This chapter is dedicated to the pattern of the “First Inventor,” characteristic of genealogical writing concerning the primeval era. While ancient Near Eastern literature reveals an interest in the beginning of human civilization, it does not contain the pattern of a genealogical lineage that includes first inventors. The chapter analyzes this pattern in biblical and Greek sources, as well as in the remnants of the composition of Philo of Byblos.

Chapter 1 examines the drama of Abel’s blood returning to the ground and crying out on behalf of the slain victim ‘from the ground’. Genesis 4 indicates that bloodshed harms the relationship between Cain and the ground, such that the ground refused to yield its produce. Cain then had to leave the land and God’s presence. I examine the portrayal of shed blood ‘crying out’ from the land, a phrase that suggests an appeal for judicial vengeance. That vengeance is never meted out, leaving the cry of the land in an unaddressed state. The image of blood on the ground may suggest blood pollution, which likely remained unresolved in Genesis 4. The pattern of injustice > outcry > the land’s refusal to yield produce finds striking resemblance to several other texts in the Hebrew Bible.