Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 18: The Children of Cain

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 18: The Children of Cain

Here once again we shall continue with our series of presentations Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine?, and this is part 18 of our endeavor. We believe that all along the way, through each of the first 17 parts of this series, we have shown that Charles Weisman depended upon an ignorance of history – purposeful or not – coupled with many misinterpretations of passages, seemingly intentional misreadings of passages, and even outright lies, in order to convince his readers that Two-Seedline teachings are in error.

We last left off with Charles Weisman’s claim that the serpent of Eden was the first murderer, the “murderer from the beginning” mentioned by Christ in John 8:44. Making that claim, Weisman evidently hoped to decouple interpretations of Matthew 24:34-35 from John 8:44, which together, along with an understanding of the history of Judaea over the decades leading up to the ministry of Christ certainly do prove that He was indeed speaking to descendants of Cain. We have shown conclusively that within the Biblical context, the serpent of Eden could not have been the first murderer, and that Cain alone was the first murderer.

This is also plainly evident in the words of the apostle John. In 1 John chapter 3, speaking within the context of Cain’s having killed Abel, John wrote “15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” Cain and Abel were John‘s example by which to set the context for that statement, and therefore Cain was the first murderer. In that same place that John informs us that Cain was “of that wicked one”, we see that Cain was the first murderer, as the serpent certainly was not Adam’s brother, and certainly did not bring death into the world by causing Adam to sin. As we also explained, Adam was punished for hearkening to the voice of his wife, not the voice of the serpent. Adam was not deceived, and therefore he alone was responsible for his sin.

Furthermore, throughout Scripture Abel and Cain were identified as brothers, and they were considered to be brothers. But even with that, we believe that Adam was not the true father of Cain. It is evident that Adam, having accepted Eve after her sin, became responsible for it and for what was produced from it. In that same manner, Joseph, after being instructed by the angel of God, accepted the Christ child when he found Mary to have been pregnant. Christ was therefore the heir of Joseph, being accepted as his first son. Abel being Adam’s son, there is no word for half-brother in Greek or Hebrew, so Abel was Cain’s half-brother, but also his de facto brother, since Adam had raised Cain as his own, just like Christ was a de facto son of Joseph of Nazareth, while Christians understand that He was not the genetic son of Joseph of Nazareth.

Yahshua Christ identified His adversaries as the offspring of Cain in John 8:44. Likewise, in Matthew chapter 23, He identified them as serpents and the children of vipers. In other words, the parents of His adversaries were also serpents. Then Christ told them that their race would be held liable for the blood of all the prophets, starting with Abel. In Genesis 3:15, as a result of the sin in the garden the serpent was to have seed, and in the time of Christ His adversaries were a race of serpents and vipers descended from Cain. So it must be Cain himself through whom the serpent had seed! One and one equal two every single time, without exception.

Yet concerning his denial that Cain was the first murderer, Charles Weisman, without having cited one verse in Scripture to support his claims, obviously because such a verse does not exist, had made only cunning and emotional arguments in order to assert his claims. Regardless of how shrewdly they are constructed, if there is no valid Scripture by which to support them then they are the precepts of men, and not of God. It is word of Weisman, and not of God. So Charles Weisman is indeed a deceiver.

Now Charles Weisman continues by talking about the peculiar curses upon the serpent, and how they were fulfilled in Cain’s descendants. Here once again he begins by expressing our position for us, and although his expression is incomplete, and even if he is attempting to refute it, he is doing us a service. So we continue with his book, and our answers to it, as we are getting close to nearing the end of this fourth chapter:

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The main thing we have available for identifying Cain’s descendants is the nature of the curse which God placed upon him. God said to Cain:

And now art thou cursed from the earth, which has opened her mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.

When you till the ground, it shall not henceforth yield to you her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shall you be in the earth. [Citing Genesis 4:11,12]

Here we find that Cain would no longer be able to raise crops from the earth as he had formerly done. He would not survive as a farmer or by an agrarian lifestyle. He would have to depend upon others for sources of food. We also see that Cain would be “a fugitive and a vagabond.” He would not have a home land of his own, but would be destined to be a wanderer in the earth. Since this curse would be passed on to Cain’s descendants, they too would possess these cursed characteristics.

It is true that the Jews of today possess both of these characteristics. They are not farmers, and are not known to be good at agricultural endeavors, being typically city dwellers. Historically they have been wanderers, without a land of their own. On these grounds there is cause to believe that the Jews of today possess some Cainite blood.

In Acts chapter 19 we have an account, and the language of Luke also connects the Judaeans (or Jews) who denied Christ to the curse of Cain, where we read: “11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. 14 And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.”

In Acts chapter 19, the Greek word translated as vagabond means to move about. These vagabonds in Acts chapter 19 were the sons of Sceva or Σκευᾶς, who is described as an ἀρχιερεύς, the Greek word used to describe the high priest. Unfortunately, the Scriptures do not always use the same names for such men as those which are recorded in histories such as those of Flavius Josephus. The event which Luke describes here evidently took place towards the beginning of Paul’s three-year sojourn in Ephesus which, as we explained in our commentary on Acts chapter 20, lasted from early 53 to early 56 AD. One Ananias son of Nedebeus was said to be high priest at the time, from 46 to 58 AD. But as we explain often in our commentaries, men who once held the office retained the title, and there were several former high priests living at the time. From the time of Caiaphas, the high priest of the crucifixion of Christ who left the office in 36 AD, to the time of this Ananias, there were seven other men who held the office. In any event, the seven sons of a notable priest were identified as vagabonds by the apostle Luke.

In Genesis chapter 4 the root of the Hebrew word translated as fugitive means to wander. The Hebrew word for vagabond means to move about. After his rejection and his having killed Abel, Cain was sent out of the garden to the so-called “land of Nod” which in Hebrew means “land of wandering”. While we read in Genesis chapter 4 that Cain had built a city, that does not necessarily mean that he or his descendants were able to hold onto it as a permanent settlement. Later, in the land of Canaan, they are living among other tribes, yet this may not be the only branch of the family, and it is quite plausible that other branches of them wandered elsewhere. But in Canaan it is evident that even then they were prone to wandering.

In 1 Samuel 30:29 in the Bible, as it is in the versions based on the Jewish Masoretic Text, we see a reference to the “cities of the Kenites”, which suggests that perhaps the descendants of Cain did have their own cities. However in 1 Samuel 30:29 both the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls have “cities of the Kenizzites” rather than “cities of the Kenites”. In 1 Samuel 27:10 the text also has “cities of the Kenizzites” where the fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls did not fully survive and the King James Version has “against the south of the Kenites.” Once it is accepted that the Masoretic Text is wrong on these passages, that the word should be Kenizzites rather than Kenites, it is realized that the Kenites had no cities of their own which are mentioned in Scripture, so they were always wandering and dwelling among other tribes. They are found among the Canaanites in Genesis chapter 15, among the Moabites in Numbers chapter 24, the Ammonites in 1 Samuel chapter 15, and as scribes in Judah in 1 Chronicles chapter 2, where it is apparent that those Kenites had come from Hamath. Hamath is a city in northern Syria which would later be the northern extent of David’s empire.

Now at the top of page 40 of his book, Weisman seems to want to discredit the connection which he has admitted to, by naming another group of wanderers, the gypsies. But even he cannot help but to mention the evidence of connections between Jews and Gypsies.

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These [sic There] is another group of people which also possess these characteristics, that being the Gypsies. They do not live an agrarian lifestyles but rather are known for trading, selling, and merchandising trinkets and worthless goods. They have been vagabonds in the earth, never having their own nation. One author on the subject of Gypsies stated:

Regarding the Gypsies, some researchers have not hesitated to see them, as the cursed descendants of Cain. The texts of Genesis in particular emphasize the curse put upon the brother of Abel, quite rightly evoking the birth of a nomad people driven by the unfavourable winds of fate. [Citing The Gypsies, by Jean-Paul Clebert, published by Vista Books, London, 1963.]

Some writers have also pointed out a connection between Gypsies and Jews, in that some of their racial background and characteristics are similar.

In New Jersey in the 1970’s through the mid-1990’s I was able to observe many Gypsies, and from several perspectives. The women set themselves up as necromancers and mystics, selling séances, palm and tarot-card readings to susceptible and superstitious Gentile matrons. At the same time, the men run rackets aimed at making easy money. They pretend to be contractors, extract down payments from elderly homeowners, and never show up to work. They run gambling operations or fence stolen property. They scam welfare offices and churches. They do anything to avoid having to labor and make an honest living. Three hundred years after emancipation in Europe, the Gypsies still live after the manner of medieval Jews.

The word Gypsy is considered a pejorative. They call themselves Romani or Roma, and Romanians, who were plagued by Gypsies for centuries, take offense to that name because it is commonly and mistakenly associated with them. But the names are said to have another origin not related to Romania or Romans. The Gypsies speak a language that has a lot of common words with Sanskrit, but neither is language any indication of race, as other wandering tribes, such as Jews, also often change their languages. In fact, the Gypsies, who are not properly Indians, are believed to have originated in India, and there were also many Jews in India even before the Christian era. So-called Cochin Jews claim to have been in India from the time of Solomon, which is unlikely. They are first mentioned in Western writings in the 12th century AD. Their language also changed to a derivative hybrid of the language spoken by the Dravidians of the south of India, whom they lived among and mingled with. Further north, the Jews of Nagercoil claim to have been in India since the 1st century, but links to the apostle Thomas are certainly dubious. Other settlements of Jews in India date no earlier than the Spanish Inquisition. The trade routes from Babylon having been followed to as far as India by Alexander the Great, and were certainly a lot older than that, so there has been ample opportunity for the seed of Cain to extend itself into India, whether or not the Gypsies can be derived directly from Jews.

Next Weisman turns to an alternate definition of the word Kenite, and uses that to confuse the issue that there are descendants of Cain identified in later Scriptures.

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Seedline advocates also refer to the descendants of Cain by the term “Kenite,” which appears in the Old Testament. Two different words are translated as Kenite or Kenites. One is the Hebrew word Qayin (kah’-yin, # 7014). It means “the name of the first child, also a place in Palestine, and of an Oriental tribe:— Cain, Kenite(s).” [Citing the Hebrew-Chaldee lexicon found in Strong’s Concordance.] This is the same word used for Cain in Genesis 4. It also appears as “Kenite” in Num. 24:22 (which some say could be read as “Kain”), and in Judges 4 :11. Both verses refer to “the Kenite.”

Similarly, the children of Israel are called both by Israelites, in the plural, and by Israel, where the singular form, is to be understood collectively of all the descendants of Jacob. Where Cain is mentioned in this context, such as in Numbers chapter 24, it helps to establish with certainty that references to a tribe of the Kenites are indeed references to various of the descendants of Cain.

But here Weisman is slightly dishonest in defining the Hebrew word for Cain. He omitted the part where Strong had said that this word is “the same as 7013 (with a play upon the affinity to 7069)”. With only a few exceptions, every Hebrew name is also a word with an identifiable definition. For Cain, 7013 is that word, and Strong's defines it as “from 6969 in the sense of fixity; a lance…” The word at 6969 is a verb meaning to strike. The word with the affinity which Strong mentioned, 7069, is a verb meaning to create or procure, or even own. The affinity he refers to is in the words of Eve, “I have gotten a man”. So there is wordplay in the original Hebrew between Cain, which is qayin, and the verb, which is qanah.

Now we should keep this in mind as we continue with Weisman, finding ourselves at the top of the last page in this chapter. We shall discuss Judges 4:11 where Weisman mentions it again a little further on.

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The other word translated as Kenite is Qiyniy (#7017), which is derived from and related to word #7014, and refers to one who is of the tribe of Kajin, who is called a Kenite.

As Strong’s also explains in his definition at 7017, the term Kenite is a patronym, just like Israelite. However Weisman also neglected to include that part of Strong’s definition. Now continuing with Weisman:

The Kenites were friendly to the Israelites. Their nation was destroyed by Amorites and the survivors were dispersed among the Amalekites. When Saul was sent to destroy the Amalekites the Kenites were spared and allowed to depart due to the kindness they showed to Israel.

In 1 Samuel chapter 15 Yahweh instructs Saul “3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” Yet Saul took it upon himself to warn the Kenites who were dwelling among the Amalekites. Then, rather than destroying the Amalekites completely, Saul spared their king and at least many of their beasts. So while the Word of Yahweh made no explicit mention of the Kenites in the instructions which he gave to Saul concerning the Amalekites, or in reference to Saul’s sin, Saul was indeed punished and lost his kingdom because of that same event.

For his disobedience to God in these very acts, he was told by Samuel that he had been rejected as King. Later, when Saul was finally slain after having been wounded in battle, as it is explained in 2 Samuel chapter 1, it was at the hands of an Amalekite, something which was certainly an ironic aspect of his punishment. Weisman has no basis to say that “The Kenites were friendly to the Israelites.” Yahweh knew that the Kenites were dwelling among the Amalekites, but Saul innovated and chose to warn them, and the reason for his doing so is not given.

Except for a few references to Heber the Kenite in the early chapters of the Book of Judges (1, 4, 5), which were of a time about 400 years before the time of Saul, there is no mention in Scripture of relations between Kenites and Israel in the interim. So again, where is the basis for Weisman’s statement about Kenites in the time of Saul? There is none, and Weisman made it up. Furthermore, we shall establish that Heber the Kenite was not of the tribe of the Kenites. Rather, Heber was called “the Kenite” not because he was a Kenite, as he was clearly a Midianite, but only because he was a smith. Later, in 1 Samuel chapter 13 and around the same time when Saul was made king, we read that there were no smiths in Israel where it says: “19 Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears…”

Now, it must be said that the descendants of Cain are the first smiths mentioned in the Bible. This is evident where Cain’s descendants are listed in Genesis chapter 4 and we read: “19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. 21 And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. 22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.” The name Tubalcain is a compound word which means “brought of Cain”. Even the making of harps and organs requires one to be adept at the vocation of the smith, so the vocation must have been acquired by the family at least as early as the time of Lamech. Tubalcain was an instructer of smiths, and that must have been significant because Moses took care to note it here. Therefore it is possible that later, in the land of Canaan, the smiths were called Kenites because not only were Kenites early smiths, but were even noted as instructors of smiths, as it says in Genesis chapter 4 of Tubalcain.

So the following is from our commentary on Hebrews chapter 11, where we discussed the feminism of Barak relating to his war against Sisera, the leader of the Canaanites whom were defeated by Deborah and Barak:

… Sisera, the enemy general, was killed by a woman, Jael, the wife of a man called “Heber the Kenite”. When Sisera fled to the tent of Heber seeking refuge, Jael, his wife, took a hammer and nail and slew Sisera. This deprived Barak of the glory which he himself should have had, if he were not such a feminist.

This compels us to discuss one more aspect of Scripture which is poorly understood. Moses married the daughter of a priest of Midian, however here [in Judges chapters 4 and 5] one of the descendants of Moses’ father-in-law is called a Kenite. This leads many fools to assume that Moses’ wife was a Kenite by race and therefore that God condones race-mixing with the descendants of Cain. Nothing is further from the truth.

Moses’ father-in-law was a Midianite by race, of the descendants of Abraham and his third wife, Keturah (Genesis 25, Exodus 2). The word Kenite can refer to the race of the descendants of Cain, as it is often used, but the word can also refer to someone who is a smith by occupation. Jael was a woman who clearly had experience with a hammer and nail, and had a hammer and nail within easy reach, and this also reveals that her husband was a smith by trade, and not a Kenite by race. In the ancient world, women typically helped their husbands at their trade, so Jael knew exactly what she was doing with that hammer when she nailed Sisera.

Another son of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, “Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses' father in law,” is mentioned in Numbers chapter 10. There it is apparent that Jethro was also named Raguel, or, in the Hebrew manuscripts, Reuel. He was also called by that name, Reuel, in Exodus chapter 2. So Heber cannot be associated with the Kenites by race, as he was from a family of Midianites, and Moses was never reprimanded by God for having married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro. The very man chosen by Yahweh to bring the law to Israel and lead them from out of captivity was certainly not a fornicator.

So with this background, we shall continue with Weisman:

Some Bible authorities say the Kenites were one of the ten tribes of Canaan at the time of Abraham. Others point out that the Kenites of the time of Moses were Midianites, being descended from a man of Midian named Cain, and have nothing in common with the Kenites who dwelt in Canaan. [Citing John D. Davis, A Dictionary of the Bible]

Here Weisman purposely confuses the issue. We know of no one who claims that “the Kenites of the time of Moses were Midianites”, and the Bible only speaks of one Midianite, Heber, whom it says was a Kenite, or smith. So his argument here is ridiculous. Furthermore, there is no claim of Heber being descended “from a man of Midian named Cain”, yet it is clear that Heber was a kenite, or smith, by trade and that has nothing to do with his race. Weisman will try anything in order to deny a connection between the Kenites and Cain. But where he says “the Kenites of the time of Moses were Midianites” he makes absolutely no sense. Weisman cited a Bible dictionary here, where he said “the Kenites were one of the ten tribes of Canaan”, but that is unnecessary because that is clearly what the Bible says, in Genesis chapter 15. But his other statements are not cited, and they are straw man arguments because we know of no one who says those things.

There is no Scripture associating any Kenites with Israel at the time of Moses. In his own books, Moses lived during the period of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. In those books, the only time that Kenites are mentioned, under the singular form of the name, as Cain in Hebrew, is in the words of Balaam, the wayward prophet of Numbers chapter 24 who was attempting to prophesy against Israel and said “ 19 Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city. 20 And when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable, and said, Amalek was the first of the nations; but his latter end shall be that he perish for ever. 21 And he looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, Strong is thy dwellingplace, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock. 22 Nevertheless the Kenite shall be wasted, until Asshur shall carry thee away captive.”

Here we have four names, and each of them represents a tribe of people. In each case we see the mention of a singular individual where each term is actually being used to describe the descendants of each individual, except that the name Cain was translated into Kenites in the King James Version. If three of the groups are tribes of people descended from a patriarch, as in the cases of Israel, Amalek and Asshur in reference to Israelites, Amalekites and Assyrians, then the term Cain does indeed reference the Kenites, the descendants of Cain, as it is translated here in the King James Version.

The last two verses are enigmatic, and it is not necessary to take the words “thou puttest thy nest in a rock” literally, as it may refer to a strong kingdom and not a geographic feature. But once it is realized that Israel is still the primary subject, the reference to captivity is a prophecy of the then-future Assyrian captivity of Israel, and Balaam is saying that the Kenite shall be wasted, consumed or diminished, until that time when Israel is taken into captivity. Therefore here in the writings of Moses, in the words of Balaam, we also have a prophecy of the Assyrian captivity.

After this passage, the term Kenite does not appear again until the Book of Judges, where it is descriptive of Heber the Kenite, the smith who was friendly to Israel at the time of Deborah and Barak, and as we have shown, he was a Midianite by race. After that, the word does not appear again for another 400 years, where it once again describes a tribe living in the days of Saul. Weisman clearly lied, as he has no basis upon which to establish his claim that Kenites were friendly to Israel in the days of Saul.

Next Weisman claims that these Kenites came from a particular city, a city which very probably had never existed, and we will pick that up as we complete our criticism of this chapter of Weisman’s book in our next presentation.