Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters

8. Love All, Trust a Few, Do Wrong to None: How Am I to Relate to My Neighbor?

191 How Am I to Relate to My Neighbor? Love All, Trust a Few, Do Wrong to None 8 A rule is a rule. And let’s face it. Without rules there’s chaos. Cosmo Kramer 1 Love thy neighbor—and if he happens to be tall, debonair and devastating, it will be that much easier. Mae West 2 How am I to relate to my neighbor? The groundwork for an answer to this question has already been laid. In chapter 4, we learned that in biblical faith the world is created not for the gods but for creatures, including human beings. Each and every human life is deeply significant; indeed, each one is inviolable. The biblical worldview is thus profoundly humanistic, and in important ways democratic. All human beings are image bearers of God, share in governance over the cosmos, and have the same rights. All, and not just some, are to be treated as “gods.” In chapter 5, we discovered how the Genesis authors see this humanistic and democratic world being impacted by the embrace of evil. The relationships between God and the image bearers and between the image bearers themselves, have become damaged. The question of this chapter , then, takes on added importance: how am I to relate to my human 192 Seriously Dangerous Religion neighbors now, in this broken world, east of Eden, that is nevertheless still the creation of God? Am I My Brother’s Keeper? The beginnings of an answer to this question are found in the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. Before we get to the matter of neighborkeeping , however, it is important to sketch some of the religious background to the Cain-Abel conflict, since (typically for a biblical text) the author certainly wants the reader to understand what goes wrong in Cain’s relationship with Abel in the light of what has already gone wrong in Cain’s relationship with God. As Genesis 4 opens, we discover, first of all, that God’s intention to bless his creation has not been disturbed by what has just happened in Genesis 3. Human beings are still being fruitful, and are still increasing in number (Genesis 1:28). The first evidence of this is the birth of Cain. His name qayin sounds somewhat similar to the verb qanah, which commonly means “to acquire or buy” but most likely in this context means “to create.”3 It is a play on these two words that lies at the heart of what Eve says in Genesis 4:1, the second part of which should be translated as follows: “I have created a man with the Lord.” This is the only place in the Old Testament where qanah is used of a human being creating anything; everywhere else God is the subject of the verb. The full significance of this fact comes to light when we consider that in Genesis 3 it is precisely the blurring of the lines between Creator and creation (the human desire “to be like God”) that is the problem. Here, right at the beginning of Genesis 4, the “confusion” between Creator and creature becomes acute. The question is: who is responsible for human life? Eve’s claim is not just that she has created Cain with God’s help, as many translations render the line—that would be astonishing enough—but that she has been a cocreator with God in the creation of Cain! Her newfound “godlikeness” has gone to her head. Just as God created a man in Genesis 2, so now (with God) Eve creates another one. The name Cain, therefore, speaks of the human tendency toward self-divinization.4 The name Abel (Heb. hevel) speaks, in contrast, of the reality of a human being’s existence as mortal. Hevel means “breath” or “breeze” (e.g., Isaiah 57:13) and thereby refers to what is insubstantial or fleeting or to actions that are in vain or to no purpose—futile or pointless Love All, Trust a Few, Do Wrong to None 193 endeavors whose effects do not last. Everything to do with mortal existence is said in the Old Testament to be “ephemeral” or “fleeting” in this way. Representative is Psalm 39:5: “You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath (hevel).”5 Where the name Cain...