Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 48:2 (Fall 1986)
Article: Cain and His Offering
Author: Bruce K. Waltke

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WTJ 48:2 (Fall 1986) p. 363

Cain and His Offering

Bruce K. Waltke

Introduction

Partially because of the laconic style in which the Cain and Abel story1 is told and partially because of prejudgments, scholars are divided in their opinions why God rejected Cain’s offering. This essay aims to answer that question.2

Prejudging that our story reflects the development of Israelite religion, Skinner proposed that the story represents an early stage of Israelite religion in which animal sacrifice alone was acceptable to Yahweh. He explained: “It is quite conceivable that in the early days of the settlement in Canaan the view was maintained among the Israelites that the animal offerings of their nomadic religion were superior to the vegetable offerings made to the Canaanite Baals.”3 Disregarding the unity of Genesis and ignoring God’s mandate that Adam, the representative man, till the ground (2:5; 3:23), Gunkel claimed: “This myth indicates that God loves the shepherd and the offering of flesh, but as far as the farmer and the fruits of the field are concerned, He will have none of them.”4 Cassuto, by contrast, perceptively compared this story with the Creation story and the Garden of Eden story.

There is a kind of parallel here to what was stated in the previous chapters: the raising of sheep corresponds to the dominion over the living creatures referred to in the story of Creation (1:26, 28), and the tilling of the ground

WTJ 48:2 (Fall 1986) p. 364

is analogous to what we are told at the beginning and the end of the story of the Garden of Eden (ii 5, iii 23).5

Some orthodox commentators, coming to the text with the prejudgment that fallen man may approach offended God only through blood, think that God rejected Cain’s sacrifice because it was bloodless. Candlish, for example, wrote: “To appear before God, with whatever gifts, without atoning blood, as Cain did—was infidelity.”6 This writer comes to the text with the prejudgments that the storyteller drops clues in his text demanding the audience’s close attention to details in the text, Gen 4:1–16. Leupold underscored that in the l...

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