Cainan in Wikipedia
can refer to either:
A variant of the name Kenan in the generations of Adam, the
lists of antediluvian patriarchs given in the Torah;
Cainan, the son of the Arpachshad mentioned in most
manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke 3:36. This reference to
Cainan is present in the Septuagint and Samaritan versions
of the Book of Genesis, as well as in the Book of Jubilees;
however, the early Christian apologists Irenaeus and
Eusebius believed it to be an error, as do many modern
interpreters, mainly on the basis of his omission from the
Masoretic (Hebrew) version.
According to the Book of Jubilees, Cainan, taught the art of
writing by his father, found carved on the rocks by former
generations an inscription preserving the science of
astrology as taught by the rebel angels, the Watchers, who
descended from heaven in the days of Jared and led mankind
away from God.
The Sefer ha-Yashar describes Cainan, the possessor of great
astrological wisdom, which had been inscribed on tables of
stone, as the son of Seth and not of Arpachshad; i.e., the
antediluvian Kenan.
In The Patriarchal Age: or, the History and Religion of
Mankind (1854), George Smith writes[1]:
"It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the omission of the
name of Cainan from the Hebrew text, and the consequent
general rejection of him by historians, there are more
traditions preserved of him than of his son Salah. 'The
Alexandrine Chronicle derives the Samaritans from Cainan*;
Eustachius Antiochenus, the Saggodians; George Syncellus,
the Gaspheni; Epiphanius the Cajani. Besides the particulars
already mentioned, it is said Cainan was the first after the
flood who invented astronomy, and that his sons made a god
of him, and worshiped his image after his death. The
founding of the city of Harran in Mesopotamia is also
attributed to him; which, it is pretended, is so called from
a son he had of that name.' -Anc. Univ. Hist., vol. i, p.
96, note."
(* What the Latin Alexandrine Chronicle actually says is
that "those who live east of the Sarmatians" were derived
from Cainan)
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