Cain and Prometheus

Author(s): Morton S. Enslin

Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 86, No. 1 (Mar., 1967), pp. 88-90
Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3263246
Accessed: 14-01-2019 16:03 UTC

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88 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

CAIN AND PROMETHEUS

It is no new discovery that the story of Cain and Abel (Gen 4 1-8) b
difficulties. Not the least of these lies in the response of Yahweh to Cain, w
has been rejected and whose face not unnaturally shows his displeasure at
to his younger brother. Yahweh's words of reply are commonly rendered

Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou does
it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the doo
thee shall be its desire, but do thou rule over it.'

This reply leaves quite unexplained the reason for the rejection, althou
implying that there was something amiss in Cain's behavior. The ment
the door" and the form of the protasis, "if thou doest well," thus introdu
new and unsuggested note into the story.
In addition, Yahweh's concluding words in vs. 7 are strangely ungr
"Sin" (nL.nr) is feminine, the participle "coucheth" (YIh) is masculine.
that, the two possessives ("its desire" and "over it") are also masculine.
been the attempts to solve this divine slip in gender. The most recent is S
Anchor Bible. Instead of the participle y:i he suggests an otherwise un
allied to the Akkadian rabisum ("demon"). "It would thus be the robe w
is directed toward Cain, but whom Cain could still thwart if he would contr
impulses."2 This may allow Yahweh to speak with "faultless syntax," b
the modern reader to see "jealous impulses" in Cain's not unnatural an
would appear to me that the difficulties with which commentators ha
struggled would vanish were we to place the responsibility upon the shou
J writer who has taken over an early tale in which the reason for the rej
no explanation. The offering by the nomad shepherd was naturally prope
farmer the reverse. This early attitude of those who found themselves in a
and which not infrequently led to the cry, unuttered or expressed, "T
O Israel!" is transparent in the story. The J writer has tried to touch
save the face of Yahweh and to justify his act of discrimination which wo
least have bothered his earlier source. Skinner3 is quite correct that "7b r
enough by itself, but connects badly with what precedes" - Speiser may h
ened out the syntax; he has not lessened the real problem. But the answer is
seek. It is simply that J's attempt to explain Yahweh's act of discriminat
what awkwardly introducing a hint of contributory (justifying) moral we
is a far from perfect job.

' Gen 4 6-7.

E. A. Speiser, Genesis, p. 33.
3 Genesis, ICC, p. 107.

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 CRITICAL NOTES 89

But while our problem which has bulked large in the eyes of many readers of the
tale may vanish, another remains. The translation in the LXX is very different from
that of the Hebrew. The Greek reads:

OVK eM 6pOps 7rppOSeveyKnS, ObpiW .t) 6LXf \V, 4t.apTes; uo-'XCaov' TTrp
ae 7j a7roo-rpo0?)l ai-rov, Kal a p apELs avrov.

This is so remote from the Hebrew that the first thought is: "He must have had a different
text before him." But this method of cutting the Gordian knot - a solution which so
frequently appeals to ingenious and hard-put OT critics - is quite unnecessary here.
Every bit of this Greek - even the peremptory "Shut up" (roveXaaov) - demands the
present Hebrew unpointed text. ntW is understood in the text as pointed by the
Masoretes as directly dependent upon the interrogative l1,n: "Is it not exaltation?"
or "Shall it not be lifted up?" or "Surely ... There is uplift."4 But it is conceivable as
referring to the "lifting up" of a gift or offering, that is, of sacrificing. So the LXX
translator understood it, making it a relative verb dependent on (complementary to)
:D'-n, which latter is thus understood as "if you do well in," i. e., "if you sacrifice
properly."s When he came to nnri, he apparently read a nun for the pe, nn1u (piel
infinitive construct of nn2, "to cut in pieces") instead of nn1. ("at the door"). Thus
he has a parallel "if you do not do well in," this time completed with "cutting or dividing
in pieces." Then he understood nNtcn not as a feminine noun (nrun, "sin") but as the
qal 2nd sing. masc. mnDn ("thou hast sinned"). This leaves him y:- which he read
as an imperative "Lie down," "Subside," and he rendered it r7avXaoov, about equivalent
to our colloquial "Relax!" "Pipe down!" The remainder of the verse, as he translated
it, seems far from the traditional English reflecting the masoretic Hebrew, but it is a
quite understandable rendering of the unpointed Hebrew, and it clearly reflects the
earlier word of Yahweh to Eve (3 16). 'A7roarpoon, which has proved so troublesome, is
precisely the word to Eve and is perfectly good Greek in the sense of "turning away
from everything else and so devoting oneself to," in short "obedience." Presumably he
had so understood .np1lpni in 3 16. Similarly the conclusion Kal av ap ets avtov -
his translation of i:-2tn - simply parallels the earlier Kal airo a aov KVpLEViEL
(l1.-t7 '.). Thus the masculine possessives which have so bothered modern exegetes
were no problem to him at all. They both referred to Abel who, as the younger brother,
was to be obedient to Cain and be ruled by him.
One final question remains. What led him to alter nnD1 to nnri and to translate
it ieXf\/s? To us it seems, as Skinner properly remarked, without sense as applied to a
fruit-offering. I would be inclined to suggest as the reason for this "fantastic" reading
his perplexity with the story as it stood before him in Hebrew, that is, as to the reason
for Yahweh's discrimination. Obviously Cain had done something wrong. The reference
to "sin" was conclusive. Far removed from the bedouin and the latter's contempt for
the farmer, the Greek translator saw Cain's "sin" in the way he "divided" his sacrifice.

4 The translation in The Torah (Jewish Publ. Soc. of America).

s For this use of the infinitive construct with I see Gesenius-Kautsch, Hebrew
Grammar, ? 114 (pp. 364 ff.).

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90 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

Hesiod's story of Promethus6 might well provide the answer. Prometheus had outwitted
Zeus when he sacrificed the great ox at Mecone. He had cut it up and set out two
portions,"trying to befool the mind of Zeus":

Before the rest he set flesh and inner parts thick with fat upon the hide, covering
them with an ox paunch; but for Zeus he put the white bones dressed up with
cunning art and covered with shining fat (538-541).

When Zeus remarked, "How unfairly you have divided the portions," Prometheus
gave Zeus the privilege of choosing the one he preferred. He chose the latter, which
seemed so preferable, only to find how he had been outwitted, and in anger he retorted:

Son of Iapetus, clever above all! So sir, you have not yet forgotten your cunning
arts! (559 f.).

It was because of his anger at this trick which he never forgot or forgave that Zeus
would not give fire to mortal men.
Was this story in the mind of the Greek translator of the story in Genesis and did
it lead him to find an answer to the question which the J writer had unwittingly left to
all subsequent readers? I see no way of proving this suggestion, but it seems to me far
from unlikely.

MORTON S. ENSLIN

BRYN MAWR COLLEGE

6 Theog. 535-560.

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