5) Why was Cain afraid if no one else existed?

Yesterday one of our study group was perturbed by reading the first chapters of  Genesis and the sad tale of Cain killing his brother Abel and its dreadful consequences. The question that arose is one that many a reader over the centuries has asked concerning why Cain is afraid that others will kill him if the human family was made up of only Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel. The question leads us to confronting head-on a number of our assumptions about the purpose and function of these early stories in Genesis, their historicity, how they were understood by the people of Israel who preserved them, and what saying the Biblical stories are inspired as God's word really means. As you can see seemingly simple questions can lead to multifaceted answers, so let's take it step by step.

The early chapters of Genesis set out to instruct the reader by means of a number of stories to describe how humanity was created lovingly by God,  but that the human family increasingly lost its way through a series of choices that start with individuals like Cain and extend to the division of all humanity in the narrative of the Tower of Babel. It is a sad story in many ways, but God keeps providing an opportunity to start again: after the first murder, after the flood, and after the division of all humanity that comes after the pride of trying to build a tower to reach the heavens. Seen in this context the story of Cain is of a man who kills his brother who is then cut loose from his family to roam the earth. Even after the murder of his brother he bears a mark placed on him by God to show that he is still protected.

The question of where the other people came from is a natural one to ask if we were expecting the story to be historically accurate, but that is not its purpose. The meaning and value of the passage is not based on its historicity so much as it's message. When we are talking of the value of these chapters it is helpful to focus on the truth they convey. We judge the value of a parable of Jesus on its message because we know that the story is the medium. You don't ask the name of the Good Samaritan because you know that this is not the sort of question you ask of a parable if you want to arrive at the heart of the message being conveyed. The same principle of interpretation applies to the early chapters of Genesis. The mistake that is often made is confusing respect for the Bible as God's word with assuming that the truth is coming in the form of history. The first two chapters of Genesis give two stories of the creation of humanity, and that already tells us something of great significance - both traditions were valued for the truth they convey. To ask which of the creation stories is accurate is, in a sense, a misleading question because the answer is that the message of both is true! Of course there are many passages in the Bible that have a strong historical basis, but it is not always the most important criteria to use about whether a passage is trustworthy or not. Many truths are conveyed in poetry, parables, novels, plays or songs and the same can be said to apply to the Bible. The difficulty for the reader of the Biblical passages is learning to read the clues within the text about how to read it rather than assuming that it must be read as history as our first option for interpretation.