Thanks for this clarification. I fully agree with you!
I think that the prohibition of murder in Genesis 9:3, 5-6 is revelation for all humankind.
You rightly state as well:
I think the term “general revelation” you use is of upmost importance.
The way the command of God prohibiting homicide is formulated in Genesis 9:3, 5-6 clearly shows that it has universal extent, and is not a “specific command” for “the Israelite ancestors”.
God’s general revelation in Genesis 9:3, 5-6 means that since this very moment God writes on the heart of each human being the foundation of morality and law: “from each human being” God “will demand an accounting for the life of another human being […] for in the image of God has God made mankind.”
It is the “law” referred to in Romans 2:14-16:
14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts , their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
Thus, it is fitting to assume that by the declaration of Genesis 9:3, 5-6 the whole population of Homo sapiens (up to several millions all over the world) acquire “consciences bearing witness” and awareness of having to give to God an accounting for their sins, according to Romans 2:12:
12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
On the other hand, it is noticeable that in the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4, God clearly considers a sin that Cain kills his brother but does not yet proclaims the universal prohibition of homicide. Why is this delayed to Genesis 9:3, 5-6? A plausible explanation is that at the time of “Cain and Abel” only a segment of the Homo sapiens population was submitted to this prohibition.
As I have already said, clear signs of “accountability relationship” and of “God’s judgement after death” appear only after 5,300 BP, first in Ancient Near East (ANE), and thereafter in other civilizations.
Putting all these elements together we reach the following coherent picture:
At around 5,300 BP God made a little population of Homo sapiens in ANE in the image of God, and gave them the commandment of loving each other, and in particular wrote on their hearts the prohibition of murder. To this population belonged the first sinners (“Adam and Eve”) and their progeny (“Cain and Abel”).
This population increased to become the violent and corrupt population (likely several hundreds of thousands) of Genesis 6:5-13, which perished in the flood (Noah and his family excepted).
You claim:
I would like to stress that about such a “capacity for moral reasoning” (long before Cain, Abel, and ANE) nothing is said in revelation. So it is fitting to conclude that the moral capacity you refer to is nothing other than evolved animal in group morality, similar to the morality we find today in chimps and many other animals, but it is not awareness of being accountable toward God “for humankind is in the image of God”, i.e.: moral responsibility derived from the God’s call to humankind for being like God and thus ordered to eternal life.
In other words, before Genesis 9:3,5-6, millions of Homo sapiens in all continents may have killed each other without having to give an account to God, the same way as lions or chimps do today.
Actually you yourself say the same in another thread, when referring to the story of Noah’s flood you claim:
The people who perished in the flood was morally accountable to God the same way we are today and those in the “coming judgment” will be. This is definite revelation, sustained by both, the Old and the New Testaments.
By contrast, your claim that long before Cain, Abel, and Noah “humans developed the capacity for moral reasoning and established communities where human life was valued and murder was considered immoral” is pure speculation, neither sustained by revelation nor by science.