Serpent's seed & science

William Branham's teaching on the Serpent's Seed cannot be scientifically verified, as we do not have the DNA of the Serpent prior to the curse. However, William Branham taught that Cain was both a fertile hybrid, and a twin with a separate father from Abel. If all animal hybrids are sterile, or if it is impossible for a woman to have twins from different fathers, this would cast serious doubt on William Branham's claims.

However, if it is possible for animal hybrids to be fertile, and for twins to be born from different father's, this provides some credibility to William Branham's teachings.

The word hybrid comes from Ancient Greek `υβριδης, literally meaning "son of outrageous conduct", and used to mean "sheep-goat hybrid".

Interspecific hybrids are bred by mating two species, normally from within the same genus. The offspring display traits and characteristics of both parents. Fertile hybrids may either create a new species (if there are other fertile hybrids at the same time), or breed back into one of the parental lineages.

Keikaimalu" the wolphin (bottom), with her parents: a false killer whale (top) and a bottlenose dolphin (middle)

While it is unusual to have interspecific hybrids that are fertile, it is not impossible. For example, a Dog can produce a fertile hybrid with a wolf (circumpolar), a dingo (Australia), Jackal (Africa), and a Coyote (North America). The common denominator between each of these animals is that they all have 78 chromosomes. If the number of chromozomes was different between the father and the mother, the animal would probably be sterile as an odd number of chromosomes cannot be paired at meiosis, meaning that viable sperm and eggs cannot be formed. For example, donkeys have 62 chromosomes, while horses have 64 chromosomes. Mules, the sterile offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, have 63 chromosomes.

Other fertile animal hybrids include the Beefalo/Cattalo (a cross between the European domestic cow, Bos taurus, and the American Bison, Bison bison), and the Wholphin (a cross between a Bottlenose Dolphin female, Tursiops truncatus, and a False Killer Whale male, Pseudorca crassidens). Kekaimalu, a Wholphin at Sea Life Part in Hawaii, gave birth to another female Wholphin on December 23, 2004, which was sired by a male Bottlenose Dolphin.

If, prior to the fall, the Serpent had an equal number of chromosomes as Adam and Eve (remember that the Serpent was an upright animal before the curse), it is possible from a scientific standpoint that the Serpent successfully bred with Eve, producing Cain. The missing link would therefore not be a Neanderthal (which has been confired by DNA testing), but an upright Serpent. After the fall, the Serpent became the animal that we now recognize, and Cain's only option would have been to take one of Adam's daughters as a wife. Any evidence of difference between Adam and Cain's lineages would have been diluted with each successive generation, but more obvious at the start (hence the Biblical reference to the 'Sons of God', Adam's offspring, taking the 'Daughters of Men', Cain's offspring).

Although unusual, there are documented cases of women getting pregnant while already being pregnant. [1] This is called superfetation.

Human twins are two individuals who have shared the uterus during a single pregnancy and are usually, but not necessarily, born in close succession. Fraternal twins (commonly known as "non-identical twins") usually occur when two fertilised eggs are implanted in the uterine wall at the same time. The two eggs form two zygotes, and these twins are therefore also known as dizygotic as well as "biovular" twins. When two eggs are independently fertilised by two different sperm cells, fraternal twins result. Fraternal twinning is more common based on a person's genetics and age.

A press release from the DNA Diagnostic Centre (Ohio) on December 31, 2005 entitled "DNA Paternity Test Reveals Twins With Different Fathers"[2] reported "several cases of twins that DNA paternity testing proved to have different fathers. Such occurrences, although rare, are being more frequently revealed via DNA testing. ...If a woman has contact with different partners within her fertile time period and has multiple ovulations, it is possible for her to have fraternal twins or even triplets with different fathers. This phenomenon has been dubbed in medical literature as heteropaternal superfecundation."

If an ovum is released after the female was already impregnated when previously ovulating, there is a chance of a second pregnancy -- albeit at a different stage of development. This is known as superfetation. Heteropaternal superfecundation is very rare in humans, though more common in other animals. This is primarily due to the predominance of 1:1 heterosexual partner pairings among humans. A woman who has sexual relations with two or more men at short intervals within the same ovulatory period can be impregnated by both men.

There have been noted examples in the past. The classic case, which is discussed in Williams Obstetrics (1980), was recorded in 1810 by John Archer, the first doctor to receive a medical degree in the United States. The most recent widely-documented case was in Dallas, Texas in 2009 [3] [4].

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