School of Suspicion

Tag: Rival Brothers

Brothers set against each other for a blessing, an offering or a throne: Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Isaac and Ishmael, Osiris and Seth, the gods and demons who churned the ocean.

  • Cadmus — The Dragon’s Teeth

    Cadmus — The Dragon’s Teeth

    Cadmus kills the guardian of the spring, sows its teeth, and founds Thebes with the survivors. Read once as courage and reparation, once as a foreign settlement told from the side that won.

  • Cain and Abel — The Farmer and the Shepherd

    Cain and Abel — The Farmer and the Shepherd

    Eve says she has gotten a man from the LORD. He ploughs, his brother keeps sheep, and God looks at one offering only. Read beside Josephus on the plough, the Targum’s argument in the field, the smiths called Cain and Romulus at his wall, with the prodigal’s elder brother, seventy times seven and Pilate’s basin.