| Cainan Fausset's Bible Dictionary
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| ("possessor" or
"weapon-maker"), as Tubal-cain comes from the Arabic "to forge" (Gen
4:22). Son of Enos; aged 70 when he begat Mahalaleel; he lived 840
years more, and died at 910 (Gen 5:9-14;
1Ch 1:2). In
Luk 3:36-37, second Cainan is
introduced in the genealogy of Shem after the flood, a son of Cainan. A
transcriber seems to have inserted it from the margin, where it was noted
down from the Septuagint version of Gen
10:24; Gen 11:12;
1Ch 1:18, but not in verse 24. For
no Hebrew manuscript has it, nor the Samaritan Pentateuch, Chaldee, Syriac,
and Vulgate versions from the Hebrew. Nor had even the Septuagint
originally, according to Berosus, Polyhistor, Josephus, Philo, Theophilus
of Antioch, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome. Beza's manuscript D, of Luke, omits
it. Ephrem Syrus says the Chaldees in the time of Terah and Abraham
worshipped a graven god, Cainan. The rabbis represented him as the
introducer of idol worship and astrology.
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| Taken from: Fausset's Bible Dictionary by Andrew Robert Fausset (1821-1910) | |