Cain

Cain is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He is the elder brother of Abel, and the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, the first couple within the Bible. He was a farmer who gave an offering of his crops to God. However, God was not pleased and favored Abel's offering over Cain's. Out of jealousy, Cain killed his brother, for which he was punished by God with the curse and mark of Cain. He had several children, starting with Enoch and including Lamech.

The narrative is notably unclear on God's reason for rejecting Cain's sacrifice. Some traditional interpretations consider Cain to be the originator of evil, violence, or greed. According to Genesis, Cain was the first human born and the first murderer.

Modern scholarship tends to view the Cain and Abel narrative as a symbolic, etiological tale to explain how agriculture replaced foraging using name puns. (Abel’s name is related to a word for “herder” and Cain’s to a word for “metalsmith.”) Scholars date the story to between 6th century BCE and first decades of the 4th century BCE and note Mesopotamian parallels—especially to Sumerian myth of the Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzid.