Cain and Abel. In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices to God, each of his own produce, but God favored Abel's sacrifice instead of Cain's. Cain then murdered Abel, whereupon God punished Cain to a life of wandering. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod, where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch. The narrative never explicitly states Cain's motive for murdering his brother, nor God's reason for rejecting Cain's sacrifice, nor details on the identity of Cain's wife. Some traditional interpretations consider Cain to be the originator of evil, violence, or greed. According to Genesis, Cain was the first human born and Abel was the first to die. The story of Cain's murder of Abel and its consequences is told in Genesis 4:1-18: 1 And the human knew Eve his woman and she conceived and bore Cain, and she said, I have got me a man with the Lord. 2 And she bore as well his brother Abel, and Abel became a herder of sheep while Cain was a tiller of the soil. 3 And it happened in the course of time that Cain brought from the fruit of the soil an offering to the Lord. 4 And Abel too had brought from the choice firstlings of his flock, and the Lord regarded Abel and his offering 5 but did not regard Cain and his offering. And Cain was very incensed, and his face fell. 6 And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you incensed, and why is your face fallen? 7 For whether you offer well, or whether you do not, at the tent flap sin crouches and for you is its longing, but you will rule over it. 8 And Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go out to the field, and when they were in the field Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him. 9 And the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know: am I my brother's keeper? 10 And He said, What have you done? Listen! your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil. 11 And so, cursed shall you be by the soil that gaped with its mouth to take your brother's blood from your hand. 12 If you till the soil, it will no longer give you strength. A restless wanderer shall you be on the earth. 13 And Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is too great to bear. 14 Now that You have driven me this day from the soil I must hide from Your presence, I shall be a restless wanderer on the earth and whoever finds me will kill me. 15 And the Lord said to him, Therefore whoever kills Cain shall suffer sevenfold vengeance. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain so that whoever found him would not slay him. 16 And Cain went out from the Lord's presence and dwelled in the land of Nod east of Eden. 17 And Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch. Then he became the builder of a city and he called the name of the city like his son's name, Enoch. 4:1-The Hebrew verb knew implies intimate or sexual knowledge, along with possession. The name Cain, which means smith, resembles the verb translated as gotten but also possibly meaning to make. 4:2-Abel's name could be associated with vapor or puff of air. 4:8-Let us go out to the field does not appear in the Masoretic Text, but is found in other versions including the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch. 4:10-12-Cain is cursed min-ha-adamah, from the earth, being the same root as man and Adam. Cain and Abel are traditional English renderings of the Hebrew names. It has been proposed that the etymology of their names may be a direct pun on the roles they take in the Genesis narrative. Abel is thought to derive from a reconstructed word meaning herdsman, with the modern Arabic cognate ibil now specifically referring only to camels. Cain is thought to be cognate to the mid-1st millennium BC South Arabian word qyn, meaning metalsmith. This theory would make the names descriptive of their roles, where Abel works with livestock, and Cain with agriculture, and would parallel the names Adam and Eve. The oldest known copy of the biblical narrative is from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and dates to the first century BC. Cain and Abel also appear in a number of other texts, and the story is the subject of various 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 Sumerian story representing the conflict between nomadic shepherds and settled farmers.