In my VIDEO: Is Zen Garcia right on the Targums? On Cain as serpent seed of Satan I noted that the debate between Zen Garcia and Dante Fortson on the issue of the serpent seed of Satan theory (which asserts that Eve had sex with Satan and thus, Cain is Satan’s son whose decedents carry on Satanic genetics) was disappointing because Garcia merely repeated the same erroneous views which he and I have discussed in great detail so that he already knew just how what he claims is inaccurate—as you can see here.
Serpent seed of Satan theorists love to play on supposedly mysterious questions which only their theory can answers—this denotes the gnostic side of the theorists. In this regard, one issue upon which Garcia harps quite often is genealogies, particularly why Cain is absent from Jesus’ genealogy. Well, this is yet another issue we have discussed and, in short, biblical genealogies are not simply linear iterations of step-by-step family lines but are constructed from the family lines so as to reach a certain conclusion: for example, Jesus’ genealogies from His step-dad and from Mary showing His right as a king and priest. Also, Cain absconded from Adam and Eve and so his genealogy deviates from theirs.
However, a new feature is that Zen Garcia claimed that the only way to understand why Jude refers to Enoch as as being the seventh from Adam is that Cain is Satan’s son and is thus is not counted in the genealogy. Genesis 4 has it as: Adam, Cain, Enoch but another Enoch is in view as per Genesis 5 “This is the book of the generations of Adam” and lists Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch.
On his own podcast, Rob Skiba moderated the debate between Zen Garcia and Dante Fortson. He noted that the previous podcast featured Garcia speaking on the serpent seed theory—so, basically, Garcia had the advantage since, essentially, his opening statement was an entire show plus the time during the debate. In any case, Rob Skiba has noted that the issue of Enoch being seventh from Adam alone would be enough to get him to accept the serpent seed of Satan theory as it would answer the mysterious problem. Now, to begin with, accepting the serpent seed theory so as to deal with this issue (which is a contrived one at that, as we shall see) is tantamount to accepting chemo therapy to treat a paper cut. It would be a violation of any and every standard by which we understand texts and theology to swallow such a gigantic, all encompassing (and utterly erroneous) theory so as to supposedly solve one alleged problem.
On his Facebook page Skiba noted:
So, why did I have Zen Garcia on my radio show this evening to discuss the concept of a "serpent seed"? Well because Jude 14 is hard to reconcile if what he's saying is false. Jude specifically tells us that Enoch was the "seventh" from Adam." OK. So here's the problem:
If you start with Seth as this chart does, then you end up with him being only the sixth from Adam. But Cain was Adam's first-born son, so if you go with a count from Cain, then Enoch becomes eighth from Adam. So, that doesn't work.
If you exclude Cain and start with righteous Abel... well then you basically just proved Zen's point. Doh! [ellipses in original]
Do you see the pigeonholing logic? If you exclude Cain and start with righteous Abel then your only choice, or so we are told, is to accept that you basically just proved that Eve had sex with Satan and thus, Cain is Satan’s son whose decedents carry on Satanic genetics.
Now, did you note Garcia’s and Skiba’s premise? “If you start with Seth” which may be restated as “Only if you start with Seth” then you get to invent a problem and then claim to hold the only answer. Here is the referenced chart:
Now, Rob Skiba finished his thought by noting, “So, all I can say is, it might be worth it to at least hear the ‘whole matter’ before deciding either way on this issue. Otherwise, Solomon says if you don't hear the whole matter it becomes folly to you, which is a more ancient way of saying the old, ‘condemnation before investigation is the height of ignorance’ routine.” Now, when people came out of the woodworks to refute this false theory Skiba commented, “Which of you who disagree here have actually taken the time to look into this subject in any real depth?” and Zen Garcia chimed in with “That's the real money question.” Well, the question may be: why do you automatically assume that those who disagree with you are not as familiar as you are with such issues?
Well, the real money question is why should we accept their premise? Jude referred to the Enoch who is “the seventh from Adam” so, pray tell, what happened if we actually count as Jude did “from Adam”? We get 1) Adam, 2) Seth, 3) Enos, 4) Cainan, 5) Mahalaleel, 6) Jared, 7) Enoch. Thus, Enoch is the seventh from Adam as per Genesis 5 and Jude 14 (as well as Luke 3, as we shall see).
Well, it cannot be as easy as just reading the Bible because then you would just end up being a boring ol' preacher, teacher or theologian and could not make the cool dude conspiracy circles. Thus, someone commented, “From Able Enoch is the seventh as Able was indeed Adam's son. Cain was not Adams son. If he were he would of been 8th. All common sense…wake up! [sic.]” since those who read the Bile for what it actually states are apparently asleep. Well, Abel was Adam’s son but apparently birthed no one and so does not count and was apparently within the same generation as Seth and so does not count. Note that this person decides to start “From Able” even whilst attempting to defend Skiba and Garcia who start from Seth even though Jude starts “from Adam.”
Zen Garcia then commented, “The point I was emphasizing with Jude had to do with His exclusion from Christ's genealogy” and for support quotes the apocryphal Book of Jubilees 4:7, “And Adam and his wife mourned for Abel four weeks of years, and in the fourth year of the fifth week they became joyful, and Adam knew his wife again, and she bare him a son, and he called his name Seth; for he said ‘God hath raised up a second seed unto us on the earth instead of Abel; for Cain slew him.’” Garcia asserts “In the passage from Jubilees, Seth is emphasized as being Adam and Eve’s second son, not their third” but how so? Counting Cain as firstborn, Abel as second and Seth is third then this text makes perfect sense since number one Cain was still alive but number two Abel was not thus, technically number three Seth then became number two, “a second seed,” because the second was no longer alive, no longer the second and so Seth becomes the second.
Garcia emphasizes that “Cain’s difference is why Enoch describes him as a black bull” and if this does not sound familiar it is because he will always opt for quoting apocryphal texts—no matter how late dated or how poorly attested by manuscripts—and so he is quoting one of the various books of Enoch, in this case 1 Enoch aka Ethiopic Enoch 85:3-6. Note that he asserts that Enoch describes Cain as a black bull because Eve had sex with Satan, Cain was Satan’s son, etc. However, the text does not even hint of any such thing. It relates a “dream…dream-vision…a vision” wherein Enoch saw “a bull came forth from the earth, and that bull was white; and after it came forth a heifer, and along with this (latter) came forth two bulls, one of them black and the other red.” So the white bull is taken to refer to Adam, the heifer is Eve, the black bull is Cain and the red is Abel. Now, the “black bull gored the red one and pursued him over the earth, and thereupon I could no longer see that red bull. But that black bull grew and that heifer went with him, and I saw that many oxen proceeded from him which resembled and followed him.” The dream-vision ends with Adam and Eve having many more offspring. Clearly, white denotes Adam’s (created directly by God) purity, black is Cain’s evil deed and red is Abel’s death. Even if this obvious symbolism is not enough, the fact is that this Book of Enoch, as a whole, knows nothing of the serpent seed of Satan theory.
At this point Zen Garcia plays the genealogy card, to which I responded above, and asserts that Cain is missing from Luke 3 as well as the apocryphal Book of the Cave of Treasures and Book of the Bee yet, by definition out of all of Adam and Eve’s many sons and daughters only Seth and his descendants are in Jesus’ genealogy and that is not because he was the only one—of all of them, mind you—who was not Satan’s offspring. Garcia’s is a much ado about nothing non-issue.
Garcia refers to Luke 3 which records the genealogy backwards ending with 7) Enoch, 6) Jared, 5) Maleleel, 4) Cainan, 3) Enos, 2) Seth, 1) Adam. Of course, he states, “If you include Cain in this number” and assets “Luke excludes Cain from inclusion with Adam's children.” No, Luke, Jude and Genesis are simply keeping the Bible within its own context and, as noted, Cain left Adam and Eve and he and all of his brothers and sisters are not in Jesus’ genealogy except for Seth: it is that simple. And as I noted, serpent seed of Satan theorists invent supposed problems, even if they discredit themselves in doing so, and then claim to be the only ones with the answer so, Garcia wrote, “His statement can only be proven true if Cain were not Adam’s child.”
He then brings up an issue I have already helped him understand which is that he think that support for Cain being Satan’s son is well, another supposedly mysterious question, “how and why would he possess such an evil disposition having been sired and raised in innocence, by Adam and Eve? Especially in the beginning of the generations of humankind when evil was nowhere present to be found or mimicked? How did Cain acquire such negative traits when Adam and Eve even though they transgress, are innocent and loyal to the laws and ordinances of Yahweh?”
Well, think of it this way: how and why would Adam and Eve possess such an evil disposition (since they both sinned) having been created and raised in innocence, by God Himself? Of course, it is false that “in the beginning of the generations of humankind…evil was nowhere present to be found or mimicked” since Satan approached Eve with a sinful enticement to rebel against God. So how did Adam and Eve acquire such negative traits? At least Garcia could not get away from the admitted fact that “they transgress” even though he follows up with the obviously incorrect conclusions such transgression still has them being “innocent and loyal to the laws and ordinances of Yahweh” even though God cursed them for it. Thus, Adam and Eve sinned even though they were created by God and so Cain could sin even though he was born to them. Adding the entire serpent seed theory is utterly unnecessary.
Zen Garcia then circles back again to assert that “The reason Enoch uses black as a representation for Cain and those born of his line is that they inherently hold a natural disposition to commit and follow evil. This connection also explains his exclusion from the genealogical records and inherent negative tendencies.” This is not only painting with a broom but fails to note that, for example, King David is in Jesus’ genealogy and he too was a murderer.
Lastly, Zen Garcia replied to someone that “even though there is great opposition for whatever reason since this is not a salvation issue to this teaching as you know and I'm sure that many will come out in condemnation of Rob for doing this show.” Well, I, for one, condemn no one for doing a show about this issue. However, I do condemn the theory as well as Zen Garcia for continuing to preach this theory as if he has not personally received point-by-point refutations of it. Also, note that according to Garcia being in the literal genetic lineage of Satan himself “is not a salvation issue” which means that the whole entire serpent seed of Satan theory is a huge waste of time since it ends up meaning nothing.
As you can see even from this: once a person latches on to something false and then seeks to defend it against all odds and against all scriptural statement they, in their desperation, appeal to apocryphal texts, asserts things that are simply no so and play the gnostic and victimhood martyr card.
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