Chapter 6

Cain and Abel: The Commanding Word of God

Jews, Christians and Muslims share in the understanding that the Creator of all things, generally identified by the term God, has not simply created the world and then let it go at that. Believers within these traditions all affirm, instead, that in some way(s) or another God not only makes us but also makes known to us God’s will for how we should live. All of these traditions – as well as others – affirm that God’s will is revealed perhaps most directly in divine commandments. The Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-17) provide an obvious example of this notion, but there are numerous other commandments found elsewhere in the Tanak, the Christian Bible and the Qur’an.

Given this fact, one of the primary aims of this chapter is to explore what I shall call the logic of command. Perhaps we could even call it a kind of theo-logic – the logic or line of reasoning that is implied in the common biblical and qur’anic notion that God issues certain commands to human beings. Since later in this chapter we shall reflect upon the story of Cain’s murder of Abel, let us take for our example of a divine commandment the one that goes, “You shall not murder.”

What is the implicit logic of a commandment like “You shall not murder,” under the assumption that this is an example of a command of God issued to the Israelites (Exodus 20:13)? There are several important considerations:

God’s command that the children of Israel not commit murder implies, first of all, that it is possible for them to commit murder. There would be no reason for God to prohibit such a behavior were it not possible for them to pursue it.

God’s command that the children of Israel not commit murder implies, also, that God does not will for murders to occur. To put it another way, to commit murder is to break a commandment of God, which is to disobey God’s will. This implies, obviously, that it is possible for us humans to do what God does not want us to do. Presumably, God would not prohibit murder if God did not desire that murders not occur.

These first two considerations lead to a third implication, namely, that those who are commanded by God not to murder actually are, to some extent or another, free. It is within their power both to commit murder, and also to refrain from murdering. Only in such a situation does God’s prohibition of murder make any sense.

This leads to another important implication. It seems that it is possible for God not to “get what God wants” in creation. God desires that there be no murder, and expresses that desire in a command. The fact that the command can be broken means that God’s desires may, and presumably often do, go unfulfilled.

The command not to murder implies that God does not – and, perhaps, can not – force God’s desire for a murderless world upon us human creatures. If God would simply make us incapable of murdering – or at least make us refrain from murdering – there would be no need whatsoever to command us not to murder. But a command, even a divine command, not only cannot coerce its hearer but even implies that the hearer exercises a measure of freedom in relation to God and God’s exercise of power in the world.

God’s commanding the people of Israel not to murder only makes sense if God does not know whether or not murders, or at least what particular murders, will occur among the people. If God knows already what will occur, no commandments are necessary. To be sure, it may be argued that God knows that this command actually will affect certain future choices of people, such that fewer murders will occur because this command is given. One might also argue that God’s having issued the command makes people who do commit murders responsible for their actions, and punishable by God. Hence, God could know all murders that will occur, but prohibits them precisely so that murderers can be rightfully held responsible and judged. While I grant a certain logical force to such scenarios, I would argue that they dull the edge of divine commandment far too much. I will proceed on the assumption that if the future is already known by God, then there is in fact no reason for God to proceed with the charade of commanding humans to do (or not do) anything. In such a world as that, whatever will be, will be. If, on the other hand, what God desires is that no murders occur, this can only be the case if God does not know entirely what actually will occur. God’s willing or desiring a certain state of affairs can make sense only if the future of the world is open, to a significant degree, to a variety of possibilities – depending, for example, upon whether or not people obey God’s command not to murder (among a host of other factors).

If it were to turn out that any of the above implications was false, then in fact God’s commandment “You shall not murder” is not truly a commandment after all. It would be a façade, a divine charade. God would only be playing at issuing commands. Divine reward and punishment would be utterly meaningless.

These preceding points, all flowing from a certain theo-logic of divine command, are of course not new with me. Nonetheless, they represent a minority position not only among Christians, but among Jews and Muslims as well. It has not always been so. For example, these ideas all were espoused by the Mu’tazilite school of thought in Islam, a group of rationalist thinkers whose ideas actually attained a significant level of influence among many Muslims for several centuries (800s – 1100s). Contemporary author Reza Aslan typifies the Mu’tazilite approach as having argued that “it would be irrational for God to behave so unjustly as to will belief and unbelief upon humanity, then reward one and punish the other.”1 Obviously, the argument holds in regard to any divine command or expression of God’s will.

As has been the case also in the history of Christian doctrine, the status of any particular teaching often hinges precariously on prevalent political conditions; for example, Athanasius, the great fourth-century champion of orthodox Christology, was exiled (and recalled) five times during his life due to his teachings about Christ – mostly depending on who was occupying the emperor’s throne. So also the Mu’tazilites enjoyed periods of ascendancy,2 but by the end of the thirteenth century the Ash’arite, or Traditionalist, school became the dominant tradition of interpretation in Sunni Islam. From my perspective, the relative loss of influence by the rationalist Mu’tazilites is an unhappy historical circumstance. It is mildly surprising, but also satisfying, to learn that among Muslim theologians who anticipated and contributed to the development of the Mu’tazilite tradition, some went so far as to claim that “God cannot know our actions until they occur” – “a notion,” Aslan indicates, “that understandably offended the more traditionalist theologians, who believed the doctrine of tawhid [divine simplicity and unity] necessitated the belief in God’s determinate power.”3 For my part, while admittedly not a Muslim, I applaud contemporary attempts to re-open discussion of the issues that divided the Rationalists and the Traditionalists.4

In the present chapter, the specific issue has to do with the theo-logic of divine command and the implications of this logic for how we think about the nature of divine sovereignty and freedom in relation to creation, and specifically in relation to human agency. Let us consider a couple more biblical illustrations to move our thinking along.

Uniquely in the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus on two different occasions quotes a sentence from the prophet Hosea: “I [God] desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (9:13; 12:7). On both occasions Jesus expresses frustration that the Pharisees who are criticizing him have not really learned what this saying means. Jesus choruses Hosea’s message that God desires mercy – i.e., real, heartfelt and practical compassion for others. By comparison, what God does not desire is sacrifice – i.e., ritual offerings of worship that often may effect no change of heart or behavior for the worshipper. The fact that Jesus thinks his critics need to “go and learn what this means” immediately implies that what God desires of human creatures (“mercy”) is not what God is getting from at least some of them. Indeed, it seems clear that, in both Jesus’ time and our own, ritualized religion is as common as compassion is rare. But this is not the situation that God desires. On the basis of these biblical passages, one might even suggest that it cannot be entirely wrong to say that God hopes for greater compassion and less religiosity on planet Earth.

Indeed, later in the same gospel of Matthew – and again, in a collection of sayings unique to that gospel – Jesus once again is giving his opponents a serious tongue-lashing. Calling them “snakes” and “vipers” (23:33), Jesus announces that “all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah” – literally the blood of martyrs from A to Z! – will come upon them. It is safe to assume, then, that the shedding of all of this “righteous blood” is not pleasing to God. It is contrary to God’s will. Presumably, then, humans must be sufficiently free so as to disobey God’s will for them. This further implies that the world is not necessarily at all as God desires. And this, along with Jesus’ own words, brings us to the primordial story of violence: Cain and Abel.

Adonai, we read in Genesis 4, inquires of Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it” (vv. 6-7). Though in the narrative structure of the Tanak this occurs long before the time of the gift of Torah at Mt. Sinai, with its clear prohibition of murder, it is still evident in this primordial situation that God does not desire that murder should occur. Adonai does not say “You shall not murder,” but nevertheless does attempt to encourage Cain to take a different path than the path of violence he is considering. This divine visitation of Cain makes no sense if a) God already knows what Cain is going to do; or b) Cain has no real choice confronting him; or c) there is a live possibility that God will simply force Cain to do God’s bidding, i.e., to refrain from murder. But God does speak to Cain, does attempt to offer an alternative to violence against his brother – and yet God’s attempt does not succeed. “And so,” I once heard the late Israeli scholar Pinchas Peli conclude during a lecture in Jerusalem on the problem of evil, “Cain destroyed one-fourth of the human race, and God did nothing to stop him.” But of course, God did do something. What God did not do was anything that would have forced Cain into compliance.

As we turn now to the story of Cain and Abel as narrated in both the Bible and the Qur’an, we do well to note the context in which the story is told in the Qur’an. In Q 5:15 we encounter a call upon Jews and Christians (“O People of the Book”) to heed this new revelation that unveils “much of what you used to conceal of the Book.” This is an important subtext insofar as at least one Muslim commentator suggests that “the moral of this particular Biblical story – a moral which the followers of the Bible have been ‘concealing from themselves’ – is summarized in verse 32.”5 We will take a close look at Q 5:32 a little later in the chapter; for now, let us simply recognize that this is one of many instances in which Islamic interpretive tradition assumes that the qur’anic version of the story unveils certain aspects of the divine revelation which were suppressed by its earlier recipients, the Jews. This detail will prove to be telling.

Bible Genesis 4:2-10

Qur’an Surah 5:27-32

Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” And recite to them in all truth the tale of Adam’s two sons, when they offered a sacrifice, which was accepted from one, but not accepted from the other.

The role that God plays in this story is much more muted in the Qur’an. Not only is there no conversation between Cain and God, but even the account of the sacrifices of the two brothers is rendered in the passive voice: “accepted from one, but not accepted from the other.” God is implied, but definitely remains in the narrative background. In Genesis, on the other hand, it is Adonai’s rejection of Cain’s offering that appears to instigate all the difficulties. Rabbinic interpreters, feeling some discomfort over this, shifted the story into “an account of human greed, arrogance and lust,” writes Jacob Neusner, such that “God loses his role as precipitant of the murder.”6 By taking this interpretive route, the rabbis were then able, also, to accentuate Adonai’s reconciliatory role: God’s not an instigator, but a peacemaker! Adonai draws near to Cain and begins probing him with questions, sounding almost like a divine therapist. Even if the questions are rhetorical, one suspects that their purpose is to get Cain to talk. Cain needs to open up, to talk about what’s bothering him.

But he does not. God fails to get a conversation going. Cain walks away from the encounter. Violence ensues.

Bible

Qur’an

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” The latter said, “I will surely kill you”; the other replied, “Allah accepts only from the God-fearing. Should you stretch your hand out to kill me, I will not stretch my hand out to kill you; for I fear Allah, Lord of the Worlds. I only wish that you be charged with my sin and yours and thus be one of the companions of the Fire; and that is the reward of the evildoers.”

Whereas the conversation between the brothers is sparse in Genesis, in the Qur’an both Cain and Abel speak freely. Cain’s announcement of his intention is out in the open, a clear verbal threat; Abel, in response, virtually preaches a short sermon, and a hellfire one at that. It almost reads like a dare. Nonetheless, in Abel’s reply the Qur’an offers a striking example of non-retaliation between brothers: “Should you stretch your hand out to kill me, I will not stretch my hand out to kill you, for I fear Allah, Lord of the Worlds.” On the other hand, the qur’anic Abel might be accused of adding a little of his own fuel to the (hell)fire with his prophecy about Cain’s final destiny – “and that is the reward of the evildoers.”

Rabbinic interpreters speculated freely about the specific reasons for this brotherly feud – other than what Genesis actually states – and their guesses gravitated mostly toward two: 1) who would get what land, and 2) who would get which woman. (Why is this not surprising?) Of course, within the framework of the Genesis story, no women are yet on the scene except “the mother of all living,” Eve. However, rabbis too had to field that eternal question “Who was Cain’s wife?” (Need it be said that this is a troublesome issue only if the story is interpreted as literal account of historical events?) Obviously, the rabbis deduced, there was a sister involved; indeed, there were two sisters, for God had provided a potential spouse for each of the brothers. They, however, fought over who would get whom. Neusner’s observation that the rabbis tended to mute God’s involvement in the sibling struggle, and to heighten the brothers’ responsibility, finds support here. It is noteworthy that the Qur’an actually moves the narrative structure back toward the Genesis account, in which Cain is the aggressor and Abel a passive, perhaps even righteous, victim.

Given the fact that Abel says not a word in the Genesis story – only after his death does his “blood cry out” (Gen. 4:10) to God from the ground upon which it has been spilt – it is not surprising that readers of this text wanted, and over time created, more details to the story. Inquiring minds do want to know! What did the brothers say to one another? Did little brother Abel put up a fight? The attempt to fill in the holes of a biblical narrative, to answer the questions the text leaves open, is called in Jewish tradition midrash aggadah (“narrative interpretation”). We have, of course, examined several instances of aggadah already in this volume, and have suggested the likelihood that such traditions of interpretation bore an influence upon the formulation of at least some of the qur’anic retellings of biblical narrative. The present story is no exception. We must at least in some instances, though, leave open the possibility that the Qur’an in turn influenced rabbinic midrash, much depends on how accurately and objectively we can assign dates and places of origin to ancient texts like these. In the main, however, we can be comfortably certain of matters of origin and, therefore, of likely directions of influence.

One of the great sources of Jewish midrash is the Targums, which are free interpretations of the biblical text from Hebrew into Aramaic, generously expanded and supplemented by the midrashic process. Targum Jonathan and Targum Yerushalmi “both provide a conversation between the two brothers, which though differing in its particulars from that given in the Qur'an, is similar in tone."7 In these imaginatively-rendered Aramaic versions of the story, Cain espouses an atheistic and noticeably nihilistic point of view. He announces that "there is no Judgment, no Judge, no world to come, no one who rewards the good deeds of the pious, and no one who requites the wicked. Neither was the world created in mercy, nor in mercy is it directed." Abel replies in kind, “There is a Judgement, there is a Judge, there is a world to come,” and so on.8 So in this stream of narrative interpretation, the struggle has become theological, ideological. It should also be noted that Abel’s forswearing of violence toward his brother in the Qur’an – “Should you stretch your hand out to kill me, I will not stretch my hand out to kill you; for I fear Allah, Lord of the Worlds” – is absent in the Targums.

Bible

Qur’an

And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. Then, his soul prompted him to kill his brother; and so he killed him and became one of the losers. Then, Allah sent forth a raven digging the earth to show him how to bury his brother’s corpse. He said: “Woe is me, am I unable to be like this raven and bury the corpse of my brother?” Thus he became one of the remorseful.

We have arrived now at one of the more fascinating midrashic passages in the Qur’an. Quite unexpectedly, a raven becomes important in the narrative, showing Cain how to dig a hole as a means of caring for his brother’s corpse. Narratively speaking, this raven did not drop down out of the sky, out of nowhere. Jewish midrash contains similar narrative strands. While these materials are notoriously difficult to date, my guess is that they were around in various forms as oral tradition for centuries. We need not assume, necessarily, a direct line of influence in either direction, whether from Jewish midrash to Qur’an or Qur’an to Jewish midrash. It may be enough to acknowledge that this story, in one form or another, circulated amongst many communities of interpretation in the Middle East over several centuries. My assumption, admittedly, is that these traditions existed at least in oral form – and very often in written form – prior to the time of Muhammad. Their function seems primarily to be etiological, i.e., intended to explain some current feature or practice in the world by appealing to age-old stories. Why do we bury our dead in the ground? How did the first humans know what to do with a corpse? Thus we find in Midrash Tanhuma, a body of manuscripts notoriously difficult to date – it was first published in the early 16th century CE but contains many midrashim attributed to a fourth-century rabbi Tanhuma bar Abba – that “when Cain killed Abel, the latter's body lay cast aside for Cain did not know what to do. Then the Holy One sent him two pure birds, and one of them killed the other. Then he dug with his claws and buried him, and from him Cain learned. So he dug and buried Abel" (Tanhuma Bereshit 10). Varying somewhat from the Qur’an, Tanhuma’s version has a pair of birds virtually re-enacting the Cain-Abel struggle. In the Qur’anic version there is only a single bird, identified as a raven, who scratches at the earth to suggest to Cain what to do with his dead brother.

In Pirke R. Eliezer (“Sayings of Rabbi Eliezer”), a work which contains Jewish interpretive material likely to have been roughly contemporary with the formation of the Qur’an, we find another version of essentially the same narrative. In this telling, however, it is not Cain who is the funereal protagonist – possibly because this tended to cast the first murderer in an overly positive light? In this document, it is Abel’s parents who learn. Note, too, that while the Qur’an and the Midrash Tanhuma both attribute the bird’s pedagogical function to God, the Eliezer tradition makes no such theological claim, at least not explicitly: Adam and his companion sat weeping and mourning for [Abel] and did not know what to do with him, as burial was unknown to them. Then came a raven, whose companion was dead, took its body, scratched in the earth and hid it before their eyes; then said Adam, I shall do as this raven has done, and at once he took Abel’s corpse, dug in the earth and hid it. (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer Chapter 21)

Who knows when the story of the raven(s) first began to be told and circulated? The traditional approach to the Qur’an, still espoused by the overwhelming majority of Muslims, is that either a) this was a detail revealed especially to Muhammad about Cain and Abel, which was subsequently borrowed by rabbis and incorporated into their interpretations; or b) this was a detail that was originally in the Hebrew Bible, was for some reason excised from the text by the Jews (even if it survived in some rabbinic versions of the story), and subsequently returned to its role in the story by the Qur’an. However, the story of the raven, it seems to me, is best understood as having evolved gradually in Jewish circles as a way to answer questions like “Whatever happened to Abel’s body?” and “How did they know what to do with it?” and even “Why do we bury the dead?”

Bible

Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the LORD said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!”

In Genesis, unlike the Qur’an, God now returns to speak with Cain. Recall that prior to the murder, God attempted to initiate a conversation with Cain with a series of questions that got God nowhere. The conversation died – and then Abel. In terms of the biblical narrative, the absence of God in between these conversations is palpable. In between God’s warning in 4:7 (“sin’s desire is for you, but you must master it”) and God’s question in 4:9 (“Where is your brother Abel?”), God is absent. Only Cain speaks, and that to Abel: “”Let us go out to the field.”

But God now re-enters the narrative frame with yet another question to Cain regarding his brother. The second question is even more pointed, more poignant: “What have you done?” Let us return momentarily to the considerations with which this chapter began. God the Creator has drawn near to Cain to ask questions of him, to instigate conversation, to cajole Cain away from violence. Everything in the narrative suggests that God does not desire such violence be done to Abel. But God cannot – or at least does not – stop Cain from pursuing the path that leads to bloodshed. God attempts only to talk Cain out of it. Indeed, in the moment of murder God is effectively “absent” from the narrative action. It is as though Cain, by refusing to answer or even acknowledge God’s initial set of questions, has so turned his back on God’s presence that this bloodshed occurs outside of God’s purview. Thus, when God now steps back into the narrative frame, God does so, again, by asking questions intended to spark a sense of responsibility in Cain: “Where is your brother Abel?” “What have you done?” Truly, this is a God of dialogue. And precisely as a God of dialogue, the God of this story is not the Power of unilateral causality, micro-managing the world or willing its every detail into being. This God asks questions; this God seeks to influence. To borrow the language of Pirke R. Eliezer, this may even be a God who, alongside “Adam and his companion,” could sit “weeping and mourning for Abel.”

It is precisely at this point that a most profound piece of theological and ethical reflection emerges from this ancient text. In Mishnah Sanhedrin, Jewish legal debate and rulings collected and collated several centuries before the time of Muhammad, we find a fascinating observation. Rabbis noted an unusual construction in the Hebrew text of Genesis 4:10, and – as the rabbis generally did – attributed considerable significance to this grammatical oddity. Their observation: We find it said in the case of Cain who murdered his brother: the voice of your brother’s bloods cries out. It is not said here blood, in the singular, but bloods, in the plural, i.e., his own blood and the blood of his [would be] descendants. Humanity was created single in order to show that to whomever kills a single individual, it shall be reckoned that he has killed the whole race; but to whomever preserves the life of a single individual, it is counted that he has preserved the whole race. (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5)

This is obviously a profound ethical interpretation of a simple, if unexpected, plural form! It is not simply Abel’s blood that cries out from the ground, but the blood(s) of all victims of murder throughout earth’s long history. Innocent blood cries out to the Creator. It is a moving interpretation of a fine point of Hebrew grammar in the Genesis text – and it is replicated, virtually word for word, in the Qur’an:

Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5

Surah 5:32

. . . to whomever kills a single individual, it shall be reckoned that he has killed the whole race; but to whomever preserves the life of a single individual, it is counted that he has preserved the whole race. For that reason, We decreed for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul, not in retaliation for a soul or corruption in the land, is like one who has killed the whole of mankind; and whoever saves a life is like one who saves the lives of all mankind.

Islamic commentator Sayyid Mawdudi has written that it is “a pity that the precious words which embody God’s ordinance are to be found nowhere in the Bible today,” the implication being that they once were a part of the Genesis narrative. “The Talmud, however,” Mawdudi admits, “does mention this . . .”9 His assumption, like that of virtually all traditional Muslim exegesis, is that this compelling principle – “whoever saves a life is like one who saves the lives of all mankind” – likely was in the original scriptures of the Jews but subsequently suppressed or removed. But of course, one would then have to wonder why later Jews, the rabbis of the Talmudic era, would insert these “precious words which embody God’s ordinance” back into the story! There is a delicious irony here, and ignoring it does not serve the best purposes of telling the truth, in love, for the sake of honest friendship and scholarship.

The Qur’an, as we have explored especially in Chapter 2 of this book, consistently affirms the validity of the revelations granted to the Jewish people and, through Jesus, to what would become the Christian community. However, the Qur’an also insists that those revelations have been perverted, misinterpreted, even suppressed. Jewish tradition, on the other hand, developed on the premise that just as God had revealed the Written Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai, so also did God reveal what was to become known as Oral Torah, i.e., the long interpretive tradition winding its way through the complex arguments of the rabbis. This idea serves to underscore a notion of continuing revelation precisely through the history of rabbinic commentary and debate. The rabbis spoke of the “heaps of exposition” to be derived from the Written Torah, yielding, in the words of contemporary Jewish philosophical theologian Eugene Borowitz, “a near infinity of meaning” in the Oral Torah.10 In this model, revelation is not fixed temporally, geographically or textually; it is instead an ongoing historical process entrusted to the Jewish people. Divine revelation is not conceived to be a singular, vertical intrusion into the world; it is horizontal and historical. “It is not in the heavens.”

Of course, it is precisely within this historical process of interpretation that rabbis weaved from the plural “bloods” the stunning idea that “to whomever kills a single individual, it shall be reckoned that he has killed the whole race; but to whomever preserves the life of a single individual, it is counted that he has preserved the whole race.” And in the context of this very story of Cain and Abel, the Qur’an announces that it was God (“We”) who so “decreed for the Children of Israel” that “whoever kills a soul . . . is like one who has killed the whole of mankind; and whoever saves a life is like one who saves the lives of all mankind” (Q 5:32). History – in this case, the history of texts and their relationships – makes it abundantly clear that if indeed God did so decree this marvelous principle, God did it in and through the rabbinic process of oral tradition. Ironically, then, the Qur’an actually (in this case) supports the traditional Jewish claim of divine authority, divine revelation, for the Oral Torah. Instead of a pristine revelation given in the Written Torah (the Taurat of the Qur’an) that is subsequently perverted or distorted by Jewish teachers, in Q 5:32 we actually encounter an ironic validation of the rabbinic concept of divine revelation occurring through the ongoing rabbinic discussions and debates called Oral Torah!

All of this is important not because it reveals some embarrassing detail in the Qur’an; rather, it is important because it might nudge both Muslims and Christians toward a healthier, more full-bodied and historical notion of divine revelation. Clearly, what meanings certain rabbis long ago read into the odd detail of a plural form of “blood” really cannot be supported, strictly speaking, by the Genesis text itself. If we restrict revelation to what we take to be original meanings inherent in the text, then these “precious words” of Q 5:32 “which embody God’s ordinance” do not actually qualify as revelation. But we should not restrict revelation so. There was an interpretive community that wrestled with this text, striving to wrest new meanings from the primordial story of two brothers. There is no good reason to assume that the God of Israel did not continue to reveal, precisely through the process of such interpretive moves as these made by the rabbis, how the people of Israel (and by implication, all people) were to live with one another.

This message is one we desperately need to hear today. It is that life is not cheap; to save a life is to save the world. On the other hand, to murder is destroy the world, to erode God’s good creation. A further, grim implication of this message is that God does not intend to step in and stop us in our murdering, no matter its form or expression. God is more likely to ask us questions – indeed, perhaps, to be the Question that the faces of our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, even those who are “strangers” and “enemies,” present to us in this very moment.

Whether we read it in the Talmud or the Qur’an, it sounds a lot like revelation.

Notes

1 Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (New York: Random House, 2006), 154.

2 See Aslan, 141-159, for a helpful summary of the history and issues of the conflict between the Traditionalist and Rationalist schools during the first half-millenium of Islam’s existence. A fuller treatment, with rich primary sources, is found in Richard C. Martin and Mark R. Woodward with Dwi S. Atmaja, Defenders of Reason in Islam: Mu’Tazilism from Medieval School to Modern Symbol (Oxford: Oneworld, 1997).

3 Aslan, 152.

4 Again, see Martin, Woodward and Atjama, Defenders of Reason in Islam. See also Lenn E. Goodman, Islamic Humanism (Oxford University Press, 2003).

5 Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’an (Gilbraltar: Dar Al-Andalus, 1980),147.

6 Jacob Neusner, Genesis Rabbah, The Judaic Commentary to the Book of Genesis: A New American Translation, Vol. 1 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 248.

7 Stillman, 235 – I don’t have further bib details! I think article in Muslim World

8 Ibid.

9 Sayyid Mawdudi, Towards Understanding the Qur'an, Vol. I, trans. and ed. Zafar Ishaq Ansari (Leicester, UK: The Islamic Foundation, 1988), 155.

10 Eugene Borowitz, The Talmud’s Theological Language Game (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006), 55.