Melchizedek is a key character in the scriptures, but no man in recent times has known who he was. So, OK, put down your Agatha Christie novel, turn off your Columbo video, put on your Sherlock Holmes hat, and lets do some detective work with the bible to determine who this elusive Melchizedek chap really was. Paul describes Melchizedek as follows...
1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High
God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him.
2 and to whom Abraham apportioned a tenth from all
things, is first of all, by translation, "King of Righteousness," and is then also king of
Salem, that is, "King of Peace."
3 In being fatherless, motherless, without genealogy, having
neither a beginning of days nor an end of life, but having been made like the Son of
God, he remains a priest perpetually.
4 Behold, then, how great this man was to whom Abraham, the family
head, gave a tenth out of the chief spoils.
5 True, the men from the sons of Levi who receive their priestly
office have a commandment to collect tithes from the people according to the Law, that is, from their brothers, even if these
have issued from the loins of Abraham.
6
But the man who did not trace his genealogy from them took
tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises (Hebrews 7).
Satan and Adam were both motherless, being direct creations of God alone. God himself is both fatherless and motherless, being uncreated (whatever that means). All the rest of creation has both a father and a mother. But here Melchizedek is fatherless and motherless having no genealogy and no beginning of days nor end of life, this is the precise DNA of God. Although Melchizedek achieves it in a rather intricate manner.
Lets us build up a detective's white board for Melchizedek, like chief inspector Cluseau would do.
1. Melchizedek was non adamic, being made
like the son of God.
2. He was without physical parents.
3. He had everlasting life.
4. He was in some sense without genealogy.
5. He was in some other sense with a non Abrahamic genealogy.
6. He was a high priest, with a priesthood greater than the Levitical priesthood
7. Abraham paid tithes (10% of everything) to him.
These are 7 distinguishing features of Melchizedek. Who else in the scriptures matches this profile? Well there is a chap with a very strange genealogy who lived at the time when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, called Cainan.
Luke says that Cainan was a son of Arpachshad and that Shelah was a son of Cainan.
35
Son of Eber
Son of Shelah
36
Son of Cainan
Son of Arpachshad
Son of Shem
Son of Noah (Luke 3)
Whereas Moses describes Shelah as the son not of Cainan but of Arpachshad both in Genesis 10 and in Genesis 11.
24
And Arpachshad became father to Shelah, and Shelah became
father to Eber (Genesis 10).
12
And Arpachshad lived 35 years. Then he became father to Shelah.
13
And after his fathering Shelah Arpachshad continued to live 403 years. Meanwhile he became father to sons and
daughters.
14
And Shelah lived 30 years. Then he became father to Eber
15
And after his fathering Eber Shelah continued to live 403 years. Meanwhile he became father to sons and
daughters (Genesis 11).
So now please dear reader, indulge the writer whilst he asks a load of transparently rhetorical questions. Was the God who created all of our languages in one instant at the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:7), unable to get two of his bible writers to write consistent accounts about Cainan? Is the one who stretched out the heavens by his own understanding (Jeremiah 10:12), incapable of understanding the genealogy of one man? Did the one whose abundance in dynamic energy created all the stars (Isaiah 40:26) run out of batteries when it came to inspiring both Luke and Moses?
Evidently not. So if we cannot reconcile these two accounts then it is our understanding and our power that is failing, not God's. So how do we reconcile these two accounts? Well the key line is to be found in Luke...
23 Furthermore, Jesus himself, when he commenced [his work], was about 30 years old, being the son, as the opinion was, of Joseph, [son] of Heli (Luke 3).
Luke is a genealogy that is not wholly physical. For Jesus was not a physical son of Joseph. Whereas Genesis 11, being an old testament genealogy, is entirely physical. So the ancestral path of Genesis from Arpachshad to Shelah is entirely physical, and Shelah was Arpachshad's genetic son, whereas the ancestral path of Luke from Arpachshad to Cainan to Shelah cannot have been entirely physical.
But nonetheless Cainan replaces Arpachshad who was Shelah's genetic father. How can this be? Well, Luke is telling us that Arpachshad was not Shelah's genetic father at the time Shelah had Eber, whereas Genesis is telling us that he was Shelah's genetic father at the time Arpachshad had Shelah. So between his birth and his fathering of Eber, Shelah must have changed fathers somehow. In other words he changed human bodies. We do know how he did this because being Christians, we believe in the resurrection of the dead. So Shelah died and was resurrected. Cainan is therefore the father of Shelah by resurrection. In other words Cainan resurrected Shelah.
In this way Lazarus had two physical fathers, his genetic father and Jesus. Because his genetic father did not father the second body of Lazarus, Jesus mediated the creation of that body. It was actually a non-adamic body, because Lazarus, having died, was no longer under an adamic death sentence. No doubt Lazarus’ second body looked exactly like the first, but his second father was the eternal father, Jesus Christ. You may ask then why did Lazarus die a second time? - See U9.
A resurrection is really the highest form of human priesthood. It was not possible for a son of Adam, being under a death penalty himself, to resurrect anyone, before Jesus died and ransomed Adam releasing both him and his sons from that death penalty. Peter resurrected Dorcas and Paul resurrected Eutychus after Jesus died.
40 But Peter put everybody outside and, bending his knees, he prayed, and, turning to the body, he said: Tabitha, rise!" She opened her eyes and, as she caught sight of Peter, she sat up (Acts 9).
9 Seated at the window, a certain young man named Eutychus fell
into a deep sleep while Paul kept talking on, and, collapsing in sleep, he fell down from the third story and was picked up dead.
10 But Paul went downstairs, threw himself upon him and embraced
him and said: Stop raising a clamor, for his soul is in him.
11 He now went upstairs and began the meal and took food, and
after conversing for quite a while, until daybreak, he at length departed.
12 So they took the boy away alive and were comforted beyond
measure (Acts 20).
All the resurrections of the old testament (including those by Elijah and Elisha) were in fact performed by non adamic humans. So Cainan was a non adamic priest. But Luke describes him as a son of Arpachshad, so he must have been a son through a salvation covenant, presumably the 2BC (Just as Jesus was baptised by John in water). In fact as we shall see in section I28, Melchizedek mediated the 1AC (First Abrahamic Covenant) to Abraham. For more on this see the technical note below.
So now we can fill in the white board for Cainan...
1. Cainan was non adamic, being made
like the son of God.
2. He was without physical parents.
3. He was not under a death sentence and so certainly had indefinitely lasting
life.
4. He was in some sense without genealogy, being non adamic, and not being a
genetic son of Arpachshad.
5. He was in some other sense with a non Abrahamic genealogy (he must have come
from somewhere).
6. He was a high priest, with a priesthood greater than the Levitical
priesthood
7. He was alive when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, and in fact, he was
Melchizedek.
In fact Peter and Paul both had everlasting life when they performed their resurrections - see U506 on the research site. One cannot direct the Holy Spirit (which is the collection of all the holy spirits - see I11), without being oneself a holy spirit, i.e. having onself been declared righteous in the spirit, i.e. having been given everlasting life - see U13. So Cainan, who resurrected Shelah, did have everlasting life. So he was Melchizedek.
It is not particularly important to know that Cainan was Melchizedek. What is important, is to understand that Melchizedek was the non adamic Jared in the pre-flood system. And that he died not judicially but sacrificially as Jared, and then beamed down as a non adamic human to be Cainan, then Jehoiada, then Daniel, then Simeon. Furthermore each time he beamed down he presided over the entrance of the Angel Gabriel into another non adamic human. Understanding this, is the key to unlocking the identities of all 15 non adamic humans in the bible. These are revealed in the next section - see I21.
The Septuagint (the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, made by 70 Greek scholars in Alexandria in the 3rd century BC), helps us out here.
And Arpachshad lived 135 years and begat Cainan. And Arpachshad lived
after he begat Cainan 430 [400] years and begat sons and daughters and died.
And Cainan lived 130 years and begat Sala (Shelah) and Cainan lived after
he begat Shelah 330 years and begat sons and daughters and died.
And Shelah lived 130 years and begat Heber (Eber). And Shelah lived after
he begat Eber 330 years and begat sons and daughters and died (Genesis 11).
These 'begat's are all second births, since we know from the BHS (the Hebrew old testament) that the first births were much earlier...
24
And Arpachshad became father to Shelah, and Shelah became
father to Eber (Genesis 10).
12
And Arpachshad lived 35 years. Then he became father to Shelah.
13
And after his fathering Shelah, Arpachshad continued to live 403 years. Meanwhile he became father to sons and
daughters.
14
And Shelah lived 30 years. Then he became father to Eber
15
And after his fathering Eber, Shelah continued to live 403 years. Meanwhile he became father to sons and
daughters (Genesis 11).
But a second birth is being born again - see I12, which is a type of baptism. So Arpachshad was a father of Cainan by baptism (in fact by water baptism since he could not have to be born again since he was non adamic). But Eber, Shelah's son, was already born physically when Arpachshad was 65 years old, whereas Cainan was not baptised until Arpachshad was 135. So Arpachshad was not Cainan's father by baptism at the time Cainan resurrected Shelah. But became such 70 years later. But why would an Adamic man, Arpachshad, baptise a non adamic man Melchizedek?
Well, for the same reason that John baptised Jesus (although John was non adamic because he not only baptised him but also presided over the entrance of the angel Michael into him). Cainan needed to be placed in the paternal Line to Jesus, a line of 77 people from God to Jesus, not 76. He could only join that line by baptism. His baptism put the line back together again. In fact Satan may have thought that by killing Shelah he would terminate the line to Jesus. This could have been fixed by another son of Arpachshad in theory but the bible does not describe him as having any more sons than Shelah. If he had no other sons, then to put the line back together again, God had to resurrect Shelah and then baptise Cainan, his resurrection father, into the line.
Technical Note:
Since Melchizedek had no ageing penalty upon him, he could come down at any adult age of Jared's body from 20 to 962 (Daniel was quite young, when first referred to in scripture).
Jared was the first non adamic human born after Adam sinned. So he is the firstborn non adamic human. So he is the firstborn human. So he is the head of all humans, since God is patriarchal. So he will be the king of the kingdom of God.
2 and to whom Abraham apportioned a tenth from all things, is first of all, by translation, "King of Righteousness," and is then also king of Salem, that is, "King of Peace" (Hebrews 7).
And since it is written...
6 Just as he says also in another place: You are a priest forever according to the manner of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 5)
Melchizedek has everlasting life and will never lose it or his priesthood. Melchizedek is the second Adam, the first son of Man, or non adamic son of Adam. Jesus is the last Adam, the last son of Man.
1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High
God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him.
2 and to whom Abraham apportioned a tenth from all
things, is first of all, by translation, "King of Righteousness," and is then also king of
Salem, that is, "King of Peace."
3 In being fatherless, motherless, without [human]
genealogy [being genetically altered so that
the adamic gene was removed - a lab baby if this is permitted, or have angelic
parents, who received him when Jared was raptured], having
neither a beginning of days [in the peri-flood
system, having descended into it in adult form. He did have a beginning of days
in the pre-flood system in Jared] nor an end of life [got
everlasting life], but having been made [originally]
like the Son of God [non adamic human, Jared], he remains a priest perpetually.
4 Behold, then, how great this man was to whom Abraham, the family
head, gave a tenth out of the chief spoils.
5 True, the men from the sons of Levi who receive their priestly
office have a commandment to collect tithes from the people according to the Law, that is, from their brothers, even if these
have issued from the loins of Abraham.
6
But the man who did not trace his genealogy from them took
tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises (Hebrews 7).