William Branham (1909-1967 AD) preached a sermon titled “The Serpent’s Seed” (on September 28, 1958 AD at the Branham Tabernacle, Jeffersonville, Indiana, USA). The portion of the sermon that touches upon our serpent seed of Satan theory is introduces by William Branham noting:
…turn with me now over into the book of Genesis at the 3rd chapter. If you want to know anything, I can show you in this book of Genesis where every cult, and every ism, and everything that we got right today, begin in Genesis. How many know that “Genesis” means “the beginning”? Certainly. We find the Catholic church in the beginning: Babylon, Nimrod the founder; we find it in the middle of the Bible; we find it at the last of the Bible. We find, trying to bring in women preachers in the beginning of the Bible by worshipping little statues made out of roots.
How many have read Hislop’s, “Two Babylons,” the history? All right. Find out in these histories they had a woman. And then you remember even Jacob stole his father’s gods, and his daughter hid them under her. And took them out there in the wilderness, which defiled the camp later on.
He is continuing the context of his sermon with regards to Revelation 17’s reference to the symbolic woman riding the beast. Unfortunatly, he is appealing to a book that has been largely discredited; see my previous article Babylon mystery religion and Alexander Hislop’s “The Two Baylons”.
Now, let us see to what conclusions he came:
All right. Let’s read now in Genesis. Now, the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD GOD had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, has God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? … the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,… (See? Hunting new light.)… and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. See, how these fellows are today trying to take away from the Bible. “Why, isn’t it just as easy to pour, or sprinkle, this way or that way?” No, sir. God put down a program, and that’s what we’re supposed to follow, This. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to make–to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her; and he did eat.
And their eyes of them both were opened, and they knew… they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made them aprons.
At this point he states, “I would like to stop here for a minute” and discusses how “there’s got to be a beginning of everything” and how first, “God was making the earth…He was laying the building…He was making your body,” etc.
He gets back to our serpent seed of Satan theory by stating:
This man, when he was created, God separated his spirit, and He took a piece off the man, his side, and made a woman out of it. And then He took the feminish, dainty spirit of the man and made a woman out of it, and He made the man masculine, burly…
Well, Eve was made from Adam’s side, from his rib, but I am unsure as to where William Branham got the concept of a feminish, dainty spirit.
He continues thusly:
Now, when this woman, He made him a helpmate, and she was to be his helpmate. And then. Now, here I’ve never had a preacher to agree with this yet. And they try to make it some other way, but yet it don’t make sense to me. They try to say that Adam and Eve eat some apples. Brother, if—I don’t say this for a joke now, but I want to say it for—If eating apples makes women realize they are naked, we’d better pass the apples again. You know that’s right.
Well no, this was not about apples because the Bible merely refers to “fruit” but his point is beyond pomology as he continues by stating:
You know eating an apple, that wasn’t what they did, made them realize they were naked. Certainly, it wasn’t. It had to come through sexually. It had to be, ’cause they realized they were naked when they taken this forbidden fruit.
Ain’t a woman a fruit tree? Aren’t you the fruit of your mother? That was the fruit that was forbidden to be taken.
From here he talks about fossils and scientists seeking the ancestry of humanity. He gets back to the point by noting that a certain Dr. DeHaan holds that:
…when the sons of God saw the daughters of men were fair—He takes Josephus’ stand and say that they pressed themselves into human flesh and taken unto them wives; and there were giants in the land of Nod; and they had taken to themselves wives and lived with them, when the sons of God, fallen angels, taken and seen the daughters of men, and the sex desire was such a great thing, and yet them being sinful from falling, they pressed themselves into human flesh.
Branham follows up with:
If they’d do that, they’d spoil Divine healing, they’d spoil everything else. If the devil can create, he’s equal with God. The devil cannot create. I want you to show me one place where the devil can create. He cannot create. He only perverts what has been created. He is no creator. He is only a perverter. Well then, what happened? What’s? Here’s my version. Here’s the missing link.
He then goes on to talk about how, for example, “you can’t breed a chimpanzee with a woman and bring forth a child,” etc.
Back to the point, he believes that Satan, the serpent, is the missing link:
I believe, and can support it by the Bible, that it is the serpent that did it. The serpent is that missing person between the chimpanzee and the man, ’cause, listen, notice this now, that the serpent was not a reptile. He was the most subtil of all the beasts of the field.
He then gets into dictionary definition of subtil and how the serpent “was not a reptile. The curse made him a reptile” and gets back to the main point thusly:
Now, watch the serpent, this serpent which was first. Let’s draw a picture of him now. He’s a great big fellow. He’s between the chimpanzee and the man. And the serpent, the devil, Lucifer, knew that that was the only blood that would mix with this human blood. The only person he could deal with—he couldn’t deal with the chimpanzee. That blood wouldn’t mix. He couldn’t deal with different things. He couldn’t deal with the sheep. He couldn’t deal with the horse. He couldn’t deal with any animal. He had to deal with this serpent.
Let’s take him now and see what he looks like: Great big fellow, prehistoric giant. That’s where they find these big bones, and I’ll show you this in the Bible. Now, watch closely then. All right. This great big fellow, let’s say he was—he was ten foot tall, great big shoulders, looked just like a man. And his blood, after coming down, coinciding one animal to another.
Let us pause a moment as it is unclear whence he is getting the mental picture of the serpent, the devil, Lucifer being a “great big fellow…between the chimpanzee and the man…prehistoric giant…ten foot tall, great big shoulders, looked just like a man.”
Revelation chapters 12 and 20 provide a very useful statement, “the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan” thus, dragon, serpent, etc. do not refer to different animals just like the words devil and satan mean accuser and adversary.
See my article On satan, divination and metal to see how one Hebrew word makes reference to serpent, to divination and to brazen copper. Also, as per Ezekiel 28:14 Satan is a Cherub and thus, appears to have a basic humanoid form with four wings and four faces: man, lion, ox/bull and eagle/vulture (see Ezekiel 10).
William Branham continues:
How many know that science can’t find the missing link? All of you know that. Why? Here he is, the serpent. Here he was a great big fellow. And the devil comes down. Now, he says, “I can inspire.” Now, when you go to looking at women and actions of women, remember you are anointed of the devil, if it’s not your own wife. Notice. Now, the devil come down and got into the serpent, and he found Eve in the garden of Eden naked. And he talked about the fruit in the midst, the “midst” means “middle” and so forth. You understand in a mixed congregation. And he said, “Now, it’s pleasant. It’s good to the eye.”
What did he do? He begin making love to Eve. And he lived with her as a husband. And she saw it was pleasant, so she went and told her husband; but she was already pregnant by Satan. And she brought forth her first son whose name was Cain, the son of Satan.
So we finally come to the bottom line of the serpent see of Satan theory: Eve became pregnant by Satan and she birthed Satan’s literal offspring, Cain. For some reason, after elucidating that two different species cannot conceive and produce offspring, he claims that the devil come down and got into the serpent and somehow a literal serpent’s sperm was able to fertilize Eve’s egg.
In any regard, he continued thusly:
“Now,” you say, “that’s wrong.” All right, we’ll just find out whether it’s wrong or not. “And I will put enmity between thy seed and the serpent’s seed.” What? The serpent’s seed. She had a seed, and he had a seed. “And he shall bruise thy head, and you shall bruise his heel.” A “bruise” there means “to make an atonement.” Now, there’s your seed of the serpent. Now, notice, here comes these two men out.
Now, this serpent, when he stood there—this great big giant of a fellow stood up there. He was guilty of committing adultery with Adam’s wife. Where’s sin lay today? What makes things the way they are today? (Now, I—Surely you can catch what I’m talking about.)
At this point the issue is the seed about which Galatians 3:16 gives us a clue in stating, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” The seed of the woman and the seed of Abraham is a reference to an ultimate confrontation; the serpent’s seed will strike the woman’s seed’s heel—an apparent reference to when Judas betrayed Jesus after Satan entered into Judas (Luke 22:3)—but the woman’s seed will crush the serpent itself—an apparent reference to when Jesus condemns Satan to hell (Revelation 20:10) where Satan will not rule but will be tormented himself.
The New Testament tells us exactly who are “the children of the devil” in 1 John 3 and they are “whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God” and also “neither he that loveth not his brother.” It even references that “Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother” and note how very specific the Bible is in that it even provides a Q&A on this very topic, “And wherefore slew he him?” because he was the genetically physical serpent seed of Satan who had sex with Eve? No, rather, “Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” This is all about actions and not about genetics.
Also, I do not know whence he got the idea that bruise “means ‘to make an atonement.’” He also states that “She said, ‘The serpent beguiled me.’ Do you know what ‘beguile’ means? Means ‘defiled.’ The devil never gave her an apple. ‘The serpent has beguiled me.’ And then the curse came.”
I also do not know whence he got this idea as the Hebrew nasha’ (Strong’s H5377) simply means to beguile and to deceive. On the other hand, it is tame’ (Strong’s H2930) which refers to becoming unclean, becoming impure in a sexual, religious or ceremonial manner (as an FYI: the KJV translates this term as follows: unclean 74x, defile 71x, pollute 14x, uncleanness 1x, utterly 1x).
Just as he did with references to an apple, Branham continues, for what it is worth, by loosely paraphrasing Genesis:
He said, “Because you listened to the serpent in the stead of your husband, you took life from the world; and you—now you’ll multiply your sorrows, and your conception shall be to your husband,” and so forth. “And because you listened to your wife instead of me—I took you from the dust the highest specie—back to the dust you go.” “And serpent, because you did that, off goes your legs; upon your belly you’ll go all the days of your life. And you’ll be hated, and dust shall be your meat.” There you are. There’s that missing link.
Branham then focuses on Cain, “Now, here comes Cain. Let’s watch the natures. Here comes Cain. What is he? He’s a shrewd businessman. He tills the fields: smart, intelligent, religious, very religious. Watch his—watch his attributes now.” Since part of Branham’s purpose is to trace Satan to eventual denominations, he proposes even more elaborate and unfounded paraphrases (it would be nice if he could just read the text; especially during a sermon), he states that Cain:
…wants to go to church. He builds him a church, makes him an offering, brings an altar along—builded an altar, puts his flowers on it, put the field–the fruits of the field, offered it to God, and said, “There You are, Lord. I know we ate apples. That’s what caused it.” (Some of his offsets have the same kind of an idea. Shows where it came from.) Brought his apples in out of the field, laid them on there, said, “This will make an atonement.” God said, “It wasn’t apples.” But by spiritual revelation Abel knew it was blood. So he brought a lamb, hacked its throat, and it died; and God said, “That’s right. That’s what done it. It was blood.” (You know what blood I’m talking about.) All right. It was blood that did it. Now, watch.
Note that his mistaken reference to the forbidden fruit being an apple leads to further mistaken statements about Cain offering God apple. In turn this leads to a convenient but contrived conclusion that God denies that it was an apple that Satan beguiled Eve into eating. Yet, this is not because it was not, in fact, an apple but, rather, an unspecified and defined fruit but because, as per Branham; apple means sex.
Of course, if an apple is really sex then just what did Cain offer to God (according to Branham’s retelling, of course)?
So, Cain murders Abel because, as Branham puts it, “Cain saw his holy-roller brother had been accepted before God…he got jealous of him” and he continues thusly:
He was a murderer. Could you call God a murderer? And Adam was the son of God. The Bible said that Adam was the son of God, that pure beginning back there. Adam was God’s son, and that jealousy and envy and everything could not come out of that pure stream. It had to come through another place. And it come through Satan, who was a murderer to begin with. The Bible said he was: a liar and a murderer to begin with. There it is. And he killed his brother.
Serpent seed of Satan theorists tend to rely on proposing implications and claiming that the only answer to their proposed conundrum is the serpent seed of Satan theory. Now, if Cain could not have been of Adam because he sinned then of whom was Adam because, after all, he too sinned; the original sin. Adam was of God but did sin and Cain was of Adam and did sin—period.
William Branham also, unfoundedly, claims that “If his [Cain’s] daddy was a great big giant of a fellow, what would Cain be like? His daddy…He went to the land of Nod…there’s where they found those great big giants, which were fallen sons of God who came through their daddy, the devil through Cain. There’s your missing link.”
He makes this claim because serpent seed of Satan theorists tend to interpret the sons of God in Genesis 6 as being humans from the line of Cain who married the daughters of men from the line of Seth.
Yet, as per Job 1:6 and 2:8 the sons of God, in the Old Testament, are Angels (and the daughters of men are simply human women).
It is interesting that many who, along with the early church leaders, deny that the Genesis 6 affair pertain to the lines of Cain and Seth (and why only males from Cain’s and females from Seth’s) often note that there is no reason why giants should be the result of marriage between an ungodly man and a godly woman. Now we see why Braham invented the reason that Cain’s father was a giant being possessed by Satan; so that he could then invent the explanation that the result was giants because Cain and his father were giants.
Braham then states, “watch the seed of the serpent…Remember the seed of the serpent is religious” and seeks to trace Cain’s Satanic bloodline down through the ages as his greater context is explaining whence come denominations. Ultimately, he notes, “What was the seed of the serpent? Adultery. You follow it? Adultery with Eve.”
What we have seen are attempts to claim the revealing of a mystery but which turns out me merely me giving the appearance of doing such while really only engaging in fanciful story telling peppered with made up, invented, points.
