Editing Cain and Abel (section)

=== Context of the story ===
The story has interpretations. Abel, the first murder victim, is sometimes seen as the first [[martyr]], while Cain, the first murderer, is sometimes seen as an ancestor of [[evil]]. Some scholars suggest the [[pericope]] may have been based on a [[Sumer]]ian story representing the conflict between nomadic shepherds and settled farmers.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}} Modern scholars typically view the stories of [[Adam and Eve]] and Cain and Abel to be about the development of civilization during the age of agriculture; not the beginnings of man, but when people first learned [[agriculture]], replacing the ways of the [[hunter-gatherer]].{{sfn|Kugel|1998|pp=54–57}} It has also been seen as a depiction of [[nomadic conflict]], the struggle for land and resources (and divine favour) between [[Pastoralism|nomadic herders]] and [[Sedentism|sedentary farmers]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1831/cain--abel/|title=Cain & Abel|website=World History Encyclopedia}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/cain-abel-reflects-bronze-age-rivalry|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210314151117/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/cain-abel-reflects-bronze-age-rivalry|url-status=dead|archive-date=March 14, 2021|title=Cain and Abel's clash may reflect ancient Bronze Age rivalries|date=April 10, 2019 |website=National Geographic}}</ref>

The academic theologian [[Joseph Blenkinsopp]] holds that Cain and Abel are symbolic rather than real.{{sfn|Blenkinsopp|2011|p=2}} Like almost all of the persons, places and stories in the [[primeval history]] (the first eleven chapters of Genesis), they are mentioned nowhere else in the [[Hebrew Bible]], a fact that for some scholars suggests that the history is a late composition attached to Genesis to serve as an introduction.{{sfn|Sailhamer|2010|p=301}} The date is also disputed: the history may be as late as the [[Hellenistic period]] (first decades of the 4th century BCE){{sfn|Gmirkin|2006|pp=240–41}} or as early as the 9th-8th centuries BCE,{{sfn|Hendel|2012|p=63}} but the high level of Babylonian myth behind its stories has led others to date it to the [[Babylonian exile]] (6th century BCE).{{sfn|Gmirkin|2006|p=6}}{{sfn|Kugler|Hartin|2009|pp=53–54}} A prominent Mesopotamian parallel to Cain and Abel is ''[[Enlil#Enlil Chooses the Farmer-God|Enlil Chooses the Farmer-God]]'',{{sfn|Kramer|1961|page=49}} in which the shepherd-god [[Emesh]] and the farmer-god [[Enten]] bring their dispute over which of them is better to the chief god [[Enlil]],{{sfn|Kramer|1961|pages=50–51}} who rules in favor of Enten (the farmer).{{sfn|Kramer|1961|page=51}}