Many 19th century Americans held to a rather (racist and abhorrent) view of Cain’s paternity and his relationship to blacks, and, alas, many early Latter-day Saints adopted such traditions. Interestingly, many Jews held to a view that Samael, the prince of the demons, not Adam, was the father of Cain:
How Cain was Conceived
Samael was the great prince in heaven. After God created the world, Samael took his band of followers and descended and saw the creatures that God had created. Among them he found none so skilled to do evil than the serpent, as it is said, Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild beasts (Gen. 3:1). Its appearance was something like that of a camel, and Samael mounted and rode upon it. Riding on the serpent, let the angel Samael came to Eve in the night and seduced her, and she conceived Cain. Later, while Eve was pregnant by the angel, Adam came to her, and she conceived Abel.
Others say it was the serpent himself who seduced Eve, for after he saw Adam and Eve coupling, the serpent conceived a passion for her. He even imagined killing Adam and marrying Eve. So he came to Eve when she was along and possessed her and infused her with lust. That is how the serpent fathered Cain, who was later to slay his own brother. And that is how Eve was infected with his impurity. As a result, all of Israel was impure from that time until the Torah was given on Mount Sinai. Only then did Israel’s impurity cease.
When Cain was born, Adam knew at once that he was not of his seed, for he was not after his likeness, nor after his image. Instead, Cain’s appearance was that of a heavenly being. And when Eve saw that his appearance was not of this world, she said, I have gained a male child with the help of Yahweh (Gen. 4:1).
It was not until the birth of Seth that Adam had a son who was in his own likeness and image. From Seth arose all the generations of the righteous, while all the generations that descended from the seed of Cain are wicked, until this very day.
This myth is a response to the enigmatic verse in which Eve says, I have gotten a man with the aid of Yahweh (Gen. 4:1). Targum Pseudo-Yonathan translates this verse as “I have acquired a man, the angel of the Lord.”
One reading of this verse in the Talmud (B Shab. 146a) suggests that Eve had intercourse with the serpent: “When the serpent consorted with Eve, he cast impurity into her.” This interpretation is echoed in the Zohar: “From the impurity with which the serpent infected Eve emerged Cain.” Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer builds on the talmudic interpretation but changes it in an essential way. Here the true father of Cain is the angel Samael, who came to Eve riding on the serpent. Indeed, in this passage the angel and serpent are closely linked, created a satanic figure and suggesting that Eve had intercourse with the serpent, a powerful phallic symbol.
In Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, the Torah upbraids Samael as he rides upon the serpent like a camel: “The Torah began to cry aloud, saying, ‘Why, O Samael, now that the world is created, is it time to rebel against God? Is this the time to lift yourself on high? God will laugh at the horse and its rider.’” This establishes the role of the Torah as the defenders of the human race against the evil intentions of Samael.
Zohar 1:36b explains that two came upon Eve, the serpent and Adam, and that she became pregnant from both of them, and bore two sons. The son of the serpent is, of course, Cain. In order to explain why Cain was evil and Abel was good, Zohar 1:54a explains that Cain was conceived from the side of unholiness and Abel from the side of holiness. As a result, Abel was in the likeness of God’s image, as stated in the verse And God created man in His image (Gen. 1:27). But Cain was of the likeness of the nether image. Just what this is isn’t clear, although one commentary, Ziv ha-Zohar, identifies the nether image as that of an ape. Because Cain was from the side of the Angel of Death (another possible explanation of the “nether image”), he killed his brother.
The idea that Eve was infected by the impurity of the serpent when she had intercourse with it attempts to portray women as not only impure, but also untrustworthy. It is part of an extensive antifeminine bias found in some rabbinic texts. However, in other texts, Eve is portrayed in a very favorable manner. She is regarded as the mother of all generations, and she is called a life-giver, who nursed the whole world (B. AZ 43a).
The serpent of Genesis becomes transformed in kabbalah into a principle of evil, the primal serpent who makes its home in the darkness of the Sitra Ahra, the Other Side. It is a serpent by the road, a viper by the path (Gen. 49:17). It comes down from above, swims across bitter waters, and descends in order to deceive, lying in wait to ambush mankind with sins. The Sitra Ahra is the realm of evil. It is said to be ruled by Samael and Lilith. The primal or primordial serpent is an archetype of evil, based upon the serpent in the Garden of Eden. In this realm it functions as a force of evil, an exaggerated version of the Yetzer ha-Ra, the Evil Impulse in every person. Here this impulse is understood to be an underlying principle in the concept of an evil realm. Evil, however, flourishes only in the absence of good. The Zohar describes the serpent as “eternal death, on the left side, that enters into a man’s innermost secret parts” (Zohar 2:52a). (Howard Schwartz, Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004], 447-48)
