Serpent Seed - History

History

The Serpent Seed idea appears in a 9th century book called Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer. Rabbi David Max Eichhorn, in his book Cain: Son of the Serpent, traces the idea back through early Jewish Midrashic texts and identifies many rabbis who taught that Cain was the son of the union between the serpent and Eve. Some Kabbalist rabbis also believe that Cain and Abel were of a different genetic background than Seth. This is known among Kabbalists as "The Theory of Origins". The theory teaches that God created two "Adams"(Adam means MAN in Hebrew). To one he gave a soul and to the other he did not give a soul. The one without a soul is the creature known in Christianity as the serpent. The Kabbalists call the serpent Nahash (meaning serpent in Hebrew). This is recorded in the Zohar:

"Two beings had intercourse with Eve, and she conceived from both and bore two children. Each followed one of the male parents, and their spirits parted, one to this side and one to the other, and similarly their characters. On the side of Cain are all the haunts of the evil species; from the side of Abel comes a more merciful class, yet not wholly beneficial -- good wine mixed with bad."(Zohar 136)

In The Scofield Study Bible Scofield says, "The serpent, in his Edenic form, is not to be thought of as a writhing reptile. That is the effect of the curse (Gen. 3:14). The creature which lent itself to Satan may well have been the most beautiful as it was the most "subtle" of creatures less than man". Scofield's notes are silent as to the idea of Cain being the serpent's seed, however in Genesis 6:2 his notes claimed that while it was an "error" to believe that the offspring mentioned were the product of supernatural unions, it was instead the intermarriage of the "godly line of Seth" with the "godless line of Cain" being referred to. Advocates suggest that modern Christian translations of the Old Testament reduce emphasis on this concept, which they believe indicated the serpent had been an upright, human-like creature.

The foundational scripture for the serpent's seed doctrine appears in Genesis 3:15, which in the King James Version states "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." Advocates interpret this literally to mean that an offspring of the Serpent via Eve would eventually lose in a mortal conflict with one of "her seed". Eve's son by Adam would have presumably been called "Adam's seed" so it has been suggested, since a woman does not naturally produce seed, that "her seed" is the first prophesy of an eventual human messiah produced by means of a virgin birth. Adherents believe this sets up the serpent's seed as an antitype to Jesus Christ.

Advocates also point out that in Genesis 4:1-2 it is mentioned only once that Adam "knew" his wife, yet twice it is mentioned that she "bare" sons (see, heteropaternal superfecundation). Advocates also believe an unmentioned act of infidelity is implied by reproductive and marital curses placed on Eve in Genesis 3:16, that otherwise seem inappropriate to merely eating a forbidden fruit. St. Paul seems to suggest as much in 2 Corinthians 11:2-3, where he may have implied that Eve was not a chaste virgin at the time Adam first had relations with her: "For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted..."

In the New Testament epistle of 1 John, ch. 3 v. xii it also states, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother." John also recorded in his gospel (8:44) that Christ said, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him." These passages, if taken literally as they are by advocates, seem to suggest that the New Testament writers believed that Cain, the first murderer, was indeed the serpent's seed.

The doctrine that Eve mated with the serpent, or with Satan, to produce Cain, has been taught in various forms for thousands of years, and it finds its earliest expression in Gnostic writings (e.g., the Gospel of Philip) and especially in Manichaean doctrines; however, it was soundly rejected by mainstream Christian theologians such as Irenaeus in the 2nd century, and St. Augustine in the 4th century.

More recent variants are central to the beliefs of Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists founded by Daniel Parker. Other variations occur in the Christian Identity movement. Some of these groups appear to use the doctrine as a rationalization for racist beliefs. One of the largest, but non-denominational, groups that believe in a form of the serpent seed doctrine are the followers of Branhamism who are documented to number over 1,500,000.