Originally posted by Suzianne
If Cain had gone humbly to Abel and bartered with him for a calf to offer I'm sure he would have received the calf. But he could not be humble and put his faith in God. No, he had to get all butthurt and lash out at Abel in jealousy for God's supposed shunning of him and preferring Abel when that clearly wasn't the case. He had to put himself first, instead of God. He chose... [b]poorly.
The point is, though, that it was Cain's choice.[/b]
no, you haven't understood the story of cain and abel.
the early hebrews were nomadic herders, and their main competition came from agricultural city-states that dotted the region.
they constantly got into conflicts with the farmers as their herds would move in on prime farmland and through overgrazing, turn it into desert, before moving to the next area to pillage.
their early god was a herder's god. a god who liked meat and accepted only animal sacrifice (and maintained this trait for a long time). he did not accept produce. the produce belonged to other gods, namely biblegod's chief rival, baal.
the early hebrews are the archytypical abel and the agricultural city-states of canaan and others were the archetypical cain. the rejection of cain's sacrifice represents the special selection of the hebrews as biblegod's chosen people. and the slaying of abel by cain represents the expulsion of the hebrews from the lands controlled by the city states.
the hebrews of course would later take revenge on the farmers by murdering them all and raping their virgin daughters, but that's a story covered extensively elsewhere.