Rejection of Cain's Sacrifice and Matthew 5:23-24

[cloudyday2]

I was wondering if any of the early rabbis prior to Jesus might have hypothesized that God rejected Cain's sacrifice because Cain had not first reconciled with his brother Abel over some issue. This might explain the saying of Jesus in Matthew 5:23-24
"23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift." ( Bible Gateway passage: Matthew 5:23-24 - New Revised Standard Version )

 

[summerville]

I was wondering if any of the early rabbis prior to Jesus might have hypothesized that God rejected Cain's sacrifice because Cain had not first reconciled with his brother Abel over some issue. This might explain the saying of Jesus in Matthew 5:23-24
"23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift." ( Bible Gateway passage: Matthew 5:23-24 - New Revised Standard Version )

Sounds like Matthew (or Jesus) is reinventing the story of Cain and Abel. There is no mention of that interpretation in Genesis, is there?

 

[Francis Drake]

I was wondering if any of the early rabbis prior to Jesus might have hypothesized that God rejected Cain's sacrifice because Cain had not first reconciled with his brother Abel over some issue. This might explain the saying of Jesus in Matthew 5:23-24
"23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift." ( Bible Gateway passage: Matthew 5:23-24 - New Revised Standard Version )

God rejected Cain's sacrifice simply because it was bloodless vegetables. It had nothing to do with reconciliation with Abel.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. Heb9v22

All Rabbis would have known that.

 

[summerville]

God rejected Cain's sacrifice simply because it was bloodless vegetables. It had nothing to do with reconciliation with Abel.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. Heb9v22

All Rabbis would have known that.

I have always thought it was a horrible story right up there with Jacob and Esau.

 

[cloudyday2]

Sounds like Matthew (or Jesus) is reinventing the story of Cain and Abel. There is no mention of that interpretation in Genesis, is there?

Jesus doesn't mention the story of Cain and Abel in his teaching. Jesus does mention murder in the previous verse, and of course Cain and Abel was the first time a human killed another human. But whether Jesus was thinking of Cain and Abel in his teaching is not obvious.

Rabbis have always hypothesized explanations for unexplained features in the Bible, so I wondered if one of the rabbinical explanations for Cain's rejection was that he needed to apologize to Abel for something first.

 

[cloudyday2]

God rejected Cain's sacrifice simply because it was bloodless vegetables. It had nothing to do with reconciliation with Abel.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. Heb9v22

All Rabbis would have known that.

Apparently there are many examples of bloodless grain offerings in Leviticus. I watched a documentary on this topic recently where some Jewish religion experts were interviewed and had no explanation for Cain's rejection by God.

I guess the Bible says that God was not pleased with Cain and his sacrifice, and that suggests a defect in Cain's behavior was the reason.

 

[cloudyday2]

I have always thought it was a horrible story right up there with Jacob and Esau.

Probably both stories made sense to the early Hebrews due to their culture and other related stories, but unfortunately that is now obscure. It's possible that the explanations provided by early rabbis might have preserved some of the original context or maybe not.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

I was wondering if any of the early rabbis prior to Jesus might have hypothesized that God rejected Cain's sacrifice because Cain had not first reconciled with his brother Abel over some issue. This might explain the saying of Jesus in Matthew 5:23-24
"23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift." ( Bible Gateway passage: Matthew 5:23-24 - New Revised Standard Version )

Obviously God already knew Cain would kill Abel, it was already in his heart and we understand God as all knowing. God said this to Cain:
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry?Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it."
From this verse, it sounds like God was intervening by calling him out on his sin soon to be fulfilled by the murder of Abel. It was already in the heart of Cain.
Blessings

 

[cloudyday2]

Obviously God already knew Cain would kill Abel, it was already in his heart and we understand God as all knowing. God said this to Cain:
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry?Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it."
From this verse, it sounds like God was intervening by calling him out on his sin soon to be fulfilled by the murder of Abel. It was already in the heart of Cain.
Blessings

What do you think about Matthew 5:23-24 ? Was Jesus alluding to some rabbinical explanation about the story of Cain and Abel that was circulating in the first century?

In other words, imagine if a rabbi had proposed that Cain's sacrifice was rejected because Cain had wronged Abel and failed to apologize to Abel before making the sacrifice to God. Maybe Jesus was merely reminding his disciples not to make this same mistake rather than presenting a wholly new idea. Many of the sayings of Jesus were restatements of sayings by earlier rabbis or restatements with a new twist of some kind. They didn't simply appear from the blue in most cases.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

What do you think about Matthew 5:23-24 ? Was Jesus alluding to some rabbinical explanation about the story of Cain and Abel that was circulating in the first century?

In other words, imagine if a rabbi had proposed that Cain's sacrifice was rejected because Cain had wronged Abel and failed to apologize to Abel before making the sacrifice to God. Maybe Jesus was merely reminding his disciples not to make this same mistake rather than presenting a wholly new idea. Many of the sayings of Jesus were restatements of sayings by earlier rabbis or restatements with a new twist of some kind. They didn't simply appear from the blue in most cases.

Sounds reasonable .

 

[Robban]

What do you think about Matthew 5:23-24 ? Was Jesus alluding to some rabbinical explanation about the story of Cain and Abel that was circulating in the first century?

In other words, imagine if a rabbi had proposed that Cain's sacrifice was rejected because Cain had wronged Abel and failed to apologize to Abel before making the sacrifice to God. Maybe Jesus was merely reminding his disciples not to make this same mistake rather than presenting a wholly new idea. Many of the sayings of Jesus were restatements of sayings by earlier rabbis or restatements with a new twist of some kind. They didn't simply appear from the blue in most cases.

Could well be cloudy, could well be.

 

[holo]

God rejected Cain's sacrifice simply because it was bloodless vegetables. It had nothing to do with reconciliation with Abel.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. Heb9v22

All Rabbis would have known that.

But were their offerings meant to cover sins?

The explanation that makes the most sense to me is that God rejected Cain's offering because they were a product of his own labour, while Abel simply offered God what was already his - animals roaming free. That there's a lesson about grace there.

 

[Robban]

But were their offerings meant to cover sins?

The explanation that makes the most sense to me is that God rejected Cain's offering because they were a product of his own labour, while Abel simply offered God what was already his - animals roaming free. That there's a lesson about grace there.

When Cain showed a grudging attitude toward his brother,
he was told that sin was lurking at his door,
(the entrance to his grave),

but, he was able to rule over it.

"...........but you can rule over it."
He was told.

 

[cloudyday2]

When Cain showed a grudging attitude toward his brother,
he was told that sin was lurking at his door,
(the entrance to his grave),

but, he was able to rule over it.

"...........but you can rule over it."
He was told.

Some random thoughts:
- There were regulations for grain offerings in Leviticus regarding yeast and salt and oil and so forth. I believe there was to be no yeast. What did yeast symbolize? Did yeast symbolize sin? On the other hand, Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is like a small amount of yeast that affects a large amount of bread dough, so that doesn't sound like yeast symbolized sin to Jesus.
- We could imagine the beast "Sin" as a stray animal. When a person feeds a stray cat that cat is likely to eventually move-in with the person and be sleeping in their bed, scratching-up the furniture, waking them up in the middle of the night for a midnight snack, etc. (That's what my cat does anyway LOL). So maybe Cain was already feeding the beast "Sin" and that was why it was hanging around on his doorstep?

 

[Robban]

Some random thoughts:
- There were regulations for grain offerings in Leviticus regarding yeast and salt and oil and so forth. I believe there was to be no yeast. What did yeast symbolize? Did yeast symbolize sin? On the other hand, Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is like a small amount of yeast that affects a large amount of bread dough, so that doesn't sound like yeast symbolized sin to Jesus.
- We could imagine the beast "Sin" as a stray animal. When a person feeds a stray cat that cat is likely to eventually move-in with the person and be sleeping in their bed, scratching-up the furniture, waking them up in the middle of the night for a midnight snack, etc. (That's what my cat does anyway LOL). So maybe Cain was already feeding the beast "Sin" and that was why it was hanging around on his doorstep?

For me yeast is connected with pride.

But also when the children of Israel were to leave Egypt
they were to bake unleavened bread, so maybe it means there was not time to wait for it to rise.

Idk off hand, to tell.

But if think of a batch of dough with too much yeast,
would it not rise to enormous proportion,
like, Puffed up with pride.

But I am not a baker, one cakemix I attempted once,
it came out well.

 

[cloudyday2]

For me yeast is connected with pride.

But also when the children of Israel were to leave Egypt
they were to bake unleavened bread, so maybe it means there was not time to wait for it to rise.

Idk off hand, to tell.

But if think of a batch of dough with too much yeast,
would it not rise to enormous proportion,
like, Puffed up with pride.

But I am not a baker, one cakemix I attempted once,
it came out well.

Another thing about yeast and bread is that people often kept a small amount of old bread dough to use as a source of yeast for the new bread dough.

It seems odd that Jesus would compare the Kingdom of Heaven to yeast when yeast was not allowed in grain sacrifices. There is another parable where Jesus speaks of salt instead of yeast. Salt makes more sense, because salt was a necessary part of sacrifices.

I wonder why yeast was not allowed in grain offerings? Yeast was not like pork. Pork was not allowed ever, but yeast was allowed as food.

 

[Robban]

Another thing about yeast and bread is that people often kept a small amount of old bread dough to use as a source of yeast for the new bread dough.

It seems odd that Jesus would compare the Kingdom of Heaven to yeast when yeast was not allowed in grain sacrifices. There is another parable where Jesus speaks of salt instead of yeast. Salt makes more sense, because salt was a necessary part of sacrifices.

Fine flavour, would that not mean uncontaminated?

More on yeast,
Matthew 16:5-12

I wonder why yeast was not allowed in grain offerings? Yeast was not like pork. Pork was not allowed ever, but yeast was allowed as food.

 

[Robban]

Another thing about yeast and bread is that people often kept a small amount of old bread dough to use as a source of yeast for the new bread dough.

It seems odd that Jesus would compare the Kingdom of Heaven to yeast when yeast was not allowed in grain sacrifices. There is another parable where Jesus speaks of salt instead of yeast. Salt makes more sense, because salt was a necessary part of sacrifices.

Post #17 did not come out too well,

I wrote.

Fine flour, would that not mean uncontaminated?

More on yeast,
Matthew 16:5-12

I wonder why yeast was not allowed in grain offerings? Yeast was not like pork. Pork was not allowed ever, but yeast was allowed as food.

 

[Robban]

Blah! all this hi-tech stuff is not always what it is made out to be.

 

[Robban]

Third time lucky.

One angle on yeast.

Matthew 16:5-12