Cainan

Biblical Record

The name Cainan appears twice in the genealogy in Luke 3. This genealogy begins with Jesus Christ and traces his line back to Adam and to God.

• Cainan in Luke 3:37: He is listed as the son of Enos and the father of Maleleel (Mahalalel). Genesis 5:9–14 and 1 Chronicles 1:2 refer to the same person as Kenan. According to Genesis, Kenan was seventy years old when he fathered Mahalalel, lived another 840 years, and died at the age of 910. Nothing further is recorded about his life.
• Cainan in Luke 3:36: He is listed as the son of Arphaxad and the father of Sala (Shelah in Genesis). In Genesis 11:12 and 1 Chronicles 1:18, 24 of the Masoretic Text, the traditional Hebrew text of the Old Testament, Arphaxad fathers Shelah directly, and no Cainan appears between them.

Significance Within Scripture

Both men named Cainan appear only as names in a genealogy; no deeds or words are recorded for either. Luke's genealogy traces Jesus' line through Shem, Noah, and Seth all the way back to Adam. This is commonly interpreted as showing that Jesus is connected not only to Israel but to all humanity. Cainan appears as one link in this line of descent. Because the genealogy in Matthew begins with Abraham, Cainan does not appear there.

Interpretation and Debate

Discussion centers mainly on the second Cainan, in Luke 3:36. This name appears in Genesis 10:24 and 11:12–13 of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, as a figure between Arphaxad and Shelah. For this reason, the explanation that Luke followed the Septuagint genealogy is widely accepted.

Several views have been proposed to account for this difference:

• The Septuagint tradition view: Luke, writing for Greek-speaking readers, used the Septuagint genealogy that was in common use at the time.
• The scribal addition view: The name of the Cainan in Luke 3:37 was accidentally repeated during copying, producing the Cainan of 3:36, and the Cainan found in surviving Septuagint manuscripts reflects the influence of Luke's Gospel. Proponents point to the absence of the Cainan of 3:36 from some manuscripts of Luke. This view is frequently advanced by those who apply biblical inerrancy to the original autographs.
• The genealogical gap view: Biblical genealogies do not necessarily record every generation. On this view, Luke preserved a name that is missing from the Hebrew text of Genesis.

This question also bears on attempts to calculate the age of humanity from the genealogies of Genesis, and it is therefore mentioned in discussions of the date of creation.

In addition, the apocryphal Book of Jubilees contains a story in which Cainan discovers an inscription recording the teachings of the fallen angels from before the Flood and learns astrology from it. This is a later tradition not found in the biblical text.

In the Korean Church

Cainan is rarely treated as a sermon topic in his own right. He is usually mentioned briefly, as a point of difference from the Genesis genealogy, in Bible reading programs or in expositions of Luke's genealogy. The New Korean Revised Version renders the name as "Gainan" in Luke and "Genan" in Genesis, which sometimes prompts readers to ask whether the two names refer to the same person.