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            THE TEACHINGS OF 

                   MORMONISM 

   EXAMINED IN THE LIGHT OF

       THE BIBLE AND HISTORY

 

                      CAIN IS ALIVE!

                                                             

A Mormon source relates that the Apostle David W. Patten had an impressive encounter with Cain, Abel's brother (Genesis chapter 4). This is Elder Patten's account:

 

“As I was transporting myself on my mule along the road, I suddenly noticed a very strange character walking beside me. He kept walking next to me for about two kilometers. His head was level with my shoulders as I was mounted in the chair. He was wearing no clothes, but he was covered in hair. His skin was very dark*. I asked him where he lived, and he replied that he was homeless, that he was a wanderer on earth and that he traveled from one place to another. He said that he was a very unhappy creature, that he had eagerly sought death during his stay on earth, but that he could not die, and that his mission was to destroy the souls of men. The moment he expressed himself in this way, I rebuked him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by virtue of the Holy Priesthood, and ordered him to leave, and he immediately disappeared from my sight” (L.A. Wilson, Life of David W. Patten, p. 46).

 

Mormon poet Eliza R. Snow wrote a poem in which she mentions this incident:

 

"We read that Abel, the son of Adam, was killed

By his ambitious and jealous brother Cain;

And Cain was cursed; and he still wears his "mark"

As David Patten saw it, he was black*,

When, pointing to his jet black face*,

Cain said, "You see, I still carry the curse*."

The first of the murderers, now fulfils his destiny,

And he reigns as king over all the murderous hosts"

 

    (Biography and Family Record of 

             Lorenzo Snow, p. 479).

 

*note the obsession with a Biblical "curse" & skin colour - "very dark", "black", "jet black face"...cp page 7 for more on this subject.

 

Although the Bible does not say anything about when and where Cain died, he was mortal and subject to death. Consider the testimony of Paul in Romans 5v14. In any case, after the flood only Noah and his family survived, eight people in all. If Cain had lived many hundreds of years to that time, his life ended in the flood. So this outlandish Mormon idea has no biblical or historical backing.      

 

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