Background Probability

The Agnostic Popular Front has moved to its new home at Skeptic Ink, and will henceforth be known as Background Probability. Despite the relocation and rebranding, we will continue to spew the same low-fidelity high-quality bullshit that you've come to expect.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Genesis 4-5: The Parable of Cain and Abel

A friend of a friend once knew a telepathic gorilla, who thought it was plainly obvious that the story of Cain and Abel was a parable about the interaction between the sons of Cain (agriculturalists) and the sons of Abel (herders) and how it all went down in the Fertile Crescent between those two competing modes of human existence. The gorilla is reported to have said "The Semites were telling their children, 'God is on our side. He loves us herders but hates those murderous tillers of the soil from the north.'" This is about as much sense as a gorilla has ever made, in my experience, when doing Scriptural exegesis.

In particular, the gorilla's take on this makes sense of the question that will occur to most modern readers , "Why does God seem to arbitrarily prefer shepards to tillers?" If you think you can best the telepathic gorilla on this point, I'd be interested in hearing other theories.

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