Who were the Kenites?
May 22nd, 2007 • christianity, confusion
Just who are the Kenites? Getting a concise answer is actually very difficult. I was proposed this question during a discussion between a Christian and myself. Amazingly, the Bible offers little to no help at all and this is one of the few pieces of literature they’re ever mentioned by name. Being a non-theist I wanted to know a little bit about their origin in history and if they were ever a significant force in the world. Well, to answer the latter question up front, not really. I also wanted to find out why this particular person thought they were the spawn of my dear Satan.
So I started out on finding out about who the Kenites might be and where they’re from. The Kenites were a small tribe of Palestine but where they came from before that is practically unknown so I will stick with this viewpoint. They were a tribe of southern Judah and Palestine that were assimilated, by the revered King David, into the tribe of Judah. This helped seal their fate as “children of God”. This is where there is some controversy between Christian thought. According to Scripture, they’re a peaceful people whom are typically related to — or synonymous with — the Midianites. The Midianites were always held in a lofty light, having been peace-loving and Moses’ father-in-law Jethro was a Midianite (with some speculation that Moses was also a Midianite). This said, if Moses were a Midianite and if Kenites were another name for those from Midian, Moses would not be an evil and vile person would he? The latter part of that sentence brings me to the over-the-top and bizarre counterpoint to everything stated in Scripture: Kenites are the spawn of Satan. Yep, they’re descendants of Cain and thus, the world-bound demon spawn of Satan and all that is evil. This is the sole view of one right-wing, crazy, and seemingly racist “preacher” Arnold Murray of his own cult church the Shepherd’s Chapel. Before I even began wanting to believe a Christian this crazy could be believed, I consulted a reverend’s wife who just happens to be my sister. She confirmed what I’d read about his insane views of Orthodoxy and Christianity in general. Going off what he espouses to be Gospel, I tried to understand the etymology of the word Kenite in both Hebrew and English and why he would think what he says. The Hebrew translation of the word kenite would be Qayin which is the name Cain in early Hebraic text. As is the word Kajin and the Greek would be Kain. OK, so Murray might be onto something with the transliteration of the name but the word kenite itself also translates to “smith” so they could have been metalsmiths and not some blight upon the world.
Murray’s views are where he completely separates himself from Christian thought and his own bog of oddity. In fact, in apparent Christian form, he blasts any view other than his own:
Kenites
What about the use of the word Kenites? It is a Hebrew word that has only one meaning, “sons of Cain.” It does not mean Judah. The word Kenite cannot be translated Judah and is never used of Judah. Anyone saying that I use the word to describe Judah is not telling the truth; it would be a lie, because I have never said this.
Wow, someone got offended pretty easily. Now, we have to understand that he used the “original scriptures and documents” to formulate his propaganda orthodoxy. So why do many people translate the word so much differently than he? I think it’s because he’s insane and profoundly racist — based on other things told to me by members of the Shepherd’s Chapel.
With the brief history of the Kenites I’ve presented, why is there such a schism in Christianity over who they were? Since they’re almost solely mentioned only in the Bible, I’d figure it would be pretty cut and dry who they were. I simply chalk this up to another reason why Christianity is a bizarre cult that has no end. Rarely have I ever seen something so studied and laid before us with so many different opinions and ideas about the exact same source material.
26 Responses (Add Your Comment)
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The other thing about the Kenites is that there are two different versions of Cain in the bible – one is cunningly typo’d as “Cainan”. If you pay attention carefully, you’ll realise that the list in Genesis 5 is really a disguised version of the list in Genesis 4. Or in other words, Cain is the great-great-great-great grandfather of Noah.
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By the way, if you want to find out about the biggest dispute in the entire history of Christianity, find out who Marcion was.
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Everything you wanted to know about Murray is on that website.
Jael, who killed the enemy of Israel, Sisera, with a tent spike, was married to Huber the Kenite.
Murray just uses this clan as a hook, which seems to snag several hundred “fish” every year. They get hooked in the mouth, you can tell because they are very sarcastic and hateful with their words.
Murray rakes in millions of dollars every year, to his “church” but there is not actually a church program there. Just him and his son and their Bible commentary…and a live audience of true believers. But, there is no youth group; no ministry to rest homes; no minitry to cancer victims or hospital visitation. The preacher doesn’t visit jails or feed and clothe the poor. He uses the money to buy property, planes and further sales of tapes and newsletters.
Typical money grabbing tv preacher.
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alan joseph July 28, 2008at 5:28 am
Hello. Kenite is a term derived from Kenanite and ultimately Kenan/Cainan, the son of Enosh, son of Seth, son of Adam. If you want a really difficult problem to ponder take the genealogy of Jethro the Kenite in hand. In the list of descendants from Asher, through Beriah and Heber, you will encounter characters hidden from us by titles that change in a subtle manner.
1Chron: 30; Beriah; 31 Heber; Hotham/Helem; 35 Zophah; 37 Ithran; 38 Jether/Ithran; Jephunneh. As there is only one person in the entire bible named Jephunneh, son of Jethro and father of Caleb, we must deduce that the Kenite Jethro was born into the tribe of Asher and not Judah, despite the fact that Caleb is installed as Leader/Father of Judah in Numb’s: 34/19.
Hope this helps in your quest rather than proving yet another hurdle to overcome. Warmest of regards. Alan Joseph. -
MICHAEL FLANAGAN August 26, 2008at 11:38 am
I REALLY FIND IT VERY DISTURBING THAT MOST OF THE CHRISTIAN WORLD TREATS ARNOLD MURRAY WITH SUCH DISTAIN,HAVE U NOT READ HAVE U NOT SPENT ANY TIME IN RESEARCH COME ON I HAVE YOUNG CHILDREN THAT CAN SEE WHAT HE IS SAYING.NACHSEH DOES NOT MEAN SERPENT IN HEBREW READ YOUR STRONGS CON CORDANCE PLEASE PROPERLY TRANSLATED IT MEANS THE BRIGHT AND SHINING GLORIOUS ANGEL OF LIGHT AND IF U R ANY KIND OF BIBLE SCHOLAR U WILL SEE THAT THIS IS A REFERENCE TO LUCIFER THE WORD SNAKE WAS AND IS ABAD TRANSLATION IF U WANT TRUTH U MUST GO BACK TO THE ORIGANAL TEXT WITTEN IN HEBREW NOT TODAYS HEBREW BUT THAT THAT WAS SPOKEN AT THE TIME OF MOSES WHICH TODAY IS A DEAD LANGUAGE THAT MEANING THAT EVERY MEANING OF EVERY WOSD IS FIXED SO THAT IT CAN NOT BE CHANGE IT MEANS WHAT IT MEANS JUST SO U KNOW IF THE FALLEN ANGELS OF GEN 6 COULD LEAVE THEIR FIRST HABITATION AND TAKE THE DAUGHTERS OF ADAM FOR WIVIES AND THEN CONCEIVE CHILREN WITH THEM CALLED IN HEBREW GEBER OR MIGHTY MEN IE THE GAINTS OF GEN 6,THEN WHY COULD NOT LUCIFER NOT DO THE SAME WITH EVE HE IS THE ULTIMATE FALLEN ANGEL UMUST LOOK PAST THE DOG MA OF CONVENTIAL THINKING IT IS WHAT IT IS THERE ARE NO SECRETS WITH GOD HIS BIVLE ANSWERS ALL QUESTIONS IF PROPERLY TRANSLATED REMEMBER THAT LUCIFER ISTHE CHEIF CAPTAIN OF THESE FALLEN ANGELSTHEY WOULD HAVE KNOWN WHAT LUCIFER COULD DO AND BEING OF THE HEAVENLYS THEY WOULD HAVE SIMILAR POWER AS HIM ,MAYBE NOT AS POWERFUL AS HIM .REMEMBER SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT THAT UNTIL HIS FALL HE WAS THE COVER CHERBUM ,HE WAS AN ARCH ANGEL JUST LIKE MICHAEL LUCIFER ON THE LEFT MICHAEL ONTHE RIGHT HAVE U NOT READ EZK 28
ARNOLD MURRAY IS NOT WRONG JUST ASK A MEDICAL DOCTOR IF A BLACK WOMAN CAN SLEEP WITH AWHITE MAN CONCEIVE WITH THIS MAN THEN SLEEP WITH ABLACK MAN AND ALSO CONCEIVE WITH HIM AND PRODUCE TWINS THAT ARE NON IDENTICAL BUT ARE OF TWO DIFFERENT FATHERS DO I NEED TO SAY MORE THIS APPLES TO ANY RACE OF PEOPLE U MUST LOOKAT THIS IN THE PROPER CONTEXT -
MICHAEL FLANAGAN August 26, 2008at 2:33 pm
just so everybody knows the true meaning of the word nachash in hebrew is to hiss ie to whisper to enchant to deceive .now we know who deceives so he is lucifer he has many names but he is the same old dragon
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alan joseph August 27, 2008at 5:20 am
Hello. The eighth character of the Hebrew Alephbet is Cheth, representing the second “H,” and included in the term Nachash as an extension of Nahash, “Whisperer.” The king Achash that David became attached to as a mercenary was of the Serpent Cult, and David inscribed his credentials of that cult upon the gatepost of the city for the eyes of Achish alone. In feigning madness, he allowed spittle to run down his beard like the venom of a serpent to show he was of the Nachashon sect that carried out assassinations of cult members who strayed from the straight and narrow. In knowing that it is no surprise that his father Jessie/Ishi-iahu (“Man of Yahweh”) was also a Nahshon (“Whisperer”). Levi means “Coiler,” a kind of Garland that encircled the Levite priesthood as its spiritual and military arm. As you can imagine the Leviathan, or “Strong Coiler,” could not be a whale as it is unable to coil itself about anything and therefore was a Sea Serpent mirroring that Serpent in the sky known as Serpens. If you would like to peruse a treatise on the Serpent Cult, of which Samuel was also a member, please email and it shall be sent. There is also another and much longer work on the Kenanite/Kenite saga that may aid in your research. If possible some form of collaberation might be arranged in presenting a fuller picture of who the Kenites were and what they did for the Jews before and after the conquest of Canaan. One hero, called Caleb, was given Hebron as an everlasting homeland for his fathers descendants and proving that the Kenites were held in high esteem. But when you are made aware that the three cohorts of Abraham in Hebron/Mamre were in fact Kenites and not Amorites, as given, a whole new aspect of the surface storyline is shown in the esoteric subtext.
The very warmest of regards. Alan Joseph. -
I’ve been and SC student for twenty years. Most of what critics write about the SC is either lies or misrepresentations. If you want the truth, go to http://www.factnet.org/discus/messages/3/13502.html
I personally not only helped defeat the group of SC detractors at FactNet, but also caused Margie Plummer (below) to shut down her website. It was so full of gossip and lies that she should be ashamed to call herself a Christian.
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Here is an example of a post from FactNet.org, which comments about Margie Plummer (above):
Old 12-08-2006, 10:53 AM
smyrna
GuestPosts: n/a
Default Hello again folks, I’ve be
Hello again folks, I’ve been busy at work. To clarify my role in the closing of the Scripture_truth website,I posted all sorts of challenges to the garbage Margie Plummer (the site’s publisher)over and over. Being the fir minded person she is, Margie would quickly delete any posts that challenged her lies about the SC. Once, I did intentionally copy and paste enough of the older messages to the guestbok until the message quota was reached. But I did not do that more than once. Whoever did it when I was completely dismantling some guy who called himself Rex by way of debate, was most probably Margie herself!
In nay case, after myself and Watchman continually challenged her, caught her in lies she even had to admit, she finally shut the site down.
For Margie, it was an ego thing. All she really had to do was close her guestbook,and leave the rest of the site up. But without any of her cheerleading squad complimenting her, she just apparently felt she had to close the entire site.Now as far as that whacko Ann is concerned,I never did anything to her, and never made anyone think she was spamming the Guestbook. She was just a sick, paranoid member of Margie’s little army of misfits who actually believed all the nonsense on that site.
The woman wouldn’t even talk to her own mother because she watched the Chapel program! How stupid is that?Maybe Godchild should quit trying to smear me and tell us why she claimed the Chapel did not have a Church building, why she chose to use Bullinger to try and prove the Rapture doctrine when she claims he is incompetent, and why she feels she can even criticize Bullinger when she knows so little about the Bible, such as she didn’t even know that the Septuagint and the LXX are one and the same.
Maybe she can also tell us how she can possibly confuse Astrology with Astronomy.Now that I have some time, maybe I’ll go back and read the archived messages here and dig up some other gems of Godchild’s.
After all, she started the practice, until we found stuff like this that she wrote. Then all of a sudden she started whining about how we were ganging up on her. Give me a break. If she can’t take the heat, she shouldn’t have started dishing stuff up. -
alan joseph January 7, 2010at 10:19 am
If you really want to understand how the Kenites came to be “re-Born” into the tribe of Asher, which is from where Jethro came into being, plus his grandson hero Caleb, please contact me at the given email address above.
Warmest of regards to all. -
alan joseph January 7, 2010at 10:28 am
It seems to me that between us we could re-write whole sections of the Old Testament (Handed-Down-Wisdoms) and present a far better storyline than we read at present. But human nature being what it is nobody has either the time or inclination to do a comprehensive research job in tandem with others of like kind. More’s the pity.
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Regardless if you believe in the Bible or not, the World is still going to end the way the Bible said it was going to end so you should just believe what the Bible says. We could see it unfolding regardless of what you say. The Bible is REAL! JESUS IS COMING!
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I went to this web site because I am trying to learn what the race of the kenites were. Does anybody know?
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strongs concordance says that the kenite ethnicity is oriental, but then gives no explanation as to why that identity. I can reason that since Cain went east to Nod, and if Eden was somewhere up east of the Caspian sea, then he would have migrated into China. Then of course his descendants would have had to come down to Canaan. There is in fact archeological evidence of white people having been in that area in neolithic times. I am still hoping for an understanding of Strongs assertion. Thanks for your response. Jude
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Jared Ledbetter March 13, 2010at 3:25 pm
Kenites are the descendants of Cain. No question about it.
The Hebrew word, pronounced kah’-yin, means to strike, from the root word “quwn”, (to strike a musical note) and can not in any way be tied to Canaan.
It can’t be tied to Ca-i’nan, either. The root of the word Ca-i’nan is quanan, meaning to build, or erect
Canaan, as a Hebrew word has no similarities to Cain. The have wildly different roots. They don’t even start with the same character or letter.
(Canaan means humiliated)The only thing they have in common is the fact that both peoples had “lands” in the pre-exodus Holy land that was promised to Abraham, and Issac.
They were two distinct peoples.(Gen 15:18-21)As far as Moses’ father-in-law being a Kenite….
How likely would it be for a Kenite to be a priest of another people, that being Midianites?
Doesn’t it make more sense that Moses’ father-in-law lived among Kenites, and thus was called a Kenite?
In Numbers 10:29, Moses’ father-in-law is called Ra-gu’el the Midianite.
Midianites are the descendants of Abraham and his second wife, Keturah, and have nothing to do with Cain, or Kenites -
Jared Ledbetter March 13, 2010at 3:43 pm
Another thought on that:
If Moses’ father-in-law was a Kenite, rather than a Midianite among Kenites, then why would the local shepherds try to drive away his daughters from watering their father’s flocks?
Surely if he were a Kenite, his family would be better received by the locals.
Also, notice how Moses is referred to as an Egyptian, when being introduced to the girls’ father.
hmmm
Could that be because he was coming from the land of Egypt, thus called an Egyptian? -
Today, any one of us could be introduced as American, but that says nothing of our color. It was the same in Egypt at that time. I figured out that Strongs exaustive concordance says that the word kenite literally translated means all that has been discussed here plus it also means of an orential race. They were oriental, or at least a mix with oriental. Alan Joseph, there is no 1 chron:30 it goes to 29:30. Jared Ledbetter, In numbers 10:29 Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, his BROTHER in law……..I think it means to say Hobab is his brother in law. Grammer is off. in Exodus 2:18&21 it says Zipporah is Reuels daughter. Then in chapter 3:1 it says that Moses was minding the flock of his father in law Jethro the priest of midian. WHAT? It also talks about Jethro in the same way in ch 18. Maybe the priest had two names? Moses had more that one wife. In numbers 12 Meriam was all bent because he took a cushite wife. Maybe the scribe made a mistake. Jude
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Jared Ledbetter March 15, 2010at 7:31 am
Yes, Hobab is the brother in law. Reuel is the father in law.
Most likely Reuel was his name, while Jethro (meaning his excellency) would have been his title -
Kurt Kish June 25, 2010at 9:29 pm
Rudy- regardless if you believe in the bible or not (I don’t) the “world” (let’s just call it Earth, shall we?) IS going to end. In a few billion years (give or take a cupla’ million) when the Sun dies, the earth will be consumed by it’s swelling mass (the Sun is a nuclear furnace, ya’know). Man made supernatural stories or not- this planet is eventually going bye-bye. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, though.
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Moses’ father-in-law lived in kenite land HE WAS NOT A KENITE…Kenites are the pure bloodline of Cain they say they are the bloodline of Judah but that is a lie..
the kenites were a non-Israelite tribe associated with the Midianites, that eventually merged with the Kingdom of Judah (as opposed to Israel). Moses’ father-in-law (aka Jethro/Reuel/Hobab) was supposedly one of them; scholars think this represents the fact that the Kenites were the ones that originally worshipped Yahweh (KJV translation: the LORD) , and when they merged with Judah the belief transferred to the Israelites, who previously had worshipped El (KJV translation: God).