The idea that Eve mated with the serpent, or Satan, and produced Cain, finds its earliest expression in Gnostic writings. It was rejected by mainstream Christian theologians such as Irenaeus. The idea appears in a 9th-century book titled Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer. In his book Cain: Son of the Serpent, David Max Eichhorn traces the idea back to early Jewish Midrashic texts and identifies many rabbis who taught that Cain was the son of the union between the serpent and Eve.
taught that Eve and the serpent had sexual intercourse and Cain's birth was the result of it. Consequently, every woman potentially carried the literal seed of the devil. Cain's descendants were today masquerading as the educated and the scientists, who were "a big religious bunch of illegitimate bastard children." The serpent was the "missing link" between the chimpanzee and man. According to Branham's teachings, the central sins of modern culture - immoral women and education - were a result of the serpent's seed. Branham's attitude toward culture was an extremist perspective that was similar to the "Christ Against Culture" concept which was invented by theologian H. Richard Niebuhr. Education was Satan's snare for intellectual Christians who rejected the supernatural. Education was Satan's tool for obscuring the "simplicity" of the messenger and his message.
Arnold Murray
, founder of The Shepherd's Chapel, taught the serpent seed doctrine. He accepted the belief that the Jews were descended from Adam through Seth, as described in the Bible. However, he held the view that the Kenites were the offspring of Cain, and he also believed that they infiltrated the northern Kingdom of Israel. Murray's teachings are disputed by Protestantapologetics ministries CARM and the CRI.
Christian Identity movement
Adherents of the white supremacist theology which is known as two-seedline Christian Identity hold the view that only white people are the descendants of Adam and hence the chosen people of God. The Jewish people are believed to be the descendants of Cain and thus the descendants of Satan. This belief was developed by Wesley A. Swift, Conrad Gaard, Dan Gayman and William Potter Gale among others. The opposing faction is called One-Seedline Christian Identity and its adherents hold the view that all people are descended from Adam, but they believe that only Aryans are truly God's chosen people.
P'ikareum
is a ritual which is possibly practiced in several Korean new religious movements, in which a female devotee has sex with the male leader in order to purify her descendants from sin. The purpose of this ritual is to undo the original sin, which was believed to have been committed when Eve had sex with the serpent. British religious scholar George Chryssides also notes that there were cases in which the messianic leader was a female and the neophyte was a male. The person so initiated will then have intercourse with his or her spouse, and the purity which is acquired from the messianic leader will be transmitted to both the spouse and the progeny. The most notable Korean new religious movement to have faced allegations of performing p'ikareum is the early Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon; however, Chryssides notes that, aside from the use of language which involves the purifying of sinful bloodlines, there is no actual evidence that this ritual occurs within the Unification movement.
