Master Mahan - References in The Joseph Smith Translation of The Bible

References in The Joseph Smith Translation of The Bible

The reference to Master Mahan is found in a revision by Joseph Smith, Jr. of Genesis chapter 5 of the Bible, now published in the Inspired Version of the Bible (I.V.), Genesis chapter 5, and in the Pearl of Great Price (PGP), Book of Moses chapter 5. The passage discussing the term begins after the ritual sacrifice by Cain and Abel, when God accepted Abel's sacrifice of a sheep, but not Cain's sacrifice of crops. According to this passage, the angry Cain made a secret pact with Satan, who asked Cain to:

wear unto me by thy throat, and if thou tell it thou shalt die; and swear thy bretheren by their heads, and by the living God, that they tell it not; for if they tell it, they shall surely die; and this that thy father may not know it; and this day I will deliver thy brother Abel into thine hands.

After entering this secret pact with Satan, Cain said, "Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret, that I may murder to get gain." Then, the passage comments, "Wherefore Cain was called Master Mahan; and he gloried in his wickedness." This arrangement was referred to as a secret combination.

Later, the passage states that Cain's descendant Lamech had "slain a man to wounding, and a young man to hurt", and Lamech "entered into a covenant with Satan, after the manner of Cain, wherein he became Master Mahan, master of the great secret which was administered unto Cain by Satan." When a man named Irad, one of the sons of Enoch who knew about Lamech's secret pact, revealed that secret to others, the passage states that Lamech killed him to enforce the blood oath of secrecy.