Kayin and Hevel in Art

Introduction

The story of Kayin and Hevel, the first murder in history, has intrigued artists throughout the ages.¹ The three works displayed here, the miniature from the Alba Bible (c. 1430),² an ivory panel from the Salerno Cathedral (c. 1084),³ and a woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (c. 1860),⁴ all portray various parts of the narrative, from the sacrifice through to Kayin's expulsion. The artists vary in their depictions of the brothers, their sacrifices, and the murder itself, allowing for different interpretations of some of the ambiguities and gaps in the original story.

Contrasting Images

Alba Bible

The miniature is divided into three scenes, with the upper half depicting the brothers' sacrifices and the bottom portraying the murder and Hashem's reprimand. In the first scene, Hashem turns towards Hevel to accept his offering of two lambs while ignoring Kayin's gift of vegetation. Kayin then brutally murders his brother by lying on top of him and biting his neck. Hevel's blood seeps into the ground beside him. On the right side of the image, Hashem punishes Kayin, pointing a finger to the left as a sign of banishment.

Salerno Cathedral

The artist of the ivory panel also divides his image into three separate scenes, arranged horizontally from left to right. In the first section, a youthful Kayin and Hevel are depicted in parallel poses, lifting their respective offerings to the heavens. God's hand reaches out towards Hevel's lamb, leaving Kayin's bundle of grain rejected. In the next scene, Kayin stomps on Hevel and strangles him. Hashem turns to Kayin in anger, and Kayin cowers in fear.

Schnorr

In contrast to the other works, Schnorr's engraving focuses just on the moment of the sacrifice. In the left foreground, Hevel kneels by his altar, a picture of piety. His hands are clasped and he looks up towards Hashem, as his sacrifice is accepted in a pillar of smoke. The right background of the woodcut portrays Kayin and his sacrifice. Like Hevel, he, too, kneels, but in anger rather than devotion. His faced is turned, not upwards, but with hatred to his brother. His hands clench in a fist as his basket of fruit lies untouched by the altar, the column of smoke settling on its sides.

Relationship to the Biblical Text

The artists' choices reflect certain ambiguities in the Biblical text and different possible interpretive stances:

The Murder

The Alba Bible portrays Kayin biting his brother to death,⁵ while the Salerno ivory panel shows him choking Hevel. How was Hevel murdered? Sefer Bereshit leaves the method and weapon to the reader's imagination. Nonetheless, commentators and artists have proposed various weapons from stone to stick to sword.⁶ The choices might be relevant to another question: Did Kayin mean to kill, or just to harm, his brother?⁷ See Kayin – Intentional or Unintentional Murderer.

Sacrifice Rejected

In the Alba Bible, there is a clear difference in quality between the sacrifices of the two brothers. While Hevel offers two lambs, Kayin presents a somewhat shabby-looking pile of wheat and a smattering of what looks like dried leaves, or perhaps, the outer shells of grain.⁸ In the Salerno ivory and Schnorr's engraving, on the other hand, the offerings appear much more balanced.⁹ The different portrayals relate to the question of why Kayin's sacrifice was rejected while Hevel's was accepted. Was the former of lower quality,¹⁰ or was the rejection related instead to other deeds or attributes of the brothers?¹¹ See Kayin's Sacrifice Rejected.

How Did They Know?

In both the Alba Bible and the Salerno panel, Hashem reaches out His hand to accept Hevel's offering, while in Schnorr's woodcut Hashem shows His preference / rejection through the rising / collapsing pillars of smoke. Is either of these alluded to in Bereshit? The text does not say how the brothers knew what Hashem thought of their offerings. Many commentators conjecture that fire came down from heaven,¹² while others¹³ propose that the siblings knew of Hashem's preference only based on their subsequent successes and failures in their chosen occupations.¹⁴ For further discussion, see Kayin's Sacrifice Rejected.

How Old?

The artist of the Salerno Cathedral panel portrays the brothers as young boys,¹⁵ while Schnorr depicts them as young men, and the Alba Bible renders them as mature adults. Should Kayin be viewed as a rash youth, easy prey to jealousy and not fully aware of the implications of his actions, or was he an adult, expected to control his rage and to be fully responsible for his deeds? Had Hevel already had the chance to bear progeny or was he killed before he could bring descendants into the world? The Biblical text is silent on the matter,¹⁶ but Kayin's fear that he might be killed by others suggests that either Adam and Chava had other children or that the brothers themselves already had families of their own.¹⁷ See Chronology of Bereshit 2-4.

Was There an Altar?

While both the Alba Bible and Schnorr portray the brothers bringing their offerings on an altar, the Salerno ivory depicts them simply raising the gifts to Hashem. Though most readers assume that there was an altar, the chapter makes no mention of one.¹⁸ This raises a question regarding the sacrificial tradition. How did it develop over the ages? Was sacrificial worship always performed similarly across time and culture, or were there different modes of offerings in different times and places? See Sacrifices Before Sinai for more.

¹ For an informative survey and analysis of art on the subject, see J. Milgrom and Y. Duman's article, "Having Left the Garden: Cain and Abel".

² The 513 page illuminated manuscript is one of the earliest surviving translations of Tanakh into Castilian. It was commissioned by a prominent churchman, Don Luis de Guzmán, but written by a Jewish scholar, R. Moses Arragel. Guzmán asked R. Arragel to both translate and comment on the Biblical text, apparently in an effort to bridge the rift between the two communities. Initially, R. Arragel hesitated out of fear that his Jewish interpretations would be met with hostility (and put him personally in danger), but in the end he acquiesced. The resulting text and commentary are accompanied by 334 miniatures, all by Christian artists. In at least some cases, it seems that the artists received instructions from R. Arragel, and thus the images reflect Rabbinic interpretations. To read more about the manuscript, see here.

³ The panel is part of a series of over 50 ivory plaques made for the Cathedral by an unknown artist. This ivory is currently housed in the Louvre in Paris.

⁴ Schnorr (1794-1872) was a German painter of the Nazarene movement. The engraving was one of more than 200 woodcuts he made for a Picture Bible, Die Bibel in Bildern.

⁵ This is a unique depiction and is likely based on the ZoharParashat Bereshit (54b)About the Zohar.

⁶ See R. Yosef Bekhor ShorBereshit 4:8About R. Yosef Bekhor Shor who proposes that Kayin used a sword. Cf. Ibn EzraBereshit 4:8About R. Avraham ibn Ezra who cites those who question how Kayin could have killed before the invention of swords. He mocks the questioners by pointing out that there were plenty of other methods available.

⁷ RadakBereshit 4:12About R. David Kimchi raises the possibility that Hashem punished Kayin with exile, the standard punishment for an inadvertent killer, since Kayin had not as yet seen a human die and did not know what harm a stone might cause. Cf. Talmud Bavli SanhedrinSanhedrin 37bAbout the Bavli that suggests that Kayin beat Hevel in every part of his body in order to insure he would die, as he was unsure what would bring about his death.

⁸ Cf. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer21About Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer which proposes that he brought leftover roasted flax seeds.

⁹ Schnorr's Kayin offers a handsome basket of assorted fruit and vegetables, the farmer's equivalent of Hevel's sheep. In the ivory panel, both brothers give an equally small token from their occupations.

¹⁰ See TanchumaBereshit 9About the Tanchuma, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer21About Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer and many others. As Ibn EzraBereshit 4:3About R. Avraham ibn Ezra points out, this explanation stems from an asymmetry in the description of the two sacrifices. The text says that Hevel brought from the "choicest" of his flock ("מִבְּכֹרוֹת צֹאנוֹ וּמֵחֶלְבֵהֶן"), while no similar adjective can be found in the description of Kayin's offering, implying that, perhaps, he did not bring from the best he had to offer.

¹¹ Schnorr's portrayal of a particularly pious-looking Hevel might be his explanation of God's choice. See also HaKetav VeHaKabbalahBereshit 4:4About R"Y Mecklenburg who learns from the fact that the text states "וַיִּשַׁע ה' אֶל הֶבֶל וְאֶל מִנְחָתוֹ", rather than simply "וַיִּשַׁע ה' אֶל מִנְחָת הֶבֶל", that Hashem was looking at both the person himself and the sacrifice.

¹² See RashiBereshit 4:4About R. Shelomo Yitzchaki, Ibn EzraBereshit 4:4About R. Avraham ibn Ezra and others. These exegetes might be influenced by the heavenly fire that descended during the dedication of the altar of the Tabernacle to demonstrate Hashem's approval of the project.

¹³ See Lekach TovBereshit 4:5About R. Toviah b. Eliezer, RalbagBeiur Divrei HaParashah Bereshit 4:3-8About R. Levi b. Gershom and NetzivBereshit 4:4About R. Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin who take this second approach.

¹⁴ If so, the rejection was not an instantaneous or obvious sign, and it might have been open to interpretation. This affects how one views the murder. Was it a somewhat immediate and passionate reaction to open rejection, or did it occur months later? For more, see Kayin – Intentional or Unintentional Murderer.

¹⁵ In his depiction they actually look like twins. Though this is not stated in the Biblical text, several midrashim read into the fact that the words "וַתֹּסֶף לָלֶדֶת" are not accompanied by mention of another pregnancy, that the two were indeed twins. See Bavli YevamotYevamot 62aAbout the Bavli and Bereshit Rabbah22:3About Bereshit Rabbah.

¹⁶ The story opens with the phrase, "וַיְהִי מִקֵּץ יָמִים", but it is unclear how long this implies. TanchumaBereshit 9About the Tanchuma posits that the siblings were 40 at the time.

¹⁷ Cf. RadakBereshit 4:12About R. David Kimchi who proposes that neither Adam nor Kayin had yet born other children, and that to prevent the land from being barren of people, Hashem decided not to punish Kayin with death.

¹⁸ The first appearance of an altar is when Noach brings sacrifices after the flood. See, though, Targum Yerushalmi (Yonatan)Bereshit 8:20About Targum Yerushalmi (Yonatan) and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer30About Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer who claim that Adam already brought sacrifices on an altar. According to them, this same altar was subsequently used by Kayin and Hevel, and later by Noach and Avraham.