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Cain, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, is the first human being born on the earth; the first child of Adam and Eve who were created out of the dust of the earth by God. Qur’an tells a similar, although not identical, story of Cain and Abel. The name Cain in Hebrew means ‘‘I have gotten a man from the Lord.’’ Cain was a tiller of the land as was his father, Adam, following Adam’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. In the course of time a younger brother, Abel was born. The once only child now became an oldest child. Unlike his father and his older brother, Abel became a shepherd of sheep. The day comes when Cain and Abel each bring offerings to God. God finds Abel’s offering acceptable but God finds Cain’s gift un-acceptable. Many have speculated as to why one offering was acceptable and the other not. Perhaps this reflects a culture that valued pasturing animals over that of land-based farming. Perhaps it is because Abel brings the first of his animals while it is not specified if Cain’s offering was the first fruits. Maybe it shows God valuing younger, less powerful people at the expense of the older or more influential. This theme is not uncommon in Hebrew scripture. Jacob is the younger of two sons but becomes the inheritor of their father’s estate as well as the father of Israel. Likewise, King David was chosen to be king of Israel over and against his older brothers. The fact is that we can not know for certain the reason for the rejection of Cain’s offering. But, from my point of view, the more interesting question is how Cain reacted to this rejection. One can glimpse the family system approach of Bowen in Cain’s reaction. Reminiscent of his father, Cain seeks to externalize his difficulties. Adam, when confronted by God for his eating of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden seeks to blame Eve, and by extension, God himself, for his failing. Likewise Cain sees the

fault in Abel and somehow seems to believe that the death of his brother will make his offering acceptable. Instead, he gains further isolation, and his brother’s blood even poisons the earth. True to Bowen, the toxins of a sick family trickle down and contaminate the family in subsequent generations as well as effect the super-family system. One may also gain a foreshadowing of Alfred Adler’s examination of birth order in this story. In Adlerian thought, the oldest child is an achiever who considers subsequent children as a threat to his place in the world. In this particular account, the older brother is indeed supplanted in worth by the little brother. This ancient story is a tale of sibling rivalry within the context of a fallen family contaminated by parental sins. Cain is ultimately trying unsuccessfully to please a creator father while staving off the rivalry of a brother and suffering from the contamination of his human father. Cain’s reaction to this rejection is murder and the subsequent estrangement from the only community that he loved. Here we see a personality disorder as described by Rotter. Had Cain developed a mature perso