down and stories passed from generation to generation around the village fire, children learned about God, about growing up, about the evil in their nature, the good in their nature, jealously, love, They related to a catastrophic flood that their distant ancestors would have had experience of (probably the flooding of the Mediterranean when it became filled by the sea).

I genuinely see sufficient reason to see an allegorical meaning. In fact I can think of no better way of primarily understanding what God is (it’s the only tract of the bible until you get to Jesus where S/He comes across as the type of father than Jesus made him out to be - awe-inspiring, loving, infinite). It also helps us understand the evil and good in our own nature, the world around us, everything. Cain and Abel particularly are powerful archetypes - brothers, bound in love, then one betrays the other. This is a hugely powerful image to be warned of the duality of our nature, to be warned against darker impulses. In fact, far more effective than any one actual, historical story.

Over thousands of years verbal histories blended with cultural histories, and by the time they were written down they would be one and the same. Some would be real history, other allegory. It in no way dents or shakes my faith, at all, in fact it helped me understand original sin much better (that we are born with the capability for evil) than Sunday classes ever did. And because these archetypes are universal, and powerful, that is one of the reasons the old testament, thousands of years down the line, still actually means something, even to people who’ve never read the bible. The Mark of Cain, the image of the sneaky Snake. These are images that even speak to atheists, that mean something to them even though they would rather deny it.

Moreover, we gain nothing by closing our minds. To ask, enquire, and then decide it is not allegory, that’s fine. But not to ask? I do not agree Jesus only spoke in parables so his disciples would understand. He said himself he spoke in parables because if he did not the People would not understand. that they could not see truth. Stories, allegories, myths, legends, real histories, through this complex matrix humans learn and pass their knowledge on.

Apparently you think the Holy Spirit played no role in the authorship of Scripture.