Bible Review

Origen, On First Principles, book 4, 2.9, transl. in Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church, ed. K. Froehlich (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), p. 62.

See Saul Levin, “The More Savory Offering: A Key to the Problem of Gen 4:3–5, ” Journal of Biblical Literature (1979), p. 85.

Leviticus 2:14–16 specifies that an offering of first fruits is only one category of acceptable grain offerings.

For example, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 4:1, perhaps implied in 1 John 3:12, and many later Jewish and Christian sources; see Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1909–1938), vol. 1, p. 105, and vol. 5, pp. 133–134; and Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1987), pp. 236–237.

Genesis 3:22.

Allen, On the Bible, p. 63.

For other discussions of this and related topics, see the fine contributions of John Barton, “Understanding Old Testament Ethics,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (JSOT) 9 (1978), pp. 44–64, and “Approaches to Ethics in the Old Testament,” in Beginning Old Testament Study, ed. J. Rogerson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982), pp. 113–130; and Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988).

Steve Allen, On the Bible, Religion, and Morality (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1990).

Neil, “The Criticism and Theological Use of the Bible,” p. 251.