A breakdown of the doctrine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branham..._Seed_Doctrine
part 1 of 2
Branham taught that the fall of mankind resulted from Eve having sexual intercourse with an upright 'Serpent' (at that stage not a snake but the 'missing link' between apes and man, the serpent's current form is a result of God's curse in
Genesis 3:14): Branham used the term missing link to infer the the creature was a lesser being than man but similar, not a being that was actually the pre-evolved form of man.
And the only way this serpent could plant the seed, he was the only animal next to the human being. For in the evolution of mankind, when man--God brood upon the earth... And He begin to bring up birds, and the--from birds He come to different things, then chimpanzee, and from the chimpanzee to the serpent. (
'Questions and Answers', 30 August 1964) From this relationship Cain was conceived and produced. While from a scientific perspective it is unusual to have interspecies hybrids that are fertile, it is not impossible as evidenced by animals such as the
Beefalo/cattalo (a cross of an American Bison and a domestic European cow) and the
Wolphin (a cross between a False Killer Whale and a Bottlenose Dolphin). The result of these interspecies cross-breeds is that they produce an offspring that has to breed back into one of its parental lineages. With reference to Serpent's seed, this would mean that Cain's children would have come through Adam's daughters, and the evidence of any difference between Adam and Cain's lineages would have been diluted with each successive generation.
Versions of the
serpent seed doctrine appear in a number of sects and cults, notably the '
Christian Identity Movement' where it is used as a justification for racism. William Branham was well aware of the potential racist connections of the doctrine and the racial tendencies of the world in general (the
Ku Klux Klan paid for his medical bills after he was shot in the leg as a child) but he tried not to carry any of these racist interpretations into his teachings:
I just was talking about Martin Luther King on this great disaster that they're having in the south, with the--the colored people. I said, "If those people were slaves, I'd take my church and go south to help them people out of slavery." I sure would, because man makes slaves, not God. We're all of one blood. We all come from one tree, and that was from Adam. God, by one blood has made all nations. And whether we, our colors are brown, or black, or yellow, or red, or whatever it might be, we are all creatures of the Almighty (See?), and there shouldn't be any differences in us. ('He Cares, Do You Care?', 21 July 1963) William Branham supported the doctrine of the serpent seed with various scriptures including:
for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present [you as] a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.(
1 Corinthians 11:2b,3)
Such [is] the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.(
Proverbs 30:20)
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they [were] naked;(
Genesis 3:6b,7a)
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;(
Genesis 3:16) Branham identified the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as being Satan, and the tree of life being God himself.
William Branham said that one basis for his assertion that Eve had sexual intercourse with the ‘serpent’ was in Eve’s claim that the serpent had ‘beguiled’ her (3:13 in the King James Version) ‘beguiled’ actually meant sexually ‘seduced’ or ‘defiled’ rather than ‘deceived’ (which most contemporary translations give). The original Hebrew word is ‘nasha’ ("naw-shaw") which literally means to lead astray or to mentally delude with a secondary meaning to morally deceive.
William Branham also focused on Adam’s willful decision to join Eve in her sin (e.g. Romans. 5:12-19,
1 Corinthians 15:21,22) as a type of Christ taking on our own sin for our redemption.
Adam took her back. He knew exactly what he was doing, but he did it any way. She was a part of him, and he was willing to take her responsibility upon himself. He would not let her go. So Eve conceived by him. He knew she would. He knew exactly what would happen to the human race, and he sold the human race into sin that he might have Eve, for he loved her. (['Ephesian Church Age', William Branham]) The serpent seed may seem difficult to reconcile with the Biblical claim that God had decreed that man should "Be fruitful and increase in number" (
Genesis 1:28); however, God's curse to Eve in
Genesis 3:16 (which came after the first commandment) was that her sorrow and her conception would be multiplied (insinuating a conception had already taken place, and that while God's initial commandment to multiply had not changed, the method of fulfilling that commandment was now to take a different route). Prior to the curse Adam and Eve "were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed" (
Genesis 2:25).