You know about Cain and Abel, but did you know that Adam and Eve had a third child? Seth is barely mentioned in the Bible, but he attracted considerable attention in the ancient world.
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00:00You know about Cain and Abel, but did you know that Adam and Eve had a third child?
00:04Seth is barely mentioned in the Bible, but he attracted considerable attention in the
00:08ancient world.
00:09In the Bible, there's no particular motivation behind Seth's conception.
00:13After Abel's death, Adam and Eve did what other people do to get a child, and voila,
00:17they considered their new child as a gift from God.
00:20But Midrashic literature, which is a genre of interpretive rabbinical texts, framed his
00:24birth as fulfillment and reinforcement of the injunction to be fruitful and multiply.
00:29Genesis 4 describes how, after Cain killed Abel, God punished Cain by sending him out
00:34into the world to wander alone.
00:36When Cain protested, God marked him and promised that anyone who killed him would
00:39"...suffer vengeance seven times over."
00:41Lamech, a descendant of Cain who had taken two wives, killed two men, and told his wives
00:46that as Cain would be avenged seven times, he, Lamech, would be avenged 77 times.
00:52The Midrash identifies one of the slain as Cain himself, whom the blind Lamech killed
00:56in an accident.
00:57Lamech's wives then refused to lie with him, as they would bring forth children who would
01:01be cursed.
01:02Have you lost your mind?
01:03At Lamech's request, Adam came to his wives and chastised them, saying,
01:07"...who are you to preoccupy yourselves with the ways of the Lord?
01:10He does what he must do.
01:12And as for you, do your duty as wives."
01:14The wives snapped back that, since the death of Abel, Adam and Eve hadn't had any more
01:18children.
01:19Since they had a good point, Adam and Eve came together and had Seth.
01:22She said,
01:23"...God has granted me other offspring, in the place of Abel, whom Cain has killed."
01:30While the Bible records nothing about Seth between his birth and that of his son, apocryphal
01:34Jewish texts feature him prominently.
01:36The Life of Adam and Eve, also known as the Apocalypse of Moses, recounts how Adam bothered
01:4130 sons and 30 daughters, and asks that they all come to his bedside when he felt the approach
01:46of death.
01:47Adam told his children of the fall from grace he experienced, and the afflictions of the
01:50body God had visited upon him for breaking his covenant.
01:53He asked that Eve and Seth go to the gates of the Garden of Eden to beg of the angels'
01:57oil from a tree that might ease his pain.
02:00Along the way, an unspecified beast attacks Seth and refuses Eve's command to retreat,
02:05blaming her for bringing the rule of beasts to be by her original sin.
02:09But when Seth orders the beast to leave them, the beast replies,
02:12"...Behold, I stand off from the image of God."
02:14He then returns to his lair.
02:16With the threat gone, Seth and Eve continue to the gates of Paradise, where God sends
02:20the archangel Michael to meet them.
02:22Michael tells Seth that the oil he seeks will be given to all mankind, but only at the end
02:26of days and the moment of resurrection.
02:28"...So, it's gonna be a while?"
02:30"...It's gonna be a while!"
02:32Michael adds a command, that Seth return to his father and witness the spectacle of death.
02:37This Seth does, along with all his brothers and sisters.
02:40But he alone witnesses Adam's collection for burial by the Lord in Eden.
02:45Seth attracted the interest of Jewish scholar and historian Flavius Josephus, who by correctly
02:49predicting that Vespasian would become emperor of Rome won his patronage.
02:53Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews describes Seth as a virtuous man or excellent character,
02:58one who passed on his high morals to his children and grandchildren.
03:02This is in contrast to the descendants of Cain, about whom not much is written in the
03:05Bible, but whose life Josephus also expanded on.
03:08Cain's descendants became more wicked with each generation.
03:12Josephus also credited the line of Seth with preserving human knowledge and invention on
03:16two pillars — one of brick and one of stone — against Adam's prophecy that the world
03:20would be destroyed.
03:22These pillars would allow mankind to rebuild after the destruction, and Josephus described
03:26them as still existing in the land of Syriad, or Egypt.
03:30But this was challenged by William Whiston, who translated the works to English.
03:34Whiston believed that Josephus confused Seth with Sesostris, an Egyptian pharaoh who did
03:38leave pillars standing in Syriad.
03:40A believer in the truth of the Genesis flood story, Whiston considered it impossible for
03:44any of Seth's works to have survived the calamity.
03:48Since at least the third century, Seth's name has sometimes been applied to the earliest
03:51sect of Christian Gnostics.
03:53The term Sethian was applied to the group by Hippolytus of Rome, a bishop and avowed
03:57critic of Gnosticism.
03:59It's unlikely that the early Gnostics would have referred to themselves by Seth's name,
04:03and modern scholars sometimes object to the use of Sethian as a term to distinguish the
04:07classical Gnostics from later sects.
04:09If you've never heard this story, buckle up.
04:12The premise is that Eve was assaulted by demonic beings after her creation.
04:16These demons, not Adam, were the father of Cain and Abel.
04:19But when they assaulted Eve, her spirit left her body.
04:21In contrast, her relations with Adam were consensual, loving, and tinged with the presence
04:26of both souls.
04:27Seth, therefore, was the first true son of Adam and Eve, and the firstborn with a trace
04:31of God-granted animating spirit.
04:34His descendants were counted a race apart — race, in this context, referring to religious
04:38and spiritual distinction — from those of Cain and Abel, while the demons who fathered
04:42them continually tried to tempt and suppress the line of Seth.
04:46The coming of Jesus was necessary for Seth's people to have spiritual superiority over
04:50demonic temptation.
04:51The Gnostics counted themselves among the Children of Seth, set against the other races
04:56of humanity.
04:57Genesis 5 lists Seth as the first link in the chain connecting Adam to Noah.
05:01In fact, given the timeline of Genesis, Seth would have died just 14 years before Noah
05:06was born.
05:07My math teacher said believing in something without proof is crazy.
05:11Noah's Ark and the Holy Ghost crazy?
05:13Both the Bible and Midrashic literature claim that Noah and his family were the sole survivors
05:17of the Great Flood, which would make Seth the direct ancestor of all mankind once the
05:21Earth was repopulated.
05:23He's also counted after Adam as the father of the Israelites.
05:26He's placed near the head of the line of David, and, in Christianity, of Jesus.
05:31In the early Christian period, various writings began depicting Seth as a semi-divine savior
05:35figure.
05:36Though not on the level of Jesus, he exhibits great power and goodness, sometimes employed
05:40through combat, sometimes through teaching.
05:43In the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians, he sees through all the deceits of the devil.
05:47Other writings put him to war against the Roman Empire, amounting to a form of escapist,
05:51apocalyptic literature for suppressed Jews and Christians.