Hello, I'm Gary Stevens, and welcome to the History in the Bible podcast.

All the history, in all the books, in all the Bibles.

Thank you. Episode 1.9, Tales of the Flood.

In the last episode, I recounted the Bible's two stories of creation and the first humans.

In the next chapters of Genesis, there is murder and a global extinction event.

Genesis Chapter 4 presents another morality tale, but a very, very short one, only 15 verses.

The first couple give birth to Cain and Abel, Cain and Hevel in Hebrew.

Abel becomes a shepherd and Cain a farmer.

Abel offers up a sacrifice of lamb show war to God and Cain some humus and to bully.

In what can only be interpreted as a message to vegetarians,

God dismisses Cain's gift out of hand and without elucidation.

God is never big on explaining himself.

In a fit of rage, C Kane kills his carnivorous brother.

For this, the very first murder and the first of many fraternal quarrels in the Bible, God condemns

Kane to wander the earth. Although there are now only three people on the entire planet,

Kane foresees an endless persecution for his crimes by generations yet unborn.

God bestows upon the penitent a sign to protect him from vengeance. Many years later,

some Christian churches misinterpreted the mark, not as a sign of safeguard, but as a stain of

sin. They decided that a black skin was that very stain. They only recounted

those views in the late 20th century. The J author in Genesis provides a short list of Kane's

descendants, quote, Genesis 417. Kane knew his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch, and he then founded a city,

and named the city after his son Enoch.

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