Midterm Paper

The story of Cain and his brother Abel in Genesis chapter 4 shows that violence among
human beings is a consequence of breakdown of brotherhood. In the story, the two brothers
make sacrifices to God. Cain, being a farmer, offers God the produce he had cultivated on his
land (Genesis 4: 2). Abel, on the other hand, is a shepherd or animal keeper. He offers God some
of his animals. God lets the two brothers know that he is more pleased with the sacrifice of Abel
than that of Cain (Genesis 4: 4). This makes Cain angry and envious. He invites Abel to the
fields where he kills him (Genesis 4: 8). Despite knowing his brother’s fate, when God asks Cain
where Abel is Cain denies knowledge of his whereabouts and justifies this lack of knowledge by
wondering whether he is his brother’s keeper (Genesis 4: 10).
When God asks Cain about the whereabouts of his brother, he shows that he expects
human beings to be their brothers keepers. By suggesting that he is not hiss brother’s keeper,
Cain reveals his lack of brotherhood spirit. It is this lack of sense of brotherhood that makes it
easy for him to commit murder. The murder is considered to be the beginning of humanity’s
culture of violence against one another.
It is in protest of this violence and the lack of brotherhood underpinning it that gets Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr arrested and jailed in 1963. While behind bars for leading non-violent

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campaigns against racial segregation and racism in the city of Birmingham in the state of
Alabama, Dr. King was roundly condemned for his actions in the city by a group of white
clergymen from Alabama. The clergymen felt that the non-violent actions of Dr. King created
unnecessary tensions in the city which could be avoided had he chosen to go to the courts or had
he chosen to negotiate with the authorities in the city (King 177). The clergymen also felt that
Dr. King, a native of Georgia, was wrong to involve himself in the affairs of Alabama (King
177). Dr. King’s reply to the latter accusation is summarized by his famous statement that he had
come to Birmingham because of, among other reasons, his sense of brotherhood since “injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (King 178). Dr. King’s statement is a rebuke not only
to the clergymen but also to the statement that Cain gave about him not being his brother’s
keeper. Dr. King, unlike the white clergymen and also unlike Cain, strongly believes in being his
brother’s keeper. That is why he had traveled all the way from Georgia to Alabama to fight the
injustice that his brothers were facing. According to Dr. King, the moderate whites such as the
clergymen who gave priority to law and order over justice of their African American brothers
failed the test of brotherhood just like the extremist white racists who not only discriminated
against African Americans but also committed acts of extreme violence against them (King 178).
These acts included burning their homes and churches, setting hungry dogs on them, and police
officers using extremely brutal means on protesting African Americans.
The failure of brotherhood which leads to violence among human beings is also
examined in Howard Zinn’s chapter titled “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress”. In the
chapter, Zinn notes the great hospitality with which Indian groups such as Arawaks treated
Columbus and his men when they first landed in the Bahamas and other islands on the Americas.
In their first meeting with Europeans, the Indians brought them gifts, water, and food (Zinn 3).

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They also gave the Europeans anything that they asked from them. The Indians clearly lived by
the spirit of brotherhood for they believed in sharing what they had with others. However,
Columbus and his companions, like Cain in Genesis, did not place much premium on
brotherhood. All that they wanted was gold and slaves. Since there was not much gold as they
expected, the Europeans resorted to acts of extreme brutality against native Indians for failing to
bring the desired amount of gold. They killed many of them and took others to Europe as slaves.
Such was their brutality that whole islands were wiped out of inhabitants just a few years after
the arrival of Europeans (Zinn 5).
These killings of millions of Indians by Europeans was genocide in its strictest definition.
However, just like Cain denied to God knowing the whereabouts of Abel after killing him, there
have been attempts for a historical cover up of the genocide committed by Columbus and his
men. Instead, acknowledging the genocide, Columbus has been treated as a hero by much of the
Western world particularly in the USA and Spain (Zinn 7). In both countries the genocide is
often ignored or just mentioned in passing.
Question 2: Encountering the Text as It Stands
There are thousands of creation stories around the world. The stories or myths do not just
seek to explain how the world and other heavenly bodies came into being and how living and
non-living things came into existence in the world, they also provide values and meanings to the
societies that believe in them. The Genesis and Jicarilla Apache Creation stories have a lot in
common regarding values and meanings.
In both stories animals and people are considered perfect creations. In Genesis, when
God created animals and man on the sixth day, he looked at the creations and considered them

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good (Genesis 1: 24-27). That was also the case with in the Jicarilla Apache Creation story. In
the story, after Black Hactcin created animals and man, he admired his creations because they
were good (Opler 203).
In both stories too man is presented as being more special than the animals because he
was created in the image of God. I’m Genesis, God creates man in his own image. This can be
interpreted to mean that unlike animals, man looks like God. Similarly, in the Jicarilla Apache
story, Black Hactcin makes man from his own form (Opler 203). Thus, man looks like Black
Hactcin. Due to this resemblance to God, man is presented as being superior to other animals.
The two stories also emphasize the need for companionship and living together with
others. In the Jicarilla Apache Creation story, Black Hactcin creates the first animal and only
creates others because of the loneliness that the first animal would experience. He also creates
others birds after creating the first bird because he felt the bird would be lonely when alone.
Lastly, after creating the first man, he creates a woman so that the first man would not be lonely
(Opler 204). In the Genesis story, the first woman is created after the first man to provide him
with company. Thus, in both stories there is an emphasis on living with others, not alone.
The two creation stories also with various “ultimate” questions. One of them is the origin
of death and whether there is life after death. In Genesis, death originates from man’s
disobedience of God. God had warned Adam and Eve not to eat the tree of knowledge of good
and evil. When they disobeyed this command, God introduced death as their punishment. The
Jicarilla Apache Creation story does not provide the origin of death. However, it explains what
happens to people when they die. According to the story, when occupants of the underworld,
including people, began ascending from it to the upper world through a mountain and then

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ladders on the final ascent, two old people, a man and a woman, failed to make it to the upper
world because the ladders were completely worn out by the time they arrived. They, therefore,
returned to the underworld but not before warning people who had already made it to the upper
world that they would return to the underworld after death (Opler 205). Thus, according to the
Jicarilla Apache Creation story, death is just a return to the underworld from the upper world.
The two stories also provide a clear relationship between transcendence and immanence.
In the creation story in Genesis, God remains transcendent. However, in the Jicarilla Apache
Creation story, the transcendent Hactcins become immanent when they move from the
underworld to the upper world together with their creations.
Question 3: Multiplicity of Voices
In “Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread” Phylis Trible re-examines these two chapters of
Genesis because she feels that they have been misinterpreted to keep the position of women in
society inferior to that of men. The purpose of the re-examination of the two chapters is to
establish that rather than being mere appendages of men, women were created to be peers of
men, to be equal partners. The misinterpretation of these two chapters which has been very
fateful for women comes down to mistranslation. Thus, Trible uses linguistics to show that what
was written in the original Hebrew is different from what is in the translated English version.
First, Trible takes issue with the translation that God first created man. According to her,
the original Hebrew version from which the English translation was made used the word ‘adham’
which is an androgynous term representing both men and women (Trible 74). It is only after the
creation of Eve that the Hebrew Bible begins conveying the concept of gender through the use of
‘ishshah’ for females and ‘ish’ for male (Trible 74). Trible also takes issue with the translation of

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‘ezer kenogdo’ as helper in Genesis 2. For over two thousand years, women have been reduced to
the status of mere helpers of men because of this phrase. According to Trible, the phrase does not
really mean helper. Rather, it connotes a wide range of beneficial relationships that exist between
men and women.
From her analysis man is not, therefore, superior to woman. Rather, the two are equal.
The Bible verses that have for long been used to subjugate women to a position of inferiority to
men are, therefore, largely a result of mistranslation of the original Bible version. When
translated correctly, it is clear that the Bible does not endorse dominance of men over women.
Instead, its message is one of equality and partnership of the two genders.

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Works Cited

King Jr, Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham jail.” Liberating faith: Religious voices for
justice, peace, & ecological wisdom (2012): 177-187.
Opler, Edward Morris. Myths and tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians. Courier Corporation,
2012.
Trible, Phyllis. “Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread.” Women’s Ordination Conference, 1983:
74-81.
Zinn, Howard. A people’s history of the United States: 1492-present. Routledge, 2015.