Who was the better person, Cain or Abel? It is possible to see the tale of Cain and Abel in a different light. Cain became a farmer. This is very difficult work. Abel opted to be a shepherd, arguably a lazy activity. Why does the Bible seem to prefer Abel? Why did Abel think that [...]
Jose Saramago’s (1922-2010) last book Cain is a delightful, frequently funny, heretical, mocking, feverishly anti-God, retelling of the early books of the Hebrew Bible. He is the 1998 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. According to Saramago’s book, no snake spoke to Eve in Eden and persuaded her to eat the forbidden apple; snakes [...]
An unusual interpretation of Cain and Abel’s sacrifice Most people know no more about the Bible than what they learned as children or what they heard their clergy tell them in a sermon, which was not designed to reveal what the Bible says but some moral lesson the clergy feels the [...]
By Israel Drazin People think that biblical narratives are clear and easily understandable, and that the explanations of the stories offered in clerical sermons or written in ancient documents such as the Talmud, Midrashim (imaginative elaborations of the Bible), and medieval commentaries are true. Actually neither idea is true. Good literature contains ambiguities and [...]
Jose Saramago’s (1922-2010) last book Cain is a delightful, frequently funny, heretical, mocking, feverishly anti-God, retelling of the early books of the Hebrew Bible. He is the 1998 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Adam and Eve’s son Cain kills his bother Abel after God accepted the latter’s sacrifice and ignored Cain’s, despite Cain’s [...]
