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The Hebrew amar, like the English said, typically introduces a quotation or its equivalent. So Genesis 4:8 looks like this in Hebrew:
And Cain said to Abel his brother. And then, when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
What did Cain say? The argument has been made that the Masoretic Text has this one right, and that we should render amar as "spoke" or, as in the KJV, "talked with." On the other hand, more than one ancient version has something like, And Cain said to his brother, Let us go to the field. And then, when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
Which is earlier: the Masoretic (shorter) version or the longer version? Either way is plausible. On the one hand, if the shorter version is earlier, it is easy to imagine some scribe or translator adding Let us go to the field to "fix" the "defective" text. On the other hand, it seems just as easy to imagine that the longer text is original and some scribe accidentally skipped a few words.
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