The "Cultural Context" Excuse

[Rev. Rye]

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Just looked at the 1 John 3:12 verse Huggy Bear seems to consider a smoking gun for the "Serpent Seed" theory.

Knowing he tends to be annoyed at the NIV for taking out things, I looked to the Amplified version which does the exact opposite and tries to put the more ambiguous parts (parts that the 1st century Greek-speaking reader would have taken for granted, that leave 21st century Anglophone readers scratching their heads) into context:


Saying he was "of that wicked one" because he killed his brother and apparently single-handedly took sin up to a new level really makes more sense than saying he was "of that wicked one" because he was the literal seed of the serpent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplified_Bible

Brackets: contain clarifying words or comments not actually expressed in the immediate original text.

So your solution is to post a version of that Bible which gives the translators opinion [which is why it is bracketed] of the word instead of the actual word? 

Here is the literal translation from Greek.
http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInter...f/1jo3.pdf



Note how the literal translation says "Cain out of the wicked one was". The Greek word used is ἐκ ek

   

Note where it says "emission out of"

ἐκ • ‎(ek)

  1. (of place)
            1. (of motion) Out of, from
            2. from, with the source of
            3. to denote change from one place or condition to another
            4. to express separation of distinction from a number
            5. (of position) outside, beyond
  2. (of time)
            1.from, since
            2. (of particular points of time) just, after
            3. during, in
  3. (of origin)
            1. (of materials) made out of something
            2. (of descent, parentage) descended from
            3. (of causation) done by someone, something
            4. of the cause, instrument, or means by which a thing is done
            5. from, according to
            6. turns a following noun into a periphrastic adverb
            7. (with numerals) in such an order

Also

Matthew 1:20
But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of (ἐκ) the Holy Ghost.

There's that word again...
If you guys would use just a little bit of logic you'd realize that if Jesus was the only man on the earth born with out sin because of his virgin birth, then sex had something to do with original sin.

Guess who else thought it was fruit? Cain. Which is why he made a offering of fruit to God and it was rejected, because he didn't have a revelation of what really happened.

What happened in Eden had nothing to do with fruit, It is told in that manner because every scripture has compound meaning... Did not Jesus say that the scriptures testify of him? So not only is the story of Eden illustrating what happened in the garden it is also illustrating the future crucifixion of Jesus...


besides if you're just going to use whatever version, then how about these.

New Life Version
Do not be like Cain. He was a child of the devil and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? It was because he did what was sinful and his brother did what was right.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Don't be like Cain. He was a child of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain murder his brother? Because the things Cain did were evil and the things his brother did had God's approval.

Weymouth New Testament
We are not to resemble Cain, who was a child of the Evil one and killed his own brother. And why did he kill him? Because his own actions were wicked and his brother's actions righteous.

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And why can it not have been metaphorical? After all, the famed "son of God" remark actually started off as an expression that had been applied to others as a metaphor.

For instance:

• Psalm 2 is built around the 'King of Israel as Son of God' motif, and Psalm 82 calls the Judges of old "sons of the Most High", and Psalm 89:26-8 has the psalmist (presumably King David) called God's son.
  
• In Jeremiah 31, God calls himself the father of Israel, with Ephraim as his firstborn son.
  
• Going into the apocrypha, Sirach 4:10 says: "Be as a father unto the fatherless, and instead of an husband unto their mother: so shalt thou be as the son of the most High, and he shall love thee more than thy mother doth." (And, yes, the people behind the King James Bible actually translated the Apocrypha)
  
• It should also be noted that this epithet was actually applied to certain rabbis in the Talmud.
  

And that's not even pointing out the many non-Hebrew instances in history of powerful people being termed sons of god, more or less as metaphor, dating back to at least around a millennium before Christ.

With all this in mind, Huggy Bear, why is it not possible that my interpretation of it as a metaphor (meaning roughly what was bracketed in the Amplified version I posted) is more plausible than a Eve having sex with a reptile, having a child with it, the Bible never bringing it up in anything more than obliquely worded phrases (especially considering that, from my readings, if a Biblical set of siblings has a different father, they tend to bring that up up front, especially with a conclusion as dramatic) that are ultimately still consistent with Cain and Abel being full siblings?