“Serpent's Seed Theory”
William Branham was a proponent of the Serpent's Seed theory, which purports that Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden and punished to death for engaging in sexual intercourse (first by Eve having sex with the Serpent and then by Eve having sex with Adam). According to the theory, God's commandment for Adam and Eve to not eat of the tree of knowledge and good of evil meant that they were explicitly forbidden from having sexual intercourse.
In 1954, William Branham made some of his earliest claims about the Serpent's Seed theory and specifically made it known that it was it was his “own doctrine”, “own thought” and that
he “could be wrong” about it, as follows,
“Now where I think that come from. Now, here’s a little of my own doctrine now. It’s just church folk, see. I think that Cain was the son of Satan. I know you disagree with that, my own church does. But that’s still…Till God shows me different, I—I’ll believe the same thing, see, that he was the son of Satan. Cause I couldn’t place that ungodly, murderous spirit coming out of God. No, sir. He had to be after his daddy, and his daddy was this…here, when the Satan got upon the serpent.
And the serpent was not a reptile, the curse made him a reptile. He was just like a man, he walked upright. And he was with this woman out there, and she committed this adultery and brought forth her first son which was Cain, the nature of his daddy. And I believe that big beast was up like a man, and he walked upright, and that’s where these great giants come from. Yeah, that’s exactly. Now, that’s my own thought and I—I could be wrong. That’s my thought, see. But they were great man.” “Questions And Answers #1” (54-0103M).
Even though he admitted that he could be wrong about it, he went on to teach the Serpent's Seed theory as Biblical truth in the years that followed, as is evident in his teachings here.
As shown below, there are numerous problems with the theory and his related teachings.
The notion that the “tree” in the Garden of Eden was not an actual tree, but merely a figurative tree that somehow related to or symbolized sexual intercourse is difficult to accept as fact since the Bible specifically states in Genesis Chapter 3 that Eve saw that “the tree was good for food” and “pleasant to the eyes.”
If we accept such a theory to be true, then we are saying that God created Adam and Eve with reproductive systems that He not only did not want or intend them to use, but were so forbidden and “off-limits” from use that the couple would need to be banished from the Garden of Eden and punished to death if they ever engaged in reproductive activity. In other words, acceptance of the theory means believing that God's will was not for Adam and Eve to procreate with the reproductive systems that He created in them despite His commandment for man to “be fruitful, and multiply” like the other creatures in the first Book of the Bible. Would it not then have been very unjust and overly harsh for God to punish Adam and Eve by death and banishment from the Garden of Eden for simply engaging in the same reproductive and procreative activity as all of the other animals He created?
What's more, there is no evidence or any scriptural foundation to substantiate the premise that the Serpent (a non-human creature) was able to produce a human child with Eve. Only through conjecture can one accept the proposition that the Serpent had a genetic make-up that was closer to humans than the greatest of all primates. Even if genetic information of the Serpent was available and shown to be very close to a human's, more evidence would still be needed to show that it would have been possible for the Serpent to impregnate a human being. Although orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees are closely related, an orangutan cannot produce offspring with a gorilla, and a gorilla cannot produce offspring with a chimpanzee. As such, no reasonable conclusion can be made that because the Serpent might have been more closely related to humans than any of the great primates that the Serpent could have impregnated a woman.
From Genesis 3 we know that only Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. No mention therein is ever made of the Serpent also eating from the tree, but only of the Serpent having a verbal conversation with Eve. Through that conversation with Eve, he was able to convince her to eat from the tree and, she “took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Accordingly, an inference cannot be safely drawn that the Serpent, Adam and Eve all engaged in the same “eating” activity (or sexual intercourse as purported in the Serpent's seed theory).
After Genesis 3 concludes with the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, the accounting of what follows is stated in Genesis 4 as, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel.” Because the conjunction “And” means “in addition to”, we know that the conceptions and births of Cain and Abel occurred “in addition to” and after everything that transpired in the Garden of Eden and not when they were still in it. For this reason alone, the Serpent's Seed theory is flawed and not believable.
Proponents of the Serpent's seed theory also allege that 1 John 3:12 in the Bible provides evidence that the Serpent was Cain's father because it states that Cain was “of that wicked one.” However, such a statement is insufficient to demonstrate that Cain's father was the Serpent because Jesus Christ also told a group of Jews in John 8:44 that they were of their “father the devil.” What's more, the “wicked one” and “devil” throughout the Scriptures invariably refer to a spirit being and not to a physical being. It is therefore not possible to construe the terms the “wicked one” and “devil” (a spirit being) to mean or denote the Serpent himself (a physical being).
Proponents of the theory also claim that the Serpent was a giant and consequently his son Cain and his descendants produced the giants of the Old Testament. However, the theory fails to demonstrate with corroborating evidence that the Serpent was a giant and that Cain was his son. For those reasons alone, it cannot be safely concluded that the Old Testament giants descended from Cain and the Serpent. What's more, it is impossible to establish the existence of any Cain lineage giants after Noah and the antediluvian flood or show that all giants after the flood, including Goliath, were related to Cain and the Serpent because there is no evidence of any of the eight people in Noah's ark being descended from Cain's lineage.
It is also problematic that the forbidden “tree” and “fruit” in Genesis 2-3 are regarded under the Serpent's Seed theory to not have been real, but to only have been figurative or symbolic of them. If they were not real, then should not the “seed” of the Serpent in Genesis 3 also be regarded to only have been a figurative seed and not a real seed? The Serpent Seed theory only appears to work if literal and figurative usage of the three words are co-mingled, but would not God have used the words “tree”, “fruit” and “seed” all in symbolic form or used them all in literal form when speaking to Adam and Eve?
Additionally problematic is the fact that Serpent's Seed proponents offer only subjective interpretations of what the forbidden “tree” and “fruit” signify in Genesis 2-3 and fail to provide a sound Scriptural foundation for them to be accepted as truth or fact. For example, the theory's proponents interpret the forbidden “tree” in Genesis 2-3 to be Eve (the woman) because children are the “fruit” of their mother's wombs.[1] However, that interpretation is
unsound because the meaning of “eating fruit” cannot be accurately derived from examples of “bearing fruit” as demonstrated below.
Footnote:
[1] In support thereof, proponents often cite Scriptures like Deuteronomy 7:13 which states, “he will also bless the fruit of thy womb.”
If Eve (the woman) is the “tree” because children are the “fruit” of a woman's womb, then the forbidden “fruit” of the “tree” in the Garden of Eden would also have to signify or denote children. And by assigning “fruit” to mean “children” and “woman” to mean the forbidden “tree” in Genesis 2-3, the Scripture would have to also be interpreted to mean that Adam and Eve were forbidden from “eating” the “fruit” of their mother's womb (their own children) before they were ever born. Consequently, it is not possible to establish a causal and accurate connection between children being the “fruit” of their mother's womb and claims that was Eve was therefore the forbidden “tree” in the Garden of Eden.
From Genesis 3:6 alone we also know that the forbidden “tree” from which Adam and Eve ate cannot be “the woman” as proponents of the Serpent's Seed theory allege because that would mean Eve saw herself as being “good for food.” It would also mean that she took and ate fruit from herself and then gave fruit from herself to Adam to eat from her. Genesis 3:6 specifically states,
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
Notwithstanding Eve seeing that “the tree was good for food” and her and Adam both “eating” of the “fruit thereof”, proponents of the Serpent's Seed theory provide no reasonable and verifiable explanation for how such “food” and “eating” references had anything to do with sexual intercourse and how it would be possible for Eve to see herself as being “good for food” if she were, in fact, the forbidden “tree” as the proponents claim.
Thus, it is clear from the preceding six paragraphs that the Serpent's Seed theory is very significantly flawed because it inexplicably assigns both literal and figurative meanings to “tree”, “fruit” and “seed”, as well as claims Eve to be the forbidden “tree” using an unsound and insufficient Scriptural basis, and fails to establish how such phrases as, “the tree was
good for food”, “she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat” and “he did eat” were directly related to sexual intercourse.
Although it is not impossible for a woman to have twins from two different fathers, the occurrence is so rare that “the phenomenon – known as “heteropaternal superfecundation” – happens in about one out of every 13,000 cases, according to the US National Library of Medicine.”[2] If we are to accept the Serpent's Seed theory as true, then we would have to accept the notion that the very first pregnancy in the world occurred in that most extraordinary and extremely unusual fashion.
Footnote:
[2] Source: http://www.thejournal.ie/twins-with-two-different-fathers-new-jersey-2092994-May2015/
Without a sufficient factual or evidentiary basis to prove the Serpent Seed theory to be true, only postulates and explanations that seem reasonable or logical can be put forth and represented to be entirely true. Only claims of knowledge of the truth about what happened in the Garden of Eden can be put forth without any way to corroborate or substantiate them.
In the absence of a sound and legitimate basis to accept the theory to be true, one might assert that claims of what happened in the Garden can only be accepted by faith. In other words, the related claims of the theory need to be simply believed to be true despite there being no evidence or real way to substantiate and prove the claims. God clearly does not want us to use faith to accept far-fetched and tenuous claims and theories. Rather, God wants us to use faith to accept such things as our salvation and healing.
The Serpent's Seed theory has been around for thousands of years and has never been widely or universally accepted to be true for obvious reasons. Although the theory offers explanations about what transpired with Adam, Eve, the Serpent and God in the Garden of Eden, the related explanations have originated from man's use of his own intellect, logic and reasoning to deduce what transpired. Despite the proponents of this theory offering explanations that appear to cover and address each aspect of what occurred in the Garden, those explanations are just too tenuous, incredible and unsubstantiated to accept the Serpent's Seed theory as absolute truth and fact. There are also too many inconsistencies, obscure aspects and remaining questions about this theory to believe that it was handed down or revealed to us from God.
Understanding what many parts of the Bible mean or signify certainly isn't always easy. There will always be aspects of It that we will never understand while we are in this world including those parts of It in which there are unknowns and just not enough information to know exactly how an event transpired. Realistically, God does not expect or require us to understand all of It and salvation certainly is not dependent on doing so. When a Biblical story or account lacks sufficient details and facts to understand unequivocally what occurred, such as in the story of the Garden of Eden, we would be amiss to assign unverifiable meaning and accept interpretations as absolute truth that cannot be substantiated or verified with evidence.
The importance of preserving and not adding to God's Word was established in Deuteronomy 4:2 which states,
“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”
Accordingly, if we are to preserve the Bible, His written Word, and not add anything to it, we should be careful not to accept unsubstantiated theories like the Serpent's Seed theory as absolute truth and being part of His Word.