Gen 4:2b-6 Favour

² Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. ³ In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. ⁴ But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favour on Abel and his offering, ⁵ but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. ⁶ Gen 4:2b-6

  

Here begins the mysterious theme of the favour of God. Immediately every reader asks "why does God accept one offering and not the other?"  It's a "works" based question, a "we get what we deserve" kind of question. Surely Abel's offering must be better in some way and sure enough many suggestions have been made* but the passage does not tell us why and I think that's significant in itself. Surely the writer knew that the question would be asked but we have to wait for the NT to get a clear answer to this question:

Heb 11:4   By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. (ESV)

This little story about two brothers, each trying to relate to God, acts out the gospel of grace. If we look for some merit in their offering or their actions we will not find it, that's why it's called favour, but there is something that sets them apart. God's grace, his underserved kindness,  is accessible by faith. Faith says "I have, no currency to pay you, nothing of value to barter with, I rely only on your gracious provision for me". Jesus told a similar story thousands of years later where two men attempt to relate to God in different ways. One, a traitorous tax collector, came with nothing but his septic sin and cried for mercy. The other, a religious Pharisee came with a list of shiny good deeds and boasted in his accomplishments. It's interesting that Jesus chooses Matthew, a tax collector, as his disciple, while the Pharisees plot to have Jesus killed.  

Cain's name is related to the word 'get'(and the ESV study note tells me it sounds like the Hebrew word for 'gotten'). He is the first born, with everything coming to him. Abel's name could mean 'vapour' leading one commentator to ask 'who would name their son vanity, vapour, or nothingness'. It's a good question and while drawing out too much from the names can be a bit speculative, they do tend to mean a lot in the bible.

One of the most tragic stories of the bible ends in 1 Sam 4:21. News is brought from the battle field that Eli's two sons are dead (Eli is the second to last Judge) and that the ark of the covenant has been captured by the Philistines. On hearing this Eli falls of his chair backwards, breaks his neck and dies. When his daughter in law hears all this she goes into premature labour, names her baby Ichabod and dies. Ichabod means "The glory has departed from Israel!" 1 Sam 4:21. Some people get tattoos to say something powerful and lasting. Naming someone is even more meaningful and permanent.

Anyway, if names are important here, it could be that Cain, who comes to God with everything that man could offer, gets rejected but Abel who comes as nothing gets accepted. Coming to God like Abel is a real place of rest. I'm accepted because of something in the heart of God. It draws you in to focus on him and his love. It's not about us, it's about his love and his promises (Deut 7:7).

*Some suggestions are: 

1) God likes animal sacrifices but both animals and grain are legitimately offered later (Deut 15:19-23, Lev 2, Deut 26:2)

2) God just prefers shepherds like Joseph (Gen 37:2), Moses( Ex 3:1)  and David (16:11, 17:34)

3) The idea of first born is significant. First borns and first fruits must be offered in sacrifice or redeemed (Ex 22:28-29, 34:19-20)

4) Abel was good and Cain evil...

Gen 4:1-2 The miracle of new life

Gen 4:1-2   Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD." And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. (ESV)

Thousands of generations later each birth is no less miraculous. Imagine how Adam and Eve felt at the birth of the very first baby. They hadn't even been to anti-natal classes to prepare them! There were two and then there were three. Wow.

Two people joining together becoming one flesh, and producing another person. If you think the miracle is explained with DNA then think again. A baby is not simply a machine. I remember well, long seminars at university discussing the enigma of intelligence. When does a machine become intelligent? Self aware? Conscious? As a child I built machines out of Lego and powered them with a jet of water from a tap, wondering if as the cogs and gears moved round if they possessed some kind of rudimentary intelligence. Since then I have written computer programs with thousands of lines of code, millions of instructions, simulating intelligence, but can a simulation become the real thing? Where does the soul come from? What is its relationship to the body? What is the difference between mind and matter? Reducing the miracle of each birth to the chemical recombination of DNA misses more than it measures.

I remember looking at an empty cot and thinking, in a few days time there will be a person there. And a few days later there was!  And as I watch my children grow the mystery deepens. Life where there was not life. A person where there was no person. Now notice how insightful this verse is. "with the help of the lord". Without Him no amount of water will bring Lego bricks to life. He has to do it. God gives life. It comes from him. And around 25 years after the miracle of my birth I was "born again", not by flesh and blood but by the Spirit. Jesus who is life, who has life in himself (John 5:26) gave me everlasting life.

Gen3:22 Who wants to live forever?

"He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." Gen3: 22

The rock group Queen asked "who wants to live forever?" Well, since Gen 3:22 probably most people. Who wouldn't want to sneak past the flaming sword wielding Cherubim back into the garden of Eden and eat form the tree of life? Rejuvenating skin creams and head freezing cryogenics aside, for those who want to cheat death for as long as possible some real progress is being made by scientists. Last month a research group at Newcastle University discovered and described the process by which a cell recognises that is DNA is damaged and stops dividing. If it didn't do this the cell would start replicating with dodgy DNA leading to things like cancer. Unfortunately with less cells able to divide and help repair damaged tissue we get wrinkles and aging. The hope is that if we know how the ageing process works we can intercept it in some way and prolong life.

One of the more colourful and controversial figures in the field is a boffin with a very long beard called Aubrey de Grey. "One hundred and fifty thousand people die every day, and two-thirds of those die of aging in one way or the other," he says, "If I speed up the cure for aging by one day, then I've saved 100,000 people. Actually, I probably do that every week." One of his visionary concepts is the idea of an age "escape velocity". Say a person alive today is 30 and expects to live another 50 years. Well in those 50 years researches may have extended life expectancy by say 20 years allowing that person to live to 100. If in those extra 20 years scientists increase life expectancy by another 20 years and advances keep happening at this rate then some people alive today with access to the technology could potentially live forever! Except for the fact that project time lines never go as smoothly as that do they! (have you ever tried estimating the time it takes to renovate a house or write a computer program). He has put his money where his mouth is though, helping to fund the Methuselah Mouse Prize (Methuselah has the oldest recorded age in the bible of 969). There are Prizes for longevity (the oldest mouse) and rejuvenation (an old mouse who gets younger).

Another promising area of research into aging has seen small genetic modifications and a low calorie diets extend the life span of organisms by as much as 10 times. Could that lead to humans living to be 1000? Well so far its only worked on yeast mould and roundworms so don't throw your will away quite yet.

But there is a way, for everyone alive today to get back to the tree of life and live forever. I read something today about the tabernacle that intrigued me. The entrance back into the garden is from the east and its guarded by a cherubim wielding flaming sword. (Gen 3:24). Now tabernacle and the temples have a door in the east side (Ex 27:13-14, , Ezekiel 8:16, Ezekiel 43:1-5, Ez 44:1-3, Mark 13:3, Acts 3:1-10* ). The curtains of the Holy of Holys is covered in cherubim (Ex 26:1, Ex 36:35). The temple is covered in garden designs and cherubim (1 Kings 6:29) and two big gold covered cherubim overshadow the ark in the Holy of Holy's, the place of God's powerful presence (Ex 37:9). Do you think God was trying to say something!

God always had a way back planned for us. When Jesus came he said "I am the gate". "I am the way the truth and the life!" He was saying, in effect, "I am the way back into the garden of Eden and eternal life!". One day, in the home stretch of this blog I will get to the last chapter in the bible, Rev 22.

Rev 22:1-2 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (ESV)

There is the tree once again. I don't really understand all the rich apocalyptic symbolism here but I know a tree of life when I see one!


* ok, I couldn't actually find any biblical references to a main eastern gate for Solomon's temple or Zerubbable 's rebuild but most people seem sure it did face east (or 6 degrees off that so that it lined up with the sun coming up over the mount of olives. Again historians say Herod's temple was along the east/west with the entrance to the holy of holy's facing east.

Addition on 23rd April 2010:
16 factors have been identified that exerts a big influence on mankind's maximum lifespan:
1. War and murder
2. Accidents
3. Disease
4. Famine or inadequate nutrition
5. High metabolic rates
6. Internal oxidative stress
7. Environmental stress
8. Inadequate exercise
9. Chemical carcinogens
10. Every element accumulation in tissues
11. High caloric intake
12. Ultraviolet radiation
13. Solar x-ray radiation
14. Radio isotope decay rates in
15. Cosmic radiation
16. telomerase activity (forestalling natural chromosome shortening by adding nucleotide base pairs to the ends of DNA).
The Genesis Question, Hugh Ross, Page 120

Gen 3:15 Lost in translation?

Speaking to the serpent God says : "I will put enmity between you and the women and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heal". Gen 3:15

Its interesting to note that the words "strike at" and "crush" in the NIV translate exactly the same Hebrew word. A bit of translationary license is taken in making them look different. Someone has suggested translating them both "strike at". Ie "he will strike at your head, but he will strike at your heal." Still captures a qualitative difference in the targets. I'll look up the verse in the ESV. Ah, bingo! It uses the consistent translation of "bruise" each time. To be honest that is why I bought the ESV. I got fed up with smug looks for ESV carrying bible students when translation issues like this came up (and they do quite a lot). I still prefer the way the NIV reads though and recently when I preached on Mat 8:5-13 I read from my old and scruffy but more readable NIV. The language just seemed to flow better. I wonder if that's how the KJV folks felt when the NIV came out? Its probably more to do with the aims of various translations.

Remembering back to my early days as a Christian when I read "How to read the bible for all its worth" translations come on a sort of scale. On the far right you have literal translations that try to keep the word order and phrasing as near to the original as possible. They try to translate one word with another comparable word. Examples are KJV, NASB, ESV, NRSV. A very literal translation can sometimes get you into a lot of trouble. My Mum (an ex French teacher) tells me that 'Mon chou' is a term of endearment like 'my darling’ or, ‘my sweetie' but the words translate literally as 'my cabbage' (not at all the same meaning for us in English!) Equally as dangerous, is the way the French refer to an important person with the phrase 'Une grosse légume' or 'A big vegetable'. Very strange until you remember that we use the expression ‘a big cheese’.

On the far left you have paraphrases. These translate thought for thought rather than word for word. The Good News Bible, Living Bible, and The Message would be towards that end of the scale. If you think the message is a bit radical wait till you read Rob Lacey's "Street bible". Here's how it starts :

"First off, nothing. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God starts it all up and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function– just darkness ... total. And floating above it all, God’s Holy Spirit, ready to play. Day one: Then God’s voice booms out, ‘Lights!’ and, from nowhere, light floods the skies and ‘night’ is swept off the scene."

Or how about this from the first few verses of Psalm 23

you're my guide and my guard, my minder, my mentor
what more do i need? what's better at the center?

you sit me down, put my best cd on,
and my dismembered soul remembers who i am again.

you're with me; you comfort me (x2)

you stop them tearing me apart - i fear no wrong
you show me where to go, without telling me
you set a value on my life, without selling me
...

As the author is quick to say it's not a bible with a capital B! :

"No way is this the Proper Bible. It’s a trailer for, an intro to, an overview of The Bible (capital 'B'). For those who’ve never read it, And those who’ve read it so much it’s gone stale on them."

In-between literal and paraphrase is what’s known as a “dynamic translation” like the NIV. These change the word order in order to make the destination language clearer and don't mind using a turn of phrase if that makes more sense in the destination language. I guess that's why the NIV is easier to read out.

Well, back to verse 15 before signing off for the night. A final couple of issues worth mentioning. The KJV translates the first part of the verse "it shall bruise they head and though shalt bruise his heal". Even the ESV says "he shall bruise...". Well apparently the Hebrew is neutral so "it" is more literally correct. I know understand where a Catholic web site was coming from when it translated this verse as "she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." That's from the Latin Vulgate an early 5th-century Latin version of the Bible put together by Jerome which became the official version for the Roman Catholic church. It's too late at night to look into weather "she" is some reference to Marry or the church.

A final translation issue here is "seed". It can be a direct descendent or descendants or some later decedent(s). 1 Cor 15:25 and Gen 3:16 help point the way for us in this. While it may be talking about some intermediary decedents like David, its ultimate fulfilment is in Jesus: The Seed singular. That makes the "it" a "he". We are his body though, so I guess we get to do some bruising too! Or as John Wimber puts it "we all get to play!".


(refs : The book of Genesis Chapter 1-17, The new International Commentary on the old testament, Victor P Hamilton

Gen 3:15 We Win!

"you will crush his head" Gen 3:15

Bob Mumford once said of the bible "I read the last chapter and we win". The first clear clue to the ending however is right here in the very first chapters. God tells the snake that the woman's seed or offspring will crush his head. I've just discovered that this verse has got a Latin name which you can drop into conversation at a dinner party. Its referred to as "protevangelium" or "the first good news".

With the words from Isaiah 53 fading away Mel Gibson's film "the passion" opens with Jesus in the misty moonlit garden of Gethsemane. Jesus falls to the ground in anguish as he contemplates the agony he is about the face. As the camera pans round him a horrid pale figure can be seen between the trees returning at this "opportune time" to tempt and discourage. A snake slithers out from under his cloak, glides silently over to Jesus and licks the air around his face. Suddenly, purposely, Jesus stands, a look of resolution in his eyes and he brings his food down hard on the snakes head. It's an awesome movement. A protevangelium moment. Then an ominous party approaches holding flaming touches.

Things are about to get very grim but we win in the end! One of my favourite passages of scripture is Rev 20:9

7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth-Gog and Magog-to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulphur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.
Rev 20:7-12

Satan and all his forces surround Gods people, his church, his bride. It looks like the end. Then whoosh fire comes down from heaven and consumes the lot of them. Its not quite the last chapter but we defiantly win in the end! Praise God.