Cain

In Genesis 4 Cain is the elder son of Adam and Eve and works the soil, while his brother Abel keeps sheep. When God accepts Abel's offering and not his, Cain kills Abel in the field. God curses him to wander, but puts a mark on him so that no one will kill him. Cain settles in the land of Nod, east of Eden, and builds a city named after his son Enoch.

Genesis credits Cain's line with early inventions: Jabal with tents and herding, Jubal with the harp and pipe, and Tubal-cain with bronze and iron work. Later writers expanded this. The Book of Jubilees says Cain died when his house fell on him, a punishment by stones for killing with a stone. The Cave of Treasures and related Christian texts describe the Cainites living in the plain below Seth's holy mountain, making music that lured the Sethites down.

Modern scholars often read the story as reflecting tension between farmers and herders, with parallels in Mesopotamian disputation poems. It is known from Genesis and the traditions built on it.