Doctrines
There are various factions who have attempted to create totally different meanings to the term Lost Ten Tribes, often with antisemitic elements.
These groups, now referred to as the Christian Identity movement, seem to have also emerged during the 19th century. Many groups who identified themselves as Christian felt the need to identify their groups with the Lost Ten Tribes in order to set themselves apart from mainstream Christianity, whom they despised for their humanitarian ideas and for its connection to Judaism.
This interpretation created a problem for these groups since they could no longer accept Jews as being related to the same family origins and the same Biblical history which recorded the division of the united Hebrew Kingdom into two competing factions. To create this distinction it became necessary for groups mainly identified with the movement to invent a totally new history that removed Jews.
- Adapted from Wikipedia article “Antisemitic Interpretations” through the G.N.U. Free Documentation License.
What is Serpent Seed doctrine?
Question: “What is Serpent Seed doctrine?”
Answer: Serpent seed doctrine is a belief based on poor biblical interpretation and superstition. It is a primary doctrinal resource for those who want to use Scriptures to justify racial prejudice. Serpent seed doctrine is also closely related to other erroneous beliefs such as the Christian Identity movement, and the Kenite doctrine. Like many false beliefs, it has a built-in defense mechanism; that is, anyone who disagrees with it is accused of being a son of the serpent. One of the most unfortunate problems with the serpent seed doctrine is that is so heavily relies on prejudice and warped biblical interpretation that it can be very difficult to discuss rationally.
Simply stated, serpent seed doctrine teaches that the sin of Eve was not simple disobedience, but sexual contact with the serpent, and that Cain was the son of Eve and the devil. Cain’s descendants are, according to this idea, the sons of Satan, and this includes most any race or group that the serpent seed believer chooses to dislike. This idea is rooted in superstitious beliefs and is particularly popular with white supremacists and anti-Semites; the Unification Church also supports this idea. Noted false prophets and false teachers such as Arnold Murray of Shepherd’s Chapel and William Branham espoused the idea. Although an idea should not be criticized when it is wrongly applied, it is appropriate to condemn an idea when it logically leads to sin. A philosophy that teaches that some races or people are universally satanic, like the serpent seed doctrine, is one such philosophy.
Those who support serpent seed ideas cite many passages in the Bible as proof that their idea is correct. Almost without exception, these “proofs” require an interpretation that is totally inappropriate to the context of the passage. For example, Genesis 3:13 is often cited, with the claim that the word translated “beguiled” in the King James Version really meant “seduced.” Context and scholarship would disagree. Proverbs 30:20 metaphorically compares eating and sexual immorality; this is greatly overstated by the serpent-seed believer as proof that the Fall was sexual. Other passages include Jude 1:14, and the parable of the tares in Matthew chapter 13. Those who believe in the serpent seed doctrine teach that Jesus’ description of the “children of the devil” in this parable is true in a biological sense. Again, only one who is trying to force this belief into the Bible will see it this way; it is not naturally read out of Scripture.
There are literally dozens of places in the Bible that this false idea has been wedged into, yet every single one requires a person to believe in the serpent seed idea beforehand. Only by reading a passage and saying, “if you assume that the serpent seed doctrine is true, then this means…” can a person support this false philosophy. For this reason, arguing against the serpent seed doctrine can be difficult. Those who believe it interpret Scripture through a sort of “serpent seed lens,” and are not likely to accept other interpretations, no matter how well supported by context and scholarship.
There are some basic questions and contradictions inherent to the serpent seed doctrine that can be used to demonstrate its lack of truth. For example, Galatians 3:28 clearly states that race and gender have no impact on our standing with God. Second Peter 3:9 says that God wants everyone to be saved, not “everyone but the children of Cain.” Nowhere in Scripture is anyone identified as a “Kenite,” or condemned based on being from Cain’s lineage. Never are we warned about such people by the New Testament writers. Also, there is the question of how or why such persons survived the flood. The doctrine supposes that original sin was sexual, but cannot explain why the whole remainder of the Bible lays out a worldview where the original sin was disobedience, not sexuality.
This philosophy is most unfortunate in that it leads directly and logically to two main problems. Racism is by far the worst; believing that certain races are irredeemable has no positive application. The only possible outcome of such a worldview is prejudice and bigotry. There is also a tendency to blow off critics of the serpent seed doctrine as being the very “Kenites” the philosophy believes in. Arnold Murray is particularly guilty of this abuse. Fortunately for believers, God has given us a resource in Scripture that can show us the truth. We need only read it with unbiased and open eyes to find true wisdom.
** Used by permission of GotQuestions?.org
British-Israelism in four brief statements:
1) It distorts and confuses the whole prophetic Scriptures and seeks to appropriate the millennium and its blessings for the present times.
2) It fosters national pride and nationalizes God’s blessings, undispensationally, reckoning that Britain must become mistress of the whole world.
3) It befogs the fact that Christian destiny, whether of Jews or Gentiles, is linked, neither with Palestine, America, or England, but with an inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, and which fadeth not away.
4) It robs the Jewish nation of many promises in relation to their future, by applying them to the British race.
** Horataius Bonar, as cited by Dr. Charles Wm. Walkem, Contradictions, Absurdities, Errors of the British-Israel Myth, 1948, pg. 31