I don't think it's biblically accurate to characterise city-dwelling as inherently sinful. Remember that the Bible starts with a garden - Eden - but ends with a city - the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, where God's redeemed people will live with him eternally.
Indeed even the old Jerusalem is treated throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as a picture of heaven. When God's people are carried off to Babylon they dream of coming back to Jerusalem. The Psalms extol how great it is to be at Jerusalem because it's where God's temple is and where God's people come together.
Good point! Id also add that Nineveh is in fact spared in the end...
But Jerusalem is an anti-Babel - a city from God for a people, not a city of men looking to supersede God.
In general though there is obviously a great deal of ambiguity - the tragic path of the Jews through Prophets and Kings shows the deep fallibility through us all
When confronted with the choice between urbanism and rural country living, it's easy to envision one offers a purity the other rejects - community is shallow in dense urban bounds where the basic etiquette that would be required to keep people together in a rural setting is seen as a tyrannical imposition on the personal liberty of cosmopolitan subjects who can freely discard personal relationships as transactional occurences.
This is perhaps the real social idolatry of an urban setting - the abundance of people means callous, shallow behaviour has no social consequence or repercussion over such a broad swath of humanity packed in to the same place. Social laws fall apart as people retreat into self-interest.
We need to start by asking why Cain's offer was rejected - was it because it was from the ground? This can't be - Leviticus 2:4 makes that clear enough.
His offer was rejected because of its callous nature - Abel selected the fattest and firstborn, the most desirable fruits of his toil for a sacrifice to the Lord. Cain's offer is characterized in incidental terms of indifference - he is not praying but reciting a screed. He is not acting in genuine devotion but going through the motions of a script, a performative gesture.
Cain's jealousy to his brother is contempt for his devotion, moreso than any envy over the freedom of pastoralism.
Of course like everything, the metaphor is clear. Just as the Egyptian bondage is a metaphor for our own slavery to our more atavistic desires, contrasted with the liberation and freedom of self discipline, so too is the urban life contrasted with the pastoral.
The metaphorical pastoralist is the one who moves thorugh life understanding that it is a transient phase - being alive is not our home but a phase we move through and, acting in accordance with that, behaves as a guest would in a strangers home. The urban dweller has drunk from Lethe and forgotten his immortality and with it his kinship to divinity. He no longer carries the etiquette of a guest traveller, and has stopped preparing for life beyond his short AirBnB excursion. There is nothing but what is in front of him, fork to mouth.
Abel offered his host the best because it was his to begin with and recognized that. He accepted his land tenure with a gesture of mutual reciprocation: if his Lord had offered him the hospitality of abundance in this temporary excursion through life, he would take the best and, in turn, offer it to his Lord who had condescended as a guest to feast with him.
Abel's offer was not superior because it came from pastoralism, but because of his intent to give away the best to the most valued guest, his Lord - which derived from the understanding of the impermanence of his state. Living this life is dwelling, temporarily, in a tent, garments of skin as it were.
Cain could have equally matched Abel's offering from an urban agriculturalist view by showing the same intent in his own sacrifice - selecting the "finest flour" for his guest for the divine meal. Instead, he kept what was best for himself, abandoning the etiquette of a good host.
Cain's punishment? His stay in this temporary abode of life is prolonged.
Have you read Augustine's City of God? Much riffing on this idea!
And I know you're using a metaphor but "Sheep exploded across this continent" is very very funny.
No, thanks for the rec!
I don't think it's biblically accurate to characterise city-dwelling as inherently sinful. Remember that the Bible starts with a garden - Eden - but ends with a city - the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, where God's redeemed people will live with him eternally.
Indeed even the old Jerusalem is treated throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as a picture of heaven. When God's people are carried off to Babylon they dream of coming back to Jerusalem. The Psalms extol how great it is to be at Jerusalem because it's where God's temple is and where God's people come together.
Good point! Id also add that Nineveh is in fact spared in the end...
But Jerusalem is an anti-Babel - a city from God for a people, not a city of men looking to supersede God.
In general though there is obviously a great deal of ambiguity - the tragic path of the Jews through Prophets and Kings shows the deep fallibility through us all
When confronted with the choice between urbanism and rural country living, it's easy to envision one offers a purity the other rejects - community is shallow in dense urban bounds where the basic etiquette that would be required to keep people together in a rural setting is seen as a tyrannical imposition on the personal liberty of cosmopolitan subjects who can freely discard personal relationships as transactional occurences.
This is perhaps the real social idolatry of an urban setting - the abundance of people means callous, shallow behaviour has no social consequence or repercussion over such a broad swath of humanity packed in to the same place. Social laws fall apart as people retreat into self-interest.
We need to start by asking why Cain's offer was rejected - was it because it was from the ground? This can't be - Leviticus 2:4 makes that clear enough.
His offer was rejected because of its callous nature - Abel selected the fattest and firstborn, the most desirable fruits of his toil for a sacrifice to the Lord. Cain's offer is characterized in incidental terms of indifference - he is not praying but reciting a screed. He is not acting in genuine devotion but going through the motions of a script, a performative gesture.
Cain's jealousy to his brother is contempt for his devotion, moreso than any envy over the freedom of pastoralism.
Of course like everything, the metaphor is clear. Just as the Egyptian bondage is a metaphor for our own slavery to our more atavistic desires, contrasted with the liberation and freedom of self discipline, so too is the urban life contrasted with the pastoral.
The metaphorical pastoralist is the one who moves thorugh life understanding that it is a transient phase - being alive is not our home but a phase we move through and, acting in accordance with that, behaves as a guest would in a strangers home. The urban dweller has drunk from Lethe and forgotten his immortality and with it his kinship to divinity. He no longer carries the etiquette of a guest traveller, and has stopped preparing for life beyond his short AirBnB excursion. There is nothing but what is in front of him, fork to mouth.
Abel offered his host the best because it was his to begin with and recognized that. He accepted his land tenure with a gesture of mutual reciprocation: if his Lord had offered him the hospitality of abundance in this temporary excursion through life, he would take the best and, in turn, offer it to his Lord who had condescended as a guest to feast with him.
Abel's offer was not superior because it came from pastoralism, but because of his intent to give away the best to the most valued guest, his Lord - which derived from the understanding of the impermanence of his state. Living this life is dwelling, temporarily, in a tent, garments of skin as it were.
Cain could have equally matched Abel's offering from an urban agriculturalist view by showing the same intent in his own sacrifice - selecting the "finest flour" for his guest for the divine meal. Instead, he kept what was best for himself, abandoning the etiquette of a good host.
Cain's punishment? His stay in this temporary abode of life is prolonged.