What is it? I mean, the Bible says God puts a mark on Cain so that anyone who sees him would know not to kill him…but doesn’t say what the mark is or what it looks like. Is there a definitive answer the teeming millions have for me?
Have you read the left handed thread?
Jois
According to Jewish tradition, it was a horn, which led Lamech to mistake him for an animal and accidentally shoot him. According to white supremacists, it was making him black.
In reality? Since this is all mythology, asking what Cain’s mark “really” was is like asking how many children Lady MacBeth had. The author never states it, so the best assumption is that he never had anything specific in mind when he wrote the story.
The rabbis have differing views on the matter.
Opus1 told you one of them. Other views are that G-d gave him a dog to guard him, or that G-d engraved a letter of his Holy Name on Cain’s head, or that his skin turned white (a condition called “Tzaraas” in Hebrew, and usually mistranslated into English as “leprosy.”).
I know it’s not a source of theological authority, but the movie The Bible…In the Beginning shows Cain with a white splash on the forehead, kind of like a sloppy Hare Krishna devotee.
I just love when white supremacists assert that the Mark of Cain is brown/black skin. It’s so nonsensical. (Then again, so is white supremacism.)
I mean, the Good Book clearly says that no one survived the Big Flood except Noah and his family. Noah is said to have descended from Adam’s other son, Seth. All the descendents of Cain presumably died in the Flood, but any remnant “tribes” would have died in the Flood. (Unless you want to argue that the Bible doesn’t mean what it says, which would be just plain nutty. For a Christian Identity white supremacist, anyway.)
Now, I suppose some of Cain’s extended family may have interbred with the larger pre-Flood population. That might introduce dark skin pigment back into the gene pool, and support the claim that Noah’s son Ham was black. Of course, that would mean that Noah was black, also. Which he may have been, but don’t tell that to the white supremacists.
(BTW, I’m well aware that there was never a Flood, so don’t tell me.)
I just love when white supremacists assert that the Mark of Cain is brown/black skin. It’s so nonsensical. (Then again, so is white supremacism.)
I mean, the Good Book clearly says that no one survived the Big Flood except Noah and his family. Noah is said to have descended from Adam’s other son, Seth. All the descendents of Cain presumably died in the Flood, but any remnant “tribes” would have died in the Flood. (Unless you want to argue that the Bible doesn’t mean what it says, which would be just plain nutty. For a Christian Identity white supremacist, anyway.)
Now, I suppose some of Cain’s extended family may have interbred with the larger pre-Flood population. That might introduce dark skin pigment back into the gene pool, and support the claim that Noah’s son Ham was black. Of course, that would mean that Noah was black, also. Which he may have been, but don’t tell that to the white supremacists.
(BTW, I’m well aware that there was never a Flood, so don’t tell me.)
Having been brought up Mormon from the age of 9 until 18, I ws taught that the races of Africa were dark-skinned because Ham married a woman of the lineage of Cain. I also remember a story I heard in church about an early mormon apostle meeting a fellow who claimed to be Cain. See:
http://www.davidicke.net/religiousfrauds/lds/cain.
for the short version, paraphrased. Check this one for the original re-telling I was read in a church talk:
http://www.kingdomofzion.org/doctrines/kraut/reprints/Life%20of%20David%20W.%20Patten.txt
It’s around the end of chapter 5. It basically says the mark of Cain was to be a Bigfoot. Understand that the mormon Church’s official doctrine was never that the mark of Cain was bigfootism, the official story was that the mark was “dark skin and a flat nose”. There were lots of wild tales in early church history that have been abandonded over the years as mormonism become a mainstream corporate religion.
That’s very interesting because there is a Jewish tradition that everyone alive today is descended from Cain. Some sources peg Noah’s wife as Na’amah, who was a descendent of Cain.
Zev Steinhardt
If you decide what the mark of Cain is please let me know because I’d be interested in getting a copywrite on it.
The mark of Cain apparently is whatever people want it to be, so they can get Holier-than-thou and annoy me. Maybe I’m the mark of the Beast. I tell you what: i’m white, I have brown hair, it’s cut short, I don’t wear all black, I often hide my nosering, i’m not gay, I Don’t have ‘666’ tatooed on my forehead - in fact I only have one tatoo and it’s on my chest (ergo unseen), I don’t scream at people or curse loudly in public, i’m relatively a quiet guy, I don’t go around knocking down old ladies and pushing strollers into water fountains. However, I get appproached ALL THE TIME by people who apparently think i’m evil. I’m talking straight out people comin up to me and shouting “you’re the DEVIL” and starting in on the whole religious speel. Come to think of it, when I leave my nosering out and dye my hair blue or whatever, people tend to leave me alone.
So, I’ll send a pic to the people pages so you can see what the embodyment of the mark of the beast is. It’s me.
punk snot dead,
broccoli!
BTW - kniz, you can’t have a copywrite on me 