Lost Books of the Bible (13 page)

Author’s note: Clearly, Adam viewed copulating with Eve as incest and therefore morally wrong, even though it was not yet law. The idea kindled his desire, which was in opposition to what Adam viewed as a moral issue. This issue will be visited again in other texts such as Jubliees and others as Cain’s marriage to his sister is addressed.

Chapter LXXII

1 Then Satan, and ten from his hosts, transformed themselves into maidens, with more grace than any others in the entire world. 2 They came up out of the river in front of Adam and Eve, and they said among themselves, "Come, we will look at the faces of Adam and Eve who are of the men on earth. They are beautiful and their faces look different than ours." Then they came to Adam and Eve and greeted them, and they stood amazed at them. 3 Adam and Eve looked at them also, and wondered at their beauty, and said, "Is there another world under us with such beautiful creatures as these in it?" 4 And the maidens said to Adam and Eve, "Yes, indeed, many of us were created." 5 Then Adam said to them, "But how do you multiply?" 6 And they told him, "We have husbands who have married us and we bear them children, who grow up and in turn marry and are married and also bear children. Thus we increase. O Adam, you will not believe us, we will show you our husbands and our children." 7 Then they shouted over the river as if to call their husbands and their children. And men and children came up from the river, and every man came to his wife, and his children were with him. 8 But when Adam and Eve saw them, they stood speechless and were amazed at them. 9 Then they said to Adam and Eve, "See all our husbands and our children? You should marry Eve as we have married our husbands so that you will have children as we have." This was the way Satan was to deceive Adam. 10 Satan also thought to himself, "God at first commanded Adam concerning the fruit of the tree, saying to him, 'Do not eat of it or else you shall die.' But Adam ate of it but God did not kill him. He only gave him by law death, plagues, and trials, until the day he shall leave his body. 11 But if I deceive him to do this thing and marry Eve without God's permission, God will kill him." 12 Therefore Satan worked this apparition before Adam and Eve, because he sought to kill him, and to make him disappear from off the face of the earth. 13 Meanwhile the fire of immorality came over Adam and he thought of committing transgression. But he restrained himself, fearing that if he followed the advice of Satan, God would put him to death. 14 Then Adam and Eve got up and prayed to God, while Satan and his hosts went down into the river in front of Adam and Eve so they would see them going back to their own world. 15 Then Adam and Eve went back to the Cave of Treasures, as they usually did around evening time. 16 And they both got up and prayed to God that night. Adam remained standing in prayer but did not know how to pray because of the thoughts in his heart about marrying Eve. And he continued this way until morning. 17 When light came up, Adam said to Eve, "Get up, let us go below the mountain where they brought us gold and let us ask the Lord concerning this matter." 18 Then Eve said, "What is that matter, Adam?" 19 And he answered her, "That I may request the Lord to inform me about marrying you because I will not do it without His permission or else He will kill you and me. For those devils have set my heart on fire with thoughts of what they showed us in their sinful visions. 20 Then Eve said to Adam, "Why do we need to go to the foot of the mountain? Let us rather stand up and pray in our cave to God to let us know whether this advice is good or not." 21 Then Adam rose up in prayer and said, "O God, you know that we transgressed against you, and from the moment we sinned we were stripped of our bright nature, and our body became brutish, requiring food and drink, and with animal desires. 22 Command us, O God, not to give way to them without Your permission, for fear that You will turn us into nothing. If you do not give us permission we will be overcome and follow that advice of Satan, and You will again kill us. 23 If not, then take our souls from us and let us be rid of this animal lust. And if You give us no order about this thing then separate Eve from me and me from her, and place us each far away from the other. 24 Then, O God, if You separate us from each other the devils will deceive us with their apparitions that resemble us, and destroy our hearts, and defile our thoughts towards each other. If our heart is not toward each other it will be toward them, through their appearance when the devils come to us in our likeness." Here Adam ended his prayer.

Chapter LXXIII

1 Then God considered the words of Adam that they were true, and that he could not wait long for His order, respecting the counsel of Satan. 2 And God approved Adam in what he had thought concerning this, and in the prayer he had offered in His presence; and the Word of God came to Adam and said to him, "O Adam, if only you had had this caution at first, before you came out of the garden into this land!" 3 After that, God sent His angel who had brought gold, and the angel who had brought incense, and the angel who had brought myrrh to Adam, that they should inform him respecting his marriage to Eve. 4 Then those angels said to Adam, "Take the gold and give it to Eve as a wedding gift, and promise to marry her; then give her some incense and myrrh as a present; and be you both will be one flesh." 5 Adam obeyed the angels, and took the gold and put it into Eve's bosom in her garment; and promised to marry her with his hand. 6 Then the angels commanded Adam and Eve to get up and pray forty days and forty nights; when that was done, then Adam was to have sexual intercourse with his wife; for then this would be an act pure and undefiled; so that he would have children who would multiply, and replenish the face of the earth. 7 Then both Adam and Eve received the words of the angels; and the angels departed from them. 8 Then Adam and Eve began to fast and pray, until the end of the forty days; and then they had sexual intercourse, as the angels had told them. And from the time Adam left the garden until he wedded Eve, were two hundred and twenty-three days, that is seven months and thirteen days. 9 This was how Satan's war with Adam was won by Adam and Satan was defeated.

Author’s note:   In the apocryphal book of Tobit, the main character goes into his new bride after praying to still his lust and was thus pure.

               The word ”replenish” indicates that the earth was once full or “plenished” and was to be “replenished” or filled again. This is the same word used in Genesis, leading two the Second Creation Theory.

Chapter LXXIV

1 And they lived on the earth working so they could keep their bodies in good health. And they continued until the nine months of Eve's pregnancy were over and the time drew near when she would give birth. 2 Then she said to Adam, "The tokens placed in this cave since we left the garden show it to be a pure place. We will be praying in it again in a while. Because of this, it is not appropriate that I should give birth in it. Let us instead go to the sheltering rock cave that was formed by the command of God when Satan threw a big rock down on us in an attempt to kill us. 3 Adam then took Eve to that cave. When the time came for her to give birth she strained very much. Adam felt pity for her and he was very worried about her because she was close to death and the words of God to her were being fulfilled: " You shall bear a child in suffering, and in sorrow shall you bring forth a child." 4 But when Adam saw the distress Eve was in, he got up and prayed to God, and said, "O Lord, look at me with the eye of Your mercy, and deliver her out of her distress." 5 And God looked at His maid-servant Eve, and delivered her, and she gave birth to her first-born son, and with him a daughter. 6 Then Adam rejoiced at Eve's deliverance, and also over the children she had given him. And Adam ministered to Eve in the cave until the end of eight days, when they named the son Cain, and the daughter Luluwa. 7 The meaning of Cain is "hater," because he hated his sister in their mother's womb, before they were born. Because of this, Adam named him Cain. 8 But Luluwa means "beautiful," because she was more beautiful than her mother. 9 Then Adam and Eve waited until Cain and his sister were forty days old, when Adam said to Eve, "We will make an offering and offer it up in behalf of the children." 10 And Eve said, "We will first make one offering for the first-born son and then later we shall make one for the daughter."

Author’s note:  Jewish law says the woman is unclean for a time after giving birth. The act, having human blood present, makes the place unclean. The first cave served as home and temple. The second cave served as a place of safety and shelter.

               It will be noted the each time Eve gave birth she did so with twins, symbolizing the replenishing or replacing of Adam and Eve.

Chapter LXXV

1 Then Adam prepared an offering. He and Eve brought it to the altar they had built at first and offered it up for their children. 2 And Adam offered up the offering, and asked God to accept his offering. 3 Then God accepted Adam's offering, and sent a light from heaven that shined down on the offering. Adam and his son drew near to the offering, but Eve and the daughter did not approach it. 4 Adam and his son were joyful as they came down from the altar. Adam and Eve waited until the daughter was eighty days old and then Adam prepared an offering and took it to Eve and to the children. They went to the altar where Adam offered it up, as he was accustomed, asking the Lord to accept his offering. 5 And the Lord accepted the offering of Adam and Eve. Then Adam, Eve, and the children gathered together and came down from the mountain, rejoicing. 6 But they did not return to the cave in which they were born. Instead they went to the Cave of Treasures, so that the children should live in it and be blessed with the tokens brought from the garden. 7 But after they had been blessed with the tokens they went back to the cave in which they were born. 8 But, before Eve had offered up the offering, Adam had taken her to the river of water in which they threw themselves at first. There they washed themselves. Adam washed his body and Eve washed hers clean also, after the suffering and distress that had come over them. 9 But after washing themselves in the river of water, Adam and Eve returned every night to the Cave of Treasures, where they prayed and were blessed, and then went back to their cave where their children were born. 10 Adam and Eve did this until the children had been weaned. After they were weaned, Adam made an offering for the souls of his children in addition to the three times every week he made an offering for them. 11 When the children were weaned, Eve conceived again, and when her pregnancy came to term, she gave birth to another son and daughter. They named the son Abel and the daughter Aklia. 12 Then at the end of forty days, Adam made an offering for the son, and at the end of eighty days he made another offering for the daughter, and treated them as he had previously treated Cain and his sister Luluwa. 13 He brought them to the Cave of Treasures, where they received a blessing and then returned to the cave where they were born. After these children were born, Eve stopped having children.

Author’s note:  To compare the purification ritual recounted here to those of the Old Testament we look to the book of the law.
 
Leviticus 12 (RSV)
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2"Say to the people of Israel, If a woman conceives, and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. 3 And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. 4 Then she shall continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying; she shall not touch any hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed. 5 But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation; and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying for sixty-six days. 6 "And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the door of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering , 7 and he shall offer it before the LORD, and make atonement for her; then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female.
8 And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean."

Chapter LXXVI

1 As the children began to grow stronger and taller, Cain grew hard-hearted, and he ruled over his younger brother. 2 Often, when his father made an offering, Cain would remain behind and not go with them to make the offering. 3 But Abel had a meek heart, and was obedient to his father and mother. He frequently influenced them to make an offering because he loved it. He prayed and fasted much. 4 Then this sign came to Abel. As he was coming into the Cave of Treasures he saw the golden rods, the incense and the myrrh and he asked his parents, Adam and Eve, to tell him about them. Abel asked, "Where did you get these from?" 5 Then Adam told him all that had befallen them. And Abel felt deeply about what his father told him. 6 Then his father, Adam, told him about the works of God and of the garden. After hearing these things, Abel remained behind after his father left and stayed the entire of that night in the Cave of Treasures. 7 And that night, while he was praying, Satan appeared to him in the form of a man. And Satan said to him, "Often you have moved your father into making offerings, and to fast and pray. Because of this, I will kill you and make you perish from this world." 8 But Abel prayed to God and drove away Satan, and he did not believe the words of the devil. Then when it was day, an angel of God appeared to him, who said to him, "Do not stop your fasting, prayer, or offering to your God. For, look, the Lord has accepted your prayer. Be not afraid of the form which appeared to you in the night, and who cursed you to death." Then the angel departed from him. 9 Then Abel came to Adam and Eve when it was day, and told them about the vision he had seen. When they heard it they worried about it very much, but said nothing to him about it. They only comforted him. 10 But Satan came to the hard-hearted Cain by night and showed himself and said to him, "Since Adam and Eve love your brother Abel so much more than they love you, they wish to join him in marriage to your beautiful sister because they love him. However, they wish to join you in marriage to his ugly sister, because they hate you. 11 Now before they do that, I am telling you that you should kill your brother. That way your sister will be left for you and you can throw his sister away." 12 And Satan departed from him. But the devil remained behind in Cain's heart, and frequently prompted his ambition to kill his brother.