The Dawn of Sacrifice

The oldest civilization in the known world had a story. In that story the Sumerians told, once upon a time, when humans had no crops or livestock, they lived like mere beasts: they “went about with naked limbs..., ate grass with their mouths, and drank water from the ditches.”¹ But then the gods invented sheep and grain, two great blessings, and shared them with humanity, “they gave them to mankind as sustenance.”² The Bible tells the tale rather differently: in the beginning, yes, humans were naked, but rather than just the grass and the puddles of ditches, we lived in God's own garden, enjoying every herb and every fruit and water pure from the source. Our departure was not so much a rise into civilization and plenty as a fall into hardship, want, and sin. Still, outside the garden, we find ourselves with these same two gifts to hand: sheep and grain. Genesis 4 offers us what one scholar dubs “a mixed subsistence economy of stockbreeding and agriculture” – in short, the world Israel knew.³

That world is a world with division of labor: different things need to be done, and it makes sense to specialize a bit. And so between them, Cain and Abel have divided up the two most basic things there are to do outside the home.⁴ Cain follows in the footsteps of Father Adam as a worker of the ground (Genesis 2:15; 3:17-18). To Cain belongs the grain. St. Cyril paints a beautiful portrait of Cain's pleasure in the earth's beauty and fertility, in the opportunity to pour his energy and force into the world, how farming was God's calling on his life.⁵

His little brother Abel does not also put his hand to the ground, like a normal son of Adam. Abel chooses a life that's different but no less rooted than Cain's in the mission which Father Adam was given, to “have dominion over... every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Abel, in God's image, herds flocks of sheep and subdues pastures underfoot. Perhaps, some said, Abel was moved to this work by his delight in the tender lambs, his yearning to be a gentle caregiver.⁶ The cost is that, where Cain's farmland keeps him tethered close to home, Abel's sheep need to move, thus distancing Abel from the family network and from stability in life.⁷

So “Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground” (Genesis 4:2). Nearly every man in ancient times could relate to one of those jobs.⁸ But the Sumerians knew they didn't always play well. In that old story, they imagined grain saying to sheep, “Your shepherd on the high plain eyes my produce enviously; when I'm standing in the furrow in my field, my farmer chases away your herdsman with his cudgel.”⁹ In modern Nigeria this same dynamic lurks behind a lot of the violence, as land that's good for pasture or agriculture is in shorter supply. “Farmers labor by tilling the soil to grow produce; sheep consume and destroy that produce.”¹⁰

But that's not what today's passage is really about. It's the backdrop for the real scene. Because here we get the first mention of sacrifice in the Bible. Early Christians marveled that Cain and Abel “show clearly enough just how ancient the practice of worshipping God by sacrifice is.”¹¹ Earlier-still Jews pushed it back even further, assuming that Adam had “offered a sweet-smelling sacrifice” the very day he left the garden.¹² By the way God created us, he implanted us with a natural desire for him. We were made to recognize and relate to God from the very depth of our souls. It's simply “natural that human beings recognize the Creator and his gifts.”¹³ So is it natural that we respond positively to gifts we receive – that's a general rule, but especially for gifts of God.

After all, we ought to be people of justice, which is just “the habit whereby a person, with a lasting and constant will, renders to each his due.”¹⁴ But there's no limit to what God deserves as “our unfailing principle and... last end.”¹⁵ That's the special kind of justice called 'religion,' and “religion is a virtue because it pays the debt of honor to God.”¹⁶ Human nature inclines us to this kind of religion: whenever we're able to recognize that there's a God above us, we're naturally inclined to “tender honor and submission” to him in worship.¹⁷

But “since man is made up of soul and body, both must be used for the worship of God.”¹⁸ “Therefore, natural reason dictates that man use sensible signs, offering them to God as a sign of due subjection and honor” – some outward tokens of our place in this one creation under God.¹⁹ We therefore have “a law of divine knowledge that is innate” which pulls us “to present thank-offerings... to the God who gives us every good thing.”²⁰ In any kind of offering, we “offer in God's honor some of what belonged to him, as if in acknowledgment that they all came from God.”²¹ But a sacrifice, strictly speaking, is an offering which permanently “becomes sacred and is consumed” in fire.²² That's why sacrifice is the chief act of worship any creature can give its Creator,²³ because sacrifice – the translation of our treasure to make it humanly irretrievable, transferred to God's realm on our behalf – is our most radical way of proclaiming God as the First Source and Final End of all things.²⁴ Our heart screams with a natural human “impulse to sacrifice.”²⁵

Paganism would later twist that impulse, making up the idea where the gods actually needed our sacrifices so as not to starve. The Sumerians reckoned that the gods couldn't handle sheep and grain on their own, that they “were not sated,” and so it was “for their own well-being” that they “gave them to mankind.”²⁶ The Bible refuses to abide by such delusions: the real God doesn't literally feed on sacrifices, and even if he could get hungry (which he can't), he sure wouldn't need to rely on us to feed himself (Psalm 50:12-13).²⁷ But graciously God chooses to act as if he hungers and thirsts like us, as a way of giving us a concrete and understandable outlet for this yearning to serve him, because we need such an outlet if our relationship with him is going to get outside our own heads.²⁸ So even before the Law, God initiated or at least accepted a sacrificial system, a way to channel our impulses into an expression of genuine worship.²⁹ And all the “ceremonial precepts” that accrue to it are different tools to turn us toward God “in many different ways and more continuously.”³⁰ God allowed this, even before the Law, to be a sort of patch on original sin.³¹ But the sacrificial system wasn't actually about sin, not mainly about atonement; that was just one piece in a bigger system about, simply, worship.³²

So Cain and Abel, farmer and herdsman, share “a sense of duty,” knowing that they “owed gifts in exchange for God's providing the fecund earth and fertile flocks.”³³ So at some unspecified point in their lives – eventually, it says, “at the end of days” – Cain and Abel each bring God an offering, answering that sense of duty (Genesis 4:3). The word Genesis uses for 'offering' here is a Hebrew word for tribute, the kind subjects were supposed to bring their king (1 Kings 4:21) or which ambassadors might carry as a way to curry favor and grease palms (2 Kings 20:12). It was a pledge of loyalty, a way of boosting goodwill relations.³⁴ In the Law of Moses, it's a technical term for the grain offering that accompanied each meat sacrifice (Numbers 15:2-10) and sometimes also could just stand on its own (Leviticus 2:1-16). The point of this offering was “to express one's allegiance to the Lord.”³⁵ But the word could also be used to cover even animal sacrifices (1 Samuel 2:17), and in the Greek Old Testament it usually got translated with the common Greek word for 'sacrifice' in general.

So Cain the farmer and Abel the herdsman each bring God a tribute offering, a sacrifice, derived from their own labors: the results of the work they do in the world.³⁶ One brings animal, the other brings vegetable – both of which will remain valid and necessary once the Law of Moses is given.³⁷ For Cain's part, he toiled in the earth by the sweat of his brow, using stone and wood tools at best, to cultivate his grain; he labored hard for each sheaf, watched as God gave it the growth, pulled it out with his own two hands, and now he's going to give some to God.³⁸ Abel's offering is probably the result of less physical strain; his work is a kind of secondary task, suited for the younger and weaker of the brothers.³⁹ Yet he, too, relied on God's mercy to provide and care for his flock so they could increase and multiply under God's blessing. And now, where Cain's hands are brown with soil, Abel's offering is the harder part: his hands will be red with blood. Both make their offerings, so far as we see, in gratitude for God's gifts and in hope that God's faithfulness will yield even better things ahead.⁴⁰

We have to imagine they're making these offerings around the same time, probably in the same place, which may mean some sort of prehistoric religious assembly and festival. Some ancient Jewish readers thought it was a foreshadowing of the Feast of Passover.⁴¹ Some modern scholars suggest instead a foreshadowing of the Feast of Firstfruits, when both barley sheaves and lambs were offered the same day (Leviticus 23:10-13).⁴² Whatever the occasion, to it Cain and Abel “both come as priests, worship the same God, and desire God's acceptance.”⁴³

When the time comes, what does Abel give as an offering, what does Abel sacrifice to the LORD? He “brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions” (Genesis 4:4). On both counts, Abel is intentionally giving God the most valuable thing to come out of his work: “the fat portions were considered the best meat, and the firstborn animals were the most prized.”⁴⁴ That's why, when Israel reaches the land of promise, God calls for “the firstborn of your herd and of your flock” (Deuteronomy 12:6). “The firstborn of a sheep... you shall not redeem; they are holy. You shall sprinkle the blood on the altar and shall burn their fat as an offering by fire, a sweet-smelling aroma to the LORD” (Numbers 18:7), for “all fat is the LORD's” (Leviticus 4:19). So Abel anticipates the Law in being “willing to part with his choicest possessions” for the sake of God's glory.⁴⁵

So we expect to read here that Cain brought the firstfruit of his fruit of the ground, or something like that. After all, when Israel enters the land of promise, they're told to “take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground which you harvest” and present it to God in thanksgiving (Deuteronomy 26:2). So we expect to read of Cain anticipating that here. Instead, we read simply that “Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the ground” (Genesis 4:3). Maybe moldy or stale, maybe unripe, or maybe just a random sampling from what he's got, chosen unthinkingly and uncaringly. Whatever it is, we're given no indication that these are his firstfruits.

Abel's offering was the best Abel had, which honored and pleased the LORD. Abel did by nature what the Law would one day require, God having written his will on Abel's heart (Romans 2:15). But Cain's heart didn't pick up the message. Cain “owed to God the firstfruit of his crop.”⁴⁶ Yet he didn't bring his first or his best, just what was close at hand.⁴⁷ Perhaps he'd even already gobbled down his firstfruits, saving God only his leftovers.⁴⁸ Cain's offering suggests no correlation, however remote, to the infinite value of God; it communicates nothing of God's grace, goodness, holiness, honor. The problem isn't that Cain doesn't give what Abel gave; it's that Cain doesn't give Cain's own best, since, like Paul says, an offering is “acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he doesn't have” (2 Corinthians 8:12). If Cain had brought his own best, his firstfruits, then the gift itself, at least, would've been totally pleasing to God.⁴⁹

For God actually does care deeply what it is we offer him. “We ought to offer something special to God,” a gift that communicates God's supreme worth.⁵⁰ So Israel was given standards: “You shall not offer anything that has a blemish, for it will not be acceptable for you” (Leviticus 22:20). Such gifts symbolically contradict who Israel knows God to be. Yet they sinned, “offering polluted food on my altar.... When you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil” (Malachi 1:7-8), “an abomination to the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 17:1)? So “honor the LORD... with the firstfruits of all your produce” (Proverbs 3:9), “offer right sacrifices” (Deuteronomy 33:19). It matters that we give God the best of what we've done, the best of what we have.⁵¹

God also cares how we offer what we offer. Moses gets a truly massive list of instructions of sacrificial details, without which an offering “shall not be accepted” (Leviticus 7:18). For each of the appointed feasts, God sets the menu at his altar down to the prescribed quantities (Numbers 28-29). The point is that not everything in worship is up to us. There are right ways and wrong ways – ask Nadab and Abihu, if you can find their ashes (Leviticus 10:1-2). That's what it means that God is holy. Holiness must be approached carefully, by the book.

And in the Greek version of Genesis, this is the explanation added for what Cain did wrong: he failed to 'divide rightly' his sacrifice, he committed a cultic blunder, he botched the ritual protocols⁵² – some technique misapplied, some rule overlooked or defied.⁵³ As one early Christian poet put it, “the crude farmer... brought his bungled, unsalted offerings of earth.”⁵⁴ St. Ambrose says that “in every case where there is disorder, there is room for precision,” so our worship “should follow a precise pattern.”⁵⁵ “Guard your steps when you go to the House of God: to draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools,” as Cain did (Ecclesiastes 5:1).

So Cain's offering and Abel's offering differed in the quality of the gift, and maybe even the quality of the giving. But these are a window into the two brothers themselves as people, and that's what makes the deeper difference.⁵⁶ Through his prophets, God tells Israel that he can't enjoy their sacrifices, no matter how plentiful or fine or artfully offered: “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts!” (Isaiah 1:11). “Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and tribute offerings, I will not accept them” (Amos 5:22). Why not? Because the sickening nature of unrepented sin spoils the quality of any gift: “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 15:8). Before sacrifice, “make yourselves clean! Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good” (Isaiah 1:16-17). “To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice” (Proverbs 21:3).

And herein lies a difference between Cain and Abel. The Apostle John offers a simple summary for why Cain's gift is rejected and Abel's is accepted: “Cain's own deeds were evil, and his brother's were righteous” (1 John 3:12). In some way not spelled out in Genesis, Cain hadn't been living rightly. He'd imitated the worst he found in Father Adam and Mother Eve. Before the fires were ever lit, there was something Cain needed to fix about himself. And until it was, God didn't care how plump Cain's veggies had grown. Cain's works, Cain's life, was distasteful enough to make God lose his appetite just looking at Cain; his deeds were cockroaches in the kitchen. Not so with Abel, though. John and Moses give no hints what Abel had done right: maybe helping Adam and Eve, maybe nursing an injured lamb, maybe some thankless act of kindness for Cain. But Abel's deeds were already righteous. So when he brought his offering, there was nothing unappetizing in the kitchen of his life, nothing there to gross God out.

But if “the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination, how much more when he brings it with evil intent!” (Proverbs 21:27). It's not just about who you are outside the altar; it's about who you are in it, about what the worship means to you on the inside. “The sacrifice is effectual,” one commentator writes, “only for those who will offer it with a believing and contrite heart.”⁵⁷ It calls for the offerer's heart-motive, heart-attitude, to be pure and attentive and sincere. That's because, as St. Augustine put it, every physical act of worship “is the visible sacrament of an invisible sacrifice” we make on the inside.⁵⁸

Jewish readers of Genesis took Cain to be “thoroughly depraved,” saying he “had an eye only for gain.”⁵⁹ Cain gives a wrong gift, Cain leads a wrong life, because Cain has a wrong heart. And so his mentality in worship is transactional, just as he was raised to see the world. For Cain, worship is an automated thing, a bribe that will necessarily pay off in favor.⁶⁰ For him, it's just going through the motions: put the thing on the altar, tick all the boxes, close the deal, then move on with your day. No wonder he presumes on the outcome, no wonder he takes no greater care, no wonder he doesn't expose his heart in what he does. It wasn't just his gift or his ritual or his works that are rejected here; it's his heart, his attitude.⁶¹ Cain suffers from a lethal poverty of love.⁶²

On the other hand, the New Testament tells us it was “by faith” that “Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous” (Hebrews 11:4). That faith has to do with what Abel's heart and soul were like. “The exterior sacrifice,” it's said, “signifies an interior sacrifice by which the soul offers itself to God.”⁶³ All the outward actions of worship were supposed to “represent the ordering of the mind to God, stirring up the offerer to this end.”⁶⁴ Because Cain wasn't giving any interior worship of God, because he refused to allow his heart to be stirred, his outward actions of sacrifice were empty and vain. But Abel's faith did offer God interior worship from the heart and soul, and that faith gave life to his outward acts of sacrifice, investing them with meaning, enriching them with love. And indeed, “anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him,” as Abel was (Acts 10:35). To live rightly and worship God from the heart with reverence for his holiness – that's what is takes to be a person who can be accepted.

For Cain and Abel, for you and me, “both giver and gift were under the scrutiny of God.”⁶⁵ Cain brings God whatever's cheap; Abel brings whatever's costly. Better said, Cain brings God worship that's convenient; Abel brings God worship that's carefully considered. Cain approaches the altar with proud and careless disregard of his conduct; Abel approaches the altar with a clean conscience. Cain regards worship as an tidy routine, and presumes on his success; Abel regards worship as a daring undertaking, and is humble before God's freedom. Cain takes a lazy and casual approach to worship; Abel takes a thoughtful and serious approach to worship.

At the root, Cain has an “evil and unbelieving heart” (Hebrews 12:2). He professes to know God, but denies him in the way he lives and even the way he worships (Titus 1:16). “To the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their consciences are defiled” (Titus 1:15). Unsurprisingly, Cain's sacrifice can't be accepted by God; it has to be declined, refused, rejected (Genesis 4:5). Abel, on the other hand, “cleanses himself from what is dishonorable,” making his life “a vessel for honorable use..., ready for every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21). Abel has “a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5). “To the pure, all things are pure” (Titus 1:15). Wonderfully, Abel's sacrifice is freely accepted by God (Genesis 4:4). In Cain, we have problems with offerer and offering, all the reasons worship might fall short.⁶⁶ But in Abel, we have a picture of worship unimpeded: the right offerer, the right sacrifice, the right way, the right God.

On Palm Sunday, hailing the Lord by cloaks and branches, the pilgrims to the city of worship sang him their festival hymn (Mark 11:8-10), longing to “give thanks to the LORD” (Psalm 118:19). But tomorrow, in outrage, that same Lord will condemn the Cains who plug up the temple courts with their obstructions to worship. He'll remind them what was spoken through the prophet: “The foreigners who join themselves to the LORD..., their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Isaiah 56:6-7; cf. Mark 11:17). Then, on Friday, the words of the pilgrims' psalm were fulfilled: the festal sacrifice was bound with cords, up to the horns of the altar – the cross (Psalm 118:27). There, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). All acceptable sacrifices that came before, from Abel's down, “prefigured... the mystery of Christ.”⁶⁷ “This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23).

There, on that day, is all of Christian worship: Christ the Giver, Christ the Gift. “Every priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this Priest to have something to offer” (Hebrews 8:3), “himself making the offering as well as being the offering.”⁶⁸ He is “Christ the Firstfruits” (1 Corinthians 15:23), “Firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). And to whatever extent Christian worship is really about Christ giving Christ to the Father, then that worship is infinitely more acceptable than the sacrifice of Abel, which couldn't perfect his conscience but was only a first “shadow of the good things to come” (Hebrews 9:9; 10:1).⁶⁹

Whatever we add in our worship is accepted by God insofar as we and it are fittingly joined to Christ's sacrifice. In Christ, “the Church (since it is the body of which he is the head) learns to offer its very self through him.”⁷⁰ Those who belong to the gospel are “a kind of firstfruits of his creatures... through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (James 3:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:13). “Whoever serves Christ” with “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” is “acceptable to God” (Romans 14:18). And the purpose for which we've been saved is, says Peter, “to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). That's the point! “Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God” (Hebrews 13:15). “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1).

And we have every advantage here, brothers and sisters, over rejected Cain and even accepted Abel. In our worship, the central thing is already being done by Christ, because he did it once for all and continually presents it to God. All we have to do is join rightly in who we are, what we do, what we bring, and how we bring it. In who we are – that is, Christians whose hearts have been claimed by faith and changed by the Spirit of Truth. In what we do – that is, Christians whose lives are turned again and again to walk by the Spirit and not according to the flesh. In what we bring – that is, whatever gifts of praise and service and substance are the best we can muster from what we have. In how we bring it – that is, with a sincere care and devotion to the astonishing holiness of the God we approach. So, to close in the words of Scripture: “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a Consuming Fire!” (Hebrews 12:28-29). Amen.

1  Debate Between Sheep and Grain, lines 23-25, in Jeremy Black, et al., The Literature of Ancient Sumer (Oxford University Press, 2004), 226.

2  Debate Between Sheep and Grain, line 36, in Jeremy Black, et al., The Literature of Ancient Sumer (Oxford University Press, 2004), 226.

3  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (JPS Publication Society, 1989), 32.

4  C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Literary, Linguistic, and Theological Commentary (P&R Publishing, 2005), 95.

5  Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 1.3.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:67.

6  Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 1.3.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:67-68.

7  Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 59.

8  Raymond R. Hausoul, God's Future for Animals: From Creation to New Creation (Wipf & Stock, 2021), 78.

9  Debate Between Sheep and Grain, lines 123-125, in Jeremy Black, et al., The Literature of Ancient Sumer (Oxford University Press, 2004), 228.

10  Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 58; cf. Adam E. Miglio, The Gilgamesh Epic in Genesis 1-11: Peering into the Deep (Routledge, 2023), 84.

11  Augustine of Hippo, City of God 10.4, in Works of Saint Augustine I/6:309.

12  Jubilees 3:27, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:60. See also Greek Life of Adam and Eve 29.3-6.

13  James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 1-11: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Wipf & Stock, 2011), 79.

14  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.58, a.1, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 37:21.

15  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.81, a.1, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 39:13.

16  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.81, a.2, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 39:17.

17  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.85, a.1, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 39:115.

18  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.101, a.2, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 29:115.

19  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.85, a.1, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 39:115.

20  Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 1.3.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:68.

21  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.102, a.3, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 29:141.

22  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.85, a.3, ad 3, and q.86, a.1, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 39:121, 127.

23  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.101, a.4, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 29:127.

24  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, a.102, a.3, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 29:141.

25  R. R. Reno, Genesis (Brazos Press, 2010), 97.

26  Debate Between Sheep and Grain, lines 30-36, in Jeremy Black, et al., The Literature of Ancient Sumer (Oxford University Press, 2004), 226.

27  Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 195; Tremper Longman III, Genesis (Zondervan Academic, 2016), 89.

28  Gary A. Anderson, That I May Dwell among Them: Incarnation and Atonement in the Tabernacle Narrative (Eerdmans, 2023), 97.

29  Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 58.

30  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.101, a.3, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 29:123.

31  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.85, a.1, ad 2, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 39:115.

32  Gary A. Anderson, That I May Dwell among Them: Incarnation and Atonement in the Tabernacle Narrative (Eerdmans, 2023), 89-91.

33  David L. Weddle, Sacrifice in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York University Press, 2017), 60.

34  James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 1-11: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2018), 79.

35  Nobuyoshi Kiuchi, Leviticus (Apollos, 2013), 68.

36  Donald E. Gowan, Genesis 1-11: From Eden to Babel (Eerdmans, 1988), 66.

37  C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Literary, Linguistic, and Theological Commentary (P&R Publishing, 2005), 199-200.

38  Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 58.

39  John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 95.

40  James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 1-11: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Wipf & Stock, 2018), 79.

41  John Byron, Cain and Abel in Text and Tradition: Jewish and Christian Interpretations of the First Sibling Rivalry (Brill, 2011), 47-48.

42  Michael Lefebvre, The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context (IVP Academic, 2019), 41 n.9.

43  Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 97.

44  James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 40.

45  Adam E. Miglio, The Gilgamesh Epic in Genesis 1-11: Peering into the Deep (Routledge, 2023), 84.

46  Ambrose of Milan, Cain and Abel 1.10 §41, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 42:396.

47  David W. Cotter, Genesis, Berit Olam (Liturgical Press, 2003), 42.

48  Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 1.3.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:68.

49  Tremper Longman III, Genesis (Zondervan Academic, 2016), 90.

50  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.86, a.4, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 39:135.

51  John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 106.

52  John Byron, Cain and Abel in Text and Tradition: Jewish and Christian Interpretations of the First Sibling Rivalry (Brill, 2011), 48-49.

53  Augustine of Hippo, City of God 15.7, in Works of Saint Augustine I/7:145-146.

54  Prudentius, Hamartigenia, pref.27-28, in Martha A. Malamud, tr., The Origin of Sin: An English Translation of the Hamartigenia (Cornell University Press, 2011), 4.

55  Ambrose of Milan, Cain and Abel 2.6 §21, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 42:421.

56  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 32.

57  C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Literary, Linguistic, and Theological Commentary (P&R Publishing, 2005), 200.

58  Augustine of Hippo, City of God 10.5, in Works of Saint Augustine I/6:309.

59  Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.53, in Loeb Classical Library 242:25.

60  Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 193-194.

61  Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 58-59.

62  Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 3.2.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:125.

63  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.85, a.2, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 39:117.

64  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.102, a.3, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 29:141.

65  Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11 (Holman Reference, 2023), 223.

66  John Day, From Creation to Abraham: Further Studies in Genesis 1-11 (T&T Clark, 2022), 82.

67  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.101, a.3, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 29:123.

68  Augustine of Hippo, City of God 10.20, in Works of Saint Augustine I/6:328.

69  Diodore of Tarsus, Commentary on the Psalms pref.7-8, in Writings from the Greco-Roman World 9:4.

70  Augustine of Hippo, City of God 10.20, in Works of Saint Augustine I/6:328.