It is obvious that there are two separate streams of tradition, but both were derived from the same distant source. The original center of dissemination was manifestly in Mesopotamia.
There is a third list mentioned in the peudepigraphic literature that has been neglected presumably because it does not agree with the proposition in Genesis that Abraham inherited the mantle of priesthood from Noah. Provided by the Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch, this list of priest-kings ends with the Patriarch Melchizedek who is transported to the heavens just before the Deluge. It is perhaps better known for its line of succession which avoids Noah and instead passes it to his brother Nir and then to his son Melchizedek.
The Cain-Abel Murder Mystery
The Biblical explanation for the first recorded murder in the history of mankind is somehow not convincing for, according to Genesis, Cain killed Abel because his sacrifice was snubbed by the Lord in favor of Abel’s. Logically this along would not seem provocative enough to cause Cain to commit fratricide. A more complete andsinister version of the crime is provided in the ancient document the “Life of Adam and Eve.”
When Eve conceived and bore Cain she said, according to Genesis, “I have added a man-child with the help of the Lord.” In the case of Abel, however, the text says merely that “next she bore his brother Abel.” Genesis thus suggests although obliquely, that the birth of Cain involved the deity.
We must look to other sources to understand and clarify what actually happened. Further clarification of the paternity of Cain is found in the Apocalypse of Adam, a Gnostic document of the First Century AD, wherein Adam reveals to his son Seth that “the Lord, who created us, created a son from himself and Eve, your mother.” The pseudepigraphic document called the Life of Adam and Eve also observes that Eve “bore a son and he was lustrous.” This is a good description of the shiny luminous hide of the reptile gods.
It was not unusual in ancient times to believe that serpents regularly impregnated women.
If the deity was the father of Cain, while Adam sired Abel, it explains many of the events which happened subsequently, for if the deity were his father, Cain would be part reptilian and more God-like. It would explain his fierce and bloodthirsty nature and account for the murder of his brother Abel. An unusual and somewhat bizarre version of the crime of Cain is found in the Life of Adam and Eve which narrates some episodes in the life of Adam, There are two versions—the Latin or Vita version, and the Greek or Apocalypse one. In the Vita version, Eve has a vision where it is “as if the blood of our son Abel was in the hands of Cain who was gulping it down in his mouth.” The Apocalypse version is somewhat more dramatic, as Eve tells Adam:
“My Lord, I saw a dream last night, the blood of my son Amilabes, called Abel, being thrust into the mouth of Cain, his brother, and he drank it mercilessly…And it did not stay in his stomach and came out of his mouth. They got up to see what happened and found Abel killed by Cain.”
The crime of Cain was apparently not only to commit fratricide, but also to eat the flesh and blood of his brother. This behavior seems to be more reptilian than human for Cain was sired by the deity and was therefore half saurian. This may have been the main reason for aborting the line of Cain to be superseded by that of Seth.
For this barbaric deed Cain was banished east to the land of Nod. Then as a sign that Cain came under the Lord’s protection, he placed a mark on Cain, the name of which was not described in Genesis.
In order to protect his semi-divine progeny, the deity warned that “whoever kills Cain shall suffer vengeance seven fold”. Strangely this same statement is repeated in the verse on Lamech which ends the line of Cain and obviously the two verses are related.
Cain is considered by the deity to be a bad experiment; but since he is his offspring, he cannot be destroyed. He is exiled to a far land so that neither he nor his offspring can do any more harm. Cain is said to have married his sister Awan at the end of the Fourth Jubilee or about the 200th year of Adam’s life. Rabbinical sources indicated that he died in his 930th year, and that is the year before the death of Adam. In the pseudepigrapha, Cain was reportedly accidentally killed by Lamech, thus fulfilling the curse of the seventh generation.
After the murder of Abel and Cain’s barbaric behavior in the eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of his victim, the deity realized that his son out of Eve was not fit to continue the development of mankind and was banished to the land of Nod.
However, Genesis continues the line of Cain, uneventfully, through Irad, Mehujael, Methusael and then ends with Lamech. Not content with dropping the line here, the scriptures left behind a puzzle, a cryptic verse that has been the bane of Biblical scholars. The verse which ends the line of Cain is as follows:
Lamech said to his wives,
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice,
O wives of Lamech, give ear to my speech:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
A boy for injuring me.
If Cain be avenged sevenfold
Then Lamech seventy-fold.
After Abel’s death and Cain’s banishment, a third son arrives on the scene. Like Abel, Seth is born of Adam and Eve. Thus begins the line of Patriarchs which continues unbroken until the time of the Deluge. The heroes of the Old Testament, quite often and proudly, claim their descent from this Sethite line.
The mysterious Lamech, son of Methuselah:
Methuselah, the son of Lamech, is given little coverage in Genesis. His son Lamech, however, is subject to a “history mystery”. In both the Cainite and the Sethite tradition, Lamech is the son of Methuselah. Genesis devotes much space to explaining the activities of the line of Cain, and then drops the line altogether.
According to this lineage, Lamech had three sons – Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain. He had two wives, Adah and Zillah; he was thus the first admitted polygamist and the father of the founders of nomadism, the musical arts and metalworking. Lamech is the seventh generation according to the Cainite lineage and the numbers 7 and 77 seem to play an important part in his poem in Genesis:
Lamech said to his wives,
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice,
O wives of Lamech, give ear to my speech:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a boy for injuring me.
If Cain be avenged sevenfold
Then Lamech seventy-fold.
The reference to killing a boy and a man, leading to the curse of the 77th generation, has been a puzzle to scholars for creatures. Who then were these people that were so important as to bring such drastic retribution to Lamech?
The answer may be found in the Haggadah, which provides the details of the slaying of Cain. In this story, Lamech was reportedly old and blind and when he went hunting was led by his son Tubal-Cain, who would tell his father when game came into sight, so that Lamech could shoot at it with his bow and arrow. Once, he aimed as some horned creature which Tubal-Cain thought to be a beast. In fact, it was Cain bearing the “sign of Cain”, a horn in the forehead according to the Haggadah, but more probably a set of horns on the head. Lamech killed him and in despair, he struck out, inadvertently killing his son, Tubal-Cain. Fanciful as the story goes, it accounts for the killing of a man and a boy, both of which were not just ordinary people. Cain’s slaying was serious since he was half-reptile and protected by the gods as one of their own.
By the days of Lamech, the Anunna or Nefilim had become the bane of mankind. The hatred for this barbaric ancestry may have led Lamech to murder Cain, and while it may have been applauded by mankind, the gods and demi-gods were certainly not pleased. There is an echo of this in the treatment of Melchizedek, the grandchild of Lamech who was taken away by the Nefilim to prevent his being killed by the people.
As priest-kings, the Patriarchs were considered to be allies and friends of the gods, presumably because they themselves were part saurian. Reptile vestiges must have made them easily recognizable, and these characteristics, possibly a patch of scaly skin on the chest or face, or perhaps the remains of reptilian features on the countenance, would be considered by humans as the so-called “badge of shame.” This may have been why Noah was so upset when seen naked by his sons.
The Lamech of the Line of Seth:
It would seem that there were two different traditions of the antediluvian Patriarchs that originated from the same source. Why the two Lamech’s were so different is an interesting puzzle that seeks a solution. Perhaps some of this confusion can be traced to the events of the time. Enoch appears to be the last of the Patriarchs beloved and trusted by the gods. He went up for the second time in 987 AA (years after Adam), in our calculations, to become Metatron and preside over the trial of the Nefilim . The Nefilim reportedly descended during the days of Jared and since he was born in 460 AA, the troubles caused by them were between 460 and 987 AA.
In Noah’s time a second group of Nefilim descended and caused many problems for humanity. While there is no evidence that Methuselah as a priest-king was not trusted by the gods, the minimum amount of publicity he receives in all the ancient documents indicates he was not very popular. Neither was Lamech, for in the Slavonic Book of Enoch, Methuselah passes the mantle of priesthood to Nir, thereby bypassing the Lamech, and what is more significant skipping over Noah, his eldest son.
The scriptures seem ambivalent when it comes to Lamech, torn between the evil-doer Cain and the laudable son Seth. What is not perceived is that while the Patriarchs had prodigious lifespans, they dovetailed to such an extent that, according to the chronology of Genesis, the total elapsed time adds up to more that 1656 years.
In fact, if the chronology is used, at the time of Lamech’s birth in the year 874 AA, all of the Patriarchs were still alive, Adam and Cain being the first to die in 930 and 931 AA, respectively. Therefore the events of the days of Jared, when the Nefilim first descended, through the generations of Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, up to the Deluge, probably lasted no more than 700 or 800 years. The end of the lifespan of Lamech and Methuselah coincide with the onset of the Deluge, leading one to believe that they both died in that catastrophe.
Methuselah and the Priest-Kings Nir and Melchizedek:
According to Eupolemus, Methuselah obtained knowledge from “the angles” and passed this to mankind.” This may refer to the knowledge that was passed by Enoch to his family on his first return to Earth. Like Enoch, he must have commuted freely between Earth and the spaceship.
In a story from the Dead Sea scrolls, Lamech was worried over the strange appearance of his new son Noah and asked his father Methuselah to see Enoch for an explanation.
Methuselah was also warned of the coming catastrophe. The Slavonic Book of Enoch reveals that 200 years before the event he is told that “destruction of the Earth is drawing near.” At the same time he is told to summon Nir, the second son of Lamech, and to brief him on the coming disaster, “then I will preserve the son of your son Lamech, his first Noah.”
While Methuselah’s grandson Noah is well known in scriptures as the hero of the Deluge, there are very few references to his second grandson, Nir, the son of Lamech, nor is there much information of Nir’s son Melchizedek.
Both are considered to be Priest-kings in the tradition of the Patriarchs. When Enoch left to return to the spaceship after instructing his son Methuselah, the mantle of priesthood was passed to him.
Just before Methuselah died, the deity told him to transfer the priesthood to Nir. Methuselah was also to brief Nir on the coming destruction of the world by earthquake and rising waters, and by “the great storages of waters of heaven that will come down to Earth.” Presumably this refers to the collapse of the cloud canopy encircling the Earth.
The strange appearance of Melchizedek:
It is at this time that Nir’s wife, Sopanim, who had until then been sterile suddenly conceived with child. She claimed that Nir nor any other man had slept with her, suggesting that the father was probably a Nefilim. Nir was not convinced of her innocence and banished her from his sight. Later as she was about to give birth he visited her; suddenly she died at his feet. Nir and his brother Noah wrapped her in burial garments and placed her on the bed while they left to prepare her burial. They returned to the house to the surprise of their life. Sopanim had produced a child and as the Slavonic Book of Enoch states:
“And a child came out from the dead Sopanim. And he sat on the bed at her side. And Noah and Nir came in to bury Sopanim, and they say the child sitting beside the dead Sopanim, and wiping his clothing. And Noah and Nir were very terrified with a great fear because the child was fully developed physically, like a three-year old child. And he spoke with his lips and he blessed the Lord. And Noah and Nir looked at him and behold the badge of priesthood was on his chest, and it was glorious in appearance.”
This “badge of priesthood” that he bore on his chest and that made him so unique that he was immediately recognized as part divine and automatically qualified him for the priesthood was none other than the “mark of the Nefilim”, probably a patch of scaly lustrous hide.
Melchizedek, also called Adonizedek, means “My Lord is Zedek.” Zedek was the Hebrew name for the Roman sun god Jupiter. Noah probably also carried the “mark of the Nefilim.”
Later Nir was informed that soon a great catastrophe would envelope the Earth and destroy mankind , but his son Melchizedek would not perish.
The Melchizedek priesthood:
The tradition of the priesthood of Melchizedek is entirely dropped from the Old Testament and instead it is vested in Aaron, the brother of Moses later to be replaced by the trive of Levi or Levites. The priesthood of Melchizedek was kept alive, however, by the Mormons, who gave this tradition precedence over the other priests in the scriptures.
The higher priesthood in the Mormon Church, or more correctly, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is called the Melchizedek Priesthood. Aaron and Levi are given less importance for the lesser priesthood is called the Aaronic Priesthood of which the Levitical Priesthood is but a subdivision.
The Book of Mormon traces the origins of the Melchizedek Priesthood back to the days of Abraham, to the person of that name who was high priest and King of Salem (later Jerusalem) to whom Abraham paid homage and a tithe of ten percent.
The strange appearance Noah:
The only other Patriarch who “walked with God” was Enoch, who became deified in his lifetime.
Although Noah was not deified or made divine in the religious literature, his Sumerian counterpart Utnapishtim was made immortal and sent to live with the gods. For some reason the Hebrew priesthood decided not to immortalize Noah.
Like his nephew Melchizedek, Noah was physically different. In the lost Book of Lamech, scraps of which have been recovered in the Dead Sea scrolls, Noah was so physically different when he was born that Lamech appealed to his father Methuselah, who in turn asked Enoch, whether or not Noah had been conceived by the Nefilim.
Methuselah was told that Noah was not from one of the divine beings but from his own son Lamech. What then is this physical difference that so disturbed Lamech? Was this the difference that caused such consternation to Noah and his sons after the Deluge?
Genesis makes much of the incident after the Deluge when Noah, drunk from too much wind, collapsed in a drunken stupor. Ham entered and saw his father naked and told his two brothers, who proceeded to back into the text with a cloth and covered the naked Noah. Finding out that his son Ham had seen him naked, Noah loses all sense of reason and puts a curse on Ham and his son Canaan.
One wonders over this irrational reaction. Was it because Noah wanted to hide his reptilian past?
Flying Serpents and Dragons by R.A. Boulay, pages 129-142