Publisher's Synopsis
This volume is devoted to the biblical stories about Eve's children, Cain, Abel, and Seth, and to the rewritings and explanations of these stories in a variety of early Jewish and Christian sources (Old Testament Apocrypha, Philo of Alexandria, Targumim, the New Testament, Rabbinic and Kabbalistic texts, Christian-Gnostic and Patristic Literature). Attention is given also to post-biblical stories speaking about Eve's daughters and to traditions in which Cain is viewed as the son of the Devil. Three essays examine how the biblical stories were re-used and evaluated in modern fiction, from Clemens Brentano and Lord Byron to John Steinbeck's East of Eden.
