...she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. (Gen 4:1) |
Who begat the first murderer Cain? Another famous story: Cain kills Abel, his own brother. Now, what would possess a man to do something as horrible as this? Cain didn't have a hungry family to feed. There wasn't some kind of war going on. As we recall, from Untold Garden of Eden, the serpent and Eve may have gone a little farther than just eating a piece of fruit. They may have done a little more than just talk. Their offspring, according to many ancient written sources, was actually Eve's firstborn son Cain.[1] The common term for fathering a child in the Bible is begat. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Adam - Eve's husband - begat Cain! Plain as that. Although Cain was a child of Eve, could he possibly have had the genetic make up of someone else - an upset and complaining angelic being, now made human for his punishment? Could the Serpent actually be his father, resulting from this seduction of Eve? With all of the anger and resentment inside of this angelic being already, could it be that the Serpent would naturally pass these negative attributes on to whomever he sired? Could this have been a reason why Cain so easily could have committed murder? The Serpent (Azazel, Nachash, etc.), as postulated in Untold Garden of Eden, may have used sex to seduce Eve. Through their fornication, she may have become pregnant. According to some sources, as a result, there may have been more than one child produced: they may have sired both Cain and Abel. Why both? Again, nowhere in the Bible does it say that either Cain nor Abel were Adam's son; nor were they listed in any of the genealogies of Adam! Yet, Cain, for example, was said to be, in the Bible, "of the wicked one" (I John 3:12). The Bible even says that the third-born son of Eve, Seth, was the first child born of her who actually resembled Adam, somewhat (Gen. 5:3)! Why? Could it be that the first two offspring of the Bible may have had the blood of someone else? Let's take a look at this verse: And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain... - Gen. 4:1 (KJV) To many this is proof positive that Adam had sex with his wife; and was the father of Cain. An open-and-shut case... or is it? The word knew, if we examine the original Hebrew, here, does have the meaning of "to have sex with" (which makes it easy to assume that they copulated). However, this word could also mean something totally different! The word knew actually comes from two Hebrew words: yada and eth. The word yada not only means to "have carnal sex with," but also "to recognize," "discern," or "acknowledge."[2] The word eth is untranslatable in English, but it generally relates to "a sign," "a distinguishing mark," or an "omen."[3] From these other meanings, we can reconstruct the English translation of the verse, as it sets, into something such as the following: And Adam eventually acknowledged the distinguishing sign that had come upon Eve... - Gen. 4:1 (in retranslation) Also, if we look at the Hebrew word for the translated word conceived, here, we see it could also mean "to already be with child." Put them all together... and we gather a whole new possible meaning for this verse: And Adam eventually acknowledged the distinguishing sign that had come upon Eve; that she was with child, and realized she was about to give birth to Cain... - Gen. 4:1 (in retranslation) Yes, studying the Hebrew, we see this verse could easily take on a whole new meaning! See how easily verses could be mistranslated when the people translating them might assume they should say something a certain way? Could it really mean that Adam understood what went happened to Eve, here; and that Cain was about to be born? The next part of the same verse gives even more creditability to our argument. Apparently, when Eve first saw her baby, Cain, she may have assumed she had gotten him from somewhere beyond this world.[4] And, as the rest of the verse states: Eve exclaims, "I have gotten a man from the LORD" (Gen. 4:1 KJV). According to the New Jerusalem Translation, however, the verse translates from the Hebrew just a little differently: ...I have gotten a man from an angel of the LORD. ..."an angel of the LORD"? We recall (from Untold Garden of Eden) that the surrounding terrestrial angels, soon after their fall, still maintained somewhat of a heavenly "shine" to them while on earth. A number of ancient texts actually stated that Cain was born with this same angelic shine! Could Eve have "gotten" Cain through one of these fallen angels of the garden, maybe - maybe even the Serpent? Even if Eve might have been claiming only that she had gotten a man "from the LORD," she apparently must have thought Cain was someone born of some very great circumstance, or was of some very special significance, to state that. As our story continues, we see that, after the fall of Adam and Eve, God was forced to deal out punishments to all of them - Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. Curiously enough, most of the punishments to Eve seemed to have some relation to pregnancy or childbirth. Why? Were they directly related to the act the serpent and Eve participated in, just before the fall? We see that the Serpent, too, had curses placed upon him by God, along these same lines: But He (God) turned to the serpent (in great wrath) and said: 'Since thou hast done this... There shall not be left thee ear, nor wing, nor one limb of all that with which thou did ensnare them in thy malice and causesdst them to be cast out of paradise... - Apocalypse of Moses 26:1-4 Apparently, God dished out punishments "an eye for an eye" - the Serpent's sexual "limb" was cursed, maybe for the way he used it. This answers a lot: how Cain allowed himself to go down the wrong pathways in life; even how he would be able to commit murder so easily: After Adam and his wife sinned, and the serpent had intercourse with Eve and injected filth into her, Eve bore Cain. He had the shape from above and from below (the earth)... Therefore, he was the first to bring death into the world, caused by his side, as he came from the filth of the serpent. The nature of the serpent is to lurk, so as to kill, and his issue, Cain, learned his ways. - Zohar Pekudei 21[5] In another curse, directed towards the Serpent, God made a prophecy - probably one of the most important prophecies in the Bible: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. - Gen. 3:15 (KJV) The verse is a little complex; and is divided into two parts. First, it states that the seeds (or descendants) of this Serpent will be at enmity with the seeds (or descendants) of Eve. The seeds of the Serpent would form into one bloodline; Adam and Eve's seed into another. The second part of this verse simply is a prediction about Jesus, himself, coming to earth; and how it will be he (as a member of Eve's seed) who would be the one destined to eventually bruise the Serpent's head. But, in the fight, members of the serpent seed would only be able to bruise Jesus' heel in the process. What does this all mean? We will see: by having him crucified on the cross, there were descendants of this Serpent who, in his lifetime, were in the position to bruise Jesus' "heel" (i.e. they crucified him); but Jesus would be victorious in the end! By raising himself from the dead, he would be able to defeat the Serpent's curse of death on the world - rectifying the curse of death that Adam and Eve had brought on to everyone else! He offered everyone another chance at redemption, through his sacrifice. In this way, he would be able to crush the serpent's power, or headship, over the world. More about the specifics of this all, later. But, first: if Jesus was from the true seed of Adam and Eve (which the Bible clearly states he was), then this prophecy would have been fulfilled upon his death, burial, and resurrection. There would be seeds of the serpent, all throughout history, who would possess enmity with the blood line that would eventually lead to Jesus. If Cain indeed had blood (or seed) of this Serpent, then he, and his descendants, would naturally want to be up in arms against anything that is truly of Jesus, God, and the Bible. We will soon see what this all has to do with our world of the past; even today. Those who have blood of this Serpent (and, possibly, other fallen angels) would go on to form "mixed" multitudes of people; many of which would adopt different morals, religious beliefs, and ways of life that those of the typical follower of God. What this would lead to, quite often, is one of the most important conflicts of our human history: ...the members of the mixed multitude are the children of the primordial serpent that seduced Chavah (Eve) by the tree of knowledge, so the mixed multitude is indeed the impurity that the serpent injected into Chavah. From this impurity, which is considered the mixed multitude, Kayin (Cain) came forth and slew Hevel (Abel)... - Zohar 2 Beresheet A28[6] There is a lot more on these "mixed" multitudes, and how many of these different thoughts, attitudes, and ways of life developed since the Serpent, will relate to the Bible, and our world. We will discover how much Cain also influenced the entire world in the Way of Cain. But, first, to continue with our discussion, and begin to understand how life was lived in these early days Adam, Eve, and of Cain, please see "Birds" and "Beasts". Footnotes: [1] The Midrash Rabbah, Bereshith (Genesis) 24:6, trans. Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman and Maurice Simon (London: The Soncino Press, 1961). [2] Strong’s H3045 - yada, http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm? Strongs=H3045&t=KJV (accessed Aug. 11, 2010). [3] Strong’s H853 - eth, http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm? Strongs=H853&t=KJV (accessed Aug. 11, 2010). [4] Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Targum of Palestine / Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel), On the Book of Genesis, Section 4, Berashith, http://targum.info/pj/pjgen1-6.htm (accessed Oct. 2, 2009). [5] The Zohar, Volume 13, Pekudei, Section 21. Breastplate and Efod, 203, https://www2. kabbalah.com/k/index.php/p=zohar/zohar&vol=26&sec=912 (accessed Feb. 24, 2010). [6] The Zohar, Volume 1, Beresheet A, Section 28. Hevel-Moshe, 285, www2.kabbalah. com/k/index.php/p=zohar/zohar&vol=2&sec=49 (accessed Feb. 24, 2010). Copyright 2010, Brett T., All Rights Reserved |