Footnote

a Luke lists a second Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah (Luke 3:36). This is regarded by most scholars as a copyist’s error. This name is not found in this position in the genealogical listings in the Hebrew and Samaritan texts, nor in any of the Targums or versions except the Septuagint, and possibly not in its earlier copies, for Josephus, who usually follows the Septuagint, lists Selah (Shelah) next as the son of Arphaxad. (Antiquities of the Jews, Book I, Chap. VI, par. 7) Early writers Africanus, Eusebius and Jerome rejected it as an interpolation. Another possibility is that “Cainan” is a variant of “Chaldean.” Hence, the Greek text may have read, “the son of the Chaldean Arphaxad.”