Was Cain the Son of Satan?

by cameo-d 10 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  cameo-d

  April 15th, 1999 Watchtower article entitled The Only Way To Everlasting Life, paragraphs 6, 7:
  
  
  6 "Who is this "woman" for whom Satan has enmity, or hatred? Just as "the original serpent" is identified in Revelation chapter 12, so is this woman that Satan hates. Observe in verse 1 that she is said to be "adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with the twelve stars on her head." This woman represents God's heavenly organization of faithful angels, and the "male child" to whom she gives birth represents God's Kingdom, with Jesus Christ ruling as King.-Revelation 12:1-5, The Jerusalem Bible. The Watchtower Society simply assumes the "woman" cannot be Eve because she could not produce a perfect "seed." Since we know Satan's "seed" is earthly, so must the woman's "seed" be also. Further, they must co-exist together on earth, in order for genuine "enmity" to be expressed between the two, as foretold. Holy Scriptures repeatedly refer to God's Great Sacred Secret as being the "Hidden Wisdom of God," or the "Sacred Secret that was hidden," by God when this Grand Sacred Secret of Jehovah would thus, finally be revealed by Almighty God, yes it would automatically become a message that would be totally UNHEARD of at that time. Yes, it would become a "revealed" message that would greatly BAFFLE all mankind itself, yes "STARTLE" them even as bible prophecy indicates, yes when they would first hear it because they have never heard anything like this before. -- Please see John 14:17; Isaiah 52:15. The above is quoted from a source that sounds very much like "watchtower regrouped" to me. They use the same jargon, buzz words, and sensationalism. My focus is on the scripture used to come to these conclusions. First of all, everyone knows from scripture that the nephilim mated with human women. With Satan as the leader, don't you think he would have been the first to do this? And who would he have chosen to mate with? And don't you think that the "sacred secret" is that his bloodline continues today and has been "hidden"? In order for this to make sense, you must assume first that Jehovah is another name for Satan and remember that, by any name, it is Satan who rules the earth."god' refers to this deity satan/jehovah who is one and the same.

  THE BIRTH
  
  The following verse has often been explained as the birth of Jesus. But could this verse actually be describing the birth of Cain?Revelation 12: 4-5 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.Line by line:“And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood…”Is this not understood to be the fall of Satan, the dragon, and the one third of heavens angels that he led in rebellion?“and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered”Is it not logical that the father would stand at the mother’s bedside at the birth of the child?“for to devour her child as soon as it was born.”In this context, the word “devour” means to claim, to possess, to take or take over; to assume authority and rights over the child.“And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations”Jesus did not rule all nations. He turned down the offer, remember? Scripture clearly shows who does own and rule all nations.
  
  Matthew 4:8-9 Then the devil led Jesus to the top of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor. The devil said, "If you will bow down and worship me, I will give you all these things."“to rule all nations with a rod of iron”A “rod of iron” would indicate tyranny and enslavement. To be required to answer to Pharisical religious rulers is being ruled with a rod of iron. To be required to live up to some state of being perfect is to be ruled with a rod of iron.and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.Satan, the alien-angel, took possession of the child for a period of time.------------------------
  
  ANCESTRY
  
  Although Cain was the first born of Eve, he is not mentioned in Adam’s lineage. The following scriptures uphold the fact that Cain was not Adam’s son. The fact that Cain is not listed in the lineage of Adam in Genesis 5, 1 Chronicles, nor in the record of genealogy in Luke 4, gives speculation that he was an illegitimate son. (Cain stands alone in his lineage and his genealogy is listed separately.)Genesis 5:
  
  1 This is the family history of Adam.3 When Adam was 130 years old, he became the father of another son in his likeness and image, and Adam named him Seth.
  6 When Seth was 105 years old, he had a son named Enosh.9 When Enosh was 90 years old, he had a son named Kenan
  12 When Kenan was 70 years old, he had a son named Mahalalel
  15 When Mahalalel was 65 years old, he had a son named Jared.
  18 When Jared was 162 years old, he had a son named Enoch.
  21 When Enoch was 65 years old, he had a son named Methuselah
  25 When Methuselah was 187 years old, he had a son named Lamech
  28 When Lamech was 182, he had a son.29 Lamech named his son Noah
  32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and JaphethThis possibility is further substantiated by the fact that elsewhere in Scripture, a firstborn son's name is never omitted from a genealogy, though he may forfeit inheritance rights for improper behavior. (1 Chronicles 2:3, Gen 49:3-4)
  
  
  -------------------------Genesis 4:1 And Man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bore Cain, and said, I have acquired a man with Jehovah. (Darby translation)
  
  This verse seems to imply the cause and effect, but she admits having acquired the child "by Jehovah".“Adam knew Eve his wife”Could this have been a reconciliatory event? Satan/Jehovah has scorned her and admonished her to return to her husband. (Your desire shall be to your husband and he will rule over you.) It is the old story of a woman seduced, then discarded. Eve confesses when she realizes (or has been told what is happening to her) that “she acquired a man with ‘the Lord’.” Satan sends her back to her husband. His mission is accomplished.
  
  ------------------------1 John 3:12Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.------------------------Could this be a mistranslation in that the following statement was not made by our creators, but rather a comment from Satan/Jehovah to Eve. Here he tells her that the seed of his lineage and the human seed would always be enemies.Genesis 3:15And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise (trample upon) thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.How could Jesus be this “enmity”?
  
  Enmity means “enemy, hostility, state of war.”
  
  
  These words seem to be a warning that there would always be hostility between the pure human lineage of Adam and Eve and the bloodline that sprung from the angel alien and Eve.He shall bruise thy head The serpent would have the authority of headship; thus, control over the “head” indicates the leadership position. To this day this serpent line is exercising control and power over the human race through governments and religions.and thou shalt bruise his heelThis indicates that the human race would show contempt for these powers being lorded over them, but that whatever they might do to combat it, humans would merely be a nuisance and would not be effective to change things.
  
  In the last book of the Bible, scriptures tells us that this serpent lineage is directing the beast.

  Change can only come from divine intervention when our Creator(s) return.

  --------------------------------------------
  
  
  The following scripture is taken from The Message bible. There are various translations which can be used for cross reference athttp://www.biblegateway.com/ . I have chosen this text because it gets the point across in a more lively manner.For a translation from the Septuagint:http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/24-psalms-nets.pdfPsalms 2:7-9
  Let me tell you what God said next. He said, "You're my son, And today is your birthday. What do you want? Name it: Nations as a present? continents as a prize? You can command them all to dance for you, Or throw them out with tomorrow's trash." Does this passage sound like a loving “god” who deserves devotion from humans? This “god” is not our Creator(s). The son referenced here is certainly not characteristic of Jesus.
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  Octarine Prince

  *crickets*
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  kerj2leev

  McCain the Son of Satan.......Oh my bad!
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  darth frosty

  My take on Cain

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/163846/1.ashx
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  cameo-d

  For Darth Frosty..

  From your link

  But if you just read the account of its on merit you have to wonder why God dissed cain.

  Why did god not accept Cain’s gift? The answer can be found in the New English Translation of the Septuagint.

  Genesis 4:7

  If you offer correctly but do not divide correctly, have you not sinned? Be still; his recourse is to you, and you will rule over him.

  Cain offered correctly; he showed respect for his superior. But how did he not divide correctly? He did not divide correctly because he did not realize his heritage. Cain was the son of satan and this god to whom the first family paid homage was none other than Satan himself. Cain “sinned” by failing to realize that he was not of this earthly class of people and lowered himself by trying to be like them.

  “Be still; his recourse is to you, and you will rule over him.”

  Cain was instructed to be patient. He was here informed that he would dominate these earthly people and they would be expected to pay homage to him as they had to his father, the god Satan.

  The Septuagint is considered to be more accurate than the Masoretic texts from which most Bibles have been translated today. This link is recommended for additional reading concerning the translations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint

  These issues notwithstanding, the text of the LXX is in general close to that of the Masoretic. For example, Genesis 4:1-6 is identical in both the LXX and the Masoretic Text. Likewise, Genesis 4:8 to the end of the chapter is the same. There is only one noticeable difference in that chapter, at 4:7, to wit:

  Genesis 4:7, LXX (NETS)	Genesis 4:7, Masoretic (NRSV)
  If you offer correctly but do not divide correctly, have you not sinned? Be still; his recourse is to you, and you will rule over him.	If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.

  This instance illustrates the complexity of assessing differences between the LXX and the Masoretic Text. Despite the striking divergence of meaning here between the two, nearly identical consonantal Hebrew source texts can be reconstructed. The readily apparent semantic differences result from alternative strategies for interpreting the difficult verse and relate to differences in vowelization and punctuation of the consonantal text.
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  Leolaia

  Yeah there was a stream of Jewish exegesis in the Second Temple period similar to this, which also provided some concepts in Sethite gnosticism and is possibily alluded to in the NT (such as in 1 John 3:10-12). Here are some representative samples of statements along these lines:

  "The mother of the seven sons also addressed these righteous sayings to her children: 'I was a chaste maiden and did not leave my father's house; but I kept guard over the rib built into woman's body [i.e. Eve]. No seducer of the desert nor deceiver in the field [i.e. Satan] corrupted me, nor did the seducing and beguiling serpent defile my maidenly purity. Through all the days of my prime I stayed with my husband ... He read to you of Abel, slain by Cain, of Isaac offered as a burnt offering, and of Joseph in prison" (4 Maccabees 18:6-11; written in the middle of the first century AD).

  "By this it may be seen who are the children of God and who are the children of the Devil; whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning [i.e. the beginning of the Torah], that we should love one another and not be like Cain, who was of the Evil One and murdered his brother" (1 John 3:10-12; written in the early second century AD).

  "What of the fact that she endured not to have been met alone; but in the presence of Adam, not yet her husband, not yet bound to lend her his ears, she is impatient of keeping silence, and makes him the transmitter of that which she had imbibed from the Evil One? .... For straightway that impatience conceived of the devil’s seed, produced, in the fecundity of malice, anger as her son; and when brought forth, trained him in her own arts. For that very thing which had immersed Adam and Eve in death, taught their son, too, to begin with murder. It would be idle for me to ascribe this to impatience, if Cain, that first homicide and first fratricide, had borne with equanimity and not impatiently the refusal by the Lord of his own oblations -- if he is not wroth with his own brother -- if, finally, he took away no one’s life" (Tertullian, De Patientia, 5.15; written in the early third century AD).

  "First adultery came into being, afterward murder. And he [Cain] was begotten in adultery, for he was the child of the serpent. So he became a murderer, just like his father, and he killed his brother" (Gospel of Philip 6:5-10; written in the middle of the third century AD).

  "And Adam knew about his wife Eve that she had conceived by Sammael the angel of the Lord, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. He resembled the upper ones and not the lower ones, and she said, 'I have acquired a man, indeed, an angel of the Lord' " (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Genesis 4:1; written in the eighth century AD)

  "The serpent came into her and she became pregnant with Cain, as it says, 'And the man knew his wife Eve.' What did he know? That she was already pregnant" (Pirqei de Rabbi Eliezer, 21; written in the ninth century AD).

  The last quote reveals the exegetical source of the idea that Adam was not the father of Cain; the notion arose from a non-sexual interpretation of the verb yd` in Genesis 4:1, such that h-'dm yd` 't-chwh 'shtw w-thr was misinterpreted as "Adam knew that his wife Eve was pregnant". Of course, there is no question what the meaning of the verb really was in the original text, but for exegetes reading in the Second Temple period (by which time the serpent in the Eden narrative was no longer seen as just a serpent but as a malevolent angel), the chain of logic was pretty straightforward: If Adam discovered that his wife his wife was pregnant, and if he was the only man on the earth, then the father had to be the only other character in the Eden narrative -- the serpent. And so when Eve said "I have gotten a man from YHWH" (4:1), it was indeed from an angel of YHWH that she received the offspring from.
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  cameo-d

  Wow, Leoleia! You've read EVERYTHING!

  I appreciate that you took the time to respond. These source quotes are very interesting.

  All I know is that it just all came together for me one day when I read that scriptural passage.

  Would you say that this concept is common knowledge?

  Is that why OP sends me *crickets* because I put everyone to sleep with something boring?

  Maybe it has been discussed a lot before?

  Anyway, thank you for your time and research.
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  Leolaia

  I wish to underscore that the notion that Cain was a literal son of the Devil is not a valid exegesis of Genesis but it is a real interpretation that arose in the Second Temple period and flourished in subsequent tradition. It would be an example of midrash which is a process of interpretation that took apart passages from the OT in order to discover deeper levels of meaning, often taking them out of context and freely harmonizing them with each other. It was through this process that new tales or haggadah of the patriarchs were written (such as in the Genesis Apocryphon, Jubilees, and Pseudo-Philo), and it similarly was through this process that stories about Jesus in the gospels were composed by drawing on OT traditional material. In this case, we can see how a whole legend about the fathering of Cain arose in later Jewish literature and similarly the much later medieval legend of Lilith as the wife of Adam arose through an exegesis that tried to harmonize the J and P creation accounts from Genesis. If you want to learn more about this process of midrashic interpretation, I would recommend the book The Bible As It Was by James L. Kugel which shows exactly how rabbinical reinterpretation of the stories of the Pentateuch gave rise to new legendary interpretations. Just last week I discussed the midrashic legend of the water-gushing rock that travelled with the Israelites through the wilderness and pointed out that this arose through a harmonization of J and P's accounts of the rock in Exodus and Numbers which gave two different locations of the rock in the wilderness. This was another piece of midrash that found its way into the NT as a metaphor (see 1 Corinthians 10:4). For a Christian example of this process of midrashic interpretation and storytelling, see my thread on the legends about Judas Iscariot in the first nine centuries of Christianity which creatively reinterpreted material from the OT and attempted to harmonize the two accounts of the death of Judas from the NT in an astonishing number of different scenarios.
  

  With respect to the legend about the satanic origin of Cain, I find this quite fascinating for the way it contributed to a larger mythology about Seth that flourished especially in Sethian gnosticism (which developed in the second century AD but which has roots in first-century Samaritan religion). You can literally see how a number of different passages were used to interpret each other in order to weave a new understanding of the old text. My last post talked about Genesis 4:1 but the legend of Seth drew especially on the relationship between Genesis 3:15 and 4:25. In the original context in J, the reference to Seth in 4:25 as "another seed" recalls the reference to the "seed" or offspring of Eve in 3:15 and the former signified nothing more than the fact that Seth was another offspring of Eve (in Hebrew "seed" simply means "offspring" in this context). Genesis 3:15 originally was a curse and not a prophecy and simply provided an etiology of the enmity between humans (collectively the "offspring" or "seed" of Eve, the "mother of all living", 3:20) and snakes (collectively the offspring of the Edenic serpent), in much the same way that the curse to Adam in v. 17-19 provides an etiology of the toil of agricultural labor and the curse to Eve in v. 16 provides the etiology of female subordination and the pangs of childbirth. The serpent in J is the progenitor of all snakes in much the same way that Adam and Eve were the progenitors of all humans. And it was the serpent that was being cursed in v. 15 because he and his offspring would no longer be able to get along nicely with humans as the serpent did with Eve in the garden.

  But in the Second Temple period, the snake was no longer viewed as simply as a progenitor but as an incarnated Devil and that radically changed the meaning of 3:15 -- such that it was reinterpreted as a protevangelium prophesing the future conflict between the followers of the Devil (the Devil's seed) and the followers of God. Genesis 4:1 thus contributes to this interpretation because it suggests that the Devil did indeed have his own offspring or "seed" via Cain. That stage of development is what is found in 1 John (which might appropriate this line of interpretation as a metaphor). But the Sethians went further. They were interested in the reference to Seth as "another seed" to be identified with the seed of the woman in 3:15, it was the progeny of Seth where all of God's true followers would be found. And they would be in conflict with the majority of the human race, who would instead be descended from Cain. You therefore find in Sethian gnosticism a lot of talk about how there are two races. One race is descended from Seth and these individuals have the spark of divinity and immortality within themselves, and they have the secret knowledge that Seth received from Eve when she ate the fruit of knowledge, the knowledge that leads to immortality. But the Sethians believed that most people were descended from another seed created by the demiurge out of pure matter in order to corrupt the race of Seth and create disorder. The classic gnostic myth in the Secret Book According to John relates how the demiurge Yaldabaoth stole divinity from the Pleroma (the fullness of God) and hid it within humans of flesh he created, Adam and Eve. But one of the aeons came in the form of a serpent and led Eve to discover the true state of her condition and Yaldabaoth, upon discovering that Eve achieved divine gnosis, expelled her from his presence but then raped her, leading Eve to give birth to Cain and Abel:

  "And the first archon defiled her, and begot on her two sons -- the first and the second, Eloim and Iaue (i.e. Elohim and Yahweh in Hebrew). Eloim had the face of a bear and Iaue had the face of a cat. One was just, the other unjust. Iaue was just, Eloim was unjust. It established Iaue in charge of fire and wind, and established Eloim in charge of water and earth. And it called them by the names Cain and Abel, with trickery in mind. And to the present day, sexual intercourse which originated from the first archon has remained. And in the female who belonged to Adam it sowed a seed of desire, and by sexual intercourse it raised up birth in the image of the bodies. And it supplied them some of its counterfeit spirit. And it established the two archons in charge of realms, so that they ruled over the cave. Now, after Adam had known the image of his own prior acquaintance, he begot the image of the child of the human being, and called him Seth, after the race in the eternal realms. Likewise the mother sent down her spirit in the image of the female being that resembled her, as a counterpart to what is in the Pleroma, for she was going to prepare a dwelling place for aeons that were going to descend" (Secret Book According to John 24:8-25:5).

  So the progeny of Cain have a "counterfeit spirit" in them which leads them to desire sin and corruption but the progeny of Seth have real divinity in them and "are worthy of eternal, incorruptible life and calling, abiding all things and enduring all things so that they might complete the contest and inherit eternal life" (26:2-3). This gnostic myth is heavily influenced by Middle Platonism but it also derives the central idea about the progeny of Cain and Seth from earlier Jewish midrash.
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  cameo-d

  It is interesting to note that "certain people who may have a vested interest" use that very same scripture to interpret it as the Holy Grail bloodline. This is from karen Lyster's work on the geneologies.

  From the earliest times, through the mediaeval era, to the great Renaissance, Mary's flight was portrayed in illuminated manuscripts and great artworks alike. Her life and work in France, especially in Provence and the Languedoc, appeared not only in works of European history but also in the Roman Church liturgy-until her story was suppressed by the Vatican.

  Mary Magdalene's exile is told in The Book of The Revelation which describes that she was pregnant at the time. It tells also of how the Roman authorities subsequently persecuted Mary, her son and his heirs: "And she, being with child, cried...and pained to be delivered...and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads...and seven crowns...stood before the woman...for to devour her child... And she brought forth a man-child...and the woman fled into the wilderness... And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war forever with the remnant of her seed...which...have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

  http://www.karenlyster.com/gardnerd.html

  Knights Templars whose constitutional oath supported a veneration of "the Grail Mother", Queen Mary Magdalene.
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  beksbks

  Damn you Kerj, you stole my thunder!