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:: The Serpent Seed Doctrine - 8/5/2008 8:33:08 AM
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earthless
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Serpent seed doctrine is a belief based on poor biblical interpretation and superstition. It is a primary doctrinal resource for those who want to use Scriptures to justify racial prejudice.
Serpent seed doctrine is also closely related to other erroneous beliefs such as the Christian Identity movement, and the Kenite doctrine.
Like many false beliefs, it has a built-in defense mechanism; that is, anyone who disagrees with it is accused of being a son of the serpent. One of the most unfortunate problems with the serpent seed doctrine is that is so heavily relies on prejudice and warped biblical interpretation that it can be very difficult to discuss rationally.
Simply stated, serpent seed doctrine teaches that the sin of Eve was not simple disobedience, but sexual contact with the serpent, and that Cain was the son of Eve and the devil.
Cain’s descendants are, according to this idea, the sons of Satan, and this includes most any race or group that the serpent-seed-believer chooses to dislike. This idea is rooted in superstitious beliefs, and is particularly popular with white supremacists and anti-Semites; the Unification Church also supports this idea.
Noted false prophets and false teachers such as Arnold Murray of Shepherd’s Chapel and William Branham espoused the idea. Although an idea should not be criticized when it is wrongly applied, it is appropriate to condemn an idea when it logically leads to sin. A philosophy that teaches that some races or people are universally satanic, like the serpent seed doctrine, is one such philosophy.
Those who support serpent seed ideas cite many passages in the Bible as proof that their idea is correct. Almost without exception, these “proofs” require an interpretation that is totally inappropriate to the context of the passage.
For example, Genesis 3:13 is often cited, with the claim that the word translated “beguiled” in the King James Version really meant “seduced.” Context and scholarship would disagree.
Proverbs 30:20 metaphorically compares eating and sexual immorality; this is greatly overstated by the serpent-seed believer as proof that the Fall was sexual.
Other passages include Jude 1:14, and the parable of the tares in Matthew chapter 13. Those who believe in the serpent seed doctrine teach that Jesus’ description of the “children of the devil” in this parable is true in a biological sense; again, only one who is trying to force this belief into the Bible will see it this way, it is not naturally read out of Scripture.
There are literally dozens of places in the Bible that this false idea has been wedged into, yet every single one requires a person to believe in the serpent seed idea beforehand. Only by reading a passage and saying, “if you assume that the serpent seed doctrine is true, then this means…” can a person support this false philosophy.
For this reason, arguing against the serpent seed doctrine can be difficult. Those who believe it interpret Scripture through a sort of “serpent seed lense,” and are not likely to accept other interpretations, no matter how well supported by context and scholarship.
There are some basic questions and contradictions inherent to the serpent seed doctrine that can be used to demonstrate its lack of truth. For example, Galatians 3:28 clearly states that race and gender have no impact on our standing with God.
Second Peter 3:9 says that God wants everyone to be saved, not “everyone but the children of Cain.”
Nowhere in Scripture is anyone identified as a “Kenite,” or condemned based on being from Cain’s lineage. Never are we warned about such people by the New Testament writers. Also, there is the question of how or why such persons survived the flood. The doctrine supposes that original sin was sexual, but cannot explain why the whole remainder of the Bible lays out a worldview where the original sin was disobedience, not sexuality.
This philosophy is most unfortunate in that it leads directly and logically to two main problems.
Racism is by far the worst; believing that certain races are irredeemable has no positive application. The only possible outcome of such a worldview is prejudice and bigotry. There is also a tendency to blow off critics of the serpent seed doctrine as being the very “Kenites” the philosophy believes in. Arnold Murray is particularly guilty of this abuse. Fortunately for believers, God has given us a resource in Scripture that can show us the truth. We need only read it with unbiased and open eyes to find true wisdom.
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RE: :: The Serpent Seed Doctrine - 8/5/2008 11:27:02 AM
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colliefan
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From: Raleigh, NC
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quote:
A philosophy that teaches that some races or people are universally satanic, like the serpent seed doctrine, is one such philosophy.
As in the false teaching that blacks were under the curse of Ham. This taching was used in support of segregation and opposing inter-racial marriage.
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RE: :: The Serpent Seed Doctrine - 8/6/2008 3:35:11 AM
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FurGodWurLivin
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File the "serpent seed doctrine" in the same bin as the idea that Adam had a wife prior to eve. It is honestly neither here nor there because, as Jimbo has astutely surmised, all of Cain's descendents were destroyed in the Great Flood. As for this connection....quote:
As in the false teaching that blacks were under the curse of Ham. This taching was used in support of segregation and opposing inter-racial marriage. It is not entirely true. The opposition of interracial marriage did teach that black people had certain spirits... but not for any real biblical reason other than that American blacks came from Africa and nobody really knew what kind of religion they practiced there anyway. Also, Segregation was based more on God's seperation of the earth by language in Genesis than it was some weird idea that blacks were demons in human skin. Some people thought that (read, KKK members), but most of the more outspoken fans of segregation merely believed that it was morally right to "keep the races seperate".
Now, the idea that Africans are under the curse of Ham has come about largely because of a combination of modern sociology, human migration studies, and theological training. So conservative scholar (A) believes that the flood literally happened and Noah literally cursed his son, then sees that Africans have been the most enslaved, violent, and slowest developing nations and parallells it with the curse of Ham, looks at a proposed map of human migration that says one clan moved east (hence the genetic similarities between First Nations people and Asians), one clan moved west (hence the whiteness to be found uniformly in Europe) and one clan moved south (hence the radical difference in genetic appearance between Africans and everyone else), and it all just kind of clicks together. Personally, I don't think the pure idea is that far fetched, but it is far off-topic from this thread.
Adam
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RE: :: The Serpent Seed Doctrine - 8/6/2008 10:58:48 AM
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Zhi
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The pure idea is pretty far-fetched if you really consider all of history to the Flood. It seems that civilizations come in waves to some extent, and the African nations had their "waves" early on if you look at history, not a lack of waves. There were vast and powerful empires in Africa while the Europeans were still trying to figure out the whole "fire" thing. We can see this both in Biblical accounts (Sheba, Egypt (which had a dynasty of black pharaohs), Ethiopia, etc) It is not all that unusual, in history, for an area to basically "run itself out" after several centuries to a millenia or two of being THE big civilization in the world, and then get conquered by the next up and coming civilization or even just rampant barbarians... that's what happened in Africa, and also what happened in South America to those massive civilizations, to Babylon, to Rome, to China to some extent, to Europe to some extent, etc.
It doesn't make sense for the cursed descendents of Ham to be the ones to have the very first prosperous and massive civilizations immediately following the flood.
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RE: :: The Serpent Seed Doctrine - 8/7/2008 3:04:13 AM
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FurGodWurLivin
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Eh, I don't really have an opinion on it. By now the three families are so darn intermingled that everybody is most likely under both the curse of the youngest and the blessing of the oldest.
So really it doesn't matter that much to me.
Adam
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RE: :: The Serpent Seed Doctrine - 8/8/2008 10:56:02 AM
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DaveW
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quote:
ORIGINAL: JimboFletchquote:
Cain’s descendants are...
Extinct - all were eliminated in the Great Flood. End of story. Class dismissed. So you can prove that Noah's wife, and the wives of their 3 sons were not decended from Cain?
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RE: :: The Serpent Seed Doctrine - 8/9/2008 11:01:27 PM
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Stephanos
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Seeing as a good number of us who are against SS in this single forum, have more education in the bible and biblical languages than you do, it is highly ironic that you claim WE are amateurs in this regard.
As to the topic of the flood of Noah, seeing as it plays a major issue in this SS topic, as if as the bible tells us it WAS a global flood, the line of Cain would be destroyed quite clearly.
Gen 6:5-13 tells us quite clearly that God was going to destroy ALL MANKIND and ALL THE EARTH. Not just part of it, one small section as you and other "local" flood proponents suggest.
Gen 6:17 “Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish" Again notice "EVERYTHING THAT IS ON THE EARTH"
Gen 7:4 “For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made.” Again notice "EVERY LIVING THING THAT I HAVE MADE"
Gen 7:19-20 "The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered." Note this means that the waters were over 22 feet over the highest mountains UNDER THE HEAVENS!
Gen 7:21-23 "All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark." Again notice ALL living creatures over ALL the earth DIED. Except for Noah adn those with him.
Now tell me....Who is the amateur?
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RE: :: The Serpent Seed Doctrine - 8/10/2008 1:15:46 AM
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Kath
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