Why does Cain, of all people, get immortality?
Justify your answer below.
Monday Morning Theological Poll: Sinister Sasquatch Edition
August 5, 2019 by
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog
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By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
So I brought my wife over to see this poll and ask which she would choose. She said, “I guess I didn’t realize Cain actually was immortal. I thought that was more of urban legend.” So, how sure are we that Cain IS immortal, and not that he just lived out his natural lifetime (couple hundred years??) and then perish naturally?
That whole Joseph Smith saying “hey, you met Cain” story. Ugh.
I don’t think there’s any reason for him to be immortal, if he is at all. it’s a poor cautionary tale – be bad enough you get to live forever wandering the Earth as an unkillable mortal.
Leave Joseph Smith out of it! That’s Abraham O. Smoot saying that David W. Patten said it.
Big Foots are basically Wookies, so I chose the Star Wars one.
I’m surprised we don’t have more “ghost stories” about Cain interactions/sightings. I was regularly regaled over scout camp fires with tales of the 3 Nephites. Instead of being uplifting, they were creepy (the venue certainly added something, I guess). Tales of Cain encounters would have been so much more appropriate, considering. A missed opportunity.
(Matthew Bowman wrote about Cain as the Mormon Bigfoot – check it out).
From the Book of Jasher:
“And Lamech was old and advanced in years, and his eyes were dim that he could not see, and Tubal Cain, his son, was leading him and it was one day that Lamech went into the field and Tubal Cain his son was with him, and whilst they were walking in the field, Cain the son of Adam advanced towards them; for Lamech was very old and could not see much, and Tubal Cain his son was very young. And Tubal Cain told his father to draw his bow, and with the arrows he smote Cain, who was yet far off, and he slew him, for he appeared to them to be an animal. And the arrows entered Cain’s body although he was distant from them, and he fell to the ground and died. And the Lord requited Cain’s evil according to his wickedness, which he had done to his brother Abel, according to the word of the Lord which he had spoken. And it came to pass when Cain had died, that Lamech and Tubal went to see the animal which they had slain, and they saw, and behold Cain their grandfather was fallen dead upon the earth. And Lamech was very much grieved at having done this, and in clapping his hands together he struck his son and caused his death.”
The person that David Patton saw was probably either Cousin Itt from The Addams Family or Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.
ty, Ardis, glad to be corrected
Never understood this one. Not much point to a mark warning people not to kill him because of sevenfold vengeance, if the guy can’t be killed.
Clinging to the “arc”?
I know the poll is a joking reference to “Cain is bigfoot” stories, but I don’t get the presumption that he’s immortal. Outside the Patton legend of Cain-bigfoot, is there any scriptural support that Cain is immortal? I would think the scriptural narrative implies that Cain dies no later than Noah’s flood.
larryco_: you’ll enjoy this picture of ZZ Top from 1970. Dig that Kustom Tuck-‘n’-Roll amplifier they’re sitting on–groovy!
(Apologies for the pixelation, but you get it.)
Excellent.
Wally,
Thanks for pointing that out. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to fix it. Just know that I wrote this at 3 am my time for all you little sasquatchniks.
Can I request a poll? I’d love to know what Mormons think happens with aborted babies (ie, do they get another body/birth chance, is there mortal experience over, etc) Anybody else curious what others might think about such a topic??
This is jaxjensen right now:
lol
I always thought it was part of his punishment. You are cursed and you have to live with it FOREVER. To me, even as a kid, the living forever part seemed like the worst part of his punishment.
If you believe the television show Lucifer, Cain is immortal, very good looking, kind of a jerk, and (spoiler alert) ultimately mortal. So there you go.
I’m still not 100% on what the show wants me to believe about Eve.
This is a folk tale poll, not theological, though some might believe the line between the two is thin.
Mormons may be unique in having this bit of folklore of Cain having been seen and recognized in the 19th century, but we are definitely NOT the only people who have a vague notion that Cain still lives and roams the earth, however unjustified that notion may be. Google: / Cain “vagabond forever” / and you’ll find both religious sources and artistic ones that assume that the curse was a perpetual one and, I guess, that it wouldn’t be perpetual if Cain were not still living and wandering as a vagabond. (Obviously the KJV doesn’t use the word “forever” in Genesis 4:12, but a lot of religious people seem to respond as if that word were there.)
Ardis: there’s a Mountain Goats song called “Prowl Great Cain” that uses the metaphor of Vagabond Cain to state of mind of a narrator who survived the Killing Fields of Cambodia by ratting out someone dear to him, and now prowls across the wasted wreckage of his homeland.
Which is a reminder that John Darnielle is one of America’s true cultural treasures.
why isn’t there a “none of the above” option?
Someone made a horrid movie out of this called “He Never Died.” It actually wasn’t a bad concept and I’ve wondered if the screenplay was sourced from the old David Patten legend?