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The Use of Genesis 4:1-16 in the New Testament
There are numerous direct and indirect allusions to Gen 4:1-16 within the New
Testament. This work will specifically address three passages with direct allusions to Gen 4:1-
16, namely Matthew 23:34-35, 1 John 3:11-12, and Hebrews 11:4. The initial focus of this
examination will be to determine if the authors of these New Testament writings were influenced
by the MT or the LXX when referencing Gen 4:1-16. As Moberly explains, this essentially
becomes a question of whether there is an attempt apportion a reason to the acceptance of Abel’s
offering and the rejection of Cain’s. 199 As outlined above, the MT gives no reasons as to the
acceptance of Abel’s offering and the rejection of Cain’s, leaving the reader to live with a sense
of ambiguity. 200 As we have seen, the LXX leaves no such ambiguity with its introduction of a
clear dichotomy between the brothers’ offerings, their dispositions in making the offerings, and
in God’s response to those offerings. 201 The degree, then, to which the New Testament texts
exhibit a clear distinction between the brothers would indicate that their primary influence in
regard to Gen 4:1-16 was the LXX and not the MT.
199
R. Walter L. Moberly, “Exemplars of Faith in Hebrews 11: Abel,” in The Epistle to the Hebrews and
Christian Theology, Kindle edition, edited by Richard Bauckham, Daniel R. Driver, Trevor A. Hart, and Nathan
MacDonald, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2009), Kindle location 4012-4013.
200
Joel N. Lohr, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 71, no. 3 (2009): 485.
201
R. Walter L. Moberly, “Exemplars of Faith in Hebrews 11: Abel,” in The Epistle to the Hebrews and
Christian Theology, Kindle edition, Kindle location 4026-4032.