What do you think?
Rate this book
Onslaught against Innocence: Cain, Abel and the Yahwist
While in Genesis 2-11 the Yahwist confronts the issue of evil through a sequence of stories on the progressive deterioration of the divine-human relationship, in Genesis 4 he describes the initial slaughter of one human being by another as fratricidal. This book provides a close reading of J's story by using literary criticism and psychological criticism, and shows that the biblical author has more than an "archaeological" design. His characters - including God, Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel, plus minor character - are paradigmatic, as they allow J to proceed with a fine analytical feel for the nature of evil as performed by "homo" as "homini lupus." No imaginative "mimesis" of evil has ever been recounted with such an economy of means and such depth of psychological insight.
Table of Contents
Abbreviations; Introduction; The Object of This Book; The Yahwist as Author; Date of Composition; Authorial Omniscience; A Matter of Temporality; The Anthropological Dimension Cain Is an Agriculturist and Abel Is a Shepherd; The Brothers' Sacrifices from a Phenomenological Viewpoint; The Introduction of Sin into the World; A Crux Interpretum--Verse 7; The First Crime; A Woman's Glory and Her Sons' Competition; The Oedipal Cain; In the Field; Alienation; The Theological Dimension Kinship Relations Belong to the Sacred; Soul Murder; God's Favoritism?; Sacrifice Revisited; The Divine and Human in Reciprocity; God's Power--To Be Interpreted; The Psychological Dimension; Violence and the Sign upon Cain; Two in One; No Rehabilitation of Cain; Cain--A Tragic Figure?; The Psychology of Abel, the Kin of Cain; Paranoia; Cain Builds the First City; Genealogy and Culture; Cain's Genealogy in Genesis 4 (and 5); The Yahwist and the Origin of Culture and Civilization; The Song of Lamech; Hope Has the Last Word; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index of Ancient Sources; Author Index.
Table of Contents
Abbreviations; Introduction; The Object of This Book; The Yahwist as Author; Date of Composition; Authorial Omniscience; A Matter of Temporality; The Anthropological Dimension Cain Is an Agriculturist and Abel Is a Shepherd; The Brothers' Sacrifices from a Phenomenological Viewpoint; The Introduction of Sin into the World; A Crux Interpretum--Verse 7; The First Crime; A Woman's Glory and Her Sons' Competition; The Oedipal Cain; In the Field; Alienation; The Theological Dimension Kinship Relations Belong to the Sacred; Soul Murder; God's Favoritism?; Sacrifice Revisited; The Divine and Human in Reciprocity; God's Power--To Be Interpreted; The Psychological Dimension; Violence and the Sign upon Cain; Two in One; No Rehabilitation of Cain; Cain--A Tragic Figure?; The Psychology of Abel, the Kin of Cain; Paranoia; Cain Builds the First City; Genealogy and Culture; Cain's Genealogy in Genesis 4 (and 5); The Yahwist and the Origin of Culture and Civilization; The Song of Lamech; Hope Has the Last Word; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index of Ancient Sources; Author Index.
188 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2008
15 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 17, 2021
Follow up to his book on Adam and Eve. Quite in depth in his interdisciplinary study. I do wonder if it’s at all appropriate to have so much Freudian analysis when the psychologists have dismissed the psychodynamic almost entirely. The literary analysis does add to the conversation and it’s good to have it all in a single book.
November 2, 2011
I stepped away from this for a couple of months, but it was quite interesting. LaCocque peels back layers and layers of meaning from the sparse elegance of a few verses of Genesis. This makes me want to get a degree in Comparative Religions.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews