Even as a young child, I was outraged by God's rejection of Cain's sacrifice. The Prodigal Son always provoke me, too. Reading it today, it clearly is just some commentary on the struggles between urban and rural lifestyles. Agriculture and livestock are both noble pursuits needed by society. It strikes me that Hinduism and Brahmins demanded animal sacrifices, too. The blood seemed central. Perhaps blood, the life force, is the answer. Animals are closer to humans or we are animals more than plants. A rational God would welcome both. One is not a punier sacrifice.
The Old testament is full of very ancient stories from a time to which I can not relate. I'm curious as to how surrounding culture would view these different sacrifices. It is another story of an arbitrary, vengeful God with an abusive human personality. Any God who would prefer two similarly situated brothers is not a God but a petty tyrant. The author of Genesis does not even bother explaining the differences. Plants are no good, animals are potent. Most cultures that I can readily think of preferred blood sacrifice. Can this be the same God who is Jesus, later in chronological time?
John 3:16 - for the so loved the world that he ......his only begotten son so that................ Not a blood fiend. Although one could view Jesus' crucifixion as a blood sacrifice. I love The Last Temptation of Christ and Jung's Answer to Job. What would happen to a parent who murdered their son as Abraham was poised to do with Isaac. This is pure terror and Cain's story is terror on its face.
Is this the same God that Paul wrote that no powers on earth or the heavens could ever separate us from his love ? I don''t think so. My gut always rejected these scriptures as faith promoting stories. God should be moral. Of course, one can add a lot of extraneous info not in the Bible in an attempt to explain it away.
Indeed, since I was young, this was not a story of a bad farmer but competing professions. I suspect that a livestock owner wrote this part. Do you remember all the seeminly endless stories about farming vs. ranching in the West? What was Gunsmoke, Bonanza and others about. Wagon Train, The Rifleman and countless films I can't recall now. In many ways, it is a land use dispute. Perhaps the precusor to zoning boards.
