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So meticulous a parallel cannot be casual. It is rather deliberate. We can even say that no other pair of transgressions, throughout the Bible, is described in terms so symmetrical, which indicates the intention of the author of Genesis to identify the sins of Adam and Cain. They surely constituted two violations, but had only one principle. Therefore, the purpose of the story of Cain is to interpret and continue that of Adam. The nature of Adamic sin remains hidden, as far as we seek it in the account of the fall, which cannot have consisted of eating the fruit of a tree, but of a moral action which remains unknown. However, the story of Cain and Abel dissolves the mistery, and reveals the nature of Adam’s transgression.
The purpose of all accounts in Genesis 1 through 11 is to transmit historical lessons. In chapter 1, the lesson is the creation of the planet, in chapters 7 and 8 it is the Flood, and so on. This is manifest in the text, and was recognized by interpreters of all ages. However, when we read Genesis 1, 7 and 8, we realize the facts the text conveys right away and without difficulty. The same is not true when we turn to Genesis 3. We realize that the last text conveys Adam's sin, but not its nature. We know that nature was not to eat the forbidden fruit, but we cannot establish what it was.
Now, the purpose of a parable like that of Genesis 2 and 3 is frustrated if we do not understand what it teaches us. We may think the purpose of the text is to teach that one must obey God. But what is to obey? If God wants us to fulfill his commandments, we need to know what he commands. If he does not demand that we eat certain fruits and refrain from eating others, if this commandment is just a symbol of other behaviors, which acts are allowed by God, and which are prohibited?
Genesis 3 does not explain. Thus, we can say that the purpose of the text is frustrated as far as we remain within it. But when we read the story of Cain and Abel, the nature of Adam's sin becomes as evident as the conclusion that the earth was created in chapter 1, and that the Flood occurred in chapters 7 and 8. By the parallel between the sins of Adam and Cain, we understand that the first consisted of shedding human blood, just like the last. Thus, the nature of the act of Adam is elucidated.
This conclusion is not only drawn from chapter 4, but also from the earlier stories. After having created man and woman in Genesis 1:29, God gave them a dietary commandment: "Behold, I have given you every herb that produces seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit that produces seed. They shall be for you as food." We must consider with due attention the similarity between this commandment and that of Genesis 2:16: "Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely."
Genesis 1:29 and 2:16 are one and the same commandment. They are God’s dietary commandment to Adam and his wife. However, the precept transmitted to Adam and Eve is symbolic. God's purpose is not that they eat this and do not eat that, but that they keep certain conducts and refrain from others. What does God want man to practice, and what does he forbid him? The answer is that he wants man to feed, just like he wants him to multiply, without spilling the blood of other living beings. This is the meaning of the precept of eating exclusively vegetables. It is easy to see that this precept implies the prohibition of killing.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil does not indicate anything different from what its name manifests. What could Adam and Eve understand to be good and evil, if God had only given them one dietary commandment? They could only understand that good was to keep that commandment, and evil was to break it, that is, to shed blood.
This conclusion makes the sin of Adam even more similar to Cain's. Adam having eaten the forbidden fruit means that he started to kill. Not only to kill animals for food, which was forbidden him, but also to kill other human beings due to hatred, like Cain killed Abel.
For all these reasons, the original sin, the sin of Genesis 3, must have been the shedding of human blood. Nothing as light as eating a fruit, or less mild, although serious, like killing an animal, would justify erecting Adam's transgression in the principle of all human evil, as Scripture clearly does. Only an intrinsically serious transgression as murder would justify that treatment.
We must remember, however, that the stories of Genesis 1 through 11 are intended to portray a past event. Creation, the Flood, the building of the Tower of Babel are some of these events. To match facts as clearly defined as those, the sin of Adam should be better detailed than it has been so far. If it consisted of a murder, what sort of murder was it? When and where did it take place? Who practiced it and who was its victim?
We saw in another text of the series "Evidence for Creation" that Adam was a people, not an individual. Therefore, his sin may have been committed and suffered by many people. I think both the authors and victims of Adam’s murder (murders, in fact) were individuals from the people from Adam, who lived in Mesopotamia. And as that people lived around 4000 B. C., it can only be identified with the ancient Sumerians. It was probably a fraction of the Sumerian civilization, whose existence was proven by archaeologist Charles Leonard Woolley.
Among the places in which Woolley found Sumerian remnants, one of the oldest is Ur. Several artifacts found there date back to the fifth or fourth millennium before our era. One of the findings of Woolley at Ur was described by archaeologist C. W. Ceram in frightening terms: "In the tomb of a queen, rich burial offerings, two small canoes, one made of copper and the other of silver, were found [...] Another highly instructive finding is the standard mosaic of Ur (which Woolley dated from 3500 BC). It consisted of two rectangular panels [...] that portray a banquet (this informs us about the costume and utensils they used), in which some people appear conducting animals to sacrifice (which tells us what cattle were raised at that time), a group of prisoners and one of warriors (which provides information on the weapons and armor), and finally war chariots, which inform us that it was the Sumerians who introduced the cars in war at the end of the fourth millennium BC "(CERAM C. W. Gods, tombs and sages - the romance of Archeology. 7th edition, Sao Paulo, 1958. pages 268-269).
The author continues: "Then Woolley made the terrible discovery. Those tombs of the kings of Ur contained other bodies besides the corpses of sovereigns. They appeared to have been the theater of a true carnage. Soldiers of the royal guard laid in them, with copper helmets near their skulls, and spears near their hands. Assassinated! In a burial chamber laid nine ladies of the court with lavish headdresses, which they evidently used at funeral ceremonies. At the entrance two heavy cars were found […] with the bones of the coachmen. In front of the horse skeletons were the bones of the servants. Also killed!
In the tomb of Queen Schub-ad, court ladies were found in two parallel rows. They had also been murdered. At the end of those lines stood the skeleton of a man – a musician, a harpist. The bones of the arm were crossed over the precious instrument, which he evidently embraced by the time he was hit. Along the coffin of the queen were the skeletons of two men, in the position they stood when were slaughtered" (op. cit. p. 269).
The scenario is of a widespread carnage that happened in various royal tombs of Ur, during funeral ceremonies. Ceram concludes: "What did all that mean? There was only one explanation: the slaughtered were offered to mortal beings as the greatest possible sacrifice – that of human life! Woolley stood before a scene of human sacrifice premeditated by fanatical priests wishing to carry out the principle of the god-king [...] The sacrifice was pure murder! Bloody torture in honor of dead kings! "(op. cit. pages 269-270).
After one hundred years, Woolley’s discovery remains firmly grounded in the archaeological landscape. Surveys conducted in 2009 in the royal cemetery of Ur not only confirmed it, but counted nearly "two thousand funerals in which human sacrifices were offered" (WILFORD, John Noble. "At Ur, Ritual deaths which were anything but serene." New York Times. 27/10/2009). The interpretation of the practice also continues to be the one Woolley suggested: "On the occasion of the death of kings or even before it, courtiers, servants, warriors and other people were killed. Their bodies were almost always arranged in orderly fashion, with women in sophisticated robes, and warriors with their weapons beside".
I do not suggest that the holocausts committed by Sumerian kings (since the commanders of the killings must have been the successors of the kings honored, i.e. other kings, and their helpers) was Adam’s original sin. But I propose that something of this nature so shocked people in Ancient Mesopotamia that the report of an extremely serious offense originated. Genesis 3 is an echo of that vague report which was transmitted from generation to generation.
It is possible to understand Genesis 3 as a parable about mass murder carried out in honor of Sumerian kings. The dense symbolism of the parable can be due to its origin from an oral tradition. If the murder had been known with precision, a much clearer statement would have been written about it. But that was not the case, since people no longer remembered the past homicides. They only kept the feeling of disgust and guilt that they had brought forth. Thus, instead of reporting the killing as a fact, they represented the vague, though broad sentiment that Genesis 3 keeps, that is, the sense of guilt for facts long lost in the fog of time.
