New Testament: 1 Corinthians

Hey Corinthians!

Please be united as one church, be of the same mind and judgement! Chloe told me that a few of you were arguing: don't. You are all followers of Jesus.

God will destroy the wisdom of the world. The wise God decided that God could not be known through wisdom, but only through the folly which we preach to save the believers. Jews demand signs; Greeks seek wisdom; our faith is a stumbling block to both, but it is power and wisdom to those who are called. The foolishness of God is wiser than men! The weakness of God is stronger than men!

Consider: not many of you were wise by worldly standards; not many were powerful or of noble birth. God chose the foolish to shame the wise! God chose the weak to shame the strong! This is all so that no human may boast in the presence of God! I did not come to you with words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the spirit and of power, so that your faith lies not with the wisdom of men, but in the power of God!

Yet we do have wisdom! It is not the wisdom of this world or its rulers, but the secret and hidden wisdom of God! The rulers of this world do not understand! If they did, they wouldn't have crucified Jesus! These things have been revealed to us by the Spirit! And we impart this knowledge not by words taught by human wisdom but words taught by the Spirit! Let no one deceive himself! If anyone among you thinks that he is wise, let him become a fool that he may become wise!

We are servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. I consider it a very small thing to be judged by humans; in fact, I don't even judge myself! It is the Lord who judges me! Therefore do not pronounce judgement before the Lord comes! Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

It has been reported that there is sexual immorality amongst you, and of a kind not even tolerated among the pagans. A man has had his father's wife?! Let him who has done this be removed from among you!

Although absent in body, I am present in spirit and have already pronounced judgement on the one who did this!

(Literally a few paragraphs ago he told everyone to leave the judging to God on Judgement Day.)

When you are assembled in the name of Lord Jesus you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord!

In an earlier letter I told you not the associate with sexually immoral people. What I mean by this is: do not tolerate sexual immorality, idolatry, drunkenness or swindling within the church. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside!

(So now it's OK to judge people before Judgement Day as long as they are within the church; leave judging outsiders to God.)

If any of you have a disagreement, resolve it yourselves. Don't go to the law. If anything arises, deal with it within the church. There must be someone wise enough among you to settle disputes. Don't go to the unbelievers.

The following people will not inherit the kingdom of God: the unrighteous, the greedy, the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers. Such were some of you, but you were washed and sanctified in the name of Lord Jesus!

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord! Your bodies are members of Christ! Flee from sexual immorality! Every other sin is committed outside the body, but the sexually immoral sin against their own bodies, and those bodies are supposed to be temples to the Holy Spirit and to God! You are not your own; you were bought with a price; glorify God with your body!

Because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. They should have sex with each other whenever one of them feels like it. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time so that you can devote yourselves to prayer.

I wish that all were as I myself am. It is good for the unmarried and the widowed to remain single, but they should marry if they cannot exercise self-control. It is better to marry than burn with passion. The married should never divorce.

Let each person lead the life that the Lord assigned to him, and to which God called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Each person should remain in the condition in which he was called. It is good for a person to remain as he is in view of the present distress. If you are married, stay married. If you are unmarried, stay single. Time is growing short. The present form of this world is passing away. I want you to be free from anxieties; devote yourselves to the Lord.

Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you!

Don't be an idolater! Do not indulge in sexual immorality! Don't grumble! God will not tempt you beyond your ability to resist, so resist!

All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. Seek not your own good, but the good of your neighbour. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. If an unbeliever invites you to dinner, eat what they set before you. If someone tells you that meat came from a sacrifice, don't eat it.

Do everything for the glory of God! Give no offence to Jews or Greeks or Christians. Try to please everyone as I do. Imitate me, as I imitate Christ.

A man must have his head uncovered when praying. A woman should cover her head when praying. A man doesn't need to cover up because he is the image and glory of God, while a woman is just the glory of man: woman was made from man, for man. That is why a wife should have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels!

(Paul was a fan of the Book of Enoch, which relates the story of fallen angels having sex with female humans to produce a hybrid race of giants which destroy everything. Here he wants to protect the Christian women from these horny angels)

Nevertheless, a woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; as woman was made from man, now man is born from woman! And all things are from God!

Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair is it a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? Her hair is given as a covering.

On the night before he was betrayed, Lord Jesus took some bread and wine and told his disciples that it was his body and blood. So, do not eat the bread or drink the wine in an unworthy manner! Be disciplined so that, when we are judged by the Lord, we will not be condemned along with the world!

As the body is one and has many members, so it is with Christ. We have all been baptised into one body. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.

If one talks without love one is a clanging symbol; if one has prophetic powers and all the faith, but no love, one is nothing; if one gives everything away, but lacks love, one gains nothing.

Love is patient & kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. Prophecies pass, knowledge fades. Faith, Hope and Love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is Love.

Pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially the power of prophesy. One who speaks in tongue speaks not to men but to God; noone understands him, but he utters mysteries to the spirit. The prophet speaks to the people. The tongue-speaker builds himself; the prophet builds the church. I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more I want you to prophecy!

In all the churches of the saints, the women should be kept silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. It is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

If you disagree, please note that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If you don't recognise this, you are not recognised.

Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures, he was buried and raised on the 3rd day, in accordance with the scriptures, and then he appeared to Cephas & the Twelve. Then he appeared to more than 500 people, most of whom are still alive. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, he appeared to me.

If Christ raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no such thing as resurrection! If there is no resurrection, then Christ was not raised! If Christ has not been raised then our preaching and your faith is in vain! We would then be misrepresenting God by saying he raised Christ! If Christ has not been raised then your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

But in fact Christ was raised from the dead. For as by a man came death, by a man has come resurrection. In Adam we die, in Christ shall we be made alive. Christ was the first to resurrect, then, at his coming, so will those who belong to Christ. Then it's the end, and he will destroy every rule and authority and power. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

What you have now is not the body to be, but a bare kernel. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. So it is with resurrection: what is is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.

I will visit you after passing through Macedonia. I hope to spend some time with you. When Timothy visits, make sure you put him at ease.

Be watchful; stand firm in faith; act like men; be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. Greet one another with a holy kiss.

Yours faithfully,

Paul, who was called by God to be an apostle of Jesus, and Sosthenes

P.S. Aquila, Prisca, and the churches of Asia say 'Hello'.

New Testament: 1 Thessalonians, Galatians

1 Thessalonians

Hey Thessalonians!

We're always mentioning you guys! You've set a good example for all of Greece by turning from idol worship to serving the one true God, and awaiting Jesus' return from heaven!

We were so glad that you accepted the word of God for what is (i.e. not the word of man which some people keep saying). You imitated the churches of Jesus in Judea, and have suffered from your countrymen, like the churches in Judea suffered from the Jews!

The Jews: they killed Lord Jesus and the prophets, drove us out... they displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the gentiles.

We sent Timothy to check on you and strengthen your faith in the face of the your current afflictions. Remember, when we were with you we said that you'd have to suffer afflictions. I was worried you'd given in to temptation and abandoned your faith!

But Timothy came back saying you were doing great. We pray night and day hoping to see you again. May God and Lord Jesus bless you, and increase your love for each other.

Finally, remember the instructions we gave you on how to please God! Abstain from sexual immorality! Control yourself! (Unlike those horny gentiles). Love each other. Live quietly. Mind your own affairs.

Jesus died and rose again, and will come back to raise the dead and take the faithful to Heaven. He will descend, and we the living will be taken up to the clouds to meet the Lord.
That day will come like a thief in the night but, unlike the faithless, you won't be surprised when it comes! Encourage each other and build each other's strength until that day comes!

Respect people. Be at peace with yourselves. Admonish the idle. Encourage the faint-hearted. Help the weak. Be patient. Never repay evil with evil. Do good to one another. Pray constantly. Abstain from all evil. I hope your entire spirit and body is blameless at Jesus' coming!

Pray for us, and please read this letter out to everyone.

Yours faithfully,

Paul, Silvanus and Timothy


Galatians

Dear Galatians,

I am astonished that you are so quickly abandoning your faith and turning to a different gospel! Not that there really is another gospel - it's just people distorting the true gospel of Christ. Even if an angel descended from heaven and preached a gospel contrary to the one we taught, you shouldn't believe it. The angel is accursed.

The gospel that was preached to me was not man's gospel; I received it through direct revelation from Jesus Christ. In my former life in Judaism I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. But God, who chose me before I was born, called me by his grace and revealed his son to me, so that I might preach to the gentiles. I went to Arabia first.

Three years later I visited Cephas in Jerusalem for 15 days, but didn't see any of the other apostles except James, brother of Jesus. Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was still an unknown person in the churches of Jesus in Judea.

Fourteen years later I returned to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus. I went to proclaim the gospel I had been teaching the gentiles. They saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised. When James, Cephas and John saw the grace given to me, they gave me the hand of fellowship, and said I should continue preaching to the uncircumcised, while they preached to the circumcised.

We know that a person is not justified by obeying the law: only through faith in Jesus Christ. Christ lives in me now. The life I now live I live by faith in Jesus, who loved me and gave himself for me. If righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for no reason! It is those of faith who are the true sons of Abraham!

God told Abraham that through him all nations would be blessed; it is through Abraham's descendant, Jesus, that all nations are blessed. It is not through adherence to the law, which came 430 years later. The law was put in place by angels to keep Abraham's descendants alive until the coming of Jesus! Before Jesus came, we were captives under the law! The law was our guardian until the coming of Jesus! Through Jesus you are all sons of God!

Now you have come to know God, how can you back to your old ways? I am afraid I may have laboured over you in vain!

Look: if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. If you get circumcised, if you want to follow the law, then you must follow all of it. You will be severed from Christ; you will have fallen from grace. In Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters, only faith!

Walk in the ways of the spirit, not the flesh. The ways of the flesh are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, etc. Those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. With such things there is no law.

Bear one another's burdens. If anyone transgresses, restore him to faith in a spirit of gentleness. Whatever one sows, that will he also reap. One who sows to the flesh will reap corruption; one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life!

Yours faithfully,

Paul, an apostle chosen by Lord Jesus and God the Father.

New Testament: Timeline

4 B.C.E.: King Herod dies.

4 B.C.E. - 6 C.E.: Jesus of Nazareth born.

6 C.E.: Judea officially becomes a Roman province.

26-28 C.E.: John the Baptist starts his ministry.

28-30: Jesus of Nazareth starts his ministry.

30-33: Jesus of Nazareth crucified.

37: Saul converts to Christianity and changes his name to Paul. He travels the Roman Empire founding Christian communities and writing letters. The Christians of the Roman Empire, because of their refusal to worship or believe in the myriad gods of Rome, were branded 'atheists' and persecuted for the next few centuries. The Jews had a similar problem, but they had been around for longer and the pagans were more accustomed to their ways. For a variety of reasons, Christianity quickly spreads across the Roman Empire despite the varying degrees of persecution.

50-58: Paul writes 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, 2 Corinthians, Romans. These are letters to the Christian communities in Thessalonica (Greece), Galatia (modern Turkey), Corinth (Greece), Philippi (Greece), and Rome. Philemon was sent to Paul's friend Philemon (somewhere in modern Turkey).

66-70: The Jewish Revolt. The Jews fight for independence from Roman rule. Lots of Jews and Romans die. The Jews capture Jerusalem and destroy all the Roman offices and paperwork (and, therefore, the majority of the historical evidence for Jesus' existence). Titus, future emperor of Rome, lays siege to Jerusalem in 70 C.E. After 7 months, the Romans capture Jerusalem and destroy the Second Temple. Tens of thousands of Jews killed, exiled or sold into slavery across the Empire.

70s: An unknown author writes The Gospel of Mark; the names of the gospels were assigned in the second century onwards, once the Christians became aware that multiple gospels existed.

70s/80s: James written.

80s: Colossians written by an unknown author and attributed to Paul.

80s/Early 90s: The Gospel of Matthew and Luke-Acts written. The authors of Matthew and Luke-Acts, working independently, expand on the story of Jesus using both Mark and a lost document, called Q by scholars, as source material. Luke-Acts was later split into two separate books: The Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Apostles.

90s: Hebrews written by an unknown author; Augustine and Jerome would attribute it to Paul around 400 C.E.
The Gospel of John, as we have it now, was finished; it was contains older and newer material; it was edited and expanded over several years.
Ephesians written by an unknown author and attributed to Paul.
Revelations might have been written later, in the first few decades of the 2nd century, but most scholars agree that it was written no earlier than 90 C.E.

100-120: Jude, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Peter, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus written by unknown authors

120-150: 2 Peter was the last of the canonical New Testament books to be written.

132-136: The Bar Kokhba Revolt. Another revolt against Rome leaves the Romans tired of Jewish rebellions; they slaughter hundreds of thousands of Jews, destroy hundreds of towns and villages. Judaism was banned until Emperor Hadrian's death in 138; Jewish scholars persecuted. Judea renamed Palestine. The city of Aelio Capitolina built on the ruins of Jerusalem, and the Jews are forbidden from entering it. Most of the surviving Jews are scattered across the Roman Empire.

The Jewish Christians didn't take part in the revolt because they believed that Jesus, not Simon Bar Kokhba, the leader of the independence campaign, was the Messiah. However, they were still banned from Aelio Capitolina, persecuted, and scattered across the Empire. The Jewish Christians that ended up in Arabia would lay the foundations for the new religion that would rise to dominance centuries later: Islam.

313: Emperor Constantine tells everyone to be nice to Christians. Constantine became increasingly fond of Christianity, and increasingly contemptuous of paganism, over the course of his life. He became the first Christian emperor. Early in his reign he prohibited the construction of new pagan temples, while towards the end of his reign he ordered pagan temples to be destroyed and villages razed to the ground.

325: Christian Bishops gather at the Council of Nicaea to discuss theology and create the Nicene Creed.

361-363: Julian the Apostate is the final pagan emperor of Rome. He tries to restore traditional proper Roman values to the Empire; Julian thought that Christianity, a strange religion originating in the Middle East, would be the end of the Roman Empire. #RomeFirst

380: Emperor Theodosius makes Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire.


Sources:
'Zealot' by Reza Aslan
A Chronological New Testament
Wikipedia for Julian the Apostate and Constantine (I know it's unreliable, but it'll do for now).

Hebrew Bible: The Ten Generations, Extended Edition

These are the ten generations between Adam and Noah. In Genesis, only the story of Cain and Abel is really told. The other generations are listed with minimal detail. In Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, we are given a bit more detail. Remember, this is derived from multiple apocryphal and Talmudic sources.

Cain & Abel

Satan visited Eve after the expulsion from Paradise, and conceived a child with her: Cain. Eve ran off at first, not wanting Adam to learn of her infidelity with the fallen angel, but when the pains of childbirth hit, Adam heard her screams and went to her aid. Cain was delivered with the help of 12 angels. Sometime later, Eve gave birth to Adam's son Abel. Both sons had twin daughters, who were to become their wives.

When they were older, Eve had a dream in which Cain drank Abel's blood. The parents, fearing that the dream predicted fratricide, decided to separate Cain & Abel as much as possible: they taught them different professions: Abel was a shepherd; Cain, a farmer of the ground. Both offered the products of their profession to God. God preferred Abel's sheep, but didn't much care for Cain's produce. Abel always gave the best sheep to God, while Cain gave what was leftover after he had eaten his full.

Cain became jealous of Abel because God preferred his sacrifices, and because Abel's twin-sister-wife was much more attractive than his. Cain decided to kill Abel; he attacked, but Abel was stronger; Abel fought him off and held him down. Cain begged his half-brother for mercy. When Abel let go, Cain slew him.

And then God turned up, and asked wtf is going on? Cain told God that he's not his brother's keeper and that yes, he has just killed him, but that it was obviously within God's power to have stopped him from doing so: he could have prevented the jealousy from arising, intervened during the fight, or ensured that there was no evil inclination within him in the first place.

God decided to banish Cain: he would be a fugitive forever, and the earth would not give up its fruit to him. God marked Cain with either (a) one letter from the name YHWH, (b) leprosy, or (c) a horn, so that all men and animals who saw him would know who he was and not to kill him.

Cain made a joke about God being in the habit of banishing people: "yesterday Thou didst banish my father from Thy presence, today Thou doth banish me."

After Abel's death, Adam and Eve separated.

Wandering the world, Cain decided to immortalise his name by building giant cities and monuments. He was crafty and wicked. Before him the world had been simple and men lived innocently; he made the world complicated and full of cunning.

Cain was killed by his great-grandson Lamech the Blind. Lamech would go hunting with his young son, who would point out animals for Lamech to shoot. One day, the son saw something horned in the distance, and told Lamech to shoot it dead. When they approached its corpse, they realised it was Cain.

The wives of Lamech then went to Adam to ask what should be done, whether they should stay with him despite what has happened. Adam suggested that they should, and the wives thought it funny he should say that given he's been separated from Eve for the past 130 years after Abel's death. Adam took note of this, and returned to Eve. His love for her had grown, and they begot another son, Seth.

The Seven Earths

Hey remember the seven different earths that God made back in the extended creation story? Here they are again! Another version of the seven earths:

So, after banishment from Eden, God moved Adam to Erez, the darkest earth, then moved him to Adamah, an earth with more light. Cain, Abel and Seth were born on Adamah.

Arka, the 3rd earth, was given to the Cainites, the descendants of Cain. Some of the Cainites are giants, some are dwarves, some have two heads which argue with each other, making it very difficult to reach a decision.

The builders of the Tower of Babel were banished to Ge, the fourth earth, where they established a glorious civilisation.

Neshiah, the fifth earth, is inhabited by dwarfs with no noses and no memory. They breathe through two holes in their faces instead.

Ziah, the sixth earth, is inhabited by handsome people who live in beautiful palaces. However, there are frequent droughts.

After the birth of Seth, the humans were sent to Tebel, the seventh earth, our earth.

Enosh

Enosh was the son of Seth. He once tried to explain creation to others of his generation. He explained that God had created man from dust and breathed life into him. He made a model man from clay, and imitated God breathing into it. But in that moment, Satan entered the clay man and animated it, and the people were astounded. They asked Enosh, "What is the difference between bowing down before this image and paying homage to a man?" Thus idolatry was invented. As punishment for their idolatry, God ensured that the countenances of later generations were no longer in his image and likeness; they resembled apes and centaurs (take that, evolutionists!).

The Lustful Angels

In the time of Jared, Enosh's grandson, a group of angels looked down on the earth and lusted after the attractive females; they wanted to get down there and make some children. The gang, led by Shemhazai, swore an oath to stick together and carry out their horny plan to the end. They descended onto Mount Hermon, and then shagged many, many female humans.

The angel-human hybrids were giants who consumed more than the earth could create. When they had exhausted the food supply, they took to eating humans, and the humans fled to the wilderness and ate animal flesh (This was bad; God only authorised the use of animals as food after the Great Flood).

The fallen angels taught men new skills. Azazel taught them how to smelt metal, forge weapons, armour and trinkets, how to make jewellery and and make-up. Armaros taught magic spells.

Enoch

Enoch was taken up into Heaven so that there would be a witness to testify to future generations that the Great Deluge was necessary. He was transformed into the angel Metatron, and became God's second-in-command. God instructed the angels to go to Metatron with any concerns first rather than bother him directly.

'When Enoch was transformed into Metatron, his body was turned into celestial fire - his flesh became flame, his veins fire, his bones glimmering coals, the light of his eyes heavenly brightness, his eyeballs torches of fire, his hair a flaring blaze, all his limbs and organs burning sparks, and his frame a consuming fire.'

Metatron in the video game 'Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne'

Methuselah

Methuselah became ruler of the earth after Enoch's transformation. He was, like his father, a righteous man. Using a sword engraved with the name of God, he killed thousands of demons, the offspring of Lilith's union with Adam. He slaughtered so many demons that Agrimus, the first of Lilith's offspring, entreated him to desist, and gave him the names of all the demons alive. Methuselah captured the demon kings and chained them up, while the remainder fled to the innermost chambers and recesses of the ocean.

Methuselah had a son: Noah.

Hebrew Bible: Adam & Eve, Extended Edition

This post covers the extended apocryphal-Talmudic version of the the Fall of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden, which features many deleted scenes that weren't included in the Genesis Edition. Let's begin:

(Again, I feel the need to remind you that all of this is actually taken from apocryphal and Talmudic scripture, and presented in Louis Ginzberg's The Legends of the Jews. I am not making any of it up.)

God made the world and its creatures for man. Humanity represents the unity of the heavenly and the earthly. 'His power of speech, his discriminating intellect, his upright walk, the glance of his eye - they all make an angel of him. But, on the other hand, he eats and drinks, secretes waste matter, propagates his kind, and dies, like the beast of the field.'

And so, before creating humanity, God said: "The celestials are not propagated, but they are immortal; the beings on earth are propagated, but they die. I will create man to be the union of the two, so that when he sins, when he behaves like a beast, death shall overtake him, but if he refrains from sin, he shall live forever."

After he had decided to create humans, God invited his angels, in groups, to say what they thought of the idea. Opinions differed: the Angel of Love and the Angel of Justice were for the motion, because man would be loving and practice justice; the Angel of Truth and the Angel of Peace were against, because men would lie and argue.

'To invalidate his protest, God cast the Angel of Truth down from heaven to earth, and when the others cried out against such contemptuous treatment of their companion, He said, "Truth will spring back out of the earth."

Some of the angels asked why man was necessary on earth, and God explained that earth needed something to eat all the tasty animals and fruits he'd just made. The angels were satisfied by this answer.

Then God summoned the angels led by the Archangel Michael and asked their opinion. They scornfully replied with the same questions about the necessity of man's existence that the last group of angels asked. In exactly the same words. 'God thereupon stretched forth His little finger, and all were consumed by fire except their chief Michael. And the same fate befell the band under the leadership of the Archangel Gabriel; he alone of all was saved from destruction.'

Then God saw the angels led by the Archangel Labbiel. Having heard of the terrible fate of his predecessors, Labbiel warned his troupe not to question God. They told God that they thought creating humans was definitely a swell idea. God was pleased with this answer; he promoted Labbiel to Angel of Healing and renamed him Raphael, the Rescuer, 'because his host of angels had been rescued by his sage advice.'

When at last the assent of the angels to the creation of man was given, God told Gabriel to collect some dust from earth, which God used to create man. At this point, the Fire Torah intervened, telling God that she really doesn't think that creating humans is a good idea. God brushed her off.

God spent great care fashioning the human body; he made it perfect. At the same time as the human body, he made the souls of every single human that will ever exist. He keeps all the souls in a storehouse in the Seventh Heaven. God created Adam as the Ideal Man. He was huge and strong, he was intelligence and wise. His form was like that of a man at twenty years old.

[A digression on how human souls end up in their bodies:

When a woman conceives, the Angel of the Night, Lailah, takes the sperm before God, and God decides what kind of person it shall become. Piety and wickedness are the only human traits that God does not choose. God then commands Lailah to collect a certain soul from the storehouse.

God commands the soul to enter the sperm, but the soul is always reluctant , because it had been having a great time in the Soul Storehouse on Seventh Heaven. God consoles the soul by explaining that if they so well on earth they can get an even better existence than the one they had in the Soul Storehouse. The soul is then forced to enter the sperm whether they like it or not, and two angels are set guard over it to make sure it doesn't try to break out. The angels take the Sperm-encased Soul on a tour of Paradise, and explain that you get into here if you follow the Torah laws. They then take it on a tour of the entire earth, and, finally, they take it on a tour of Hell, and explain that you're put in here if you fail to follow the Torah laws.

When the soul emerges from the woman as a baby, it loses its memory of these events until the moment of death, when everything comes flooding back.]

Some of the angels were jealous of Adam's perfection. They tried to kill him with fire, but God protected Adam. Satan was the most envious; he was the most powerful angel in heaven; he had twelve wings instead of the usual six.

God commanded the angels to bow before Adam. Michael was the first to bow, hoping to set a good example for the others. Satan outright refused, not understanding why he, a heavenly entity, such bow to a being made from dirt. God thinks of a cool way of testing whether Satan is as wise as Adam: who can name the beasts of the earth correctly.

So God presented the animals of earth before Adam and Satan. Whenever Satan tried to named an animal, he got it wrong. Adam confidently named them all correctly. But Satan still refused to bow. Michael then felt the need to warn Satan that God might get angry.

"If He breaks out in wrath against me, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will be like the Most High!" said Satan. 'At once God flung Satan and his host out of heaven, down to the earth, and from that moment dates the enmity between Satan and man.'

Adam became lonely; he was one of a kind. God created a woman out of dust to be his companion. Her name was Lilith. 'But she remained with him only a short time, because she insisted on enjoying full equality with her husband. She derived her rights from their identical origin. Adam complained before God that the wife He had given him had deserted him, and God sent forth three angels to capture her.'

They found her, and commanded her to return to Adam. She refused; they threatened to execute 100 of her demon children every day unless she returned to Adam. She still refused; she really didn't like living with Adam. And so to this day she takes her revenge on the descendants of Adam, by injuring their babies during their first few days of life.

Lilith, artist's impression.

God decided to replace Lilith by creating a new woman from a chunk of Adam because "only when like is joined unto like is the union indissoluble." He thought about what body part he should make her from, and decided on the rib because it is a chaste part of the body. God wanted women to be chaste. 'Many of the physical and psychical differences between the two sexes must be attributed to the fact that man was formed from the ground and woman from bone.'

'Adam was first made to fall into a deep sleep before  the rib for Eve was taken from his side. For, had he watched her creation, she would not have awakened love in him. To this day it is true that men do not appreciate the charms of women whom they have known and observed from childhood up.'

Adam & Eve got married. A grand wedding with all the angels attending and 'with pomp never since repeated in the whole course of history.' They have a great time living in Eden, following God's rules (including, of course, No Eating From The Tree of Knowledge), being served by angels and animals. Until along came the serpent. As mentioned in my last post, the serpent is, at this stage, humanoid in appearance, walking on two legs, about as tall as a camel.

The serpent was envious of the humans, and conspired to bring about their fall. He said to Eve:
"Naught but malevolence has prompted the prohibition, for as soon as ye eat thereof, so will ye have the power to create and destroy. As He creates and destroys worlds, so will ye have the power to create and destroy. As He doth slay and revive, so will ye have the power to slay and revive. He Himself ate first of the fruit of that tree, and then He created the world. Therefore doth He forbid you to eat thereof, lest you create other worlds. Everyone knows that artisans of the same guild hate one another."

(I imagine Eve thinking to herself 'What's an 'artisan'? What's a 'guild'?)

Eve ate some of the fruit, then she went a bit mad and convinced Adam to eat some, and then gave some to all of the animals in Eden except the Phoenix, who refused.

The first effect the fruit had on the bodies of Adam & Eve was that it caused their spiky exoskeletons to fall away, and they were ashamed of their nakedness. Adam gathered fig leaves to cover up their genitals.

The angels observed Adam's transgression, and asked God why Adam & Eve hadn't died yet. God explained to them that he didn't specify what type of day he meant when he said that they'd die the same day they ate of the fruit. He meant a Heavenly Day, which lasts 1000 of Earth's years.

God goes to Adam & Eve to ask them wtf is going on? Adam blames Eve; Eve blames the serpent; God punishes all three. He sends a troupe of angels to hack the serpents limbs off and rid it of the power of speech. 'His suffering was so great that his agonized cries could be heard from one end of the earth to another.' Adam loses his physical and spiritual perfection, and must now work the ground for food. Eve is given pain during childbirth.

God also punished the Moon, because, if you remember from last time, the Moon is a bit of a bitch. 'The very angels and celestial beings were grieved by the transgression of Adam. The moon alone laughed, wherefore God grew wroth, and obscured her light. Instead of shining steadily like the sun, all the length of the day, she grows old quickly, and must be born and reborn, again and again.

God makes clothes for Adam & Eve from the serpent's skin, and kicks them out of Eden. They had existed for less than an earth-day.

Outside Eden, Adam & Eve built a hut to live in, and struggled to feed themselves. They decided to fast in the hope that God would forgive them. Satan began to worry that God might grant them forgiveness, so appeared to Eve pretending to be an angel sent by God to welcome them back to Paradise. Adam, however, recognised Satan as the angel he beat in the Naming Animals Competition, and asked him why he was trying to trick them out of their fasting. With a heavy sigh Satan explained that he had been kicked out of heaven.

The first time Adam & Eve saw a sunset, they thought that world was being darkened forever. When they saw it rise the next morning, they understood that it was a cycle in the course of nature, and sacrificed a Unicorn to God.

Fast forward. Adam, on his death bed, 930 years old, is very sick. Eve and Seth visited the gates of Eden, hoping to convince God to let them all back in. Archangel Michael came out and told them that wasn't going to happen. They went back home, and Adam, hearing the news of the refusal, shouted at Eve and told her to explain to their family why they were all in this mess.

Eve told them the story of the fall, adding that Satan had been in league with the serpent.

Adam died, and his soul was taken up to heaven in a chariot of light drawn by four shining eagles. God forgave his trespasses, and allowed him to reside in the Third Heaven. Michael helped Seth bury Adam's body. Eve died sometime later, and Michael also helped with her funeral. We are not told whether God forgave Eve...

Next Time: The Ten Generations, Extended Edition, covering Cain & Abel and all the time up to the birth of Noah.

Hebrew Bible: Creation, Extended Edition

Back in my first Bible post I mentioned that I intended to read all the apocrypha as well as the Bible. Since then I've realised (a) how much apocrypha there is, (b) how unpleasant a lot of is to read (it's fragmented, badly written, or poorly translated: there isn't a big demand for streamlined translations of apocryphal works), (c) there's also the Talmud, the other Jewish sacred scripture, which expands on the Torah, and (d) a nice guy called Louis Ginzberg spent a long time going through all the apocryphal and Talmudic expansions of the Bible stories and rewrote them into a single coherent fun-to-read narrative in The Legends of the Jews, so I've got a copy of that and am reading it instead of the Old Testament apocrypha.

The stories become a lot more detailed. And a lot more epic. The expanded creation story begins with:

'In the beginning, two thousand years before the heaven and the earth, seven things were created: the Torah written with black fire on white fire, and lying in the lap of God; the Divine Throne, erected in the heaven which was later over the heads of Hayyot; Paradise on the right side of God, Hell on the left side; the Celestial Sanctuary directly in front of God, having a jewel on its altar graven with the Name of the Messiah, and a Voice that cries aloud, "Return, ye children of men."'

(Before you read further, I feel I need to remind you that this story is actually adapted from the Talmud and apocrypha; I am not making it up. It is also worth pointing out that since the Ginzberg crams as much apocryphal and Talmudic content into one narrative, it isn't very consistent.)

God feels like creating something to rule over, so he has a chat with the Fire Torah about the value of an earthly world. The Fire Torah points out that a king needs subjects to rule, but is sceptical about whether created beings would be loyal to their creator. God calms her doubts (the Fire Torah is female) by explaining that he can throw any of his bad creations into this pit of eternal suffering to his left, and reward the good ones by putting them into the paradise to his right.

God had never made an earthly world before, so he needed to practice:

‘Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of earthly things created by God. He made several worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours.”

The First Day

God creates light: the first light was not the same as the light of the Sun or Moon; that light did not appear until the 4th day. This was a brighter, purer light.

Seven heavens were created:
Heaven 1 covers the sky and has no function beyond separating the earth from heaven.
Heaven 2 contains the other planets.
Heaven 3 is God’s manna farm.
Heaven 4 contains the Celestial Jerusalem and the Temple, in which the Archangel Michael is high priest.
Heaven 5 is angel accommodation.
Heaven 6 is God’s armoury, containing his storms, hail, fire, ‘noxious dew’, etc; doors of fire separate the rooms of God’s armoury, and the whole complex is presided over by the archangel Metatron.
Heaven 7 is the home of the Divine Throne and the souls of the pious.

Seven earths were created, separated from each other by a great abyss:
Erez, the lowest earth, empty.
Adamah, ‘the scene of the magnificence of God’.
Arka, the underworld, where the souls of the wicked are guarded by the Angels of Destruction.
Harabah, a world of brooks and streams.
Yabbashah, a world of rivers and springs.
Tebel, the first earth inhabited by living things: 365 species, all different to those on our earth. There's also a human species: ‘Tebel is inhabited by human beings with two heads and four hands and feet, in fact with all their organs doubled excepting only the trunk. It happens sometimes that parts of these double persons quarrel with each other, especially while eating and drinking, when each claims the best and largest portions for himself. This species of mankind is distinguished for great piety, another difference between it and the inhabitants of our earth.’
Heled, our earth, which is protected by the angel Ben Nez the Winged.

God also made 196,000 other worlds which we don’t need to know the names of.

The Second Day

The Second Day of creation was not a good day.

First God created the firmament to separate the primordial water and create an expanse, then he wanted the waters below the gather together in one place so that dry land could appear; however, in certain parts the water refused to obey, and Rahab, the Angel of the Sea, was sick of being commanded around by God.

“I have had enough,” said Rahab.

This angered God, so he killed Rahab and threw his body into the sea; his rotting corpse on the sea floor is responsible for sea’s foul smell and taste. Then God summoned the Angel of the Face to destroy everything; the angel shot fire out of his eyes and set about destroying everything.

But another angel pacified God, and he cancelled the command to destroy the world.

‘The second day of creation was an untoward day in more than one respect that it introduced a breach where before there had been nothing but unity; for it was the day that also saw the creation of hell. Therefore God could not say of this day as of the others, that He “saw that is was good.” A division may be necessary, but it cannot be called good, and hell surely does not deserve the attribute of good.’

(This is where the use of multiple sources becomes obvious: Hell was created 2000 years before heaven and earth; Hell is Arka, created on the 1st day; Hell was created on the 2nd day.)

Hell has seven divisions: Sheol, Abaddon, Beer Shahat, Tit ha-Yawen, Sha’re Mawet, Sha’re Zalmawet, and Gehenna. Ninety thousand Angels of Destruction supervise Hell. There are giant scorpions in Hell, the venom of which causes humans to explode.

'There are also five different kinds of fire in Hell. One devours and absorbs, another devours and does not absorb, while the third absorbs but does not devour, and there is still another fire, which neither devours nor absorbs, a furthermore a fire which devours fire.’

Then God created the angels. There are ten ranks of angels; the most exalted rank serves God around the Divine Throne, under the leadership of Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael. The angel Sham’iel descends to Heaven 1 every night and listens out for prayers and songs of praise.

‘The reason they had not been called into being on the first day was, lest men believe that the angels assisted God in the creation of the heavens and the earth.’

The Third Day

God created plants, and Paradise: where every just man is served by sixty angels, where everyday the human denizens pass through the joys of a whole lifetime. Paradise is divided into seven districts. Beyond Paradise: Eden, ‘containing three hundred and ten worlds and seven compartments for seven different classes of the pious”.

The Fourth Day

The Sun and Moon are fixed into place. The Moon wanted to be brighter than the Sun, but God was in no mood for that attitude.
‘When God punished the envious moon by diminishing her light and splendour, so that she ceased to be the equal of the sun as she had been originally, she fell, and tiny threads were loosed from her body. These are the stars.’

The Fifth Day

God created the fish and the birds, ‘for these two kinds of animals are closely related to each other’. He created Leviathan to rule the sea, and Ziz to rule the sky.

“Originally he [Leviathan] was created male and female like all the other animals. But when it appeared that a pair of these monsters might annihilate the whole earth with their united strength, God killed the female.”

“But Leviathan is more than merely large and strong; he is wonderfully made besides. His fins radiate brilliant light, the very sun is obscured by it, and also his eyes shed such splendour that frequently the sea is suddenly illuminated by it. No wonder that this marvelous beast is the plaything of God, in whom he takes his pastime.’

Ziz (AKA Renanim, Sekwi) is as big as Leviathan.

‘His ankles rest on the earth, and his head reaches the very sky.’
‘His wings are so huge that unfurled they darken the sun.’

‘Once an egg of Ziz fell to the ground and broke. The fluid from it flooded sixty cities.”

At the end of days, both Leviathan and Ziz will be killed, cooked and served to the pious.

The Sixth Day

God created the land animals, and Behemoth to rule over them. Behemoth and Leviathan will, at God’s command at the end off time, fight each other to the death to entertain the pious.

God created the Reëm, giant animals of which there are only two. They reproduce every seventy years to produce twins, one male and one female, then die. Only two, there are; no more, no less.

And He created the Adne Sadeh:
‘His form is exactly that of a human being, but he is fastened to the ground by means of a navel-string, upon which his life depends. This animal keeps himself alive with what is produced by the soil around about him as far as his tether permits him to crawl.”

And God created the Phoenix, which was the only bird that refused to eat some of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, when Eve went around handing it out to everyone, and so was rewarded with eternal life. Every thousand years the Phoenix’s body shrinks, it’s feathers fall, it becomes an egg. Phoenixes are purple, with a head similar to a crocodile, tail and feet similar to a lion. They accompany the sun on its voyage round the earth.

Then there’s quite a few explanations about how animals have changed since Creation: cats & dogs used to be friends, but they quarrelled when they both lived in Adam’s house; cats & mice used to be friends, etc.

‘The serpent, too, is other than it was at first. Before the fall of man it was the cleverest of all animals created, and in form it resembled man closely. It stood upright, and was of extraordinary size. Afterwards, it lost the mental advantages it had possessed as compared to the other animals, and it degenerated physically, too; it was deprived of its feet, so that it could not pursue other animals and kill them.’

I’m gonna leave it there for today. Next time: The Fall of Adam & Eve, Extended Edition.

NEXT TIME: Noah and the Great Flood, Extended Edition.