CAINAN possessor; Sept. ; N. T.
Karyciy). I. Son of Enos, and father of Mahalaleel (Gen. v. 9 ; I Chron. i. 2). 2. Son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, and father of Salah. His name is wanting in the present copies of the Hebrew Scrip tures ; but is found in the Septuagint version of Gen. x. 24 ; xi. 12, and in Luke iii. 36. As the addition of his generation of 130 years in the series of names is of great chronological importance, and is one of the circumstances which render the Septuagint computation of time longer than the Hebrew, this matter has engaged much attention, and has led to great discussion among chronologers. Some have suggested that the Jews purposely excluded the second Cainan from their copies, with the design of rendering the Septuagint and Luke suspected ; others, that Moses omitted Cainan, being desirous of reckoning ten generations only from Adam to Noah, and from Noah to Abraham. Some sup pose that Arphaxad was father of Cainan and Salah, of Salah naturally, and of Cainan legally ; while others allege that Cainan and Salah were the same person, under two names. It is believed by many, however, that the name of this second Cainan was not originally in the text of Luke, but is an addition of inadvertent transcribers, who, re marking it in some copies of the Septuagint, added it (Kuinoel, ad Luc. iii. 36). Upon the whole, the
oalance of critical opinion is in favour of the rejec tion of this second Cainan. Even Hales, though, as an advocate of the longer chronology, predis posed to its retention, decides that we are fully warranted to conclude that the second Cainan was not originally in the Hebrew text, and the Septua gint versions derived from it. And since water cannot rise to a level higher than that of the spring from which it issues, so neither can the authority of the N. T. for its retention, rise higher than that of the 0. T., from which it is professedly copied, for its exclusion (Chronology, i. p. 291). Some of the grounds for this conclusion are—I. That the Hebrew and Samaritan, with all the ancient ver sions and targums, concur in the omission ; 2. That the Septuagint is not consistent with itself; for in the repetition of genealogies in'1 Chron. i. 24, it omits Cainan and agrees with the Hebrew text ; 3. That the second Cainan is silently rejected by Josephus, by Philo, by John of Antioch, and by Eusebius ; and that, while Origen retained the name itself, he, in his copy of the Septuagint, marked it with an obelus as an unauthorized reading.—J. K