The wondrously prophetic line of Adam and Eve's third son, Seth

By the Rev. Ken McClure

After the fall of peace and the rise of the empire of Cain, a new hope is kindled when Adam and Eve come together and have a third son, Seth.

Chapter 5 of Genesis offers us an account of the line of Seth that parallels the one offered for his brother, but the development we see in it is not in contributions to civilization as with Seth's descendants, but by the connection to God that they establish and maintain. They do not assume the role of shepherd left vacant by the slaughter of Abel, but are instead marked by moments of interaction with God among their heritage: Seth's line offers us a prophetic line to parallel the ruling line of Cain.  

By the fifth generation, this divine connection is so deep that Enoch is said to have "walked with God" (Gen. 5:22). The traditions that this simple reference inspired in the ancient Jewish creative mind offer numerous treatments of what came to be regarded as Enoch's ascension, and his travels through the heavenly realms.

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While the details of the different treatments vary, depending on the creative ability of the author, the unifying feature of each of the different books attributed to Enoch is the reception of secret knowledge from God. Because of this, Enoch comes to be regarded as the prototype for the prophets generally, and he is specifically associated with Elijah, and even Jesus. While the fancy of these extra-canonical texts is engaging and their speculations captivating, the text of Genesis provides us with a simple statement that encapsulates everything every other text goes to great lengths to say: Enoch walked with God.  

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Enoch marks the height of the relationship between God and the children of Seth, in the same way that the patriarch of the fifth generation of the children of Cain, Lamech, marks the depths of that line's descent into depravity.

The line of Seth is fulfilled in its ninth generation when Noah answers the call of God to shepherd Creation through the storm to come. We see at last the role of prophet joined with the task of shepherd, the work of fallen Abel assumed by Seth, the brother he never knew. 

When we examine the line of Seth, our attention is primarily focused on its two greatest individuals, Enoch and Noah, but each link within the chain should be regarded as bearing the hope of the progenitor—if for no other reason than that the invocation of the name of God among mortals is connected to the foundation of their line (Gen. 4:26).

If we take this to be the case, then what we see in Genesis 5 is the prototype for the way that God will interact with the later Israel. A single family line follows a path of God in the world outside the Garden, and from that line emerges the prophets who will act as divine emissaries to their place and time.

The genealogies in chapters 4 and 5 of Genesis bear resemblance to the Kings lists of the ancient Sumerian cities, where we see seven kings from five cities ruling the land in the period before the flood, an event which is referred to in the lists.

Like the various descendants of Cain and Seth, these kings had exceptionally long reigns—far longer in fact than the longevity described in Genesis (the longest reign listed is 36,000 years). What I find interesting about these lists is the values they emphasize.

The connection to the pre-flood past made by the people of the Sumerian cities is through kingship, the power that unifies them within their cities. Their continuity is found through the line of kings that ruled them, while the biblical continuity is found through a line of prophets. The biblical story may recognize a city-building line of the world, but its focus is on the people/tribe/family who invoked God, who walked with God, who answered the call of God. 

Cain, Abel and the age-old urban-rural conflict

Cain and Abel, 1564. Woodcut, from Die Gantze Bibel, printed in Germany by Christoph Froschauer. Courtesy of the Digital Image Archive, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

Cain and Abel, 1564. Woodcut, from Die Gantze Bibel, printed in Germany by Christoph Froschauer. Courtesy of the Digital Image Archive, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

In this post, Fr. Ken takes us on an exploration of the story of Cain and Abel. He reflects on how it resonates with Sumerian mythology the farmer-shepherd dichotomy, and the tension between city and country.

A little refresher course before reading: Cain, the firstborn son of the created Adam and Eve, grew up and became a farmer and his brother Abel, the second-born, became a shepherd. When the brothers made sacrifices of their ‘first fruits’ to God, God favored Abel’s over Cain’s. Cain didn’t take well to this, killed his brother Abel, lied about the murder to God, and as a result was cursed and ‘marked’ for life. His punishment was that of a fugitive and wanderer. He received a mark from God, commonly referred to as the ‘Mark of Cain’, representing God’s promise to protect Cain from being murdered (Gen. 4:1–16).

By the Rev. Ken McClure

The long arch of the biblical narrative takes us through many facets of the relationship between humanity and God, but when we consider where the story begins and where the story ends, we see that the tension of that relationship consistently manifests as a tension between the country and the city.  

In the beginning paradise is a garden; there is no city. The city is born when Cain sets off into the world bearing his mark: he has a son and founds a city in his name. What are we to make of this other than to conclude an association between the city and Sin by virtue of their shared founder, Cain. 

What's fascinating about the story of Cain and Abel is that originates from the city, or more specifically from the Sumerian culture: the culture of the cities Abram inhabited in his father's house before forever forsaking the city for a pastoral life.  

In the Sumerian story, the goddess Inanna is made to choose a husband between the farmer Enkimdu and the shepherd Dumuzi. Now, while our biblical tradition may condition us to expect that Inanna chose Dumuzi, she chose Enkimdu the farmer. Dumuzi the shepherd, in a fit of indignation listed all the ways that he stood as equal to the farmer, mocking Inanna for the vapidity of her choice. This aroused the passion of the goddess and she entered into a passionate romance with the shepherd, forsaking her initial choice. When Enkimdu was spotted by Dumuzi, he approached him aggressively prepared to engage, and once again our biblical conditioning has us assuming that blood was shed but it wasn't. Enkimdu supplicates himself and grants access to his pasturage for Dumuzi's flocks, demonstrating that the foundation of the city was built upon a compact between pastoralists and tillers. 

The biblical narrative assimilates this story, but views it through the realities of cosmopolitan domination. Both shepherd and farmer wish to please God, but the shepherd's offering is preferred, causing the farmer to rise up and kill him. The farmer suppresses his opponent and founds a city built upon his own dynasty. It is a pastoral perspective on the cosmopolitan foundation myth.

We see as the story advances through the line of Cain, that by the fifth generation there are not only the developed features of civilization (music/art, technological advancements) but also a prototype of what could be considered an imperial ethos in the person of Lamech, who gloats about his embrace of violence and connects it to that of his ancestor Cain (Gen. 4.23-24).  

When we view this narrative through our own lens, we must determine what constitutes the city? In the ancient world, cities were states unto themselves. So for our context, the city is the state: both the national reality of our own state, but also the very concept of the state.  

The city/state is the place where human power is centralized, and as we see in the narrative, it unlocks both the creative and destructive potential of the human being. It is not our ability to dominate or innovate that God values, but our ability to care for what God has made, including each other.

We see the mark of Cain on the actions and achievements of his dynasty. In an effort to fill the void left by his exile from the life he knew, Cain builds a wall, the distinguishing mark of the city. Within the confines of this barrier, he invests his energy in creating a sanctuary from the isolation from God he experienced bearing his mark, the mark of Sin, in the world.

While the biblical perspective on the nature and use of the city evolves over the course of the biblical story, leading eventually to the new creation being centered in the perfected city, we must never forget that the perfection of the city only occurs when it is re-founded not by the farmer who bears the mark of Sin, but by The Shepherd who washes it clean. Until he does, the city stands as the place where the path of Cain is trod most freely.

Adam and Eve and the problem of sin

By the Rev. Ken McClure

When we think of Adam and Eve eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, under the influence of the crafty equivocations of the serpent (Gen. 3), we tend to view this as the moment of the first sin; but is it?

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The primeval couple allow themselves to be duped into disobedience, and awaken from their innocence after their fruit bender with a shame hangover, and an urgent need to mask their exposure. They cannot help but hide from their nakedness and guilt, particularly when they first encounter God in the light of their new knowledge. 

The knowledge is important here, because sin is only possible through choice, and choice is dependent upon knowledge. The choice that Adam and Eve make to eat the fruit in disobedience of God is unlike any subsequent disobedience committed in the human experience, because it is done without the ability to comprehend the morality of the action. They have not eaten the fruit that gives the knowledge of right and wrong when they make the wrong choice. It is only after they have done it that they understand they shouldn't have. 

No other sin can be said to bear this unique signature: even when ignorance is at the root of a sin, it must be said to be committed with an elementary concept of right and wrong that the primeval couple did not possess ... until they did. 

With this in mind, we need to consider if this episode marks the first sin, or the instance that allows sin to enter the world?

Once they are able to discern good from evil, the actions of Adam and Eve and the actions of all that come after them are bound to elementary principles of right and wrong, and so the choice to do wrong is thereafter made with intention. If we consider this moment an entry point for sin, then the first sin, the sin that bears resemblance to every other sin that follows, is the slaying of Abel by Cain (Gen. 4). This is an act committed with the full knowledge that it is wrong: the first instance when the newly-gained human ability to discern between that which is good and evil is tested, and fails.

If we consider the function of the later Law as binding sin, and further consider Jesus' reduction of the Law as being ‘love God, and love neighbor as self,’ than asking how these commandments could serve as correctives for these instances can help us to discern what should be considered sin. 

While Adam and Eve fail to obey God, there is not a moment when their love of God seems to be in question. Without the ability to know what they are doing is wrong, their disobedience cannot be said to be connected to their affinity. The love for God is at the heart of the Cain and Abel tragedy, first seen when Cain takes the initiative to make an offering from his fields. However it's a love that becomes corrupted when it is not reciprocated to the degree that satisfies Cain's need of affirmation, and it drives him to jealously murder his brother. He is not willing to love God on any terms other than his own, and when those are inadequate, he lashes out. 

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Cain is the first human to fail to love God with his whole heart, and to love his neighbor as himself.  Furthermore, Cain receives a unique mark to demonstrate that his crimes are subject to God's judgement, not the judgement of humanity (Gen. 4:15); this is what points to this being the first appearance of Sin. God claims jurisdiction over the judgement of the act, and while subsequent acts that resemble Cain's crimes will fall under human jurisdictions of judgement, the root of Cain's crime, sin, will always fall to God alone to judge.

These two stories, like the two creations (The mystery of the two Creation stories: separating the HOW from the WHY), need to be read together to be fully understood. Not as a timeline of events, but as a model of understanding the human condition. Chapters 3 and 4 of Genesis demonstrate that knowledge is transformative, but mired in consequence; and if it is exercised without a love of God, and a love of neighbor, it allows sin to blossom and consume. 

How can we pray for healing?

Is there a pattern to prayer that works? Is there a way that we can be sure God will answer? What if we pray and our prayers are not answered? How do we find faith? How can we believe?

In a sermon both brilliant and comforting,  David Barker reflects on Mark 5: 21-43 where Jesus heals a woman in the crowd who touched the hem of his garment, and later the daughter of Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue. 

Including stories of those praying in our own time—and the mysterious answers or seeming non-answers—David wrestles with some of our most difficult questions about prayer and faith.

Atheists are right: Christianity sounds absurd

By Darren Wilson*

Think about it. Christians believe in a man who lived more than 2,000 years ago in a series of backwater towns in the Middle East, was killed by some religious zealots, magically rose from the dead three days later, after which he floated up into the sky and disappeared, thus becoming the invisible man we now believe in and pin all our hopes on. On top of that, we believe in other unseen beings—angels and demons—who are all around, helping or hindering. Meanwhile, another invisible spirit (the Holy Spirit) is constantly at work behind the scenes around the earth, keeping the whole thing straight and intervening whenever possible.

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When put that way, even I think it sounds crazy. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. I’m a former university professor, an author of two books, and I’ve become something of a spokesperson not just for the existence of God through my films but for the idea that this invisible God is alive and well and doing amazing things in our world today. How then can I, as a rational, intelligent human being, actually believe in an invisible man and spirits?

I ask this question because it seems that lately a good number of people have been coming out and saying that no, they don’t believe this nonsense anymore. Former Christians seem to be taking a long hard look at what they once believed, and are finding the courage to step forward and voice their opinion: that they think it’s all nuts. I have a feeling they aren’t alone in their struggles with belief, and the reasons for this crisis of faith are surely varied and compelling. But like everyone, at the end of the day I am only truly responsible for myself, and I wanted to step forward and try to explain why I will continue to believe in an invisible God-man, no matter what.

For a good portion of my life, I lived a kind of Christianity that I have a sneaking suspicion most people do as well. It was built around a set of pre-informed beliefs and its orbit was made up almost exclusively with well-meaning principles—all of which were gleaned from the Bible and were designed to both make my life better and make me into a relatively nice person. Jesus was the centerpiece, of course, but He was more of a benevolent, distant brother figure. God was relatively silent on most things—and always loomed large in my ‘Be good or else!’ mentality. The Holy Spirit was like smoke, a guiding force if you will, but one that was totally unknowable.

This was Christianity, for sure, but it was a neutered one. I simply had to believe the right things, be a good person, and not do too much bad stuff. If I did make mistakes, I had to make sure I said I was sorry, otherwise a kind of logjam of sin would start to build up, which was not good.

When your life revolves around trying to ‘be good,’ there comes a point when it all just feels fake and forced. I mean, if Jesus is real, shouldn’t my life be different? Shouldn’t I have this peace He kept talking about inside me? Should I really have to try this hard to change my behavior? And after a while, when principles are all that generally guide you, it just becomes too much and you wind up doing the Christian thing simply because you think you should and because that’s what you’ve always done.

Darren Wilson on location in Jerusalem

Darren Wilson on location in Jerusalem

But then something happened, and this is where everything changed for me. I experienced God. I am a rational person and not prone to manic episodes, hallucinations, or strange behavior. I’ve never done drugs a day in my life. I don’t ‘feel’ things spiritually, have never been ‘slain in the spirit,’ and I’ve never even spoken in tongues. But while making these films of mine, I experienced the reality and presence of God. I felt Him inside me and around me. My behavior changed, I felt peace for the first time, and my Christian walk was no longer about following principles, but about following a Person. And yes, that Person was invisible.

How do you explain experiencing God to someone who has never experienced Him themselves? It’s a lot like trying to explain love to someone who has never been in love. They can be surrounded by people in love, can see how strange it makes people behave, can understand the concept of love. They can even see the dangers of falling in love with that person over this person, but unless you’ve actually fallen in love with someone, you’ll never be able to understand the feeling it gives you or the certainty that you are, in fact, in love, and that it is very, very real.

So it is no surprise to me that, for example, a pastor who decides to ‘take a year off from God’ comes out the other side as an atheist. Honestly, it would be impossible for me to take even a week off from God, because I have experienced Him firsthand. I know He’s there, I can’t ignore Him. No one who actually experiences God will ever deny His existence. For instance, for my new film, Holy Ghost Reborn, I filmed a ministry in Colorado that provides prayer and teaching almost exclusively to military personnel. Most of the participants go into this 3 day intensive as either atheists or nominal believers at best. All of them—a full 100%—come out of these 3 days believing in Jesus. Why? Because they just experienced Him for themselves. And you can’t deny something that you have actually experienced. My guess is that the vast majority of people who have turned their hearts from God never actually experienced Him in the first place. They may have heard and believed, but the reality of His presence never took root because believing something logically is not the same as experiencing it relationally.

Yes, believing in someone who is invisible seems, on the surface, a little crazy. But just as Billy Graham once pointed out, we believe in the wind not because we can see it, but because we can see the effects of it. We can feel it on our faces, see it whipping through tree branches. I believe in an invisible God not because I can see Him, but because I can see the effect of Him on my life, and on countless lives around the world. I can feel Him inside me, around me, even working through me.

I’m not sure people leaving the faith is an assault on Christianity as much as it is simply showing the danger of building faith on principles instead of relationship. As good and as important as principles are, nothing will ever compare to the vibrant, healthy, Biblical relationship that we were all created for with a God who is more real and more alive than many of us realize.

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*Darren Wilson is the Founder and CEO of WP Films, a media company with the mission to ask questions about God that no one else will. He has traveled the world since 2006 creating various feature-length documentaries, including Finger of God, Furious Love, Father of Lights, Holy Ghost and Holy Ghost Reborn. He has also written several books, including Filming God and Finding God in the Bible. The company now also has an online channel called WP TV.