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Hebrew years 1 to 120 (3760-3640
BCE)
AdamAfter the creation of the universe and of the world, and of all living creatures on earth, the man Adam was made (נעשה) on the 6th "day" of Creation. From his making, the Hebrew Calendar is started as day 1 month 1 (Tishri) year 1. The festival of Rosh Hashanah in Hebrew Calendar reminds the making of Adam. As of the five preceding days of Creation, they fall in year 0 (zero). Eve was made from Adam a bit later in that same day. Then, before the end of this day of making of Adam and Eve, they were entered by God in the Garden of Eden and, with it, came the the first Shabbat day, the 7th day since Creation. But, as it also happened with other elements of the Creation, free-will prevailed and led to results that were not always according to the divine plan. Equally, from the very first generation, man erred. Adam and his companion, Eve,[1] were expelled from the Garden of Eden and lost the divine protection. From then on, they were on their own. The beginning of humanity, as we know it, started with Adam. It corresponded to the archaeological period called the Chalcolithic, which made used both of stones and or copper. This period is reckoned by the scientific community to have ended about 3600 BCE when the next period, the Bronze Age, started. In the Chalcolithic period, mankind used rudimentary habitations and tools, but they were the first to live in small villages rather than as nomadic clans. They were also the first to use agriculture as a mean to provide food for themselves, and also to domesticate some animals. This corresponds to the Biblical text which bears the order from God to Adam to work the soil and produce his own food. Abel and CainThey had two first sons: Cain
and
Abel. According to Tradition, both were born with twin sisters who became their respective spouse.[2] Cain
worked the earth while Abel was a shepherd. As previously mentioned, in
the Chalcolithic period, mankind indeed used both activities to provide
food to themselves: agriculture and breeding. In this era, the animals
that were bred were: goats, lamb, cows, and probably also wild
boars. --- Genesis 4:3-8 It is striking that a recent archaeologial find [3] shows that the Jordan Valley was the seat of this human revolution, when mankind started to build a ritual with the fruits of their labour. Indeed the findings are dated to be of the Late Chalcolithic, in a time when Abel and Cain lived. So the text of the Bible is contemporary of this "revolution" of using fruits from labour for cultic purpose: And at the end of some days, Cain brought from the fruits of the earth an offering to God... Cain
gave an offering to God but not from the best of his
production and surely not with his heart, as compared to Abel who gave
from the best
choice, and the expression he as well
means that he himself accompanied his
offering as if he was prepared to offer himself to God. Abel
accompanied his offering with all his heart because Abel loved
God, but Cain didn’t or not with the same spirit. The path of sin
starts when man deviates from the
love of
God. Cain was fully aware of God’s
presence, and didn't need a proof of His existence, because his
countenance fell
after
God’s rebuke. Cain could have corrected his path but didn't because his
mind was governed by sin. With his free
will, man
has such power because he has been created in the image of God. Through
his soul (neshama),
he knows to distinguish between good
and evil.
This
is what makes man different from animals. Yet not
everyone can overpower the animal instincts which govern the feelings
of desire, jealousy, fear, etc. Cain was jealous of God's preference of
Abel and this feeling governed his mind. The first conflict occurred when Cain proved unable to speak out his own issues with Abel. This is why the text said Cain said to this brother Abel. Said what? The text says nothing else, because Cain had nothing to say. Instead he got overwhelmed by his feelings of jealousy and killed his brother. The
murder of Abel (Gustave Doré, 1868)
After the murder came the lie. --- Genesis 4:9 Cain is then cursed to become a wanderer on earth, but nobody could kill him. He established himself further east from Eden, in a land called Nod (נוֹד). This Hebrew name both means drifter and exclusion, reflecting his "separation" from society: this was to be the fate deserved by Cain. Presumably he established himself in what was to become Mesopotamia, where he came across the first two large rivers that created a natural "separation" from the land he came from. The
early males were born with the twin females that they will later take
as
companions. Thus the procreation could start to operate and the
population to grow. But, after the murder of Abel, Eve did not want
to
procreate any more. So
this first generation was largely left for Cain to populate. And his
immediate descendants were hunters like him. The
conflict between Cain and Abel
has been deeply anchored in early civilizations. It echoes the change
of the life style of the early society, starting from being nomadic
hunters as Cain was (and as the animal kingdom largely lives), until
they settled
down to become sedentary farmers and builders who would rather
breed cattle and grow plants to regularly provide for their nutrition
needs, such as bread, rather than rely on the success of a hunt. This
change was surely
not easy to make, but this was a necessary step to lead to
civilization. Living day by day as a hunter, or a hunted, was not to be
the fate of mankind. This early evolution
has been found in Sumerian clay tablets which was appropriately titled
the "Debate between sheep and grain": --- Barton, George A., "Miscellaneous Babylonian inscriptions", Yale University Press, 1918, No.8 “A new Creation myth”, pp.54 So, the early humanity gradually moved from hunters to farmers. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Notes: [1] Eve was extracted from the original Adam who had both genders when he was made; this was done after God placed the original Adam in the Garden of Eden; with the extraction of Eve, Adam was stripped of feminine gender. [2] See for example Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 21; this book also tells that Adam did not father Cain, but a fallen angel did (chapter 22), and this is why Cain was evil and different from Abel and Seth, the two real sons of Adam [3] In the following article (click here), the scientist states that the successful preservation of food caused the ritual: “The findings at Tel Tsaf are first evidence for the connection between food storage at a large-scale, and between the existence of a ritual related to the successful storage and preservation of the agricultural products being stored.” |