24. Rethinking Cain, Rethinking Interpretations

(upbeat music) - Good evening, Oliver. - Good evening, answer. - Man. - Hey, you know what, I was thinking, you know, in the past, when we used to meet in the mornings, we always would have our cup of tea. - Actually, I have mine, yes, I have mine, I have mine. - Yeah, how wonderful. - Okay, do you still have your ginger tumeric? - In fact, that's what I'm having in here, yeah, yeah, right. - I have the same thing, ginger tumeric with some chamomile and some, oh, wonderful. So we are ready to rock and roll here. Okay, so how was your week? Let's just touch base a little bit. I haven't seen you at all in this new year. I don't think I've seen you actually since Christmas or even before, we didn't stumble into each other. So, I mean, again, this is just, again, for me, it's such a great, great privilege to see you. Otherwise, it would not at all talk to you. So what's going on in any news, new things? - Man, I wish you would not have asked this. I'm really, I'm really tired. I'm very, very tired. It's the beginning of the semester here, teaching for load. But we also have our new colleague here. I'm really excited to have Daniel Lolario with us. He did his PhD with Emmanuel Topf, one of the top scholars on textual criticism that our own denomination can offer, expert on Daniel and Septurgyn study. So I'm really excited to have him. But it also means he's new, he doesn't know the US, he doesn't know regulations, social security, insurance is banking accounts, cars, housing. So I have spent a lot of time with him, learning how the model types of learning management system that we're using here at Andrews. So I have spent a lot of time. I just actually got off the parking lot because the car wouldn't start. We have two cars and we gave him one of our cars and the car didn't stop. So we need to pull the car over to the garage. And so it has been a crazy week. I'm really looking forward to the weekend and hope to recuperate and then start the next week with a little bit more energy. But yeah, that's my short report on my energy levels at least. And you're off, right? You're off teaching this semester. - This is my non-teaching research semester. Yes, obviously, as you know, as a chair, I'm not able to extricate myself from duties at the department chair. So there's always things to do, but there is a little bit more time for sure. And it just so happens to be the case that I connect with your experience. I just finished reading this week, a book by William Irvine or Irvine, The Stoic Challenge. And he talks about how the Stoics were approaching these setbacks in life. You're seeing them almost as a wonderful opportunities looking forward to them. And so he talks about it. He had such a great insight. William Irvine talked about this. And he said, you know, the greatest, for instance, when you make a resolution, let's say you want to be physically fit or you want to have to do this or you want to do that. The most important thing actually isn't the outcome. It is the fact that any significant goal, right, any significant goal you're fixing your house, you, whatever, that will bring you to challenges. And that's why these goals are important because they bring you to challenges because it is in those challenges that our character and fortitude is being forged. So pity is the man who has an easy life, who doesn't have these setbacks and tests and challenges. And it was such a fascinating thing and he kind of imagines these kind of stoic gods, you know. The moment you think things are going well, they throw in a wrench, you know, in your wheel and something's happening. And rather than bemoaning it, oh, how wonderful an opportunity this is. So I commend to you, this lovely style of gratitude as you're facing the situation with your car and the thing. Anyway, that was going to my end. But let me put a critical note here on this. I think all what you have said is true definitely to form my life and your advice as well. I will take your advice here and I cherish it truly. - Tung in cheek a little bit, of course. But at the same time, you know, the stoic wisdom and we have had a little conversation on this too in the past in one of the episodes. I also have a critical attitude to what the stoic idea is because they really only contain wisdom for a certain type of elite. If your life is nothing but the life of a slave of somebody who is surviving as a mercenary in some auxiliary troops of the Romans, there is always a sword being thrown into your legs. That's a normal state of affairs. And I think it's only for those where like, in luxury positions like we are, where we have a stable income, where we have a family, where we have loved ones, that's I think where the stoic wisdom is really coming to its fore and it should really be cherished. But it's not a voice I think that is necessarily uplifting for the peasants in even in Roman society. Richard David Brecht, I once listened to a lecture he did also on the stoics and he has a similar observation that sometimes the stoics at least back in the days have become such an important voice because they allowed the status quo to continue. But I mean, again, your critique as well, take me because it doesn't apply to me. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - But I don't want to have an episode on that, but if I can just slightly push back, obviously there is a limitation from a Christian perspective we would certainly interrogate the understanding of wisdom and where do we draw our resources from. Certainly they don't have a conception of sin and these cosmic powers, absolutely that's true. But I would say that on the other hand, the question is like, what is the option, right? I mean, what is the option? Let's say you are denied certain privileges in life and you've been victimized in very different ways, short of profoundly changing a life circumstances, what can you actually do, right? So what is the alternative? Is it a spirit of mourning and resignation and unhappiness? Or is it in some ways trying to find within the space that's being allocated to you, some meaning? And yeah, it's true that Seneca was absolutely completely rich, but epictetus was not. And many followers of epictetus were not rich people. So that's the only thing that I would perhaps say. And I mean, more could be discussed on this, but that thrips for another time. But in any case, we have a great topic today. And it is one of my, well, I don't know if favorite Bible stories is the right word because it is a very tragic Bible story. But it is favorite of mine because it allows for so many levels of interpretation and application. And that is the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis chapter four. So let me a little bit just set the stage here or lay out the table before I ask you a question. You know, as I was thinking about it, as you have already mentioned in our, I think when you first shared a little bit your presentation on the topic in the church recently that you visited, that your presentation pushed a little bit back against a certain reception history of that story, certain theological, literally philosophical interpretations of what is actually going on in that event. And I kept thinking about it because you are right. There is a long reception history. I was thinking, for instance, I'm thinking, for instance, right now of Dante's infernal. And he places him square down. I mean, he places him down in the ninth circle of the infernal. Which is reserved for the very, very worst people, including Judas and Lucifer and Cain is there. Because for him, for Dante, what Cain did was the epitome of human depravity and evil. And that is the breaking of filial bonds and destroying something that is nearest to you. As a matter of fact, I sometimes go, I read a book by Russell Jacobi called Bloodlust. And he writes about the fact how really the story of Cain and Abel really illuminates the essence of human existence and violence, by which he means to say that we usually do not kill and violate the other. This is kind of a common idea, right? We violate those who are others. No, no, no, we violate those who are closest to us. And that is why the greatest danger that comes from, you know, to women in our society is from their boyfriends and their husbands. That's the greatest danger. It's those that are closest to us. And so it's someone who has been very much interested in a question of violence. And for me, just a staggering, which I wrote recently, this article in the Lake Union, Harold, that, you know, you have the fall of Adam and Eve, the picking of the fruit. Yeah, that is kind of punishment from Eden and boom, like immediately murder, like this exponential increase. And then it ends up with Lamek and the end of chapter four, which shows us that violence is at the core of the human condition. Like it is the essence of what human life is all about. And so, and so forth. So I am bringing all of this myself to the table. And now I need to put it at the feet of your feet, Oliver, as an exegete. And if you can begin to tell us what are some of the more salient or more prominent ways in which the reception history, meaning the theological spiritual philosophical interpretations of the stories of the story have gone awry. Perhaps you can slowly begin to unpack that. Oh, yeah, I'd love to perhaps, as an introduction, to just clarify, I think a Biblical scholar, at least from an academic perspective, is not somebody who tells you what the truth is, right? A Biblical scholar basically tries to make appropriations and then develop probabilities of interpretations that seem to fit better to the source, whatever you are taking as the basis of your interpretation. So I think at the end of this conversation, we don't necessarily arrive at this is the correct reading. So, but this is also part of the nature of these Biblical texts is that they do stimulate discussion. They do stimulate a community to wrestle with these texts and continuously find ways that do justice to this text. And because these texts are often so multivalent, they do, it's almost as if it's intended, they... No, when you say multivalent, they allow for different readings. They allow for different interpretations and Biblical here and still that it's almost pide-signed. That's how it feels. But we had, I think, a conversation about this also in the past, particularly when you compare that, for example, to the Homeric epics where things are clear. There's not too much of an interpretational bandwidth possible in the Bible it is. So, and I think that's the reason also why the reception... So there's no single meaning, that's what you want to say. That at least not in many of those epic narratives, for sure. I mean, think about the Akkadah or the sacrifice of Isaac. I mean, until now we struggle with interpreting this text. And you recently, I think, two years ago, so you had a big dissertation, actually excellent dissertation, being done and defended on that topic. But it will also not be the last word, right? We will continue. And so, kind and able, that story, I think, is an excellent example that shows, basically, by looking at the reception history, that means at how people, as how communities have received this text, it shows us also what biases are operating in the mind of readers, in our minds, in our cultures. So that perhaps just as an introduction to this. But to your question, what type of avenues have been taken in the reading and interpretation of kind? That can be traced, not earlier than about 100 before Christ. So because before that, we don't really have literature about the interpretation of these texts. So the early manuscripts, Comran, and then definitely the Targoms. The Targoms is basically Jewish translations, renderings of the Hebrew text. Imagine that the Jews in exile and then definitely in the time of Jesus, they didn't know Hebrew anymore, except the scholars. So most of them spoke Greek. That's why we needed the Greek Old Testament. It was not a product of Christianity, but a product of Jews, because Jews just couldn't read. So even Jesus most likely spoke dominantly Greek. And then as a slang, so to say, in local interiatories, Aramaic was being spoken. And Targom is basically an Aramaic translation of Hebrew text, but it is an annotate. It's like a commentary. It's almost like a little commentary. So in other words, let me just, because for some people, some people might find this very kind of interesting, we're saying that a lot of people in Judea during the time of Jesus actually understood the Greek. Yes, I mean, probably most of them, yeah. And it was not just the lingua franca for the educated, but also for the people on the street. If you want to do merchandising, and so Greek was the language. So anyways, these Targoms, you have different Targoms, different Targoms, so to say different little commentaries on Old Testament text. And those Targoms are all dated at around the year 0100 after Christ, many, many appear after the fall of Jerusalem 70 AD. And so that's really our first substantial reception that we can trace. And when you read the Targoms, they are not unified always and they're reading, obviously, we just clarified that these texts are somehow multivalent or have potential different interpretations. They are kind as portrait in different ways, depending on the Targoms. So yeah, for example, I mean, the text, the biblical text, does not give us a lot of information about kind. For example, how old is he? Is he married? How old is his brother? Is his brother younger? Is his brother older? And how was their childhood? How did they grow up? Did they have the same friends? Were they married? Did they have children? All these subs of questions are not being answered. They might be our questions, but they're not the questions that are driving this biblical Hebrew text. And so the Targoms, they invent stories around this. So some Targoms, for example, say that kind is actually-- he's so evil. So he cannot really be the son of Adam and Eve. So it must be when Adam knew Eve-- that's how chapter four was won. It starts now Adam knew Eve, his wife. And usually it's read as they had intercourse, right? And then Eve got pregnant. Is it the word you had the word you had right to know? And it's a legitimate way of reading it like this. It is the term that is being used in the Hebrew Bible for intercourse to know a woman when a man knows a woman. But that one of the Targoms would say, actually, Adam, this is not intercourse. This is Adam knows something about Eve. What is that something that Adam knew about Eve? And here comes then, so to say, imported background information. That's not in the original text. Namely, that Eve had intercourse with the serpent. And it's basically half devilish son. So he's a demon himself. Because otherwise, you can't explain why he's such a bad person. And that's one, for example, one reason. And you're saying this is found in some of the Targoms. In some of the Targoms, yeah. OK, this is Targom, Neophile, that has that portrait. Or then you have the idea that kind and able had siblings. In fact, twin sisters and able did not treat the twin sister of able nicely. He was already, so to say, from early on, a kind was a problematic figure. He didn't play nicely with his siblings, definitely with the twin sisters of his brother. You know, when twin sisters of his brothers indicates already they are not having the same parent. So they invent already these prehistories because you need to explain why is Cain so evil? And so-- OK, so let me just say, so these are not just unnecessary embellishments, just kind of inventing some sort of fantasy about the story. They're using these additional elements to make sense of who Cain is and what he did, basically. Or, for example, Cain is the farmer and able is the shepherd. So there must be a reason why Cain is evil. And so some Targoms, for example, Ankloss, they will argue that Cain is bad because he's a teller of soil because Noah was also a man of the soul. And Eusea was also a man of the soul. And Noah became a drunkard and Eusea a leopard. And therefore Cain is becoming a murder. So they're trying to invent reasons why Cain is so evil. Don't we have this little bit like something like this in our fate community that makes this decision? Sure, sure. Yeah. Right, that he didn't bring the best offerings. And he was all of that. You will get exactly-- Exactly, yeah. Or, you know, you have Genesis Raba. There, the issue is that in the-- let's say which verse is it-- where it says, at the end, I think the Eusea we translate at the end of days or after time has passed, something like that. In the course of time, that's how the Eusea we translated in verse three in the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. Something must be wrong here. They already-- something is going wrong. So then, other Jewish sources, they assume, well, actually, what happened is that this is the 14th Nissan of Passover where you have to bring the Passover lamb. And he should have brought a Passover lamb. And he didn't. So it was basically blasphemy that he did. So you see, people invent back stories to ex-- So they're reading Exodus into Genesis in their way. Exactly, exactly. Exactly, yeah. Because you need to explain the evilness of this. To me, it sometimes reminds me about the discussions that we have in the 20th century about how could nationalism take such an evil turn? So we must find something in the psychic constellation of Hitler that made him such a demon. And so we invent kind of potential hypothesis that could explain this evil that took place. You think partially, Oliver, this is because the unexplained frightens us very often when we see in others doing something and we can't say why they did it, we feel safe from that. As long as I don't do that, I am safe. I think it's partially that's the motivation. Yeah, I think that's what it is. So as an exegit or as a biblical scholar now, I'm interested in what is actually in the text. How can we sift what is invented by the reception history, by interpreters, by communities of faith, and what is actually happening in the text, and does the actual text allow for such readings? So that's always an interesting exercise to do. And it often brings in insights into not just our own, how do you say, behaviors of reading and our behaviors of interpreting the world, in our attempts to make sense, so to say, of evil or of good. But it also often gives insights into the cosmos of the actual text and what the potential problem is that the text wants to bring to the fore, which might be a problem that's quite different to what we wanted to read into the text. So yeah, if you wouldn't, if you would allow me, I will just give you some hints. So where I think the text is actually leading us to. Okay, before you go there, let me just ask you a question, because obviously you are part of a faith community that has its own reception history. And some of these reception history, it's also considered to be inspired or it's part of a tradition of interpretation. How do you, before you go into the text, are you as a biblical scholar able to bracket all of that out so that your reading is not driven by this apologetic intent where I now have to find in the text something that aligns with this reception history, which is sometimes almost like a sacred cow or considered. I don't mean in a pejorative sense, but in a kind of a traditional interpretation, how do you deal with those kind of pressures as you read the text? - Yeah, so it's difficult to read the text without a bias, right? So therefore, I think where biases fall or where biases are being objectified, that means where you become aware of your own bias, that's usually happening at the moment where you read other interpretations, right? Interpretations that are so different to your own interpretation. And if you read these interpretations, they actually make sense. And at that moment, you wonder, hey, wait, why am I, was I so convinced of my own interpretation of this? If there's an alternative way of reading it with good arguments, actually, the last two weeks, I was reading a commentary, one of the greatest commentaries, I think on the book of Jeremiah, just released by Carol Sharp. Carol and Sharp. She is one of the leading Jeremiah scholars at Harvard. She has published several books and articles on the topic. And she takes a feminist anti-colonial, a queer reading of the book of Jeremiah. So I'm belonging to a faith community that is often belong kind of more to the evangelical circles, more conservative, high view of scripture type of approach. I, that's why I would place myself in. And so this is quite a different approach to the text. And I was asked by the University of Minster to, you know, write a review on this. That's why I was reading it. But it does, it did challenge me, you know, in good sense, it got in good ways. It allowed me to see things in the text that I just couldn't see. Without such a queer theologian taking off my glasses, so to say, I don't agree necessarily with her conclusions and with some of the ways how she's rendering the text. But there is something in the text that I haven't seen. For example, the demasculization of Jeremiah, who is not allowed to marry, who is not allowed to have kids, who is not allowed to have property, who is not allowed to have a social state in society. I mean, these are all necessary items for a potria to be a potria, to be a man. And how that influences then your own self perception, your own role, how to participate in a society where you're not considered to be actually a real man. So these things, you know, I haven't, I just haven't seen. - Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I also remember listening to, I think it was a lecture where there was a colonial reading or postcolonial readings, not postcolonial reading of Job. And the first thing this presenter started questioning, like, why is Job so rich? (laughs) It totally deconstructing and questioning this idea of him being a righteous man. And what I realized, I think what you want to say when we expose ourselves to these kind of readings, it is not necessarily now that our interpretation is shaken or that we consider them as being truthfuls as or correct in all facets, but that they make us aware of just how many assumptions we bring to the text, that we have never ourselves interrogated and put into question. Is that a good way to understand that? - Yeah, beautiful, yeah, beautiful. I mean, for me, this is one way, right? To expose yourself to other readings of the text. So another way, and that's why I'm doing, you know, this linguistic research that I love running for valence pattern and patternization of texts, because they also kind of objectify the text and they make you see things that you just weren't able to see to give you an example in the book of Ruth. In chapter one, you know, Ruth gets stripped of her husband, her sons, her properties, and she returns kind of this bitter lady. And then she has this at the end of chapter one. She makes the statement that is rendered in most English translations as don't call me an army, which means the well-tasting one, the tasteful one, call me bitter. For the Lord, you know, let me go full, but let me return empty, and he answered me. So all of a sudden, that's how many rendered in the English or even German translations, and he answered me. So it seems like, okay, and he answered me. Oh, so God is somebody in all the drama you're going through, he does answer your prayers, and that's why you're back now in Bethlehem. That's how you could read it. But when you do a valence analysis using computer tools, you realize, man, this construct that is being used in the Hebrew cannot trigger the meaning answer. It actually must trigger the meaning humiliate or rape. So this construct is used elsewhere, and then the Bible to trigger these types of meanings. So what it says, the Lord has left me full. I left full, right? And he ripped everything away from me, and he raped me. That's why you have to call me bitter. It makes more sense also in the context, because he portrays herself as this highly disadvantaged person, or in Kings, you have this phrase where Elijah, this boy of the widow of Sarah Puth dies, and then he prays to the heavens and asking the Lord to have the soul of this boy return. Basically, have this boy become alive again. And then it says in the translations, and the Lord listened, or the Lord, how do you say, responded to the prayer of Elijah. Well, if you do this computer analysis, the computer will say, well, the phrase that is used here is a pattern that always triggers the meaning to obey. So basically, you have a text that says and the Lord obeyed Elijah. And then you realize that actually, there's already a problematic relationship between God and Elijah. Sometimes you wonder, who is the one who sends the commands? Is Elijah the one who commands? And God obeys? Is that how it should be? And then, of course, it opens a different reading of the text, and I think these moments are beautiful. That's why I'm tracing them. I always like to see, you know, wonderful, wonderful. So let's go. Let's see what's happening in Genesis 4. So if you just read the text, I know you should never say that, but if you look at the text, you see the following. You have, in verse one, basically the idea that kind is present, kind is present. And then verse two, it says that now we have another one who is present, that is his brother Abel. The text is very explicit. It says brother Abel. No time information is given. No location information is given. No other context is being given. We don't even know how old Eve is, how old Adam is. We don't know anything about any other siblings, family structure. We don't know what language they spoke, what hobbies they had, and all this. Nothing. Do we have, though, in Hebrew? Do we have the word later she gave birth? Is that in Hebrew? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So there is a sequential idea. Exactly. There's a sequential idea. But the later is not further... I'm not further... We don't know how much. Right. Yes. So basically what you can say at this moment is this text is presented to us or the story is presented to us in an archetypical way. What it means is every historical information that you could strip off is almost stripped off. You could say. When you strip off historical information, then basically open a text to become a text that could be true to all kinds of people. And that's what you mean when you say archetypical. Yeah. So usually historical texts are not archetypical because you have time information, place information. You have so many qualifications being added to participants that you cannot identify with them. They are so much different to you. But this is one interesting move that we can take already here, namely that the text is not interested in specifying time, location, age, and personality. But this has a very reduced qualification of these figures. So then the second inverse tool says that able is a keeper of sheep and kind is a work of the ground. There's no qualification being given. It's not said that keeping sheep is better than working the ground. And in fact, shepherd and a farmer, these are the typical two vocations that you find in the ancient east and the world. There's equilibrium between these two types of vocations. They need each other. They rely on each other. So they never carry any symbolism of one being better than the other. We see this in ancient year east. Right, right. We see this later, right? And the reception history, we must find something why kind is bad. So by the text and in the context of ancient year east, that is not here. So we just have person A and person B. They're doing both good professions. There's nothing wrong with it. And then we move into verse three, which in I'm having here the ease V in front of me, it says in the course of time, kind brought to the Lord an offering. So there's quite some discussion about what it means in the course of time. But you can make a strong argument in many scholars follow that. They both conservative as well as, let's say, more historical critical readers. They say it means at the end of the year, you have the same phrase that appears in the Bible a couple of times, where it actually clearly means the end of the year, which would make sense here, namely, at the end of the year, which is always the end of the harvest. So they have agricultural calendars in these times. So at the end of the harvest at that moment, you bring offerings. Basically, you, it doesn't matter. You don't need to be in Israelite. You can be a canonite. You can be a Babylonian. You can be a Greek. You offer the gods. It's just a way of saying things to the Lord. So in some way, at the very least, we can say that Cain has a sense of obligation or a sense of gratitude towards the Lord, right? In fact, the word that is being used for offering is gift. The gift would be a better word. It's a gift of appreciation. It appears many times in the Old Testament who always has this kind of connotation of its gift, an apprace, an appreciation of something, of goodness that you must have received. And here, obviously, it's the blessings of harvest or the blessings of being able to do farming and being able to get fruits and crops out of the ground. Right, right. So again, till verse three, nothing bad, right? Cain is actually acknowledging the goodness of the Lord and giving this present, this acknowledgement to the Lord. And then you have verse four, and it says, and able also brought off the first born of his flock and of their fat portions. So what the text stresses is, and also, it means Cain is not alone. Cain is not the only one who acknowledges the goodness of the Lord, so to say, there's also somebody else who does that, and that's able. Abel also does it. So we have two people who do bring minjas and the Hebrew will bring these gifts to the Lord, and these appreciators. Do you think Oliver that the fact that the text stresses that Abel brought the first born of his flock, that this is a fat portion, that that is kind of a signal that he about the quality of his offering or not? Yeah, you see, their scholars would find, you would find their scholars in different camps. So some would say, this is actually a qualification. This is actually a way by the narrator to set off Abel from Cain by saying, Abel is better. He gives the best, right? Cain does not. Yes, yes, yes. Others would say, well, this is not a fair reading because before the first born is mentioned, actually, Ab, it's stressed that also Abel brings. So it stresses the equality of their gifts. So you can take it this way or that way, again, I think you cannot argue against a reading that wants to stress that Abel does something better, but you cannot falsify or verify. These are just two readings. I personally see the equality of them a little stronger as a potential, as a probable reading because later when God speaks to Cain, He doesn't say that you brought a not so good offering. So when the Lord speaks to Cain, He does not bring up the quality difference between the offerings. So it seems that this is not the issue. The issue is not the difference in offerings. At least this would have been the chance for the narrator to clarify to us what the problem is. And that doesn't seem to be the problem. Anyway, good. So then an important point now here is the end of verse four when it says and the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering. I think this is a good translation. Some say, and the Lord accepted Abel's offering. I'm not sure what translation you're looking at now, but at least in some of the receptions of that story is like Cain's offer is rejected. Abel's offer is accepted. Some in some children Bible, you see these two altars and then Smoke goes up to the Lord. That is a sign of God accepts it. And then on the altar of Cain, Smoke does not go up to the Lord, it kind of goes more in a horizontal way, which is a sign that's rejected. So nothing of this is present in the text. What the text says is that the Lord gave attention to Abel's gift. That's the only thing that we find there. There's no. And then five, but Cain, and for his offer, yeah, he did not give attention. It's the same word. So he gave attention to Abel, but he did not give attention to Cain. You have that word. It doesn't appear that many, that often in the Bible, I think it appears five, six times or so, in the Bible you find it in Job 2. Did you give attention to my servant to my servant job? Oh, no, no, well, you should look at him. So, or Job himself will say, why does the Lord not give attention to me and see my suffering? So the idea is not of rejection or acceptance, but the idea is of being aware, acknowledging, I mean, acknowledging the sense of recognizing somebody giving attention to something. So until now, again, no judgment on the morality of Cain nor Abel. So they both seem to do good things. You could argue that Abel does something better, right? But there is no argument given in the end of verse four that the Lord did give attention to Abel because his offering was better. Nor does it say in verse five, he gave attention. It does not give attention to Cain because his sacrifice was worse. And I think that's the interesting part for me now in this text that we have this question. Why did God give attention to Abel? Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because if you look at the text, you could say, well, no, it could have been the case that the Lord says, but he favored Abel's offering more as kind of a gradation. But here you have such a strong contrast. He did not look with fear, right? It was this very stark. It's not a, this is a little bit better than this. No, no, no, Abel is great. The Lord is not accepting it. Is that what the text says? No, that's actually what the text does not say. That's what I would argue. The term that's being used is not a term for acceptance or rejection. The term means attention. He gave attention to Abel. But he did not give attention to Cain. So when NIV says that a button came in his offering, he did not look with favor. That would not be a good record. Exactly. That's already informed by tradition. But the tradition of Cain is bad and Abel is good. So purely the word Shah-a that's being used here in the Hebrew does not have any connotation regarding acceptance or rejection. And you find in all the cases when you look up in the texts, it's pretty clear. It's like in Job the cases that I gave, Lord, why do you not give attention to me? Why do you not recognize me? Why do you not see me in my traumas or in my dilemmas? It doesn't mean why do you not reject me? The idea is like, hey, I'm screaming so loud. Can't don't you see me? That's the meaning of the word. But wouldn't you say that a failure or the absence of recognition implies a rejection? Because we can see that Cain perceives a great grave act of injustice being committed on the side of the Lord, right? I don't know if it says in Hebrew as well that he was very angry. And he's faced with, so it's not just, it's a little bit upset. He really perceives some grave injustice being committed. So how do you then square that? So I think the injustice, if you just take the text so to say, I mean, it's an experiment, right? But if you just take the text, the injustice that Cain feels is not that his sacrifice got rejected, but that even though he gave such a good sacrifice, you know, he didn't do anything wrong, that the Lord just doesn't give attention to him. And I think this is where the text becomes also a fruitful, at least a fruitful reading is now being opened because you have these, what I'm seeing here now when we take this type of reading, I'm seeing a kind and an able, they do their best, they're hard working. You know, the one as a farmer and, you know, tilts the soil able as a hard working, you could even argue that Cain's work is even harder, right? Then shepherding only. But they're hard working people and both give acknowledgement to the goodness of the Lord, both give a gift. And then one feels not seen. One feels not, somebody does not receive the attention that he thinks he should receive. I think that's the moment where interesting psychological things happen in humanity. Again, from an artichable perspective, if this is a text told in a way that it can address all of us, namely that many of us work hard and we just don't get the recognition that we think we should receive. But you see, perhaps Oliver some would push back because now this raises profound and deep theological questions, right? Because it starts to ascribe to God motives that seem to be morally problematic because in the Bible, right, the God is often referred as a just God who loves justice and all of that. And one definition, the most basic definition of justice is to give another what is his or her due. So if you are saying that God is not giving what King is due by his very act of generous offering, now this now raises a problematic question of how we understand the character injustice of God. Does it not? - Yes, absolutely. And you see this or you could, if you read it this way, you could see exactly that question raising in the mind of kind. This is just, it's not fair what God is doing. And I think this is what in this reading, the text can open up namely how do you relate to life experiences that seem to be unfair, that seem to be unjustly unfair? The, you know, disadvantages that you have received in life, how do you deal with that? And this text, if this is the intention of the text, and I would argue this is one of the possible readings of the text, this text does not answer the question why God is putting this apparent injustice or this experience on kind. 'Cause that's the situation that we often find ourselves in, we just don't know why the things have happened to us in the way they did. I, you know, two days ago my mom called me, she was crying, that her most favorite cousin died. It's my, I mean, my favorite cousin. So my cousin, her favorite nephew. So he died, he was walking in the forest with his wife and dropped dead. The heart. So he's your first cousin? Yes, and a heart failure, just dropped dead. I'm sorry for your loss, Oliver, I have to care. So the question is why, right? And this, this has been one of the best cousins I have. So doing well to his mother, taking care of the family, there was some tragic events happening in his family, and he superbly invested himself into solving problems and taking care of the one suffering, and there he's dead. And this is just unfair. What do you do in these situations? And I think this is, this is what this text can all bring up. Kind, what are you doing now? Kind, you have worked hard. Kind, you have not done anything wrong. You have brought your gift religiously. There's nothing that we can bring against you. Even the text himself does not say that there was something he did wrong at the stage, right? The Lord does not say I rejected your sacrifice. The Lord just says, hey, why are you angry? That's the only question. And what do you do with your anger? So in the Hebrew, actually, it's like, why are you angry? This is a good translation. And why is your face down? So you're looking down. You're not seeing the other anymore. You're not seeing the world anymore. You're just seeing yourself. That's kind of what this is. - Okay. So let me see if I understand you all ever. So a typical traditional interpretation of this text is to read it as a historical event where we try to now figure out there must be some reason. King did something wrong. And he did some action. He sacrificed was not the best one, or perhaps he was a farmer instead of he should have gone to Abel, bought a lamp, perhaps, and then offered a lamp. Not just the fruit, so that's kind of a typical interpretation. What you were saying, no, no, no. This is more like an archetype, right? This is more like speaking about a human condition. And the test that King is facing is the test that all of us are facing at some point in our lives. Are we going to be faithful to the Lord when there is no just dessert? When we don't get what we deserve, and we see someone else who is more blessed than we are, and we think we are more righteous, almost kind of a psalm 73 situation, where he says that my feet almost slipped when I saw all the people who were wicked, they prosper, and what's with me, and all of that. So you're saying that the text is questioning us, would you be faithful to the Lord if something like that happened to you? And where it seems that the Lord injustly treats you, would you still be faithful to the Lord? Yeah, it seems because we actually don't know what purposes God might have had. We don't know if this is some sort of a test, because the language of test is prominent in secret. Exactly, yeah. We don't know it. Okay, so that is one possibility. Right, okay. Now here's the question to Oliver. I think the problem though is that people would say, well, they are making a link, right? A link between Keynes reaction to this favor, or whatever, right, or lack of attention, or lack of recognition, we know from contemporary studies how problem that the lack of recognition of misrecognition can profoundly damage people and human relations. But so people are drawing a link between that and his subsequent action. And they say, well, the fact that he eventually ended up killing his brother tells us that this was a morally corrupt individual, therefore his assessment of God's action is also morally corrupt. Yeah, you know, and I would say in some cases, in reality, that might be the case. But I think in many cases, if you interview murders, their first murder was an impulse. So they, I mean, some of course plan and they were very much aware what they want to do. But many of us became, the majority of us became murders by, I don't want to say by accident, but by impulse. But crimes of passion would be talking about. So, and if you speak to these people, you know, they feel like, man, at the moment where this person died in my hands, at that moment, I wish I would have, I would be dead. I didn't realize what was happening. I don't give me every punishment I deserve. If I could just undo this. So, and I think this is the way how you can read this is kind is now trapped in a whole wheelwind of emotions. If you've worked hard and you're just not receiving the recognition that you want, there is a sense of injustice that happening. And all of a sudden, the way how you, you cannot see the other anymore, right? That's like your face is fallen. You cannot, you cannot see the needs and the happiness of others anymore. You only see yourself. And at that moment, when you're not able to lift your face and that's interesting, I think, what happens then in verse seven when the Lord speaks to him, the Lord does not, the Lord does not critique his emotion. The Lord does not say it's not good that you feel angry. The Lord says, so what are you going to do with this anger? That's the question. But doesn't he ask him, why are you angry? Isn't that an inner kind of, doesn't he interrogate him? Yeah, he does, he does, he does. Yeah, and that's also, you know, an interesting thing that the Lord introduces himself in the first couple of chapters of Genesis, often as the one who's interrogating. Where are you? What happened, you know, explain me. So he obviously tries to engage Cain in a conversation, asking a question would hope for an answer, which never comes, right? And Cain does not engage in a conversation with God. Why are you angry and why has your face fallen down? Why are you depressed? So what's happening, explain me. So yes, interrogation is there. But there is, in that interrogation, we do not necessarily have to now imply that there's a judgment over Cain's emotion. But wouldn't, wouldn't verse seven actually be a kind of a judgment if you do what is right? Will you not be accepted? Yeah, but if you do, but are you perhaps suggesting that those quiet, because it seems, I mean, this can be read as just general questions, right? Will you not be accepted if you do what is right? But it's very hard to read or not to read this in light of what just transpired. It's very difficult to read verse seven without having verse five in mind. Or is there a different way of reading? Yeah, I think the way I'm having here, the ESV, if you do well, will you not be accepted? Or you see the word accepted, right? It's exception and rejection. That terminology is again being triggered in the reader through this Bible translation. But nothing of that is actually in the Hebrew. In the Hebrew, you have at the end of verse six it says, why has your face fallen? You have that, it actually is also rendered well in most English translations. Why has your face fallen and then verse seven is, is it not when you do good? It raises, that's the term. Not be accepted, that's again, the tradition, the traditional understanding of this chapter informing now the translation. The Hebrew would say, is it not, literally, what is it not, if you do well, it will race. So from the face falls, the face comes up again. So will your head again be upright? So to say, and the idea, and that's what I would suggest here. The idea here is, the Lord says, you have this emotion. I want to engage you in a conversation why you have that emotion, but regardless of why you have that emotion, I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you and say, provide you with a principle. And that principle is, in the spite of you being feeling disadvantaged, in the spite of you feeling, not giving the proper recognition, continue doing good. Because only when you continue doing good, your face will lift up again. I mean, this is a, this is a really, I don't know if the word is radical, whether this is really a significant re-reading of the text, because it is quite different, if you read, if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But you're saying that's not there at all. So that we are not talking about acceptance and rejection. We are talking about what you're saying. We are talking about God dealing with His emotions. And if you do what is right, will not your face seize being downcast? Will it not rise? Will you not feel differently? So He tries to, OK. So you have, and again, here, the computer would help you. You have two valences. That means basically two ways of two grammatical constructions that trigger particular meanings. In the Hebrew, you can have a fallen face, was basically it's a term for it being depressed. You know, you look down. And you have a lifted up face, which means you look straight into the world. You see others again, so to say. And this terminology is being used here. So you have a fallen down face, or you have a lift up face. And the interesting thing is, at least if you read it this way, is that the Lord says, not you should ask for forgiveness, and you should repent. And then your face will be good again. The solution is, and you could argue, because kind didn't do anything wrong, kinds attitude towards the sense of rejection, or the sense of not receiving this proper attention that he thinks you should receive. Should be, move on, and do well, act well. That's my recipe for you. I cannot give you the recipe, ask for forgiveness, because you didn't do anything wrong. And I'm also not saying that you have to now change the emotions, because your emotion is a natural response to the disadvantaging that you feel. So therefore, the solution is not in the ritual system of repentance, so to say. The solution is in your attitudes towards the world. Perhaps this is a link to the stoic introduction that we had, move on, and do well. That's the only recipe that will bring again cheers to your face. But obviously, King does not listen to this, and now he commits this egregious, horrible act. Now, is there any way for you, or do we read this event, or do you agree that this is what happens? Yeah, there's no other way to read this in the Hebrew as, as it's pretty well portrayed here in the translation. It's not metaphorical. It's not he killed him in a sense, he rejected him. - It's actually murder. - It's actually murder. Yeah, it's exactly murder. Yeah, so in the context of, as I'm trying to develop this text now until verse seven, I would say what the Hebrew text tries to, or the original version of the text tries to open up as a potential reading is what happens if you feel not treated well. At the moment, where you have that feeling of not being treated well, there's, in everybody, there's a potential murder. In everybody, there is a potential criminal. And here we see kind, becoming a criminal, yeah. Would you say that part of this emotion that Cain is experiencing, it's not simply anger, but would later, obviously, Nietzsche, Giroir and others, would talk about, and Max Scheller, would talk about Rezant Imah, right? This feeling of being slided, but you say it's not a feeling of feelings. Okay, let me ask you this. Do you think that Cain has a feeling of being slided? I think at this stage, they are, what is he, what is he angry about? That's an interesting thing, you know, in the Hebrew, it does not qualify even the emotion. It just says that you could say, there's a will-wint of emotions going on in him. It could be injustice. It could be feeling angry. It could be feeling jealous. It could be feeling senseless. I'm working so hard. I'm not getting anything for it. Why is my, you know, this will win of emotions. The text does not specify what exactly the quality of that emotion is. And I think that's part of the script of the narrator that it tells you at the moment where people feel not giving, not receiving the proper attention, they find themselves in a will, one of emotions. And so, and you would say that this is coming, but you would still, I suppose you would say that thisness.com from the act of God, right? You would not ascribe injustice to God, but you would say that Cain is interpreting it as an unjust act. And obviously, whereas God could have had other intentions that he may not have revealed to Cain. Yeah. Obviously, he's reading it in such a fashion, right? Exactly. Yeah, that definitely, I would say that. Obviously, the narrator, as he continues writing, has a very clear understanding of the justice of God. God does not do things wrong. He's righteous and he's only signed and so on. So the blame is on Cain, but Cain is being revealed to us. I would say in a very approachable way, namely, Cain is not by nature evil. Cain experiences something that he interprets with a negative theology, might it be, and then acts up on that. And that's his downfall. So let me see, as we are slowly coming to an end here, trying to wrap this up, let me see if I understood correctly what you're trying to argue. For one, I believe you would agree with this idea that the text, even though it opens up a plurality interpretations, it is not a free for all. The text puts constraints on what we can say. So even someone like a postmodern, it's not a good term to use it for him, but someone like a postmodern thinker like Comberto Eco when he writes the book, "The Limits of Interpretation." He tells us that text provides limits. It's not a free for all, right? But within those boundaries, right? It is very broad boundaries, there are multiple ways in which this could be read. So what you have presented, this rereading of Cain and rereading of these offerings, that these are legitimate interpretations based on the constraints that the text imposes on us. Exactly. It might or might not be correct, but if one were to subscribe to such an interpretation, there would be a linguistic, a textual warrant to do so, right? And then the second, what I'm saying is that one way in which we can allow the text to speak to us is to become mindful of suppressed emotions. Emotions that we are, Cain is not naming them, so God is in a way naming these emotions for him and helping process the interiority, trying to bring it to the surface and inviting him to come to a prepous self-knowledge so that he can commit to a just action. To adjust action in the world when a lot of things around us seem unjust, generating a lot of these negative emotions and interpretations. Would that be a way to prep stick a text? Yes. I can only stress reading a text as an exegit or as any human person, actually. Listen to the text, be guided by the text, don't allow your bias to abuse the text, so that the text, in our case, the author is dead. So even more, you need to protect the author by doing justice to the text. Look at the boundaries of the text, don't just read too much into it, rather keep it ambiguous than arguing for the truth, right? Exactly, so sometimes when we talk, we have to find the meaning of the text, what we actually mean by that, what we should mean is that we are actually talking about be faithful to the boundaries of the text and the boundaries put constraint, but also allow for various, it's under-determined, there are possible ways of dealing with that. And one way in which you honor the text, in which you submit yourself under the text, is to recognize this multiplicity of possibilities. Would that be a one way of saying that? Yeah, exactly. And I think what this exercise in this particular case shows us also is how receptions of this text demonstrate, how people struggle with the fact that the text is too open to their own wishes. So they wanna have kind bad from the start get on. So, and then they have to invent background stories, right? Like actually he's the son of Eve and the serpent, or he did the wrong sacrifice because it was the 14th of Nissan. So you need to invent this in order to create clarity of interpretation. And I think that's unfortunate because the reading that is also possible allows us for a very different self-reflection. And we have this later on throughout the Bible, right, later on when we come to the gospels, this idea, oh, you know, the brothers of, I don't know, Jesus must have been from a previous marriage, all of these, because Mary could not possibly, we have all of these different interpretations as all of that later on. But I think what you're inviting us, if I can conclude here, if we can conclude, is really reminding me of something all over, of something that you said when we had our live recording on the Bible and the meaning of the Bible for contemporary or our contemporary age. And we talked about at the end, you might recall about certain examples or certain suggestions, like how can people become more acquainted with the Bible? And one thing that you said, well, just come together in a group and open the text and try to, know that we are some sort of model here. But perhaps what we have done, the two of us, do this in the group, weak in and weak out, bracket as much as you can, these assumptions, and you can never perfectly bracket them out, but try to bracket it because the text deserves, at least the attempt at bracketing and letting the texts speak to us. And would that be a good way, did you, what you actually would suggest? - Yeah, and I think I have experiences now with you, because you are constantly forcing me to bracket, right? 'Cause you're asking these questions, hey, wait, wait, can you see, can you read it that way? Is that justified? What's with the next verse? So I cleanse myself, I purify myself, and my reading so to say in your presence. I think this is such a wonderful experience for the community of faith, for community of our readers. This purification is really, for me, is like standing in front of a mirror and making myself beautiful. So in that purification, not purification and a more realistic sense, like get the defilements of me off, but more like, hey, I want to look beautiful. And I can only do this in your presence on the presence of a community that constantly takes off some of the facts there, the imperfections that are in my face. - Oliver, what a beautiful conclusion. Thank you so much for enriching my understanding of the text. I hope you will have some more. I would like to have some more of these dialogues. We can pick up some other story, perhaps, in the future, and go through it again. I am sure that our audience will enjoy that. So hopefully we can do this again. - Thank you for the purification here. - Okay, all the best. Till soon. Bye.