The Genesis Narrative
According to Genesis 4, Abel was the second son born to Adam and Eve. The brothers followed different livelihoods: Abel was a keeper of sheep, while Cain was a tiller of the ground. When each brought an offering to the Lord, Abel presented the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions.
The narrative records that "the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering" but had no respect for Cain's offering, which provoked Cain's anger. Cain rose up against his brother and slew him in the field. When God asked Cain where Abel was, Cain denied responsibility with the question "Am I my brother's keeper?" God then declared that the voice of Abel's blood cried out to him from the ground (Genesis 4:10). The account presents Abel's death as the first death and the first murder in the biblical narrative.
New Testament Witness
Abel is named several times in the New Testament. In Matthew 23:35 he is called "righteous Abel," the first of the righteous whose blood was shed. Hebrews 11:4 commemorates his faith, stating that by faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Hebrews 12:24 contrasts the blood of Abel, which cries out, with the sprinkled blood of Christ that speaks a better word of mercy. He is also referenced in 1 John 3:12.
These passages establish Abel as a scriptural type of faithful sacrifice and innocent suffering. In Christian reading his shed blood is understood as a foreshadowing of later righteous blood, an interpretation the Church preserves while honoring him as the first martyr.
Commemoration and Veneration
In the Eastern Orthodox Church Abel is numbered among the Holy Forefathers, the righteous ancestors of Christ who lived before his Incarnation. The Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, kept on the second Sunday before the Nativity (falling between December 11 and 17), commemorates these figures together — Adam, Eve, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and the patriarchs, the prophets, and other righteous men and women of the Old Testament.
Abel is invoked beyond the Eastern tradition as well: the Roman Catholic Church names him in its litany for the dying and remembers his sacrifice in the Canon of the Mass alongside those of Abraham and Melchizedek. Extra-biblical literature such as the Book of Enoch styles him the chief of martyrs.
