Vorkosigan

It seems Icb is rather fixated on Kosh.

Ted Hoffman

The ignorant men who wrote the bible just wanted to emphasize that God preferred animal offerings as opposed to "vegetable" offering.
This is there all over the OT. Abraham being asked to sacrifice sheep, the Israelites too (the first borns) and so on and so forth.
In those days, what God did was the definition of justice. Its anachronistic therefore to try to discount the justice in God rejecting the "vegetables and fruits" and accepting flesh and blood. The moral of the story is that God prefers fat luscious flesh. What was in Cains heart is irrelevant (at least thats what the writers portray) - what he put on the altar for the lord is what mattered - some vegetarian crap - according to God.
It was a desert tribe that thrived on flesh (and blood) from their animals. Their anthropomorphisms on God also influenced their idea of what sacrifice God preferred.

Jesus changed all this emphasis on good quality and quantity with the story of the poor widow and her coin offering.

Kosh

Succinct

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

ShottleBop

The prophets changed the emphasis on blindly observed ritual to repentance and just behavior.

MortalWombat

Maybe he was on a low carb, high protein diet.

theyeti

The simple explanation is that the ancient Hebrews were nomadic shepherds. They moved about between areas that were populated by farmers with whom they must have had occasional disputes. Now if you think you're God's chosen people, who does your God like more, the shepherd or the farmer?

theyeti

RogerLeeCooke

That's Billy Graham's answer. Cain's offering was "just vegetables." Graham is a strong proponent of the need for blood sacrifice. It looks barbaric to me, and Graham is risking all those curses in Revelation 22:18–19 by adding commentary to the pure text.

[ August 15, 2002: Message edited by: RogerLeeCooke ]</p>