History begins with the jealousy that led to Cain killing his brother, Abel. The first vegetarian put seeds in the ground and ate what came up. “I am smart!”, he told himself.
His brother, Abel, got more done. He was able to move flocks through seasonal pastures. He could protect them from predators, maybe by breeding and training sheepdogs and inventing fences. He figured out how to butcher, milk, shear, and make things out of leather.
As Cain watched, Abel began making shoes, clothes, and tents. Cain refused to move beyond planting seeds and eating what grew from them. He fell farther and farther behind. “I’m smart! I’m smart, too!”, he would tell anyone who’d listen. “Sure you are.”, they would answer, snickering behind his back.
Things came to a head when even God was more impressed with Abel than Cain. “Abel works hard, gets things done, and offers the best to me. All I get from you, Cain, are some scraggly plants.”
Rather than work hard and improve himself, Cain killed Abel.
Thousands of years later, Abraham had learned animal husbandry Abel invented so well that he had huge flocks, tended by herdsmen and servants. Ishmael, his son by Hagar, the maidservant, was several years older than the son he had with Sarah, his wife.
Sara saw that Ishmael was a threat to Isaac and forced Abraham to exile Ishmael and his mother. They went from being among the wealthiest and most powerful to being poor, homeless, and filled with rage by what happened to them.
God’s Angelic messenger had described what Ishmael would be. Gen 16:12, “A wild-ass of a man he will be, against every man and every man against him, setting himself up to defy all his brothers.” Today, we see how the progenitor of the people who would become Moslem carry on Ishmael’s hatred toward their “brothers”. Ishmael did return to his boyhood home to help bury Abraham when he died. Then, “he turned his face against his brothers“, as God’s Angel described. Later descendants formally adopted a belief system that justified killing or enslaving whomever they could. Like Cain, on steroids.
The children of Isaac would multiply. They would bless the world with Jesus and the command “Love your neighbor.” And, they blessed the world with wonderful devices. From Abel’s earlier flocks, they moved on to invent yokes, alphabets, and math. They went on to develop sailing ships, light bulbs, alloys, machine tools, internal combustion, airplanes, tractors, combines, running water, antibiotics, and rockets to the moon. The children of Isaac made great progress, the smartest among them realizing that “Love your neighbor.” included making things easier for them.
The sons of Ishmael? They repeat, “We’re smart. We’re smart, too.” and continue to “set their face against their brothers”.
History repeats itself. Cain/Abel, Ishmael/Isaac still represent the great division of mankind between those who love their neighbors and those who hate. Some things never change.
