Cain Did Not Sacrifice Wheat

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Origin of Wheat? · Creation vs. Evolution : Cain Did Not Sacrifice Wheat

There is a simple reason for this.

Domesticated, that is cultivable, wheat is from a post-Flood mutation, from near Göbekli Tepe.

Wild wheat is structured so that each grain, as it ripens, falls off the plant and could possibly even fly some distance by itself. The grain is attached by a layer of cells which is detroyed when the grain ripens.

In normal wheat, by a mutation, the layer of cells does not autodestruct, but the grains stay together on the plant - bad for self sowing or sowing by birds, but ideal for harvesting by man and sowing after harvest by man.

The wild wheat is still there about 30 km from Göbekli Tepe.

Now, this means, cultivation of wheat, like cultivation of wine - both of them elements of the Holy Eucharist - is a post-Flood thing.

This of course means, Cain was offering something else. I checked the Bible does not say wheat in Genesis 4.

Look at this text, by Leanne Guenther:

Cain thought his little brother was a bit silly for giving up his best lamb. "Good grief," he thought. "We need that lamb, God doesn't. I'm sure He'd be just as happy if we sacrificed the runt of the litter. In fact, why does it need to be a lamb at all? I'm a farmer and it's been a great year for my wheat crop -- I can't use everything I've grown. Why don't I just burn some of the extra straw I have. That way, I won't be wasting any."

I think rather, he sacrificed from a plant other than wheat.

The displeasure of God foreshadows the displeasure of God in the last times, when some Catholic or perhaps more properly ex-Catholic priests have, after Vatican II and Liturgic reform, tried to consecrate maize bread or rice bread instead of unleavened wheat bread. Burning straw would not have been likely to occur even to Cain, he was hardly that stupid. But whether it did or not, God did not show displeasure at a sacrifice in wheat. It cannot have been in wheat, since wheat could not yet be cultivated.

Perhaps it was maize, and he tried offering God some pop-corn - and God was not feeling like going to a cinema. To use some understatement. I am very much reminded of how Reverend Bryan Houghton had to tell a junior priest at a point between Vatican II and the final liturgic reform "no, you cannot consecrate coke and potato crisps" (or whatever it was).

Now, this involves a bit of a quandary about the New Offertory.

As those who studied the Liturgic Reform know, the new offertory is from the Seder meal which for the blessing of bread and wine is identic to the Sabbath meal on Friday evening.

I was wondering whether the Sabbath meal involved some kind of attempt at a slur against the Holy Mass by implying sacrifice of wheat bread is somehow Cainite, we should just bless and not sacrifice it. No, not quite:

Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. (Amen)

But here is the corresponding passage in New Offertory (quite different from the old one!):

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread (and wine) we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of hymn [human] hands, it will become for us the bread of life.

Similar for the offering of wine. Hence my striking out of (and wine).

(Forma Ordinaria - a word used on that forum question - means New Liturgy, since in 2007 or earlier "Benedict XVI" made the Traditional Liturgy licit as "Forma Extraordinaria" - sth to use on special conditions).

This means, New Offertory is fairly alone in using specifically for wheat bread (at the moment of the offertory it is still bread, though from then on it belongs to God, it will a few minutes later become the Body of Christ) the words used about Cain's sacrifice - a sacrifice which from now on we know cannot have been made in wheat. Because wheat is post-Flood.

For my part, I am the kind of Catholic who won't call the Traditional Rite "forma Extraordinaria" and who no longer goes to New Rite on Sundays.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre
II Sunday after Epiphany
14.I.2018