Book of the Nephilim

Worlds Without Number

2009-03-12T19:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.2s2.com/chapmanresearch/user/documents/worlds.html

A Compilation from Ancient and Modern Documents

Compiled By Glen W. Chapman 1996

Testimonies From 0ld and New Testament Period Apocryphal Writings

Old Testament Period Writings

"And Satan said to Adam,' I have no need to worship you, I will not worship an inferior being and younger being. I was your senior in the creation. Before you were made I was already made. It is rather your duty to worship me. The angels who are under me refuse to worship You also... Adam I was cast forth from my Glory because of thee, and behold I have caused thee to be expelled from the Garden Paradise because thou didst cause me to become a Stranger in my home in heaven Know thou that I shall never cease to contend against thee and all those who shall come after thee until all go down into my kingdom with me' "

Combat of Adam and Eve 14, 15

"Enoch went to the Lord who taught him all about the creation and his works .He saw matter unorganized before the creation council in Heaven. He saw Satan aspire and get cast out to become the foundation of lower things, beyond which there is great darkness and nothing. And the Lord said 'And now Enoch all that I have explained to thee and all thou has seen on Earth and all thou hast written in thy books. It is my wisdom that I have organized and made all these things and it was by my word that it was carried out,'

....." And every thing found in the world has been before and has passed before him and has been organized before him ...All the creations of the world have existed in each generation before they came to this world. All the souls of the children of men have been before they came down to the world, formed, before him in Heaven in the very likeness that they have in this world...For all souls are prepared to eternity ,before the formation of the world" 2 Enoch 9

"Enoch answered the people saying, 'before .anything was and before the whole Creation took place, the Lord established the age of creation; and after that he made all of the creation both visible and invisible and after that he created man in his own image .He gave him eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to think with and a mind to council. I swear to you my children that before man was in the womb of his mother we were prepared, each individual and a place for each spirit that each should sojourn here in his proper time, that man might be tested in the balance".'

2 Enoch 17

"Hear Enoch ....not to my angels have I told the rise, nor my endless realm, nor have they understood my creating which I tell thee today. There is born light from light . There came forth a great age, and showed all creation... I want to create another world ... and there is no council nor inheritor to My creations nor assistant, It was I alone who was my advisor: and it was my own word and-it was carried out. My eye beheld it all .And now Enoch all that I have explained to thee and written in thy book. It is in My wisdom that I organized and made all things..'.' 2 Enocb 24:3-5

"Nor have they understood my creating which I tell thee today. There is born light from light, there came forth a great age and showed all creation ... I want to create another world and there is no counselor nor inheritor to my creation .There are 18,000 worlds known only to God. "

Secrets of Enoch 10

"The Lord said to the angel take a book from the deposit and give a pen to Enoch and explain to him and dictate the books to him, so the Angel taught Enoch all the works of Heaven and the earth and the sea and all elements and all time periods and commandments and instructions. So he wote the 360 books of creation " 2Enoch 10

"And now my children, ! know all things ....I have written of the extremities of heavens and what is in them. I have measured the movements of the Hosts. I have completed the counting of the stars a vast multitude. No man can conceive of their revolutions. The angels themselves do not know their number. I have measured and described the Stars." 2 Enoch 13

"And the Angel said to Enoch sit down and write. All of the Spirits of men and those who have not yet been born yet, the places which have been prepared for them. All things were prepared since before the foundation of the world." 2 Enoch 9

"He calls them by name and they answer Him from eternity to eternity. As the Father of greatness is in the glorious worlds, so His Son rules among those cosmoses as the first Chief Lord of all the powers." 1 Enoch 69:

"and the earth and planets are but atoms in an infinity of like systems. There is an infinite hierarchy in the worlds…There's an infinite hierarchy in the worlds" Sefer Yetzirsh , I, 5, in Akiba ben Joseph

"God's creations are en sof, ' without end ' " (Mishanat ha-Zohar 1:127)

" This we have learned .Before the Holy One created this world, He had created other worlds and destroyed them" Zohar III (Noah)

" In some worlds, reproduction is carried out differently from here…There are all sorts of creatures for if you go to any other world he will be the same, and yet he's the most individual of all." Zohar

"The heavens are without number, and every one of the vaults is like an independent world which in turn contains 1,000 other worlds." bin Gorion 1:59

"God. (he hails God), "God! Thou who dost bring order into the confusion of the universe, ever preparing and renewing worlds for the righteous." Apocalypse of Abraham

" Be not afraid, for I am before the world was, a strong God who created even before the light of the world, I am before the worlds, and a mighty God who created the light of the world, I

will show you the Aeons, and reveal to you that which is secret; and you shall see great things never before beheld by you; for you have loved to seek me, and I have called you my friend.... I will show you the Aeons which have been wrought by my word, and firmly established, created and renewed. " Apocalypse of Abraham IX

"They have the same common source. They are the heralds of His thought, by His word they communicate with each other. They know Him who made them because they are in concord. They have a common ruler, a common Lord, so they are in concord with each other, and they communicate with Him and through Him with each other, for the mouth of the Most High has spoken to them. The worlds were made by His word and by the thought of His heart, so they are all as one. There is no rivalry or competition among them, but they are glorious in their firmaments and agree among themselves, fitting together like the lashes of an eye. All rejoice in each other, each being more glorious and bright than the other. There is a hierarchy of brightness,. the range going on forever. each more glorious than the next...The worlds exchange wisdom with each other because they are equally dependent upon the Most High...They are the heralds of his thoughts . By His word, they communicate with each other. They knew Him who made them because they were in converse, for the mouth of the Most High spake to them. The worlds are made by his word and thoughts of His heart. So they are all as one... Thy seal is known, and all thy creatures know it, and thy hosts possess it and the elect angels are clad with it…Hence one of the joys of existence is that the worlds constantly exchange with each other what they have, each possessing something different and peculiar to itself. There is nothing superfluous anywhere, which means that nothing is a mere duplication of something else." 12 Ode of Solomon

The Mandeans of Southern Mesopotamia (Israelites)

"Go down to that place where there la no occupied place, where there is no world, and create for us another world after the fashion of the Sons of Salvation" (Mandaean Sakinaa)

"God started out by creating a topoa where His children could settle, there to recognize and to serve Him as their Father"

"Adam, this is the place where you are going to live; your wife Eve will come and Join you here, and here your progeny Will thrive."

"The Father taught me about the worlds. of the Lord and the Glory that abides in them. The Adam of Light treads upon the earth's trembling foundation which is laid

in the midst of the worlds."

"There la no rivalry or competition among them but they are glorious in their firmaments, and there is agreement among 'thee, fitting together like the lashes to the eye. All rejoice in each other. each being more glorious and bright than the other"

"No words can describe Thy power over all Thy worlds. The Father taught me about the worlds of the Lord and the glory that abides therin. The atom of light treads upon the earth's foundation that is laid in the midst of the worlds"

"When beings from different worlds meet, they exchange garments and treasures as an identification a sign of mutual esteem. For 'the creation of endless worlds follows a single pattern -- that laid down by God the creator. The planets say, 'Come Lord of the gods, Lord of the entire cosmos.' 'Come be our head, be the head of our whole world'..

"In the millions of worlds that God has made for his sons every world is different from the other and wonderful in its own radiance."

"Among ten thousand times ten thousand worlds you will find no two alike. Before this world, there had already been a thousand thousand mysteries and a myriad of planets each with their own mysteries or ordinances…He who has fulfilled all the ordinances and has done good work cannot be held back. We are taught the principles of salvation , so that we cannot be held back in this world. Those who receive certain teachings and carry their instructions in this world cannot be held back in this world or the next" Ginza (Lidzbarski)

"Christ sounded sounded with a trump in the worlds far and near alike. He roused them all alike, For He is the Savior of the worlds. The worlds will come before Him in order and in shining oath…Those who shut the doors against me will be held back in the abode of darkness. Those that open the doors to me will advance in the place of light…Adam thou shalt have progress onward."

Manichaean Psalm-Book

"He determines the number of stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit." (Psalms 147:4-5, NIV)

New Testament Period Writings

"There ia an appointed place for everything in the Cosmos. There is 'numeristics' there is a numbering of souls for each world and a dispensation la not completed until the teleos-number (completed number) has been fulfilled for that dispensation.

Every soul stays in its appointed place until it has fulfilled the task for the topos, for that place...After the plan of creation was
accepted, it was communicated to all the other worlds, and they approved and rejoiced...All other worlds look to the same God, also to the common Son, "Other worlds cannot be described in terms of this one. Not only is there nothing common between them, between other worlds and this world, they are as different from each other as any of them is from us...There is a hierarchy among the many worlds. You can visit the order below you, but not the levels or orders above you.

"There are mysteries so much greater than these that they make these look like a grain of flour, just as the sun looks like a grain of flour from distant worlds.

Everyone here on this earth descends, as it were, to the dregs (earth or dirt) and shares a common substance with all living things...We are passed on from hand to hand, from degree to degree!! Our example is Adam, who, having been established in Christ and God, next established his son Seth in the second order which was to follow Him on up." From Pistis Sophia

"All the Cosmos follow the pattern of a single world (called the typos) , Ever since the beginning this has been so. This pattern keeps the entire Physis (physical Universe) in a state of joy and rejoicing…When we say 'light', we think of our kind of light. But that's wrong…Marriage for example would be entirely different there from what marriage is here; but we must designate eternal and heavenly marriage by the same name. Even though the spirits may be eternal and thus equal in age, they differ in intelligence, appearance and in other things. These differences are primary. They are as unbegotten as the spirits themselves " Sophia Christi

" Not only is there nothing common between them, between other worlds and this world, they are different from each other as any of them is from us" Codex 88

"There is no permanence in matter, which is always undergoing change, as worlds come into existence and pass away. Everything else changes, but only progeny is eternal. Christ rules in the second place, His rule exactly duplicating the Father's but over a more limited number of cosmoses. If other stars are greater than our world, then it is necessary that they contain life greater than ours and greater peace, and greater justice, and greater virtue than ours... "The spirits are equal in age, but different in power, intelligence, and appearance. They have been so throughout all time." Gospel of Philip

(124:iff) "and we are a special species, true man and son of man . . . sons of the Bridal-chamber (text damaged) in this world. (6ff) The mating in the next world is an entirely different nature from this one; though we use earthly vocabulary in speaking of them, (lOfl) there are other forms of union that transcend all description (naming). (17ff) Indeed, it is not needful that they who have all these things know absolutely everything; let them enjoy what they have. (23f) The teleio's (initiate) cannot he held back, (26) being clothed in the garment of holy light; (3ff) even before he leaves this world."

Gospel of Philip

"Only progeny is immortal, each mounting up from world to world acquiring ever more treasure while progressing toward His perfection, which awaits them all. Worlds come and go; only progeny (sonship) is eternal." Gospel of Philip 123:6-13

"Creation is organization and God is ever bringing order into the universe and He is progressively ever preparing and renewing worlds for the righteous... at the time of the creation, the great thought came to the elements, united with them, spirit joining with matter." Papyrus Berolinensis 8502

"It is the perfect Father who produced the all, in whom the all is, in whom all are in need always. Out of the one come the countless multitudes, but yet they remain in the One." All the other worlds look to the same God as to a common sun... All the cosmoses follow the pattern of a single world, which is called the type, the archetype. Ever since the beginning this has been so, keeping the entire physis in the state of joy and rejoicing. The worlds exchange wisdom with each other because they are equally dependent on the Most High. ..All spaces were broken and confused at the time of transition from old worlds to new… Thus the Word of the Father advances in the cosmos, being the fruit of His heart and the expression of His will. Through the ordinances one makes progress in knowledge . …When the flame engulfs substance to form a new unity, then obscurity becomes light, death becomes life. And old jars are broken to become new…All spaces come forth from the Father, but at first, they have neither form nor name. "

The Gospel of Truth

"This is not my opinion; this is what the elders used to teach,. There will be another world after this one. And in the same way, there were other worlds before this one. We thus share a common Nature with other worlds." Origen

"God is the Father of all the worlds, He knows them; they keep their courses and covenants with Him; He calls them by name, and they answer him from eternity to eternity. As the Father of greatness is in the glorious world, so his Son rules among those cosmoses as first chief Lord of all the powers " 1 Clement

"To the Christians is promised endless worlds, endless cosmoses." Justin Martyr in PG 6:

"I could write to you (Trallians) about the mysteries of the heavens, but I am afraid to do so. It would do you harm. I am able to understand the orders of the heavens, the degrees of angels, the variations among them, and the differences of dominions, of thrones and powers, and the elevation of the Holy Ghost and the kingdom of the Lord, and the highest of all rules of God over everywhere else. There is an infinity of hierarchy in the world. You're not ready for it yet, and the Church is not going to have it." Ignatius

"To be true and faithful, God gave the dominion over the arrangement of the universe to the true and faithful. Their rule and their advancement go on forever and ever." Father Papias

"Each star existed for the sake of the whole to which it contributed its individuality. Each had its particular part to play, and, thus, by being unique within itself, could make a contribution of maximum value" Plotins

"Christ came down from his vast rule and kingdoms and other worlds to save one percent of those on this evil earth, and to enroll the human race in the heavenly register... If other stars are greater than our world, then it is necessary that they contain life greater than ours, and greater peace, and greater justice, and greater virtue than ours." Methodius From the eighteenth volume of the Patrologiae Graecae

"Where my Father is, it's entirely different from this world. There you will see lights that are nobler than your kind of light. In the millions of worlds that God has made for his son, every world is different from the others and wonderful in its own radiance. Hence, one of the joys of existence is that the worlds constantly exchange with each other what they have, each possessing something different and peculiar to itself. There is nothing superfluous anywhere, which means that nothing is a mere duplication of something else…We share a common substance with all living things, and from here on out we begin to work our way up, step by step to a knowledge of all things, ever seeking for instruction and carrying out the required ordinances that will lead us to more." Epistle of the Apostles

" In the limited confines of the flesh, which condition all our thinking, we can't possibly grasp the nature of other existences or even begin to count the number of other worlds.. We mortals cant possibly count or reckon the heavens.. The Lord revealed all to me. He who moved among the worlds. Not only are the countless but the have been going on forever. " The First Apocalypse of James Nag Hammadi Codex Vol 3

"For the worlds exist, so that intelligent spirits might come and inhabit them. There are many mansions degrees, and worlds, and they all have but one law. If you keep that law you too can become a creator of worlds…Every kingdom requires space and will need more, but by the law of plentitude, perfect economy, no space should be wasted and none should be crowded " Second Coptic Gnostic Work

"There are literally all kinds of strange beasts in other worlds that we can't imagine"

Berlin Papyrus 8502

"at the time of the creation, the great thought came to the elements, united with them, spirit joining with matter."

Papyrus Berolinensls 8502:2,

" When this vitalizing principle touches matter, consciousness is expanded. The worlds of darkness gathered and beheld His brightness. They breathed His fragrance and orbited about Him and bowed anew and worshipped Him." Acts of Thomas 108 (Hymn of the Soul 93-99) in James, Apocryphal NT, pp. 414-415.

"There are many mansions, many regions, degrees, worlds, spaces and heavens, but all have but one law. If you keep that law, you, too, can become creators of worlds." The Askew Manuscript

"The treasure or physical substance used by each spark must be taken from other treasures, and before it can be used it must first be purified... The various elements must be separated, cleansed, and reclassified for reuse, but we separate it out when we reclassify it Every new creation, leaves behind the matter of its old ages (its old aeons). From the beginning, the elements were purified by the holy, living bearers of light. And' from the first context, they were mixed with the background material and have remained so ever since" Manuscript 96

See Schmidt & McDermot, Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text

"There is a place from which all worlds take their origin and prototype : a place of shadowless light and indescribable joy ... and there is a veil between the worlds. Above the veil are the heavens. The Firmament is equipped with veils and gates that are guarded, far removed from the world in which men dwell." 1 Jeu 39

"In any world as a Yeu becomes a Father in a new world, the Fathers then appoint new Yeu's (Jehovahs) for new worlds who in turn will become Fathers... Each Yeu has created for its host ten thousand times ten thousand... The farther advanced one is, the faster one moves forward...To them that have shall be given more." 1 Jeu 48:8, 50:1-3

" When I lead you to the topos of those who have received their inheritance . . . the Sun will look like nothing but a tiny speck of cornmeal, because of the enormous distance, and because the new world is so much greater. (These higher mysteries are not for the unqualified, who are terrified of them; they go far beyond mortal comprehension)" 2 Jeu

New Testament References

Hebrews 1: 1. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

2. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by [his] Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things. by whom also he made the worlds:

3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

Latter Day Scriptures

Doctrine and Covenants 76:

23." For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father

24. That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.

39. For all the rest shall be brought forth by the resurrection of the dead, through the triumph and the glory of the Lamb, who was slain, who was in the bosom of the Father before the worlds were made.

112. And they shall be servants of the Most High; but where God and Christ dwell they cannot come, worlds without end. "

D&C 93:

9. "The light and the Redeemer of the world; the Spirit of truth, who came into the world, because the world was made by him, and in him was the life of men and the light of men.

10 The worlds were made by him, men were made by him; all things were made by him, and through him. and of him."

Moses 1:

33."And worlds without number have I created, and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.

34. And the first man of all men have I called Adam, which is many.

35. But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, ,there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them."

36. And it came to pass that Moses spake unto the Lord, saying: Be merciful unto thy servant, O God, and tell me concerning this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, and also the heavens, and then thy servant will be content.

37. And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine.

38. And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words.

of man.

39. For behold, this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life

40. And now, Moses, my son, I will speak unto thee concerning this earth upon which thou standest; and thou shalt write the things which I shall speak.

41. And in a day when the children of men shall esteem my words as naught and take many of them from the book which thou shalt write, behold, I will raise up another like unto thee; and they shall be had again among the children of men--among as many as shall believe. "

Abraham 3:

21." I dwell in the midst of them all; I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences shine eyes have seen from the beginning; I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast seen.

22. Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;

23. And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou west chosen before thou west born.

24. And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell,

And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;
26. And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate, and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever."

History of The Church Vol. 5:254

"Come to me; here's the mysteries man hath not seen, Here's our Father in heaven, and Mother, the Queen; Here are worlds that have been, and the worlds yet to be: Here's eternity, endless; amen. Come to me." (Joseph Smith)

History of The Church Vol. 6:305

"God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible,--I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form--like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another." (Joseph Smith)

History of The Church Vol. 7:331

"Come to me; here's the mystery that man hath not seen; Here's our Father in heaven, and Mother the Queen, Here are worlds that have been. and the worlds yet to be, Here's eternity -- endless" (Joseph Smith)

Discourses of Brigham Young p.20

"He presides over the worlds on worlds that illuminate this little planet, and millions on millions of worlds that we cannot see; and yet he looks upon the minutest object of his creations, not one of these creatures escapes his notice; and there is not one of them but his wisdom and power has produced."

Discourses of Brigham Young p. 48.

"The creations of God -- the worlds that are and the worlds that have been, -- who can grasp in the vision of his mind the truth that there never has been a time when there have not been worlds like this, and that there never will be a time when there will not be worlds organized and prepared for intelligent beings to dwell upon? ".

B. H. Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, Vol.2, Ch.63, Pg.393 - Pg.394

"It is these differences in intelligences that lead to order in the universe. Those more advanced governing, controlling, devising, organizing, forming societies, making governments, civilizations--all which shall tend to increase the glory and power and joy of all: 'Men are that they might have joy,' is a Book of Mormon passage. 'This is my work and my glory,' Joseph

Smith represents God as saying, 'to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. ' To this end Divine Intelligences bring into existence worlds and world systems, sustain and guide them through immense cycles of time, and through processes that lead from chaos to cosmos, from telestial to celestial, and when attaining a point beyond which they may not be exalted in their present forms, breaking those forms, disintegrating them, to bring them forth again to reach a grander cosmos--worlds without number have thus passed away, by the word of God's power, and many now stand, innumerable unto man; and as one earth and its heavens shall pass away, so shall another come, and there is no end to this work, to this evolution, and this devolution. And so the eternal drama proceeds. Intelligences meanwhile standing indestructible amidst this organization and disorganization of worlds; this integrating and disintegrating of things. This movement is from lower to higher estates, from little to greater excellences; yet this without attaining to 'highest' or 'perfect,' because, to repeat, advancement in the infinite knows no ultimates. Meanwhile intelligences amid these changes, under the law of eternal progress, are ever increasing in power, glory, might, dominion, benevolence, charity, justice; and all else that can make for the increase of their power and glory. In which strivings and achievements eternal evil is always potentially, and sometimes actively, present. Indeed it makes necessary and possible, in fact, the very strivings and achievements, and is the 'foil on which good produces itself, and becomes known."

B.H. Roberts ,Man's Relationship To Deity

"The Prophet Joseph Smith is credited with having said that our planet was made up of the fragments of a planet which previously existed; some mighty convulsions disrupted that creation and made it desolate. Both its animal and vegetable life forms were destroyed. And when those convulsions ceased, and the rent earth was again consolidated, and it became desirable to replenish it, the work was begun by making a mist to rise, that it might descend in gentle rain upon the barren earth, that it might again be fruitful. Then came one of the sons of God to the earth-Adam. A garden was planted in Eden and the man placed in it, and there the Lord brought to him every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and Adam gave names to them all. Afterwards was brought to Adam his wife, whom, since she was derived from man, he named woman; and she became his help-mate, his companion and the mother of his children. In this nothing is hinted at about man being made from the dust, and woman manufactured from a rib, a story which has been a cause of much perplexity to religious people, and a source of much impious merriment to reckless unbelievers. We are informed that the Lord God made every plant of the field before it was in the earth' and every herb before it grew on our planet. As vegetation was created or made to grow upon some older earth, and the seeds thereof or the plants themselves were brought to our earth and made to grow, so likewise man and his helpmate were brought from some other world to our own."

B.H. Roberts The Truth The Way The Life, Chap. 25

"'Creation' and God. As in the case of the time period of creation, so in the 'manner' of creation, we may not wholly accept either of the theories or any of the variations of them proposed. We start, of course, with God as the Creator of the earth and its heavens. They were created at his command, and by his power, and under the operation of laws of creation. All which, however, does not require us to believe that the creation of the earth and its heavens was made instantly, as by magic, or by any absolutely new process; nor that the things 'created,' any more than the order, were new and for the first time produced. Both the things created and the order of their production must have been many times repeated in the multitudinous worlds of the universe, where creations in some manner have If, as we have presented the case been going on eternally.

There are older worlds than ours in existence, inhabited by myriads of forms of life, vegetable and animal, such as live in the seas and fly in the air and roam over the plains and through the forests; ... the superior intelligences of older worlds have mastered the problems not only of interplanetary and intersolar system communication, but also of interplanetary transportation, indeed universal communication and transportation throughout the universe-then it is possible that some method of transportation may have been employed in conveying life in varied forms from other worlds to ours."

The Nephilim (No. 154)

2009-02-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

(Edition 1.0 19960304-19960304)

The Nephilim are first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 6:4 as the offspring of 'the sons of God' and 'the daughters of men'. This is a general theme found throughout the ancient world and is not confined to the Bible. This paper examines ancient records, the titans, the raksasa of the Ramayana, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Genesis Apocryphon, the Gibborim and Rephaim. Using a variety of reference works, particularly the Companion Bible, conclusions about the Nephilim are drawn.

The Nephilim

The subject of the Nephilim is quite complicated. It is a general theme found throughout the ancient world and it is not confined to the Bible. It is an extensive subject which transcends the nations, i.e. is found amongst most or all of the nations from what we have of their records. We will deal with the first instance of Genesis 6:4.

Genesis 6:1-22
1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. 5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

Verse 9 goes on to say (almost as a separate group, but it is joined because Noah is referred to in both verses):

9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. 16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. 17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. 18 But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. 21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
22 Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he. (KJV)

The structure of Genesis 6 is not divorced. It takes you from verse 1 right through to the end at verse 22. The reason God decided to destroy the earth was because of the activities of mankind and the fallen Host up to the flood. We will look at this concept in Genesis 6:4. In Genesis 6:4, the words for giants in the text there were giants in the earth in those days, is Nephilim.

Genesis 6:4 There were Nephilim in the earth in those days and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

These mighty men of old were the Gibborim or Gibbowrim. If we look at Green's Interlinear Bible it says (reading the literal words): the giants were on the earth in days those and even afterwards when came in the sons of God (the word for God there is haElohim, i.e. sons of the God) to the daughters of men (the word there is haAdam, i.e. the Adam) and they bore to them, they were heroes (the word for heroes is haGibborim, i.e. the heroes) who existed from times ancient, the men of name or renown.

There are a series of concepts in these words used and it is translated by Green: the giants were in the earth in those days and even afterwards when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore to them. They were heroes which existed from ancient time, the men of name.
The Septuagint translates the sons of God as the angels of God. The Good News Bible renders it as the angels of God and many other texts deal with the concept of the sons of God as the angelic Host. It says on page 518 of Volume 3 of the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia on the article Nephilim:

The etymology of nephilim is uncertain, the following explanations have been advanced with mixed reception. First, it may derive from the niphal of the verb p pãlã , meaning "be extraordinary", i.e., "extraordinary men". Second, it may be derived from the verb n nãpal, "fall," in one of the following senses: (1) the "fallen ones" - from heaven, i.e., supernatural beings; (2) morally "fallen men"; [the accepted meaning of Nephilim, from napal to fall, in the sense of the fallen Host. This is seen from the DSS and the Ethiopic Book of Enoch as well as the biblical texts. They are the fallen ones. Hence the word fellow or feller in our language comes from nephilim, to fall. It is a slang word meaning the fallen Host. The concept, therefore, is of the fallen ones from heaven, i.e. supernatural beings, the first meaning above. The second meaning above is attendant upon the first and does not exclude the first].

The ISBE goes on

(3). "those who fall upon," in the sense of invaders or hostile or violent men; (4) "those who fell by" the sword cf. Ezk. 32:20f.); (5). "unnaturally begotten men" or bastards from (cf. nepel, "abortion" or "miscarriage").
None of these satisfies all scholars, and some consider naphilim an unexplainable relic of an ancient, now forgotten language. Contextual information is unfortunately limited to two enigmatic passages.

It goes on to say the Nephilim were apparently people of impressive physical stature compared to the smaller Hebrews, from Numbers 13:33. This particular reference is glossed by a statement which implies that the offspring of Anak in Canaan were descended from the renowned Rephaim or Nephilim of Genesis 6:4. The latter had gained a reputation as notable heroes in the antediluvian period and apparently persisted after the flood. This could have occurred through migration on the basis of a local Mesopotamian deluge, in which case they would be counted as descendants living in Canaan. The Midrash has a tradition that Og of the Nephilim stowed away on the top of the ark. But certainly the concept of a localised flood is some way of trying to explain the flood away by modern scholars and this International Standard Bible Encyclopedia is no different in that concept. The contextual information is not confined to two enigmatic passages. The information is extensive and clear. The Nephilim were considered to have been the offspring of the fallen Host that interbred with human females. This was the understanding behind the Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythologies, as well as that of the near east.
The ISBE goes on and says of Genesis 6:1-4:

While meaningful to the original recipients, has become obscure with the passing of time. It is impossible to be certain whether the Nephilim were the same as the "mighty men" (g i b b gibbôrim) that you find at the end of verse 4 or a separate group that overlapped chronologically.

That conjecture is quite incorrect. From a simple reading of Genesis 6:4 it is quite obvious that the Gibbowrim or mighty men were of the same grouping as the Nephilim. That concept was the accepted concept at the time of the flood and afterwards, and at the time of Christ.

After the flood it was accepted that the earth was under the guidance of the angelic Host who were called the holy ones or watchers. When you look at the concept of the watchers from Daniel, you will see from Daniel 4:13,17,23 and Daniel 2:11 that the watchers are the holy ones, the angelic Host, who have responsibility for the earth and their dwelling is not with flesh (Dan. 2:11). But they do control the affairs of man and they are called watchers and holy ones. That tradition, or view, went right through the Judaic world. In the Greek world the Nephilim were referred to as the Titans. The Universal Oxford Dictionary definition of Titan is that:

[it is a Latin name for the elder brother of Kronos; also in poetry, the Sun-god; the Greek singular is Titan the plural is Titanes].
1. [It is] used (chiefly in poetry) as a name for the Sun-god the grandson of Titan, or for the sun personified.
2. a. [Greek Mythology] In [the singular] The ancestor of the Titans, the elder brother of Kronos. In [plural] a family of giants, the children of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth), who contended for the sovereignty of heaven, and were overthrown by Zeus. ...

These Titans or giants (Nephilim) also appeared in the traditions or legends, of the Indo-Aryan peoples and they were called, from India through to Asia, the giants in the Sanskrit which is raksasa. They appear in the Ramayana and the epics of the Indian world as raksasa (giants) and they are seen to be in conflict with men. There is no doubt that this tradition was common throughout the world up until the time of Christ. We find from the Dead Sea Scrolls that they had uncovered a number of texts. One of those writings is the Genesis Apocryphon. A translation of the Genesis Apocryphon is found in Geza Vermes The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Pelican, 1985, on page 216, section II. It is useful to refer back to this Genesis apocryphal story and look at what the understanding was at the time of Christ covering the period up through and until the time of the flood. The Genesis Apocryphon develops a conversation which refers to the birth of Noah and his father. Lamech suspects that his wife had consorted with one of the angels who descended from heaven and had married the daughters of men (Gen. 6:1-4). An emphatic denial does not convince him and he asks his father Methuselah to find his own father - the wise Enoch - who lives in Parwain the site of paradise, in order to discover the truth from him. A story parallel to this appears in the book of Enoch. In the book of Enoch you will find that the fall of the angels is dealt with in detail. These texts are referred to simply to explain what is understood as happening in Genesis 6:4.
The Genesis Apocryphon says:

Behold I thought then without my heart that conception was due to the watchers and the holy ones and to the giants, (i.e. the Nephilim) and my heart was troubled within me because of this trial. Then I, Lamech approached Bathenosh my wife in haste and said to her, '... by the Most High, the Great Lord, the King of all the world and Ruler of the Sons of Heaven, until you tell me all things truthfully, if ... Tell me [this truthfully] and not falsely... by the King of all the worlds until you tell me truthfully and not falsely.' Then Bathenosh my wife spoke to me with much heat [and] ... said 'O my brother, oh my lord, remember my pleasure ... the lying together and my soul within its body. [And I tell you] all things truthfully. ...

... Then she mastered her anger and spoke to me saying: oh my lord and my brother, remember my pleasure, I swear to you by the Holy Great One the King of the heavens, that this seed it yours and this conception is from you, whose spirit was planted by you and by no stranger or watcher or son of heaven.

The Genesis Apocryphon exemplifies the understanding in the first century of what was happening in this Genesis story in 6:4. The story relates also to the purity of Noah and his lineage and says: Noah was perfect in his generations. The reason for this text is that the Israelites saw that it was necessary that Noah be perfect in his generations.

In Genesis 6:9, the Hebrew word tamim means without blemish, as perfect, without blemish in his generations, and is the technical word for bodily and physical perfection and not moral perfection. It is not a moral issue, but a physical concept being dealt with and you will find that Bullinger has dealt with that in The Companion Bible at Appendix 26.

The Companion Bible, Appendix 26
The Heb. word tamim means without blemish, and is the technical word for bodily and physical perfection, and, not moral. Hence it is used of animals of sacrificial purity. It is rendered without blemish in Ex. 12.5; 29.1. Lev. 1.3,10; 3.1,6; 4.3,23,28,32; 5.15,18; 6.6; 9.2,3; 14.10; 22.19; 23.12,18. Num. 6.14; 28.19,31 29.2,8,13,20,23,29,32,36. Ezek. 43.22,23,25; 45.18,23, 46.4,6,13.

Without spot. Num. 19.2; 28.3,9,11; 29.17,26.

Undefiled: Ps. 119.1

This shows that Gen. 6.9 does not speak of Noah's moral perfection, but tells us that he and his family alone had preserved their pedigree and kept it pure, in spite of the prevailing corruption brought about by the fallen angels. See Ap. 23 and 25.

Those concepts are also then dealt with in the Companion Bible in Appendix 23 and 25. Those concepts had continued on through from pre-flood and that the sons of God there were the angelic Host.

The Companion Bible, Appendix 23

"The Sons of God" in Gen. 6.2, 4.

It is only by the Divine specific act of creation that any created being can be called " a son of God ". For that which is "born of the flesh is flesh". God is spirit and that which is "born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3.6). Hence Adam is called a "son of God" in Luke 3.38. Those "in Christ" having the "new nature" which is by the direct creation of God (2 Cor. 5. 17. Eph. 2.l0) can be, and are called "sons of God" (John 1.13 Rom. 8.14,15. 1 John 3.1).

This is why angels are called "sons of God" in every other place where the expression is used in the Old Testament. Job 1.6; 2.1; 38.7. Ps. 29.1; 89.6; Dan. 3.25 (no art.). We have no authority or right to take the expression in Gen. 6.4 in any other sense. Moreover in Gen. 6.2 the Sept. renders it "angels".

Angels are called "spirits" (Ps. 104.4. Heb. 1.7, 14), for spirits are created by God.

That there was a fall of the angels is certain from Jude 6.

The nature of their fall is clearly stated in the same verse. They left their own oiketerion [abode]. This word occurs only in

2Corinthians 5.2 and Jude 6, where it is used of the spiritual (or resurrected) body.
The nature of their sin is stated to be "in like manner" to that of the subsequent sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, Jude 7.
The time of their fall is given as having taken place "in the days of Noah" (1 Pet. 3.20. 2 Pet. 2.7), though there may have been a prior fall which caused the end of "the world that then was" (Gen. 1.1,2. 2 Pet. 3.6). For this sin they are "reserved unto judgment", 2 Pet. 2.4, and are "in prison", 1 Pet. 3.19.

Their progeny, called Nephilim (translated "giants"), were monsters of iniquity; and, being superhuman in size and character, had to be destroyed (see Ap. 25). This was the one and only object of the Flood.

Only Noah and his family had preserved their pedigree pure from Adam (Gen. 6.9, see note). All the rest had become "corrupt" (shachath) destroyed [as Adamites]. The only remedy was to destroy it (de facto), as it had become destroyed (de jure). (It is the same word in v. 17 as in vv. 11,12). See further under Ap. 25 on the Nephilim.

This irruption of fallen angels was Satan's first attempt to prevent the coming of the Seed of the woman foretold in Gen. 3.15. If this could be accomplished, God's Word would have failed, and his own doom would be averted.

As soon as it was made known that the Seed of the woman was to come through Abraham, there must have been another irruption, as recorded in Gen. 6. 4, "and also after that" (i.e. after the days of Noah, more than 500 years after the first irruption). The aim of the enemy was to occupy Canaan in advance of Abraham, and so to contest its occupation by his seed.

For, when Abraham entered Canaan, we read (Gen. 12. 6) "the Canaanite was then (i.e. already) in the land."

In the same chapter (Gen. 12. 10-20) we see Satan's next attempt to interfere with Abraham's seed, and frustrate the purpose of God that it should be in "Isaac". This attempt was repeated in 20. 1-18.

This great conflict may be seen throughout the Bible, and it forms a great and important subject of Biblical study. In each case the human instrument had his own personal interest to serve, while Satan had his own great object in view. Hence God had, in each case, to interfere and avert the evil and the danger, of which His servants and people were wholly ignorant. The following assaults of the great Enemy stand out prominently:-

The destruction of the chosen family by famine, Gen. 50. 20.
The destruction of the male line in Israel, Ex. 1. 10, 15, &c. Cp. Ex. 2. 5. Heb. 11. 23.
The destruction of the whole nation in Pharaoh's pursuit, Ex. 14.

After David's line was singled out (2 Sam. 7), that was the next selected for assault. Satan's first assault was in the union of Jehoram and Athaliah by Jehoshaphat, notwithstanding 2 Chron. 17. 1. Jehoram killed off all his brothers (2 Chron. 21. 4).

The Arabians slew all his children, except Ahaziah (2 Chron. 21. 17; 22. 1.).

When Ahaziah died, Athaliah killed "all the seed royal" (2 Chron. 22.10). The babe Joash alone was rescued, and, for six years, the faithfulness of Jehovah's word was at stake (2 Chron. 23.3). Hezekiah was childless, when a double assault was made by the King of Assyria and the King of Terrors (Isa. 36.1; 38.1). God's faithfulness was appealed to and relied on (Ps. 136).
In Captivity, Haman was used to attempt the destruction of the whole nation (Est. 3.6,12,13. Cp. 6.1).

Joseph's fear was worked on (Matt. 1.18-20). Notwithstanding the fact that he was "a just man", and kept the Law, he did not wish to have Mary stoned to death (Deut. 24.1); hence Joseph determined to divorce her. But God intervened: "Fear not ".
Herod sought the young Child's life (Matt. 2).

At the Temptation, "Cast Thyself down" was Satan's temptation.

At Nazareth, again (Luke 4), there was another attempt to cast Him down and destroy Him.

The two storms on the Lake were other attempts.

At length the cross was reached, and the sepulchre closed; the watch set; and the stone sealed. But "God raised Him from the dead." And now, like another Joash, He is seated and expecting (Heb. 10.12,13), hidden in the house of God on high; and the members of "the one body" are hidden there "in Him" (Col. 3.1-3), like another Jehoshaba; and going forth to witness of His coming, like another Jehoiada (2 Chron. 23.3).

The irruption of "the fallen angels" ("sons of God") was the first attempt; and was directed against the whole human race.
When Abraham was called, then he and his seed were attacked.
When David was enthroned, then the royal line was assailed.

And when "the Seed of the woman" Himself came, then the storm burst upon Him.

There is a footnote in The Companion Bible at Appendix 23 which says:

The word "offspring" in Acts 17.29 is quite different. It is (genos), which means merely kin or kind, our genus as being originated by God.

There is a distinction. The reason this had to be made is because in the fourth century the philosophical writer Augustine of Hippo had dealt with this concept of the angelic Host as the sons of God and a concept of their committing fornication with the daughters of Adam and he decided that concept was not right. He wanted to change it to say that the sons of Adam through Seth were the sons of God and the sons of Cain were the sons of men and he tried to trivialise the problem by saying that the sons of Seth had simply interbred with the sons of Cain and that was the intermingling of the blood lines. Augustine was to produce a scenario which was to last up until the twentieth century and completely destroyed the capacity of the Church to deal with anthropological finds, to explain what was happening and to explain the biblical positions. The New Testament is quite clear in its writings that this view of the angels is that they had somehow committed fornication. The letter of Jude which is attributed by most as being written by James, the brother of Jesus, is canonised in Scripture. Jude 6-9 says (Interlinear Bible).

Jude 6-9: 6 And those angels not having kept their first place, but having descended their dwelling-place, He has kept in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of a great Day; 7 as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, in like manner to these, committing fornication, and going away after other flesh, laid down an example beforetimes, undergoing vengeance of everlasting fire. 8 Likewise, indeed, also those dreaming ones even defile flesh, and despise rulership, and speak evil of glories. 9 But Michael the archangel, when contending with the Devil, he argued about the body of Moses - he dared not bring a judgment of blasphemy but said, Let the Lord rebuke you!

This whole concept is that the angels had left their first estate and committed fornication. The Interlinear Bible says in its transliteration:

Jude 6-9: 6 angels and those not having kept the of themselves first place, but having deserted the own dwelling-place, for (the) Judgment of a great Day in chains eternal under blackness He has kept: 7 as Sodom and Gomorrah and the around them cities, in the similar to these manner committing fornication and going away after flesh other. laid beforetimes an example of fire everlasting vengeance undergoing. 8 Likewise indeed also these dreaming (ones) flesh even defile, lordship and despise, glories and speak evil of. 9 But Michael the archangel, when with the Devil contending, he argues about the of Moses body, not he dared a judgment to bring of blasphemy, but said, Let rebuke (the) Lord.

The New Oxford Annotated RSV Bible deals with Jude 6 in this way:

The angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nethergloom until the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lusts, served as an example to undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

God's New Covenant - a New Testament Translation by Heinz W. Cassirer published by Eerdmans, Michigan, 1989, in its translation of Jude says:

Moreover there were angels who were not content to keep to the sphere of influence assigned to them but who have abandoned their proper domain and the way the Lord dealt with these was that he confined them to a dark place binding them with everlasting chains and reserving them to receive the judgment of the great day. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah and with them their neighbouring cities how they made themselves guilty of the same debauchery as the angels had pursuing their own natural lusts. Now they lie before our eyes serving as a warning and suffer the punishment of being consumed by an everlasting fire.

The Cassirer Bible translation is quite clear. The New English Bible translation is also more clear, perhaps not as clear as Cassirer, but shows absolutely that Jude 6 holds that the angels left their first estate and committed fornication. Paul also held that to be so in the text written in 1Corinthians 11. In this text Paul dealt with the concept of the position of women. In 1Corinthians 11:10 he says:

10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. (KJV)

The whole basis of the covering and the position of woman in relation to man in the text of 1Corinthians 11, was placed in relation to the activities of the angelic Hosts and the interaction with female humanity. That is why Paul says it was because of the angels. That has been an enigmatic statement to many, but you can't understand it unless you understand Jude and the interrelationship with what is happening in relation to this Genesis story.

The Genesis story deals specifically with what had happened in this interbreeding and the consequence. Noah had been perfect in his generations. The flood was caused to deal with and eliminate the Nephilim and the Rephaim or Gibbowrim.

The concept of the Rephaim is examined also in Isaiah 26.

Isaiah 26:12-21 12 LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. 13 O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. 14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish. 15 Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth. 16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them. 17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. 18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. 19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. 21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. (KJV)

Note the text at verses 13-14

13 O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. 14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.

The text here deals with the resurrection. This is evident also from a comparison with verse 19. Note also that the world is not converted by Israel.

The resurrection is, however, confined to the one species and not the others. The Nephilim or Rephaim have no resurrection. The word for deceased in verse 14 should not be translated as deceased; it is a proper name, i.e. Rephaim.

The concept of the offspring of the fallen Host or the gods is not pantheistic. The theoi or elohim are all sons of the Most High. They are Sons of Heaven or Sons of the God.

The concept is that by their physical sin the angels produced a race of humanoids which was inferior and violent. The intent appears to have been to sabotage the plan of God by the production of a product which would interbreed with and pollute the Adamic system. This concept is virtually universal. They were often considered to have been of superior stature and power and, hence, mighty. The word gibberish in our language is a reflection of the speech of the gibbowrim. (The question of the resurrection is detailed in the paper The Resurrection of the Dead)

The Companion Bible deals with this concept and is unequivocal in its position on the Nephilim. The position of Augustine of Hippo in The City of God is thus quite false as we now know from archaeological evidence.

The Companion Bible, Appendix 25

The Nephilim, or Giants of Gen. 6

The progeny of the fallen angels with the daughters of Adam (see notes on Gen. 6, and Ap. 23) are called in Gen. 6, Ne-phil'-im, which means fallen ones (from naphal, to fall). What these beings were can be gathered only from Scripture. They were evidently great in size, as well as great in wickedness. They were superhuman, abnormal beings; and their destruction was necessary for the preservation of the human race, and for the faithfulness of Jehovah's Word (Gen. 3.15).

This was why the Flood was brought "upon the world of the ungodly" (2 Pet. 2.5) as prophesied by Enoch (Jude 14).
But we read of the Nephilim again in Num. 13.33: "there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, which come of the Nephilim". How, it may be asked, could this be, if they were all destroyed in the Flood? The answer is contained in Gen. 6.4, where we read: "There were Nephilim in the earth in those days (i.e. in the days of Noah); and also AFTER THAT, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became [the] mighty - men (Heb. gibbor, the heroes) which were of old, men of renown" (lit. men of the name, i.e. who got a name and were renowned for their ungodliness).

So that "after that", i.e. after the Flood, there was a second irruption of these fallen angels, evidently smaller in number and more limited in area, for they were for the most part confined to Canaan, and were in fact known as 'the nations of Canaan". It was for the destruction of these, that the sword of Israel was necessary, as the Flood had been before.

As to the date of this second irruption, it was evidently soon after it became known that the seed was to come through Abraham; for, when he came out from Haran (Gen. 12.6) and entered Canaan, the significant fact is stated: "The Canaanite was then (i.e. already) in the land." And in Gen. 14.5 they were already known as "Rephaim" and "Emim", and had established themselves at Ashteroth Karnaim and Shaveh Kiriathaim.

In ch. 15.18-2l they are enumerated and named among Canaanite Peoples: "Kenites, and the
Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites (Gen 15.19-21; cp. Ex. 3.8,17; 23.23; Deut. 7; 20.17. Josh. 12.8).

These were to be cut off, and driven out, and utterly destroyed (Deut. 20.17. Josh. 3.10). But Israel failed in this (Josh. 13.13; 15.63; 16.10; 17.18. Judg. 1.19,20,28,29,30-36; 2.1-5; 3.1-7); and we know not how many got away to other countries to escape the general destruction. If this were recognised it would go far to solve many problems connected with Anthropology.
As to their other names, they were called Anakim, from one Anak which came of the Nephilim (Num. 13.23), and Rephaim, from Rapha, another notable one among them.

From Deut. 2.10, they were known by some as Emim, and Horim, and Zamzummim (v. 20, 21) and Avim, &c.
As Rephaim they were well known, and are often mentioned: but, unfortunately, instead of this, their proper name, being preserved, it is variously translated as "dead", "deceased" or "giants". These Rephaim are to have no resurrection. This fact is stated in Isa. 26:14 (where the proper name is rendered "deceased" and v. 19, where it is rendered "the dead").

It is rendered "dead" seven times (Job 26.5; Ps. 88.10; Prov. 2.18, 9.18, 21.16; Isa. 14.8, 26.19). It is rendered "deceased" in Isa. 26.14.

It is retained as a proper name "Rephaim" ten times (two being in the margin). Gen. 14.5, 15.20; Josh. 12.15 (marg.); 2Sam. 5.18,22, 23.13; 1Chron. 11.15, 14.9, 20.4 (marg.); Isa. 17.5.

In all other places it is rendered "giants", Gen. 6.4, Num. 23.33, where it is Nephilim; and Job 16.14, where it is gibbor (Ap. 14. iv).

By reading all these passages the Bible student may know all that can be known about these beings.

It is certain that the second irruption took place before Gen. 14, for there the Rephaim were mixed up with the five nations or peoples, which included Sodom and Gomorrah, and were defeated by the four kings under Chedorlaomer. Their principal locality was evidently "Ashtaroth Karnaim"; while the Emim were in the plain of Kiriathaim (Gen. 14:5).

Anak was a noted descendant of the Nephilim; and Rapha was another, giving their names respectively to different clans. Anak's father was Arba, the original builder of Hebron (Gen. 35.27; Josh. 15.13; 21.11); and this Palestine branch of the Anakim was not called Abrahim after him, but Anakim after Anak. They were great, mighty, and tall (Deut. 2.10,11,21,22,23; 9.2), evidently inspiring the ten spies with great fear (Num. 13.33). Og king of Bashan is described in Deut. 3.11.
Their strength is seen in "the giant cities of Bashan" today, and we know not how far they may have been utilized by Egypt in the construction of buildings, which is still an unsolved problem.

Arba was rebuilt by the Khabiri or confederates seven years before Zoan was built by the Egyptian Pharoahs of the nineteenth dynasty. See note on Num. 13.22.

If these Nephilim, and their branch of Rephaim, were associated with Egypt, we have an explanation of the problem which has for ages perplexed all engineers, as to how those huge stones and monuments were brought together. Why not in Egypt as well as in "the giant cities of Bashan" which exist, as such, to this day?

Moreover, we have in these mighty men, the "men of renown", the explanation of the origin of the Greek mythology. That mythology was no mere invention of the human brain, but it grew out of the traditions, and memories, and legends of the doings of that mighty race of beings, and was gradually evolved out of the "heroes"' of Gen. 6.4. The fact that they were supernatural in their origin formed an easy step to their being regarded as the demi-gods of the Greeks.

Thus the Babylonian "Creation Tablets", the Egyptian "Book of the dead", the Greek mythology, and heathen Cosmogonies, which by some are set on an equality with Scripture, or by others adduced in support of it, are all the corruption and perversion of primitive truths, distorted in proportion as their origin was forgotten, and their memories faded away.

The Companion Bible Appendix is thus useful for looking at the story of the Nephilim in relation to the actual reading of the Bible texts. The Dead Sea Scrolls referred to above were not available when much of the above work was done. The major problem with so-called Orthodox Christianity over the centuries is that the interpretation of the Bible has been anthropomorphic. God and the angelic Host, His sons, have been made to conform to the image of man within his limited understanding of the time. It is only now that we are able to explore the possibilities of DNA and the complex genetic structure of the creation that we begin to see the actual reality of the past. The directionality of time has made us view other aspects previously considered impossible as within the realms of understanding. The myths of the ancient world imperfectly describe a powerful spiritual creation beyond our physical capacities to see and measure. The stories describe a war that was waged and is still being fought out for the control of the creation and its ultimate purpose. The rejection of the Nephilim as the offspring of the fallen Host originated in the fourth century AD. It was not questioned within ancient Israel as a reality. The New Testament treats the immoral and sexual behaviour of the fallen Host as fact.

It stands to reason that if a spiritual being can manifest itself as a male and wrestle with a male there is little to prevent the same process occurring with a female. The capacity to create humanoids must have resided with the Host from the sheer evidence we now have. The presence of humanoids on this planet cannot be the product of the creation of God alone.
The logic of an imperfect creation impugns the nature of God. The process is simple.

Premise 1. God created previous humanoids.
Premise 2. From Isaiah 26:14 the resurrection is denied to them.
Conclusion 1. They were imperfect.
Conclusion 2. God desired that imperfect beings would be present and hence be able to corrupt His plan requiring a destruction of the planet; or
Conclusion 3. God experiments.

If God experiments then God does not know the outcome of His activity and hence He is not omniscient. If His plan is deliberately flawed, then he is not perfectly Good.

If God is not omniscient or perfectly good, then He cannot be God. A being that does not know all the future cannot be God. God is omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good.

Conclusion: God delegates the power of creation and of choice to the elohim Host.

Thus, an inferior Host can and did err without impugning the nature of God. Thus, there is no conflict between the actual biblical texts properly understood and archaeological evidence. The Nephilim are held to exist as a humanoid form akin to, but not, Adamic. That species is not confined to the time frames attributed to Adam and can precede Adam by millennia and be blatantly discontinuous.

It is probable that there were a series of attempts to create an intelligent life form by the Host in order to pre-empt the plan of God. Modern science seems to indicate that intelligent mammalian life is only possible within a window of opportunity of plus or minus a few million years in the life of the star systems. The previous creation such as that of the dinosaurs seem to indicate an attempt at another type. The humanoid record is blatantly discontinuous and as such could not have evolved (see Cox Creation: From Anthropomorphic Theology to Theomorphic Anthropology). The eventual intervention of God through the loyal Host in the creation has ended a war that has seen a physical and spiritual violence that has destroyed entire systems. The story of this conflict is contained in the mysteries themselves and will be unfolded over the ensuing months. The stories of the War in the Heavens when told will make the world stand in amazement.

NOTE: In this paper, extensive quotes are taken from E. W. Bullinger's The Companion Bible (KJV), Kregel Publications, PO Box 2607, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49501, USA.

(© 1996 Wade Cox)
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The Nature and Function of Revelation is 1 Enoch, Jubilees and Some Qumranic Documents

2009-02-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

George W. E. Nickelsburg
University of Iowa

0.1. Introduction
A conference on the pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls naturally invites a discussion of the issue of revelation-for several reasons that create something of a conundrum. 1) Revelation is central and critical in some of the pseudepigrapha, an d the Qumran caves have yielded multiple copies of several such apocalyptic writings: parts of 1 Enoch; the Book of Jubilees; Daniel; the Aramaic Levi Document. 2) This interest in the apocalyptic writings notwithstanding, there is no clear evidence that the Qumranites themselves authored pseudepigraphic apocalypses.1 3) Nonetheless, some Qumranic sectarian documents make significant and substantial claims to revelation.

This paper does not address the question of genre: Did the Qumranites compose apocalypses or didn't they? Nor does it discuss the function of the pseudepigraphic apocalypses at Qumran. Rather, it compares the content, form, function, and social setting of revelation in two pseudepigraphic revelatory texts found at Qumran (1 Enoch and Jubilees) and a selection of Qumran "sectarian" documents. I shall argue that, although there are significant differences in the forms in which revelation is presented, the content of revelation is similar comprising ethical or legal matters, eschatology, and sometimes cosmology. Moreover, I shall argue that revelation functions to constitute and shape what is considered to be the eschatological; "community" of the chosen and that it often serves polemically to distinguish this community from others that are perceived to be unenlightened or the purveyors of bogus and deceptive revelation. Finally, I shall suggest that these findings indicate important points of continuity and discontinuity between these various types of revelation and their predecessors in the Israelite prophetic and sapiential traditions, and their successors in early Christian communities.

1.0.1 Enoch
That 1 Enoch is properly called an apocalyptic writing is widely agreed. The Society of Biblical Literature taskforce on genres includes large sections of this work in its typology of apocalypses:2 the Book of the Watchers (1-36); the Book of Parables (37-71); the Book of Luminaries (72-82); and the Dream Visions (85-90). In addition, I have argued that the Epistle of Enoch (92-105) bases its message on the revelations recorded in the Book of the Watchers,3 and indeed that 1 Enoch as a whole reflects an apocalyptic world view.4

1.1 Revealed Torah
1.1.1. The Calendar
1.1.1.1. The Book of the Luminaries (72-82)
Central to 1 Enoch's revelation is the Book of the Luminaries (72-82), an extensive compilation of texts about the structure of the cosmos and the functioning of the celestial bodies. Although much of the information in this text comports well with empirical observation, its author claims that Enoch obtained its contents while he was on a tour of the heavens in the company of Uriel the angel. This claim documents the validity of a solar, or luni-solar calendar of 364 days. The importance of this calendar is evident in a passage that polemicizes against "sinners," who employ a different calendar and thus get the seasons out of line with cosmic reality (80:4-8; cf. 75:2).

1.1.1.2. The Introductory Oracle (1-5)
The introduction to the Enochic corpus (1-5) seems to allude to wrong calendrical teaching. Sandwiched between two pieces of poetry that imitate biblical prophetic oracles (1:1-9 and 5:4-9) is a piece of prose sapiential teaching about the structure of the universe. In heaven the luminaries do not change their orbits or transgress their appointed order, and on earth the seasons proceed in order, and the trees shed, or do not shed their leaves as God has commanded them (2:1-5:3). This orderly obedience is contrasted with humans, who have turned aside from the right path and spoken harsh words against God's majesty. The contrasting metaphors of change and stability, obedience to the path and turning aside, suggest that, in part, the calendar is at issue.

1.1.2. Other Issues Relating to Torah
1.1.2.1. The Epistle of Enoch (92-105)
The imagery of sin as perversion returns in the Epistle of Enoch, in a section directed against certain false teachers, whom the author threatens with damnation (98:9-99:10).5 Central are three Woes.
Woe to you who annul the words of the righteous; you will have no hope of salvation. (98:14)

Here the author criticizes his opponents for nullifying (akuroun) the halakhah of the righteous. They will not be saved.

Woe to those who write lying words and words of error; they write and lead many astray with their lies when they hear them.
You yourselves err; and you will have peace, but will quickly perish. (98:15-16)

The opponents write down their false teaching, which is read publicly and "leads many astray." These teachers will perish in the coming judgment. Woe to you who change the true words and pervert the eternal covenant and consider themselves to be without sin;6 they will be swallowed up in the earth. (99:2)

This teaching perverts the "the eternal covenant." The fact that these people do not think they are sinning indicates that they are not callous sinners, but persons who interpret the law differently from the Enochic writer. This difference is sufficient to damn them.

This section of the Epistle is framed by an antithetical Woe and Beatitude, which make the same point:
Woe to you, fools; for you will be destroyed because of your folly; And you do not listen to the wise; and good things will not happen to you, but evils will surround you. ( 98:9)

Then blessed will be all who listen to the words of the wise, and learn to do the commandments of the Most High;
and walk in the paths of his righteousness, and do not err with the erring; for they will be saved. (99:10)

In opposition to the false teachers are "the wise," who also read out their teaching, which is, by definition, the commandments of the Most High that constitute the path of righteousness. One's salvation or damnation depends upon whether or not one listens to "the words of the wise."

Precisely what Torah is comprised by the words of the wise and the commandments of the Most High is not explicit. Surely, it includes Enoch's astronomical Torah.7 In one other passage the author accuses his opponents of consuming blood: Woe to you, stiff-necked and hard of heart, who do evil and consume blood. Whence do you have good things to eat and drink and be satisfied? from all the good things that the Lord, the Most High, has abundantly provided upon the earth.
You will have no peace. (98:11)

The author may be criticizing the wrong slaughtering of meat, or he may be advocating vegetarianism.8 In either case, the violation of God's commandment is the issue.

In summary: the author of the Epistle criticizes his opponents for teaching and practicing wrong Torah and threatens them with damnation. As we shall see later, his authority is the revelation received by Enoch.

1.1.2.2. The Animal Vision (85-90)
This comprehensive vision summarizes the historical content of the Bible from Genesis to Ezra-Nehemiah and then carries the story up to the author's time in the early second century B.C.E. The account of Israel's history has two emphases: Israel's victimization by the nations, recounted in the metaphor of the sheep and wild beasts found in Ezekiel 34; and Israel's apostasy, described as the blindness of the sheep. Especially noteworthy is the claim that when Israel returned from Exile,
They began again to build as before, and they raised up that tower [sc. the temple] and it was called the high tower. And they began again to place a table before the tower, but all the bread on it was polluted and not pure. And besides all these things, the eyes of the sheep were blind, and they did not see... (89:73-74).
The allusion to Mal 1:7 is clear. What is striking is the author's view that the apostate blindness of the sheep continues into the Hellenistic period, until some of the lambs born of the sheep began to open their eyes and rebuke their elders, who , however, remain deaf and blind (90:6).
In summary, this author believes that the temple cult is polluted and claims that this insight is the result of a revelation granted in his own time, which stands on the brink of the eschaton.

1.1.2.3. The Apocalypse of Weeks (93:1-10 + 91:11-17)
This analysis of Israel's situation is more radical than the Animal Vision. The Exile and the burning of the Temple in the sixth week are God's punishment on a people who have become blind and have strayed from wisdom (93:8). However, the post Exilic seventh week is marked by the rise of a totally perverse generation, and although the sanctuary is in focus throughout that Apocalypse (the tabernacle, 93:6; the construction and burning of the Temple, 93:7, 8; the eschatological temple, 91:13), the building of the Second Temple is ignored (unless 91:11 alludes to it metaphorically). Before the eschatological temple can be built, the elect of the end-time must be chosen and invested with seven- fold wisdom (93:10). While this appears to be a comprehensive wisdom that includes eschatology and cosmology, its function as an antidote to Israel's blindness and perversity, as well as their violence and deceit, indicates that this wisdom includes revealed instruction about the right life, i.e., Torah and ethics.

1.1.3. Summary
Although the Enochic corpus is generally recognized to comprise revelations about the end-time and the structure of the cosmos, the Book of the Watchers, the Book of the Luminaries, the Animal Vision, and the Epistle (including the Apocalypse of Weeks) are all concerned with right conduct and practice, and they posit revelation, traced back to Enoch, as the authority for this viewpoint.

1.2. Eschatological Revelations
1 Enoch's eschatological revelations are tied to the book's concern with Torah and right conduct. The coming judgment, which is the collection's central focus, is the event by which God will reward or punish human obedience or disobedience of the divine law, as this is spelled out in the Enochic corpus or presumed by it. The imminence of this judgment is clear from the timetables in the Animal Vision and the Apocalypse of Weeks. Although the Book of the Watchers contains no such timetables, the claim that this text is a revelation about the judgment intended for the chosen of the end-time (1:1-3; cf. 37:2-3) indicates that, in the view of this author, the final judgment is near. Even the Book of the Luminaries provides an eschatological perspective for its detailed account of celestial mechanics; this cosmology will be in place "until the new creation is accomplished, which endures until eternity" (72:1).
The revealed character of 1 Enoch's eschatology is evident in several ways. The Animal Vision is a revelatory dream through which God made known all the deeds of humanity until eternity (90:39- 41). The Apocalypse of Weeks purports to summarize the deeds of humanity, which Enoch had read in the heavenly tablets (93:2; cf. 81:1-4). The Book of the Watchers, with its variegated eschatological message, is based on Enoch's cosmic journeys in the company of interpreting angels (1:2), and the eschatological message of the Epistle is based on the visions recounted in the Book of the Watchers. A claim to revelation is also implicit in the forms in which Enoch presents his message: a prophetic oracle (1-5); an account of a prophetic call (14-16);9 the long strings of Woes in the Epistle; and the use of dream visions. 10

1.3. Cosmological Revelations
An important feature of 1 Enoch-virtually unique among the apocalypses-is the heavy preponderance of cosmological lore. The Book of the Luminaries is an obvious case in point, and we have already noted its revelatory form. In addition, the second half of the Book of the Watchers is a detailed account of the seer's journeys through the cosmos. Other blocks of cosmological material appear in the Book of Parables (41:3-44:1; 52:1-56:4; 59:1-60:16), and the Epistle occasionally refers to it (93:11- 14; 100:10-101:9) As Stone has observed, these authors were familiar with a broad range of "scientific" knowledge that was the possession of contemporary sages.11

This preponderance of cosmological material is not presented for its own sake, however. The Book of the Luminaries supports calendrical practice. In the Book of the Watchers and the Book of Parables, cosmology undergirds eschatology. Enoch's first journey, to the west, climaxes in his visions of the places of punishment, and chapter 17 logs the landmarks that document his journey to these places. In his second journey, from the far West to the East, several new places of eschatological import for human beings are added, and again, chapters 32-34 document his journey to paradise.12 Important parts of the cosmology in the Book of Parables also include visions of the places of punishment.

The revealed nature of Enoch's cosmology is indicated by the angelic interpretations of the phenomena that he sees on his journeys.

1.4. Enoch's Primordial Wisdom: Constitutive of the Eschatological Community
1 Enoch purports to present, or imply, a comprehensive system of wisdom revealed to the patriarch in primordial antiquity and committed to writing by him before his translation to heaven. Its character as the written deposit of heavenly wisdom is emphasized in 81:5-10,13 where the angels who have escorted him through the cosmos command him to write down his commands and teaching and to transmit these as a testimony to his sons, notably Methuselah. Methuselah, in turn, is to preserve these writings and to see to it that this life-giving wisdom is transmitted to "the generations of eternity" (82:1-5). A further step in this process of transmission will occur in the end-time, when Enoch's books are given to the righteous and pious and wise, to instruct them in the paths of truth (104:12- 13). They, in turn, will testify to/against the sons of earth (105:1-2).14

Additional references to the eschatological proliferation of Enoch's wisdom are scattered throughout the book.
Then wisdom will be given to all the chosen; and they will all live,
And they will sin no more through godlessness or pride. In the enlightened man there will be light,
and in the wise man, understanding, and they will transgress no more, nor will they sin all the days of their life. (5:8)15

And at its (the seventh week's) conclusion, the elect will be chosen, as witnesses of righteousness from the eternal plant of righteousness, to whom will be given sevenfold wisdom and knowledge. And they will uproot the foundations of violence, and the structure of deceit in it, to execute judgment. (93:10; 91:11) And after this there will be a ninth week, in which righteous law16 will be revealed to all the sons of the whole earth; and all the 17 of wickedness will vanish from the whole earth and descend to the eternal pit, and all humanity will look to the path of eternal righteousness. (91:14)

And the wise among men will see the truth,
and the sons of men will contemplate these words of this epistle,
and they will recognize that their wealth cannot save them when iniquity collapses. (100:6)

Finally, we note again the Animal Vision's reference to revelation in the end-time. The younger generation in the Hellenistic period have their eyes opened to the apostasy that has pervaded the operation of the temple cult, and they exhort the ir elders to turn from their apostasy.

The Enochic corpus, then, is the sacred scripture that constitutes the eschatological community of he chosen.18 It does so in two ways. Its Tor ah instructs them in the path of righteousness. Its announcement of the judgment admonishes them to remain on the right path and encourages them in the midst of persecution to remain confident of God's ultimate vindication of their righteousness. This corpus of revealed wisdom has a secondary function. The community of the righteous is to testify to outsiders-the sons of the whole earth admonishing them to turn to the right path in order that they can be saved from the judgment.

To what extent it is appropriate to refer to an identifiable Enochic community, with structure and organization, is difficult to say. 1 Enoch is not a Rule of the Community. Nonetheless, the distinctive Torah explicit in the Book of Luminaries and implicit in the Epistle's criticism of false teachers who pervert the eternal covenant seems to reflect a distinctive community ethos that encourages and facilitates progress along the paths of righteousness.

1.5. Social Setting: Roles and the Forms and Processes of Revelation
Within this community there existed the latter day, real-life counterparts of primordial Enoch. The existence of such leaders and teachers is implied by the existence of the corpus itself. Someone wrote it. The identity of these leaders and teachers is explicit in the Epistle's references to "the wise." Their words, written down and read aloud, express the commandments of the Most High and constitute the path of righteousness. The term "the wise" may be the counterpart of the title "maskil(im)," which refers in Daniel 12:3 to those "who cause many to be righteous" and in 1 QS 3:13 to the one who instructs in the two ways. The title "Scribe," applied three times to Enoch (12:4; 15:1; 92:1) may also point to a concrete social role, and the title "Scribe of Righteousness / Truth" is also reminiscent of the Qumran sobriquet, qdch hrwm. The implications of the title "scribe" are further attested in the content of 1 Enoch. Taken together, the authors of the Enochic corpus knew virtually every book of the Tanakh and could speak the idiom of prophecy and the sapiential tradition.19 They were concerned with the commandments of the Torah. In addition, they were learned in the cosmological sciences and could employ and transform motifs in pagan mythology. In short, they did all the things that ben Sira ascribes to the scribes of his time (Sir 39:1-4).

The identification of the figure of Enoch with leaders and teachers in the Hellenistic period requires us to think about the forms of revelation. Much of the content of 1 Enoch is said to have been gotten through dream visions. This is true not only of the symbolic dreams in chapters 83-84 and 85-90. To judge from 13:4-10, Enoch's ascent to the heavenly throne room, as well as his journeys through the cosmos all took place in a dream vision.20 His admonitions and Woes in the Epistle are based on these visions, in turn.

Should we think of all of this as literary fiction? The thorough-going literary character and sophisticated prosody of the material seem to indicate artifice and a contrived poetic process.21 Be this as it may, it need not exclude the possibility that an unnamed figure in the Hellenistic period had a genuine experience of a throne vision-however he may have elaborated his expression of it in traditional language. Thus 1 Enoch may well attest the ongoing life of the visionary tradition familiar from the pre-Exilic, Exilic, and post-Exilic prophets. Similarly, however elaborated they may be, the reports of dream visions like 1 Enoch 83-84 and 85 -90 may attest the kind of mantic wisdom described in the Joseph cycle of Genesis and the early chapters of Daniel.

Why the authors of Enoch, and Daniel for that matter, chose to adopt a pseudepigraphic manner of presentation is a complex question. With respect to 1 Enoch, I make a couple of observations. First, one should not confuse two things: 1) the likelihood that many of the contemporaries of the Enochic authors did not accept the prophetic credentials and genuine religious experience of these authors; 2) the prophetic self-consciousness that is expressed in the texts. To judge from the canonical texts, Michaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and others also experienced opposition to their prophetic self- consciousness.

Secondly, there may well be something to Russell's theory that pseudepigraphy implies an identification between the writer and his ancient patron and counterpart.22 The figure of Enoch can be connected-albeit loosely-with the time of the Deluge, or can be seen as living before the terrible evils that polluted the earth and required the cleansing of the Flood (cf. 1 Enoch 93:3). Thus, he can inter act with Noah and speak about a judgment that will have a latter day, final counterpart. Moreover, because he preceded Abraham and the division of humanity into Israel and the nations, his message has universal relevance. Whether, in addition, some of the Enochic authors spoke out of a mystic experience that brought them, they thought, into the orbit of the glorified Enoch (much as Christian prophets spoke in the name of the glorified Lord) is a question that may be worth posing.23

Thirdly, it is noteworthy, that the authors of 1 Enoch do not simply attribute their writings to a pre-Mosaic author. They also present them in a manner that devalues the Mosaic Pentateuch. The initial oracle in chapters 1-5 is a paraphrase o f part of Deuteronomy 33,24 and some of the content and testamentary language is chapter 91 is reminiscent of Moses' farewell discourse in Deuteronomy 29-32 .25 In effect, this casts Moses into the role of a "me-too." In addition, the account of the events at Mount Sinai in the Animal Vision, while i t allows Moses an important role as a leader of Israel and even grants him a vision of the Deity, never states that he received the Torah on Mount Sinai (89:29- 34). Revelation came to Israel at Marah (89:28; cf. Exod 15:25-26). Thus, 1 Enoch leapfrogs the Mosaic Torah and assumes for itself a prophetic authority that precedes Moses.

Finally, 1 Enoch claims revelatory authority for material that may well have been created through more "normal" processes. The Book of the Luminaries seems to reflect empirical observation. Similarly, the decisive interpretations of the Torah that are implied in the Epistle may well have developed through the kind of exegesis suggested by ben Sira. That the Enochic authors knew most of the Tanakh is clear. Of course, their use of biblical material, not through citation, but by appeal to ancient (really new) revelation is a corollary of the fictitious date of the writing. However, it also makes a theological point. This is revelation.

2.0. The Book of Jubilees
Although the Book of Jubilees is not generally classified as an apocalypse,26 it contains all the features that have led scholars to define large par ts of 1 Enoch as apocalyptic. It is a text with a narrative framework in which an otherworldly being transmits secret information to a human agent who is identified as a figure of the past. To make the comparison with 1 Enoch more precise, the author of Jubilees claims for his writing the same status that 1 Enoch 81:5-82:4 claims for the Enochic corpus; it is the transcript of a heavenly revelation that provides the instruction that will grant to those who heed it the reward of eternal life. Like 1 Enoch the instruction in Jubilees relates to both Torah and eschatology and takes for granted the Enochic cosmology that underlies a solar calendar.

2.1. Literary Structure
Taken as a whole, Jubilees is a rewritten version of Genesis and the first half of Exodus, presented as a transcript of the divine account of the events from Creation to the Exodus. It is set at the foot of Mount Sinai, and it begins as God summon s Moses in order to give him the two tablets of the Torah (1:1). He then commands Moses to write what he is told by the angel of presence who is reading from the heavenly tablets (1:26-29). The angelic account (2:1ff.) follows the order and general content of the narrative in Genesis and Exodus, albeit with significant additions and revisions and some omissions.27 The additions and revisions are of three kinds. First, the whole narrative is set within an explicit chronological framework that dates events according to the solar calendar that God revealed to Enoch. Secondly, some parts of the account are elaborated with narrative detail, substantial haggadic additions, and even the insertion of new episodes. Finally, and especially, the author uses the patriarchal narratives as a source from which to derive specific laws and halakhot, and he presents these as immutable laws, which are often said to be inscribed on the heavenly tablets (3:31; 4:32; 16:29).

2.2. Content
Jubilees' modifications of its Genesis-Exodus prototype include material that corresponds roughly to the emphases in 1 Enoch mentioned above, although each has its own nuances and emphases.

2.2.1. Law and Ethics
Most clearly and emphatically, Jubilees is a book of law. This is most obvious in the many halakhic additions to the biblical narrative, which are usually introduced with formulae that delineate their status as eternal law and underscore the dire consequences for those who do not observe these laws (15:25-34; 16:30; 30:22; 33:10-14). Notable examples of the author's concerns include the solar calendar, the rite of circumcision, always performed on the eighth day (15:25-34), idolatry (22:16-18), t he consuming of blood (7:27-33), nakedness (3:31), intermarriage with gentiles (chap. 30), incest (chap. 33), and the proper performing of sacrificial rituals (32:1-16). Although some of these issues are of concern to the Enochic authors, Jubilees is noteworthy for its formal articulation of laws and commandments. Conversely, it uses only sparingly the wisdom metaphor of the two ways that recurs frequently in the Epistle of Enoch.

Nonetheless, a counterpart to the sapiential viewpoint and its expression occurs in the haggadic elaborations that demonstrate right conduct through narrative example. In particular, the stories about Abraham depict him as a gentile who seeks the true God and then rejects idolatry and astrological prognostication (chaps. 11-12). The account of the Akedah, moreover, epitomizes his faithfulness to God, which is exemplified in his right response to a series of ten trials (17:15 19:9). These stories, and others like them, focus less on specific commandments though some are mentioned-and more on exemplary or non-exemplary behavior and its consequences.

2.2.2. Eschatology
A second, less prominent feature of Jubilees' narrative is its interest in eschatology. The chronological framework of the text stretches from creation to the new creation and is calculated in terms of solar jubilees (1:29). The events that are a bout to occur at Mount Sinai and the book's account of Israel's past history are prefaced by a look toward the future (chap. 1). Employing the scheme of Deuteronomy 30-32, the divine revelation given at another mountain, God predicts that Israel will violate his Torah and suffer the consequences until they repent. A more finely tuned version of this eschatological scenario appears in 23:12-31, where it is an integral part of Abraham's testament to Isaac. Another brief allusion to eschatology appears in the summary of Enoch's revelations in the Animal Vision and the Apocalypse of Weeks (4:18-19).

2.2.3. Cosmology
This author is much less interested in emphasizing cosmology than the Enochic authors. This is doubtless because he presupposes the Enochic revelations. They are presupposed, first, in his reference to Enoch's Book of the Luminaries, which forms the foundation for his chronological structures based on a solar calendar (4:17). They also appear in the interpolations into the Flood account, which are the springboard for his dualistic view of the universe. According to this world view, human sins a nd the experience of evil are functions of a demonic realm that was generated through the sin of the watchers (chap. 5; 7:21-24; 10:4-12).

2.3. Jubilees as a Revelatory Text
The revelatory character of the Jubilees narrative is indicated by several factors. First, different from the anonymous narrative of Genesis and Exodus, this account is ascribed to the prophet Moses, and in the idiom of apocalyptic writings, Moses ' source of information is explicitly a revealer figure-first God (1:26), but then the angel of the presence (1:27-2:1), whose voice recurs at various points throughout the narrative (23:32; 18:9; 48:4, 11-19). Secondly, the angel states that the narrative he rehearses and the laws that he recites are derived from the heavenly tablets, which also contain the names of the righteous (19:9). Thirdly, this angelic narrator also refers to hidden things, namely, the origin, existence, and activity, and punishment of the demonic offspring of the watchers (see above). Finally, the narrator appeals to the revelations that Enoch had received from his angelic informants and cites them as authentic testimony to the human race (4:17-19).
Thus, Jubilees as a whole purports to be special revelation received and written down in ancient times and now presented for the edification and salvation of Israel, which stands on the threshold of the eschaton.

2.4. Revelation as Constitutive of the Community of the End-Time
This eschatological focus is especially evident in 23:12-31. Moreover, these verses provide a window into the real-life processes that generated the revelation which is the substance of the book. Employing the Deuteronomic scheme of sin punishment-repentance-salvation, the author spells out the desperate situation of contemporary Israel, whose disobedience has brought on the curses of the covenant, described as gentile oppression, short lives, and the failure of crops. The solution to this problem is similar to the passages quoted above from the Animal Vision and the Apocalypse of Weeks. There is a bitter dispute in which the younger generation accuse their elders of sin. The process by which this judgment is made and its consequences are spelled in detail.

As human lives are severely shortened,
In those days the children will begin to study the laws
and seek the commandments
and return to the path of righteousness.

And the days will begin to grow many and increase among those children of men, till their days approach one thousand years, and to a greater number of years than (before) was the number of days (23:26-27).

The return of blessing is catalyzed by the study of the Torah, the identification of right halakhah, which facilitates true obedience and leads to diving blessing-the salvation of Israel from its enemies and, ultimately, the ascent of the spirits o f the righteous into the joy of God's presence (23:31).

This eschatological vignette reveals the process by which the author of Jubilees has arrived at the Torah that permeates his account. The study of Torah, the study of the laws and searching of the commandments (Eth. hasasa = #rd and perhaps #qb) leads to revelation, the right understanding of the commandments and laws that are inscribed on the heavenly tablets. Different from 1 Enoch, which emphasized revelation through dream visions, this author focuses on the painstaking process of searching the scriptures for the less than obvious expression of God's will.28 T he claim of revelation is a theological judgment about the character and results of this human process.

As with 1 Enoch, it is impossible to state whether and to what extent the author of this text was a member of a defined, organized community. However, the narrative suggests that the author depicts a group of "exegetes," who come to certain conclusions about the right interpretation of the Torah and present them, in this text, as the true understanding of the Torah revealed at Sinai, exhorting Israel to obey them and find its salvation.29 Strikingly different from 1 Enoch, the author emphasizes Israel's status as the covenantal people and proscribes interaction with the gentiles and certainly the preaching of an eschatological kerygma that might lead to the salvation of the gentiles.

2.5. Revelation as a Polemical Category
As in 1 Enoch, the notion of revelation in Jubilees has polemical overtones. In the most general sense, Jubilees' revelations about the right interpretation and practice of the Torah are directed against a nation that has violated the Torah. In p art this may refer to outright rejection of the Torah, not least some forms of Hellenization.30 In other instances, however, revelations of the right interpretation of the Torah imply the existence of differing interpretations. Preeminently, this involves the observance of a different calendar. In other cases, the authors present halakhot contrary to currently accepted practice.31 The Sabbath laws are a case in point (50:6-13). Thus, even if the text of Jubilees does not explicitly refer to opposing teachers, who "lead many astray with their lies,&quo t; as does the Epistle of Enoch, it indicates disputes about the Torah and undergirds its own interpretation with the claim of revealed truth.

2.6. Enoch and Enochic Revelations in the Book of Jubilees
I have noted earlier that the Enochic corpus presents itself as primordial revelation that long preceded the Mosaic Torah, and that, by and large, it ignores the Mosaic Torah. It is striking, therefore, that the pseudo-Mosaic Jubilees gives the Enochic revelations special mention, and that the figure of Enoch has pride of place. Indeed, the author of Jubilees casts Moses as a figure like Enoch.32 Enoch's case is special; he appears prior to Abraham and Moses and thus his message is directed to all humanity. Moses is the preeminently prophet to Israel, the mediator of the covenant that constitutes Israel as God's chosen people and the mediator of t he Torah that is a constitutive part of that covenant. Nonetheless, the book may also attest an ambivalence about the figure of Moses that is not at odds with the viewpoint of the Enochic authors. The predictions of Deuteronomy are uttered in a speech t hat God directs to Moses, rather than as a part of Moses' testament to Israel. The content of the Pentateuch is placed in the mouth of an angel, who speaks to Moses. Of course, this verifies that the Pentateuch, written by Moses, is God's word; however, the explication of the revelatory process may be a way of undergirding Moses' authority in circumstances that require this. Such a hypothesis provides some continuity between 1 Enoch's ambivalence about the authority of the Mosaic Torah and the fact that Jubilees both embraces Enochic revelation and strongly affirms Mosaic authority.

3.0 The Nature and Function of Revelation in Some Qumranic Documents
In this section I shall discuss passages from that are generally considered to have been authored at Qumran or in a community closely related or ancestral to it. My purpose is not to investigate the possible historical connections between the auth ors of these texts and the authors of 1 Enoch and Jubilees, or, indeed, between the authors of the sectarian texts. My concern is the forms, functions, and social settings of their notions of revelation.

3.1. The Damascus Document
3.1.1. Column 1: An Account of the Formation of the Community of the End-Time
The prologue to the Damascus Document recounts the origins of the community in which it was generated. The setting is post-Exilic and is said to be 390 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, i.e., ca. 197 BCE. This is roughly contemporaneous with the time indicated for the reforming activities described in the Animal Vision and, probably, the Apocalypse of Weeks.33 The dominating factor in Israel's post Exilic life is the nation's guilt and the ongoing presence of the covenantal curses. This is paralleled in the Animal Vision, which describes the ongoing pollution of the cult and nation's continued oppression by the gentiles. CD 1 and the Apocalypse of Weeks both ignore the sixth century return from exile and the rebuilding of the Temple, but emphasize the continuity in Israel's state of sin. In the Apocalypse of Weeks this is described as the rise of a thoroughly perverse generation (1 Enoch 93:9). The construal of this community as the remnant of Israel and as the sprouting of a plant (CD 1:4, 7) parallels the notion of the chosen and the language of the plant in the Apocalypse of Weeks (93:10), and its character as the community of the end -time is evident (CD 1:11-12).34

For the author of CD 1:9, the Animal Vision (1 Enoch 89:94; 90:7), and the Apocalypse of Weeks, Israel's predicament is a function of its blindness. The corresponding remedy is revelation. In the Animal Vision this involves the opening of the eyes of the younger generation (1 Enoch 90:6). In the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 Enoch 93:10) it is the giving of sevenfold wisdom and knowledge. The author of CD 1 employs a string of expressions that construe the constituting events for this community as revelatory. God raises (Mwq) a Teacher of Righteousness to make them walk in the path of his heart, and he makes known ((dy) what he has done to the wicked, who have strayed fr om the path (1:11-13). The process leading to revelation is described as seeking (#rd, 1:11), as it is in Jub. 23:26.. The title "Teacher of Righteousness" parallels Enoch's title "Scribe of Righteous ness," and the metaphor of the two ways and the construal of obedience as "the path of righteousness" (1:16) have many counterparts in the Epistle of Enoch and appear in Jubilees 23:17, 18, 21, 26.

The opponents of the eschatological, enlightened community are those who seek slippery things (twqlxb w#rd), facile interpreters of the law (halakhot), who perpetrate lies. They are the counterparts of Enoch's deceitful teachers, who lead many astray with their lies (98:15) and whose activity builds a structure of deceit on foundations of violence (93:11; cf. CD 1:20- 21).35

3.1.2. CD 5:20-6:11: Revelation as the Interpretation of the Torah
This passage presents a scenario much like that in CD 1, albeit with a more detailed focus on the interpretation of the Torah. In the post-Exilic period, certain individuals prophesied deceit and caused Israel to stray from God's commandments. In response to this God raised up (Mwq) knowledgeable and wise men, who went to Damascus to probe the well of the Torah, under the leadership of the Searcher, i.e., Interpreter of the Torah (hrwth #rwd). All this happens with a view toward the end of time and the appearance of the one who teaches righteousness. The detailed focus on the interpretation of the Torah and the language of searching is most closely paralleled by the process in Jubilees 23 and the language in which it is described
In summary: these two passages in the Damascus Document depict Israel in a state of apostasy, marked by the activity of false teachers of the Torah. In this situation, the eschatological community of the righteous arises, constituted by the reveal ed, right interpretation of the law. The explicit references to a single individual figure differentiates these passages from their counterparts in 1 Enoch and Jubilees, although the plurality of persons, first mentioned in CD 1:8-10 and 5:2-7, corresponds to the plurality in the other texts.

3.2. The Community Rule
3.2.1. 1QS 8:1-15
Here we have another account of origins, with parallels to the previous texts, but important nuances of its own. It is a time of uncleanness. The council of the community is formed with a view toward atoning for the land and exacting judgment on the wicked, so that iniquity will be removed. The judicial functions of the council and the disappearance of wickedness is paralleled in the Apocalypses of Weeks (1 Enoch 93:10, 14).36 The description of the council as an everlasting planting, picks up a metaphor found in both CD 1 and 1 Enoch 93:10. The dominant metaphor of (the council of) the community as a building depicts its function as a kind of temple-implying the dysfunction of the Jerusalem sanctuary (cf. 1 Enoch 89:73; CD 4:15-5:15). Although it is rooted in a exegesis of Isaiah 28, with its counter-position of two structures, it finds a parallel in 1 Enoch
93:10 and its portrayal of a structure of deceit built on a foundation of violence. An important function of the community is the ongoing searching of the Torah (hrwth #rdm, 8:15 16). This interpretation is not explicitly construed as revelation, although it is connected with previous revelations. The eschatological character of the community is indicated by its judicial function, which is connected with the extirpation of iniquity.

Although this passage contains no reference to a cadre of opposing, false interpreters of the Torah, the notion appears in 1QS 9:3-11. A literary association between these two passages is indicated by the identical introductory words in 8:4 an d 9:3 (l)#ryb hl) twyhb) and by the common depicting of the community as a temple with atoning functions.37 Those out side the community are "men of a lie," who stray from the right path (9:8-10). The eschatological orientation of the community is evident in 9:11.

3.2.2. 1QS 5:1-13: The Revealed Interpretation of the Torah
This passage, which has a number of verbal parallels with 1QS 8 (cf. esp. 5:3-6 with
8:1-7), describes some of the regulations pertaining to persons who enter the covenant of the Community. A critical factor-perhaps the critical factor-in one's communal existence is the obligation "to return to the Torah of Moses in accordance with all that it commands with all his heart and all his soul, to everything that has been revealed (hlg) concerning it to the Sons of Zadok, the priests who observe the covenant and interpret (#rd) his will..." What distinguishes the members of the community and sustains their covenantal status is their proper observance of the Torah, which has been rightly interpreted through divine revelation. The outsiders, by contras t, have not sought (bqs) nor studied (#rd) the decrees of the covenant in order to learn ((dy) the hidden things (rts) in which they stray (h(t). Here revealed interpretation of the Torah is opposed not to false interpretation, but to a lack of enlightenment with respect to its interpretation and observance.

3.3. The Hodayot
The Hodayot, and especially the hymns of the teacher, are an important source for studying Qumranic notions of revelation. Here I can discuss only one of them.

3.3.1. 1QH 12(4):5-13(5):4: The Enlightened Teacher, his Disciples, and his Opponents
This text does not speak about revelation and revealed interpreters of the Torah; it is the first person account of one who claims to be such a recipient and dispenser of revelation. The reason for this hymn of thanksgiving is that fact that the Lord has brightened his face with his covenant. has enlightened him like the perfect dawn (12:1-6), and has made known to him ((dy) the wondrous divine mysteries (12:27). The author, in turn, has enlightened the face of the many (12:27) and poured the drink of knowledge (12:11). The content of revelation is, first of all, the interpretation of the Torah. God has engraved his Torah in the teacher's heart (12:10). Those "who walk in the path of your heart" have listened to him (12:24), and they will stand forever in God's presence and will be established forever (12:27-28). The author may also allude to other kinds of revelation. The "vision of knowledge" (t(d Nwz x) may refer to eschatological revelation, and God's "wondrous mysteries" (hk)lp yzr) may refer to the same or imply cosmological secrets.

Much of the hymn is taken up with criticism of the author's opponents, who ridicule and belittle him (12:8, 22). They change (rwm) the Torah, giving vinegar rather than the drink of knowledge (12:10-11). In addition, they claim to have their own visions (12:20). Overall, the text is marked by a number of references to their lies and deception (12:7, 9-10, 16, 20), employing a vocabulary now familiar from the Epistle of Enoch, CD 1, and 4QpNah (cf. n. 22).

Especially noteworthy is this author's use of language from Isaiah 52-53 to describe his rejection by his opponents (12:8, 22-23). These passages, with their pairing of persecution and vindication, and exaltation to judgment, are reminiscent o f Wisdom of Solomon 2 and 5, where the suffering and eschatological exaltation of the righteous sage are depicted in the language of Isaiah 52-53.38 Another application of Second Isaiah's servant material (chap. 50:4) to the inspired teacher appears in 1QH 15(7):10; 16(8):36.

The eschatological character of the teacher's revelations may be indicated by the reference to "the vision of knowledge" and the use of an eschatological interpretation of Isaiah 52-53 which attributed judicial functions to the teacher.

3.4. The Habakkuk Pesher
The early columns of this text feature the opposition between the Man of Lies and his followers and the Teacher of Righteousness. The point of contention on which the counter-position of truth and lies turns relates both to the interpretation of the Torah (5:9-12) and the Teacher's inspired interpretation of prophetic eschatology (2:5-10). The issue of revealed eschatology returns in the celebrated passage in 7:4-9. What is striking here, in 2:5- -10, and, indeed, in the genre of the text itself is the distinction between the revealed prophetic word (God spoke [rbd] to Habakkuk) and the revealed eschatological interpretation granted to the Teacher (God made known [(dy] to the Teacher). Different from 1 Enoch, who knows Scripture, but pretends that its allusions to it came through direct revelation, here one assumes the existence of the ancient inspired texts, but then moves on to claim secondary revelation as the basis f or its correct interpretation. What is not clear is the precise "mechanics" of this revelation-the manner and form in which it was received. The association of Torah and eschatology is explicit in 7:10-11; 8:1-3. It is those "men of trut h," who observe the Torah, in accordance with the interpretation of the Teacher who will endure in the last age and past muster in the coming judgment.

3.5. Revelation and Apocalypse in the Qumranic Texts
It remains to comment briefly on the genre apocalypse as it applies to texts authored at Qumran or in its immediate orbit.39 The topic is complex, an d I confine my comments (and, more often, questions) to two issues. Both relate to matters familiar from apocalypses, but found in texts that are not generically apocalypses.

3.5.1. Eschatology without Apocalypse
One category we need to examine is "apocalyptic eschatology." Should the term be used only for eschatology actually found in apocalypses, or can it refer to dualistic, mythic eschatologies like those found in apocalypses, even when these occur in texts that are not apocalypses? Two texts from Qumran provide examples. The eschatological scenario in 1QS 4:19-26 has many parallels with 1 Enoch 10:20 22. In fact, neither of these texts is formally an apocalypse. Should we refer to their eschatology as "apocalyptic," because it is similar to the eschatology found in apocalyptic sections of 1 Enoch and in other apocalypses? Three other questions come to mind. 1) Should we reserve the term "apocalyptic" for texts that c learly posit or presume revelation? 2) Should the term be applied more narrowly to texts whose revelatory base is an apocalypse? 3) Does the mythic, dualistic eschatology derive from a revelatory text, or more narrowly, an apocalypse, and does the author of this text find authority in such revelation?

We might address the same questions to three other examples which are found on fragmentary Qumran MSS.: 4QPseudo-Daniela (4Q243), 4QMessianic Apocalypse (4Q521), the so-called son of God text,40 and the text which Milik has identified as part of a Testament of Naphtali (4Q215), though it contains no verbal parallels to the Greek and medieval Hebrew testaments of Naphtali.41

3.5.2. Allusions to Heavenly Realia Described in Apocalyptic Texts
Two Qumran texts employ vocabulary found in the apocalypses and refer to heavenly entities described in the apocalypses. The first is 1QS 11:5-7: From the spring of his justice is my judgment, and from the wonderful mystery is the light in my heart. My eyes have observed what always is, wisdom that has been (hidden) from the sons of men, fountain of justice and well of strength, and spring of glory (hidden) from the assembly of flesh (Trans. García Martínez).

These words could have been spoken by an apocalypticist about the apocalyptic experience. Does the text attest the author's apocalyptic experience, or has the apocalyptic vocabulary been transformed to other ends, albeit with reference to heavenly realia? The same question about apocalyptic vocabulary can be applied to 1QH 12 (4):5-6, 18.

A second text is 1QH 9(1):20-27.42 Does it refer to the heavenly tablets described in 1 Enoch 81:1-4? Does the author presuppose and draw on su ch a text, and/or is he using the language metaphorically? The cosmological reference in the preceding lines (10-19), which are also reminiscent of some wisdom texts, should also be considered in an answer to the question.

As we address ourselves to these and similar texts and to the questions I have suggested, it will be worth considering what difference it makes when material at home in apocalypses occurs in non-apocalypses. Or vice versa. What difference doe s it make when one embodies references to hidden things-the eschatological future and cosmological realia-in texts of apocalyptic genre? To what extent does a discussion of these hidden things and the dualism presupposed by them take place prior to the rise of the apocalyptic genre? If it does, why, and to what end does the genre develop as an important staple in sectors of Second Temple Judaism? And why, given the existence of such apocalypse, is the material cited outside the genre?
I raise these questions to help us see more clearly the variegated character of notions of revelation and sharpen our use of the term apocalyptic.

3.6. Summary
The Qumranic sectarian writings make many claims to revelation and posit revealed interpretations of the Torah and prophetic eschatology as constitutive of their origins and status as the eschatological community of the righteous.43 At the same time, they criticize their opponents for being unenlightened and promulgating false and deceptive revelations. The choice between these two options is the difference between life and death, salvation and damnation.

4.0. Conclusions and Synthesis
4.1. The Content and Function of Revelation
4.1.1. Interpretation of the Torah
A revealed interpretation of Torah is central to all these texts and functions as the catalyst for the founding of the respective communities. The precise nature of the Torah varies, however. The authors of 1 Enoch deprecate, or at least ignore, the centrality of the Mosaic Torah and speak much more in the idiom of the Israelite sapiential tradition. Explicit Torah in these texts is limited to instruction about the solar calendar. Other explicit instruction about right behavior focuses on ethical rather than halakhic issues and takes the form of prophetic Woes hurled against the wicked who oppress the righteous. Jubilees celebrates the Mosaic Torah, presenting it with explicit halakhic concerns and making little use of sapiential vocabulary.

Nonetheless, it celebrates Enoch as the recipient of astronomical and calendrical revelation.

For the Qumranic authors, the Mosaic Torah is central, critical, and constitutive of the status as the true Israel. The solar calendar is also crucial. More than in Jubilees, they employ the sapiential metaphor of the two ways to describe obedience and disobedience to the Torah.

4.1.2. Eschatology
Eschatological instruction is more prominent in 1 Enoch than is legal and ethical instruction, and therefore one finds major parts of this text expressed in prophetic forms and idiom. The precipitating cause for the writing of this literature is t he conviction that the judgment is imminent, and that conviction is expressed in almost every major section of 1 Enoch. These eschatological revelations, though they speak the biblical idiom, are presented not as interpretations of the prophets, but as direct revelation. Of course, the pseudo-Enochic identity of the author precludes reference to the prophets. But the point is that these authors chose not to write commentaries on the prophets, but rather to present claims of direct revelation.
In Jubilees, eschatological revelations are attributed, first, to the ancient testimony of Enoch. Secondarily, they are attributed to Moses, albeit in a way that clearly presupposes the text of Deuteronomy. For this author, the Pentateuch is a text to be interpreted, even if he does so by positing a Mosaic revelation parallel to the Pentateuch. Thus scriptural authority and pseudonymity go hand-in-hand.

In the Qumranic sectarian writings we are drawn into the life of an identifiable community with a high eschatological consciousness. Doubtless this was fed by the revelations found in the Enochic and Danielic texts in their possession, and the y may have composed interpretations of these texts (cf. 4Q180-181). Nonetheless, their eschatology is explicitly tied to an interpretation of the prophetic texts, which is given expression in the pesharim. Specific references to the Teacher of Righteous ness state that his eschatological consciousness was fed by an interpretation of the sacred prophetic texts. The evident waning of interest in the Enoch texts suggested by the dating of the MSS. is perhaps the other side of the coin.44 Perhaps both attest the more general fact that the prophetic texts are gaining/have gained effective canonical status in Israel.

These facts notwithstanding, we should not isolate into watertight compartments immediate apocalyptic eschatological revelation and revealed interpretation of prophetic eschatology. Two texts that we have not discussed point in this direction and may provide a bridge between the two approaches. The author of Daniel 9 claims to have had an epiphany of the angel Gabriel, who bases his eschatological prediction on an interpretation of Jeremiah. In a different form with parallel function, the author of the Testament of Moses presents a full- blown pseudepigraphic eschatological revelation that is, in effect a rewriting of the last chapters of Deuteronomy.45 It claims to be a secret, final revelation granted to Moses on the eve of his departure, but its eschatology is presented with the structure and in the vocabulary of Deuteronomy 29-33. Here, different from Daniel 9, pseudepigraphic revelation shapes the text and the interpretation of scripture is implicit rather than explicit.

4.1.3. The Forms and Means of Revelation
These previous considerations warn us not to make genre the driving factor in a discussion of revelation in the Israelite texts of the Greco-Roman period. Claims of direct, apocalyptic revelation are compatible with explicit reference to prophetic interpretation or its de facto presence. The same applies to the interpretation of the Torah. Jubilees has it both ways, claiming to be a revelation given by an angel and, at the same time, alluding to the process of "searching" the commandments and the laws, a process of which we hear more in the Damascus Document.

Once we grant the coincidence or co-existence of direct pseudepigraphic revelation and revealed interpretation of authoritative texts, it becomes important to ask: why the different forms. If people like the Searcher of the Torah and the Teach er of Righteousness were claiming revelation for their interpretations of the Torah and the prophets, what were the necessity, specific function, and setting of pseudepigraphic revelations about the Torah and the Prophets?

4.1.4. Function and Historical and Social Setting
The authors of both the apocalyptic writings and the Qumranic texts claim revelation in order to authenticate their self-understanding as leaders of the eschatological community of the chosen, which stands in contradistinction to the rest of unenlightened Israel and, in some cases, to other groups who also authenticated their self-understanding with claims of revelation. Thus claims to revelation undergird the authority of the leaders and support community identity.

The precise historical realities behind these texts remain a mystery that we strain to discern darkly through a glass. Do the accounts of the Animal Vision, the Apocalypse of Weeks, CD 1 and 5, and 1QS 8 all point to the same event, or have old traditions about the foundation of an eschatological community been reused to describe the formation of a new community?46 What are the historical points of continuity between the communities that generated the Enochic texts and the Qumranic sectarian documents.47 Common Enochic authorship of texts that successively interpret one another indicates historical channels of transmission. The centrality of Enochic revelation in the Book of Jubilees again reflects historical continuity, and the presence of the Enoch materials and Jubilees at Qumran requires a historical explanation. Happily, our situation is different from so much biblical scholarship. We are not working with texts gotten from various places which have striking similarities that suggest historical continuity. Here is one of the significant aspects of the Qumran discoveries. All of this material was found together, in one place. Now we need to ask: what was the historical road that brought the Enochic and Jubilees materials to Qumran? Recent refinements in the discussion of the history of t he Qumran community and its relationship to the Essenes known from other sources add another part of the broader picture. As we address ourselves to these questions, we shall flesh out a more detailed picture of the history of Second Temple Judaism.

In addition to the history of specific groups in Judaism, our texts offer a better understanding of the institutions that ordered it. I think that behind 1 Enoch we can see people called scribes and "the wise." We need to relate the se to the maskilim of Daniel, who also wrote pseudepigraphic apocalypses and "led many to righteousness" through their instruction in the Torah or, at least, their religious exhortations. And what of Qumran? How does the maskil of 1QS 3 relate to the Danielic maskilim, and is the Teacher of Righteousness similar to pseudo-Enoch, the Scribe of Righteousness. Which of these people were priests, or how did they function in other roles related to the priesthood?48

4.2. Implications for Broader Studies
The conclusions of this paper have implications for the broader study of Judaism and our understanding of the rise of Christianity. Here it is possible only to present a few comments and to pose some questions.

4.2.1. Judaism in the Greco-Roman Period
It will be useful to probe the texts contemporary to 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Qumran documents with a view toward their expressed attitudes about revelation whether these be positive or negative.
The Wisdom of ben Sira is an interesting case in point. His description of the activity of the scribe (chap. 39) indicates important parallels to some of our texts. For him the Torah and the Prophets are scripture, which he "searches"; (39:1, 3, 5) However, his interpretation of the Torah, cast in sapiential form, looks very different from Jubilees. His attitude toward the prophets and prophecies is complex. Though their writings are effectively canonical, he speaks of his own interpretation as pouring forth wisdom like prophecy and sees himself as a mediator of the life giving power of the Torah (24:32-33; 39:6). How does this relate to our texts?

4.2.2. Continuity and Discontinuity with the Persian Period
Seeking out the continuities and discontinuities between the texts of the Greco Roman period and the biblical books of the Persian period is one of the most important agendas to have developed from the discovery and interpretation of the Scrolls an d the related study of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Yet the surface has scarcely been scratched. Such study has important ramifications for an understanding of the ongoing history of Israel and its religion. It also has a practical aspect. Clarification of these continuities and discontinuities will help us to lay to a deservedly uneasy rest the Christian specter of a legalistic Judaism.

What are the similarities and dissimilarities between the notions of revelation we have been studying and those found in the post-Exilic prophets? Some of our authors act and talk like prophets. How does this tally with their "prophetic"; predecessors? What are the connections between the scribes of the Hellenistic period and Ezra the scribe? Who were the people who collected, assembled, and began to interpret the texts were would become scripture, and what are the implications of the activity?

Careful study of these and related issues will probably reveal more continuity from the late Persian to the Hellenistic period than common scholarly wisdom, expressed in the handbooks, has allowed.

4.2.3. Early Christianity
All of this impinges in a fundamental way on the study of early Christianity. Into what kind of categories did John and Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth, Paul, and the authors of the gospel material fit? In what respects can we discover continuity with Judaism of the Greco-Roman period? In what ways does the spectrum of early Christian attitudes about the Torah relate to the matters we have been discussing? Can we find counterparts in our texts to the New Testament's propensity to quote and cite scripture, on the one hand, and to argue and proclaim authoritatively without reference to Scripture, on the other hand? What do we make of the parallel between: a) the revealed Enochic wisdom that constitutes the eschatological community of the chosen and i s to be proclaimed to all the sons of the whole earth; and b) the early Christian self-understanding and its proclamation of the gospel to all the nations? These issues touch the heart of much that has been written about the discontinuity between Judaism of the Greco-Roman period and its Israelite predecessors, one the one hand, and its Christian successors, on the other hand.

NOTES
1. See, however, Florentino García Martínez, Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran (STDJ 9; Leiden: Brill, 1992).
2. John J. Collins, "The Jewish Apocalypses," Semeia 14 (1979) 21-59.
3. George W. E. Nickelsburg, "The Apocalyptic Message of 1 Enoch 92-105," CBQ 39 (1977) 309-28.
4. Ibid., "The Apocalyptic Construction of Reality of 1 Enoch," in Mysteries and Revelations: Apocalyptic Studies since the Uppsala Colloquium, ed. John J. Collins and James H. Charlesworth (JSP Supp. 9; Sheffiel d: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991) 51-64.
5. George W. E. Nickelsburg, "The Epistle of Enoch and the Qumran Literature," JJS 33 (1982 = Essays in Honour of Yigael Yadin) 334-43. My translations presume comparative textual criticism between the Gr eek and Ethiopic texts, on which see George W. E. Nickelsburg, "Enoch 97-104: A Study of the Greek and Ethiopic Texts," in Armenian and Biblical Studies, ed. Michael E. Stone (Suppl. Vol. to Sion 1; Jerusalem: St. James, 1976) 90- 156.
6. Ibid., 94, n. 23.
7. Such an application of 99:10 appears in 82:4.
8. For a passage that may suggest the notion of vegetarianism here, cf. Ps 104:10ff.
9. On the form of this text, see H. Ludin Jansen, Die Henochgestalt: Eine vergleichende religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Oslo: Dybwad, 1939) 114 17.
10. See Nickelsburg, "Apocalyptic Message," 315-18.
11. Michael E. Stone, "The Book of Enoch and Judaism in the Third Century B.C.E.," CBQ 40 (1978) 479-92.
12. Here the Paradise of Righteousness is the place of the tree of wisdom.
13. On the relation of this passage to other parts of 1 Enoch, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 150-51; and Randal A. Argall, 1 Enoch and S irach: A Comparative Literary and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation, and Judgment (SBLEJL 8; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995) 257-65.
14. Nickelsburg, The Epistle of Enoch, 343-45.
15. Translation is based on the Greek text of 5:8.
16. See Ferdinand Dexinger, Henochs Zehnwochenapokalypse und offene Probleme der Apokalyptikforschung (SPB 29; Leiden: Brill, 1977) 141.
17. J.T. Milik (The Books of Enoch [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976] 266, 269) fills the lacuna in 4QEng 1 4:20 to read "doers." I follow the Ethiopic text, albeit reading plural rather than singular.
18. On 1 Enoch as scripture, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, "Scripture in 1 Enoch and 1 Enoch as Scripture," Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in their Textual and Situational Contexts, Essays in Honor of Lars Hartma n, ed. Tord Fornberg and David Hellholm (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995) 333-54. On 1 Enoch as revealed, saving wisdom, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, "Revealed Wisdom as a Criterion for Inclusion and Exclusion: From Jewish Sectarianis m to Early Christianity," in To See Ourselves as Others See Us, ed., Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) 73-91.
19. Nickelsburg, "Scripture in 1 Enoch, " 335-42.
20. At the end of chapter 16, Enoch is in the presence of the angels in the heavenly throne room, where he has ascended in a dream vision. The beginning of Enoch's journeys in 17:1 indicates that he journeys began at that point. Cf., however 81:5, which suggests a physical return to his house.
21. On this issue, see Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 110-14.
22. D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964) 132-39.
23. On the possible connection between Enoch's account of his ascent and the later mystical texts, see briefly George W. E. Nickelsburg, "Enoch, Levi, and Peter, Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee," JBL 10 0 (1981) 581-82.
24. Lars Hartman, Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1-5 (ConBib NT Series 12; Lund: Gleerup, 1979) 22-26.
25. Cf. esp. 91:1 with Deut 31:28; 91:3 with Deut 31:19, 21, 26; and 32:1; 91:8, 11 with Deut 29:18, 20.
26. Only Jubilees 23 is included in Collins, "Jewish Apocalypses," 32-33.
27. George W. E. Nickelsburg, "The Bible Rewritten and Expanded," in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 2:2, ed., Michael E. Stone (Assen: Van Gorcum / Ph iladelphia: Fortress, 1983) 97-101.
28. I read the use of the verb "seek" or "search" to refer to a process of looking for something that is not obvious. The verb is used frequently with reference to books and texts.
29. In his paper in this volume, "Pseudepigraphy and Group Formation in Second Temple Judaism," John Collins is skeptical as to whether this text refers to a specific group. I use the term in lower case, presuming a pl urality of students of the Torah rather than the effort of a single person.
30. Nickelsburg, "The Bible Rewritten and Expanded," 102-03.
31. Ibid., 99-100.
32. Enoch learned his history, astronomy, and cosmology under the tutelage of angels, just as Moses was learning the chronology and course of history and the eternal Torah from the angel of the presence; and Enoch wrote down ever ything as a testimony (Jub. 4:18, 19, 24; 7:39; 10:17) just as Moses was writing his account as a testimony (1:1;, 4, 9; 2:33; 3:14).
33. On the problems of the chronology of CD 1, see Collins, "Pseudepigraphy," nn. 11 and 12.
34. On the imagery of the planting in these texts, see Patrick Tiller, "The 'Eternal Planting' in the Dead Sea Scrolls," Dead Sea Discoveries (forthcoming).
35. Similar language appears in 4QpNahum and 4QpPsa; see Nickelsburg, "Epistle of Enoch," 337.
36. For the notion of eschatological cleansing, albeit by a divine agent, cf. 1 Enoch 10:20-22, a passage with significant parallels to 1QS 4:17-22.
37. The parallel between the two passages does not appear in 4QSd 2 2.
38. George W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (HTS 26; Cambridge: Harvard University; London: Oxford University, 1972) 58-66. 1QH 12:8-12 parallels scene 1 in the story (Wis Sol 2). 1QH 12:21-23 parallels scene two (Wis Sol 5). Cf. also 1QH 12:23-25 with Wis Sol 5:5-7.
39. On the issue of apocalypses at Qumran, see Collins, "Pseudepigraphy."
40. On these two texts, see García Martínez, 137-49; 162-79.
41. On this text, see Esther G. Chazon, "A Case of Mistaken Identity: Testament of Naphtali (4Q215) and Time of Righteousness (4Q215)," in the Provo volume.
42. George W. E. Nickelsburg, "1 Enoch and Qumran Origins: The State of the Question and Some Prospects for Answers, "in Society of Biblical Literature 1986 Seminar Papers, ed. Kent Harold Richards (Atlanta: Schol ars Press, 1986) 347.
43. For another aspect of Qumranic claims to revelation, see the paper by Paul Mandel in this volume.
44. On the dating of the MSS., see Milik, Books of Enoch, 5-6.
45. On the Testament of Moses as a rewritten form of the last chapters of Deuteronomy, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, 80-81.
46. See Tiller, "'Eternal Planting'."
47. For some helpful distinctions, see Collins, "Pseudepigraphy."
48. On the possible priestly identity of the Enochic writers, see Benjamin G. Wright, "Putting the Puzzle Together: Some Suggestions Concerning the Social Location of the Wisdom of Ben Sira," Society of Biblical Lite rature 1996 Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) 133-49.
Please send comments or inquiries to the Orion Center at
msdss@mscc.huji.ac.il

A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism

2009-02-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

Olyan, Saul M.

Saul Olyan's book proposes to resolve the riddle of angelology during the last two pre-Christian centuries and the first half-millennium of the post-Christian age. Though the Hebrew Scriptures do record frequently "the angel of the Lord" or "angels," only two, Michael and Gabriel, are listed by name and these only in Daniel 8-12. Whence therefore, Olyan asks, the numerous angels and angelic brigades recorded in the Qumranic and Hekalot texts?

Olyan's answer is that the major source was the exegesis of Scripture. That is to say that many of these theophanic names were drawn out of texts of Scripture by midrashic means, a process that began during the Second Temple period. Examples are the use of Mastema in Jubilees and Qumran texts and the transformation of certain words in the reports of Ezekiel's vision into angelic brigades such as the Galgallim, Hashmallim, and Ophannim. Another source of angelic names are the puzzling words in Scripture, hapax legomena, such as Maasim, Shinanim, and Tapsarim. Instances of exegesis of single names are Abaddon, Doqiel, Hadriel, Lehatim, and Yephephiyya. Thus Olyan argues it was the Jewish exegetical process that served for the naming of angels and angelic brigades rather than the explanations offered in previous theories (e.g., foreign influence, gnosticism, or the problem of divine transcendence and God's inaccessibility to his people).

Olyan's case is convincing for the angelic names that appear in late rabbinic literature and Hekalot texts. He makes no mention, though, of the two hundred rebellious angels and their twenty decarchs, such as Shemihaza(i) and Baraqel, recorded in 1 Enoch 6. Neither would the reader know of the angelic brothers 'Ohyah and Hahyah, of Mahawai the son of Baraqel, or, more importantly, of Gilgamesh or Hubabis (see J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4). To be sure Olyan does refer to Aza(z)el and Mastema, but readers of his book would hardly know of Azazel's role as the counterpart of Enoch in the antediluvian angelology. Olyan does treat the role of Mastema first recorded in Jubilees and its early commentaries, but he makes no mention of Mastema's synonym Belial so frequent in Qumran texts and also in the New Testament. In brief Olyan treats quite adequately the benign angels but ignores the antediluvian rebels.

Inspired by Ezek 1:16, Olyan says, Qumranic exegesis created among others an angelic family called Maasim. There is, however, no reason to believe that maasim in Ezekiel or Qumran refers to angels rather than to angelic acts.

One misses in this monograph any discussion of angelic names in Scripture other than those of Gabriel or Michael. In Genesis 32 and Judges 13 both of the celestial messengers are asked for their names. When Manoah asks the angel the question, "why are you asking for my name?" his answer, "Peli," is obscure. Peli may be the angel's name or an explanation ("It is too wonderful") of why angelic names are not to be revealed to a mortal. The passage in Genesis is different. Here Jacob names the locus of the wrestling Peniel. As Olyan has it Peniel is a mere geographical term not an angelic appellation. However, Jacob's statement, "For I have seen God face to face," strongly suggests that his naming the place Peniel exegeted the angelic name. (4/96)

The Grigori (also known as The Watchers)

2009-02-24T07:27:00.000-08:00

The mysterious eighth order of angels, the gentle Grigori were created by God to be Earthly shepherds of the first humans. The Grigori were both physically and spiritually gigantic, at least by the standards of the people who later wrote about them. They served early humanity as vast reservoirs of information concerning the finer points of civilization, and their selflessness was beyond compare. They were also called the Watchers, as it was their job to observe humanity, lending a helping hand when necessary but not interfering in the course of human development.

As has been implied before, angels -- though filled with God's divine grace -- are eminently corruptible in the corporeal world and, perhaps more importantly, when in the presence of humans. The Grigori, designed as the type of angels farthest from divine, proved to be so much more corruptible that it wasn't long before their enormous zest for life tripped them up, spiritually speaking. They took husbands and wives among the humans and led greatly debauched lives, neglecting their heavenly duties.

Legends tell us that the children the Grigori begot were hideous, misshapen monsters, now known in demonic circles as the Nephalim, and that a group of angels were quickly dispatched to destroy the half-breeds, after which the Grigori were damned to Earth for the remainder of their long lives.

This is mostly true. The Grigori, both for the sin of lust and for neglecting their duties, were banned from Heavenly society, doomed to spend the remainder of their days roaming the Earth. The Seraphim Council believes that even speaking the name of the Grigori disturbs the Symphony -- they refer to them as the Watchers, since that was their original duty. What few angels know, even today, is that besides their more famous gigantic spawn, the malevolent Nephalim, the Grigori did successfully engender half-breed children, part-angel and part human. Angels are strictly forbidden to associate with the Children of the Grigori or, God forbid, any actual remaining Grigori they might run across in the course of a mission.

The Children of the Grigori

It is impossible to speculate on the number of full-blooded Grigori still alive on the Earth. Current estimates range from 50 to none, with most guesses leaning toward none. The clever reader in welcome to infer from their inclusion here that the extinction of the Grigori is wishful thinking.

Their direct descendants, most of whom have no knowledge of their Heavenly heritage, are uncountable. A few underground groups of crossbreeds exist to take care of one another. Children of the Grigori are most dangerous when passing through their teens and early twenties, when for the first time they find their minds pounding with an alien cacophony as the Symphony chimes out through their celestial genes.

A majority of the Grigori's descendants believe themselves to be remnants of an ancient race -- refugees from the mythical sunken continent of Atlantis, for example. There is an element of truth to that. They are, after all, descendants of kind and gentle beings who came from a faraway land with noble if misguided intentions to nurture civilization and inspire happiness.

Most Grigori half-breeds can exert some tiny degree of control over the Symphony that rings in their heads; many of them have been labeled witches and warlocks. Among humans, such people are universally feared and shunned, usually without provocation. Several of these unwitting sorcerers have altered the course of history more radically than the most dramatic actions on the part of either the Host or the Enemy. This is why a growing number of angels consider the Children of the Grigori to be more of a sacred "ace in the hole" rather than loose heavenly cannons, and are considering the possibility of seeking them out for help in the War.

Regardless of what they are called, they are the Children of the Grigori. In unconscious obedience to their heritage, they're one of the last major human forces fighting the flow of civilization towards the Pit.

The Eighth Choir and Free Will

The plight of the Grigori does add substantial fuel to the debate about free will, particularly as it applies to supernatural beings.

Consider: could it be possible that God knew that the Grigori, so wonderfully corruptible, would end up playing a major role in human affairs and, in fact, provide through their progeny a powerful supporting force for the other Choirs in their weakest hour? Yes, yes, and yes. The angels do not even speculate about it. Did He plan it? Sure. He's God.

The thought that God would plan the corruption and persecution of one-eighth of his divine army, just to help support the flagging spirits of a civilization millenia down the line, is pretty disturbing to some angels. It implies that God probably has plans for all of them, whatever free will they may think they have by virtue of their Celestial Forces (which exist outside the Symphony), and has removed any choice they might have in the matter.

It may flesh out your character's motivations to decide whether or not he believes that, as an angel or a demon, he has free will. Angels who do not believe they have free will whould see themselves as literal and not figurative "Hands of God." Existing merely as an extension of the Will of a greater being would certainly give him a different perspective on life.

The Symphony

The Symphony is everything. The lives we live and the reality we feel are just hints of its ultimate complexity. The pattern of the Symphony is inescapable, written in every blade of grass and every star in the sky. It holds all knowable secrets, from the certainty of the present to the promise of tomorrow. In writing the Symphony, God created the heavens and the earth.

And as long as God was making a universe, He took advantage of the opportunity to create Himself as well.

The Celestials -- Angels and Demons
The bene-elohim, the angels, are the intermediary beings set between God and His creation, formed from the light of divinity but clothed in the firmament of reality.

Angels may be of the Symphony, but they are not in it. They are God's instruments, charged with nurturing the Symphony in accordance with their natures. An angel's nature is his resonance, his deep attunement to certain aspects of the complex patterns of creation. Like finely crafted crystal, the actions of angels ring through reality in cool, clear tones.

When an angel acts against his basic nature, it creates the discordant themes of dissonance. The more dissonance an angel holds, the more likely he is to fall from grace. Countless years ago, one-third of the celestial chorus rebelled against their Creator, their companions, and -- worst of all -- themselves. No longer happy as merely instruments of the Symphony, they saw no reason why it should not instead serve them. The rebels, with Archangel Lucifer as their leader, embraced their new dissonant natures, replacing their selfless divinity with the black selfishness of malevolence. They were defeated, hopelessly outnumbered by the loyal celestials led by Archangel Michael. The self-proclaimed bal-elohim, the demons, were cast out of Heaven to live in the celestial realm of Hell, from which they continue to plot the eventual subversion of the Symphony to their own dark visions.

Watching the demons spiral away into blackness taught a harsh lesson to the loyal angels, but even the weight of that painful example hasn't kept the bene-elohim pure. Sometimes an angel cannot help but go against his nature. The lucky ones are able to rid themselves of their dissonance, while others seem determined to fall from grace.

The fallen angels found their natures changed, better suited to evil purpose, though even a demon can be tempted to go against his diabolical nature. While darkness has a resonance all its own, denying their selfish disposition brings painful dissonance even to the darkest of themes. A bal-elohim full of dissonance is a pitiful creature, and while most are killed by their own kind, a tortured few have survived to aspire toward redemption, hoping to regain the divinity they once disdained.

All knowledge is contained within the Symphony, but even the celestials have only the vaguest of access to its inscrutible mysteries. The relative clarity of celestial vision only makes the angels and demons more aware of how little they can ever know and how uncertain the future really is. Angels act as their natures require; most try to avoid the pain of questioning their greater purpose. The demons, likewise, relentlessly pursue their selfish aims, pushing away the constant fear of having chosen the wrong side. All a celestial can do is act as his nature requires, and pray he makes the right decisions.

The War for the Symphony rages as the celestials play their parts -- breaking hearts and shattering souls, hoping for the best. God help the rest.

The ultimate, angels' law,
Indulging every instinct of the soul
There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!
- Robert Browning

The Great Mediterranean Desert

2009-02-24T07:24:00.000-08:00

Lambert Dolphin

Quite a few new scientific discoveries make the evening news, Time or Newsweek, or merit an hour program on the Discovery Channel. Other important finds are neglected sometimes. Perhaps some things are too hard to fit into the prevailing secular scientific world view or have consequences that don't seem to mesh with evidence from other sources. This article deals with a much-neglected discovery in the latter category.

Forty years ago sonar studies through the Mediterranean Sea and into the sea floor below revealed a strange reflecting layer 100-200 meters below the bottom and unexpected stratification of the sediments. Buried sub-bottom salt domes were also detected. The seismic data were tantalizing enough to merit a Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) by the Glomar Challenger beginning in 1970. (1, 2) This amazing ship was equipped with side thrusters for accurate position control, and a drilling rig capable of core sampling the sea floor even through water several miles deep. The first core samples off the coast of Barcelona, Spain did not yield sands, gravels and muds as expected, but gypsum, oceanic basalt, small fossil shells and hardened ocean oozes. The fossils were those one would expect from a shallow salty lagoon, or a surface evaporation pond, yet the water depth at the drilling site was 2000 meters deep.

Subsequent drilling revealed that the floor of the Mediterranean most everywhere was underlain with layers of evaporites, and more fossils such as blue green algae that can live only in sunlit waters. The fossils dated from the end of the Miocene Epoch and were all 5 to 6 million years old on the atomic time scale.

The researchers were reluctantly, but excitedly, driven to the conclusion that the Mediterranean Sea had dried up and refilled a dozen times in a million years. Since the Mediterranean basin is as much as 16,000 feet deep, the dry sea floor must have been an incredible hot desert for long periods of time. The lowest place on earth nowadays is the Dead Sea which is only 1300 feet below sea level. Further studies confirmed that deep gorges in solid rock (now filled with ocean sediments and then river muds) lay under the Nile River and the Rhone River, suggesting that these rivers were once great torrents steeply dropping water into the empty Mediterranean basin. (However, other filled in gorges are also found around the world and are not unique to the Mediterranean). Best of all, the researchers imagined a prehistoric waterfall at the Straits of Gibraltar bringing in Atlantic ocean water with the volume of a hundred Victoria Falls or a thousand Niagara's at intervals lasting a hundred years or more.
Did the Mediterranean Sea really dry up? Was it once a very hot and dry desert? Probably not. There is another possible explanation for the vast salt and mineral deposits found at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Let us explore Australian astronomer Barry Setterfield's hypothesis that atomic time and ordinary calendar time are related by the velocity of light. Using Setterfield's red-shift data to give us the expected value of c for events some millions of years ago in atomic time, we find that the 5 to 6 millions years BP (before the present) in atomic time was between 2875 and 2825 B.C. in ordinary dynamical time! (3) The salt sediments in the Mediterranean would then have been deposited in a mere 75 years, not over a million years, too short a time period for evaporation and refilling processes in the basin.

A tight reading of Old Testament genealogies suggests that the Flood of Noah and the accompanying sudden continental breakup took place only hundreds of years before these salt depositional events in the Mediterranean. (Setterfield's date for the Flood turns out to be 3536 B.C.).

What happened to cause the Flood of Noah? Most of the water for the Flood did not come from the atmosphere--the so-called vapor canopy could have held only a few tens of feet of water. It was the "fountains of the deep" that released the waters of the Deluge, suddenly and abruptly, covering the entire surface of our planet for a year and wiping out all of mankind except for eight persons safe on the Ark of Noah.

As originally created, our universe was evidently not characterized by the Second Law of Thermodynamics--the Law of science which describes how the physical world is running down, falling apart and decaying. It is also quite possible that there was no radioactive decay of the higher-ordered atomic elements before the Fall. It seems reasonable to suppose that natural radioactivity was switched on as a result of the fall of man or the fall of the angels subsequent to creation week.

Setterfield has shown that the total energy released by radioactive decay processes is independent of c, the velocity of light. However assuming radioactivity was indeed switched on suddenly, the shorter-lived radioactive isotopes would have begun to decay rapidly, so there could have been a season of rapid crustal heating during earth's early history. (4) Walter Brown, (5) John Baumgardner and others have proposed a very rapid rupturing of the crust at the time of the Flood. Radioactive decay of the shorter-lived isotopes would have superheated the waters in the crust of the earth. These waters erupting through thousands of feet of water above them would have been very hot--many hundreds of degrees Centigrade. Coming into contact with the colder ocean waters the hot water from the crust could have precipitated the salt layers found under the Mediterranean. Living creatures on the surface could well have been killed suddenly raining debris to the sea floor to add to the salts being rapidly precipitated out in a series of violent events. The Mediterranean basis is already known for its vigorous past vulcanism (Santorini, Vesuvius, Stromboli, etc.). During the years the earth was recovering from the Flood of Noah it is quite possible that what we now know as deep ocean "black smokers" were present everywhere under the Mediterranean Sea.

They could be responsible for the huge copper deposits under Cyprus and the vast salt layers under the Mediterranean sea floor. (5) Of course rapid weather and climate changes were probably taking place during that same time as well. As soon as nature's upheavals had slowed, the civilization of Egypt could have rapidly expanded and European civilization soon after as well.

Earth's past history appears to have been marked by catastrophes and disasters that were denied vehemently in previous generations by secular science, Catastrophes now seem inescapable. Kenneth Hsü's book is exciting reading no matter how you interpret his amazing research results. Walt Brown's book is must reading also for the well-informed who want to form a Biblically-based scientific world view. Above all else, our Creator invites us to learn and understand and to inquire of him--the universe has a more remarkable history than we first imagine and we do not yet know very much at all about the world we live in. "Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it -- the LORD is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things which you have not known." (Jeremiah 33:2,3)

Notes:
1. Hsü, K. J., The Mediterranean was a Desert: A Voyage of the Glomar CHALLENGER. Princeton University Press (1983) 216 p.
2. The Mediterranean is the world's largest inland sea. It lies between the continents of Europe and Africa and is bounded on the east by the westernmost stretches of Asia. Its length is about 4,025 km (2,500 miles), its average width 805 km (500 miles), and its area about 2,965,500 sq km (1,145,000 sq mi). The greatest depth, 5,092 m (16,706 ft), is in the Matapan Trench of the Ionian Basin. The mean depth is about 1,525 m (5,000 ft). (Grolier Encyclopedia, 1996)
3. Setterfield, Barry, Creation and Catastrophe, 1993. Available from Box 318, Blackwood 5051, South Australia. Also see www.ldolphin.org/constc.shtml.
4. Radioactive heating is thought to be the main source of earth's interior heat. A core melt down within the earth with a subsequent redistribution of the elements in the core and crust is a popular model among leading geologists today. See Questions Concerning the Early History of the Earth.
5. Brown, Walter, Ph.D., In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood. On-line book as well as ordering information at http://www.creationscience.com.

Nephilim: The Giants of Genesis

2009-02-24T07:22:00.000-08:00

What The Bible Says About These Legendary Creatures

The mere mention of the word 'giant' conjures up different images in the minds of us all. Some of us immediately think of little David and the giant Goliath. Others perhaps think of Gulliver's Travels, or maybe one of their favorite sci-fi movies such as the Fifty-Foot Woman. The tale of Apollo in one of the first generation Star Trek TV shows is another good candidate. Then of course, we also have Jack And The Beanstalk, Paul Bunyan and the ho-ho-ho Jolly Green Giant! The figures from Roman and Greek mythology also fit well. These are but a few of the many images which have been passed down to us from ancient times up to the current day.

In this paper however, we shall deal with one specific facet of this intriguing topic, i.e., the giants of the Bible. Let me state from the beginning that what follows has been a very exciting revelation for me as I have never undertaken such an in-depth study of this issue of giants. The flow of events from Genesis on up to the links I have discovered with current day events is truly fascinating for me...and I hope it will be for you as well.

GIANTS BEFORE THE GENESIS FLOOD:

That there were giants before the Great Deluge is unquestionable. We have but to read the following in Genesis 6:1-4 to see that this is true:

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,"

"That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."

"And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years."

"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

The common interpretation of these verses accepted by most orthodox Christians, at least those who are even aware of them, is that the 'sons of God' mentioned here is referring to the righteous descendants of Seth (the 3rd son of Adam & Eve), who beheld the beauty of the daughters of the descendants of Cain and made love to them, thus producing giants in the land. If that is what they want to believe, that is their right, but I prefer another interpretation which seems to be more in line with scriptures.

As some reading this will already know, the other interpretation of these verses is what has commonly become known as the Nephilim, or the anunnaki, in certain circles. According to this understanding, the 'sons of God' (with a capital 'G'), is referring to actual spiritual entities in the heavenly realm. These spiritual beings were so entranced by the beauty of earthly women that they forsook their heavenly abode & made love to them. This is what resulted in the giants being born. In some of the apocryphal apocalyptic works (ancient scrolls not included in the Bible), such as the Book of Enoch, these spiritual entities are referred to as the Watchers. According to the accounts I have read in several of these works, these angelic beings had the task of instructing early man on the Earth. Instead however, led by Mastema (Satan), Azazael, Semjaza and others, they rebelled against the Lord and performed their dastardly deeds, thus producing the evil giants known as Nephilim which were from ten to fifteen feet tall.

To the surprise of some, and contrary to what certain Christians might believe, Satan & his followers were at one time (and may still possibly be) allowed to enter the courts of Heaven. Consider the following verse which refers to the angelic beings as 'sons of God':

"Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD." (Job 2:1)

This same verse is repeated several times throughout this book. Interesting indeed! Not only are spiritual beings referred to as 'sons of God,' but Satan is counted among them as well! There is some dispute regarding exactly when the book of Job was written. Some say that it is actually the oldest book in the King James Bible written even before the Pentateuch. If this is true, and I will not say one way or the other, perhaps it is possible that Job's testing by Satan occurred before Satan/Lucifer had completely rebelled against God. Perhaps at that time he was just being a pest. Isaiah 14:5deals more directly with this topic of Lucifer's rebellion and fall, as do some of the other apocryphal works I have read. The main point we have established with this verse is that spiritual beings were referred to as 'sons of God' and Satan was counted among them without a doubt. And a final point to enforce this idea: Jesus was referred to as both the Son of God, and as the son of man due to the fact that He was the result of a union between a human woman and a spiritual being, just like these giants. The primary difference is that His birth was the direct will of God & He came to fulfill a positive objective.

The above understanding adds a lot of weight to the argument that the 'sons of God' mentioned in Genesis six are in fact spiritual beings, the Watchers, & not earthly humans as is accepted by orthodox Christianity. Considering that Satan is already at work in the first chapter of Job, this seems to confirm the Book of Enoch when it says that Lucifer, a.k.a. Mastema, spearheaded this renegade band of spirits when they came down to the Earth to rape the human women...although, considering that even Satan can appear as an angel of light, we can only wonder if it was really rape, or if these women were mesmerized and seduced into believing these fiends were actually handsome...such as in 'you handsome devil, you!' The apocryphal scrolls state this very thing, that they were indeed handsome creatures.

While some may question whether or not these spiritual creatures were actually evil, aside from what we read in the Book of Enoch, the surrounding verses in the book of Genesis which explain the consequences of their actions, also indicate that they were. God was apparently angered by the rebellious action of these demons, so much so that Genesis 6:3 tells us that God either immediately cut man's lifespan to 120 years, or else He decided at that point that He would send the flood 120 years later to completely wipe out all of the descendants of these evil hybrids. Again, the

interpretation of this 120 years mentioned in verse three is another topic of controversy within Christian circles. I will mention that it was approximately 120 years after the words were uttered in verse three that the Flood did in fact come. It will also be noted that after Noah and his immediate descendants, the average lifespan of man did in fact begin to decline rapidly from the hundreds of years he had lived before. There are different theories regarding what caused this: curse of God, genetic disorder due to sin in man's heart, removal of the band of water circling the Earth after the Flood, etc. We can discuss this at another
time.

But to conclude this section, consider this question:

Could it be that the 'Nephilim' in Genesis six were trying for a pre-emptive strike to destroy God's ultimate plan for humanity, that of salvation? It seems highly likely. Perhaps their early invasion of Earth was their feeble attempt to set up their own kingdom before the arrival of the Christ child. If they had been in control, perhaps they could have prevented His birth, or at least made sure that their pawn Herod had done the job right, thus foiling God's plan and jeopardizing humanity.

GIANTS AFTER THE GENESIS FLOOD:

That there were giants after the Flood is undeniable...but the question is, 'Were they direct descendants of the Nephilim, or were they just the result of some human genetic disorder which occurred in Noah's descendants some time after the Flood?

I first heard of the giants many years ago from a preacher who also said that Goliath was a descendant of these giants. However, the problem is that according to Genesis, except for the eight members of Noah's family _ALL_ life was destroyed. To believe that these giants somehow survived contradicts the Genesis account, and basically says that God failed in His plan to eradicate His 1st creation which had been corrupted & turned evil. Granted, if we accept the interpretation of Genesis six that the Nephilim were giants resulting from a spiritual/human sexual union, this may have given them some physical advantage, but still, the flood waters rose way above the highest mountains, and it was a global flood...& Genesis does say that _ALL_ life was destroyed. Now, in spite of the mixed seed, these giants were still human, so I don't think they could walk on water like Jesus did. Besides, that would still contradict the word 'ALL'. The only other possibility is to accept that they were airlifted by the demons who had spawned them to begin with...but again, that would mean that God's plan failed...which I don't believe.

This is indeed a perplexing issue for me...particularly in light of the fact that there is clear evidence of giants in the Bible way after the Flood. Consider these verses from Numbers 13:22-33 where Moses sends Joshua, Caleb & company to spy out the promised land of Canaan:

"And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)"

"Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there."

"And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature."

"And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."

Here we have first mention of the sons of Anak, also know as the Anunnaki or the Anakims. Here are additional verses which tell of the same thing and the same people:

"A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!" (Deuteronomy 9:2)

"And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a part among the children of Judah, according to the commandment of the LORD to Joshua, even the city of Arba the father of Anak, which city is Hebron." (Joshua 15:13)

"And Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak." (Joshua 15:14)

"And they gave them the city of Arba the father of Anak, which city is Hebron, in the hill country of Judah, with the suburbs thereof round about it." (Joshua 21:11)

"And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said: and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak." (Judges 1:20)

Aside from the fact that the above verses are important to the discussion of Biblical giants, there is a much deeper more important significance to these events. It was extremely important to the Lord that His people via Moses, Joshua & Caleb, gain control of Hebron, the headquarters of the Anakims, the Anunnaki, the Nephilim, whatever you prefer to call them. We know from Biblical history that before being called Hebron, this city was known as Arba or Arbah. This city has been important to the Lord since the days of Abraham. In Genesis 35:27 we read:

"And Jacob came unto Isaac his father unto Mamre, unto the city of Arbah, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned."

Arba, or Hebron, later became King David's headquarters who was an ancestor of Jesus himself. Even back then, God was preparing Israel for the arrival of their King & the Saviour of the world. In our current day, Hebron has once again grabbed the headlines & world attention in a big way as the Jews and Palestines negotiate over this very town. Since the beginning of time, Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, has played a very important role in world history, and in God's ultimate plan. The spiritual war revealed in the Garden of Eden, later heightened by the arrival of the Nephilim, has been going on ever since...and the Bible tells us that it will end in the very area of the world where it began!

Notice also that in Joshua 15:13 & 21:11 we are informed that the father of Anak was Arba. It was a usual occurrence to name a city after a personage, just as it is today. Upon conquering Arba, they renamed it Hebron (or Hevron). I don't have any further information on Arba, but it would be interesting to find out how the sons of Anak, the Anakims, came to possess it to begin with after Abraham's days. There must be some close connection there. What is interesting is that Arbah is very close to the name Abraham...and in Aramaic, 'Abba' means father...and Abraham was the father of the Hebrews. Could it be that the city was initially named after Abraham when he sojourned there, and that Anak's father acquired his name of Arba because he was born in the town of that name? I really have no resources to verify this theory.

Contrary to what one might think, in spite of this conquest of what later became known as Hebron, this is not the last we hear of these evil giants. Even after this victory by Joshua, Caleb and the rest, the Anakims still had a stronghold...and this is also very significant as it is also a place which is currently a part of the whole Israeli-Palestinian problem:

"There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained." (Joshua 11:22)

Briefly, what happened after this is that the children of Israel fell in and out of favor with the Lord due to their disobedience and hardness of heart. Each time, the Lord would punish them by allowing their enemies to conquer them. In the following key verses, the Philistines have conquered the Hebrews and stolen the Ark of the Covenant which contained all of the holy items such as Aaron's rod, the books of the law, etc. Little did they realize their grave mistake until it was too late. Each town the Ark was taken to, which included Gath, the stronghold of the Anakims (or descendants of the sons of Anak), the Lord would smite the inhabitants until finally, nobody wanted it anymore. So the Philistines consulted their 'high priests' and it was decided that they would return the Ark to the Israelites & even include a few gifts just to make sure they were back on good terms with the Hebrew God:

"They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about unto Gath. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel about thither." ( 1 Samuel 5:8)

"And these are the golden emerods which the Philistines returned for a trespass offering unto the LORD; for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Askelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one;" (1 Samuel 6:17)

After this, there was about a twenty year span during which time the Israelites again began to worship other gods. So as before, the Lord sent the Philistines to fight against them again. Fearing the worst, the Israelites sought the prophet Samuel to intervene before the Lord for them, which he did, & there was wrought a great victory for the Hebrews that day. The Bible does not go into great detail regarding this battle, but it appears that there was some kind of miraculous intervention. This resulted in the following:

"And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron even unto Gath; and the coasts thereof did Israel deliver out of the hands of the Philistines. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites." (1 Samuel 7:14)

Notice that Gath of the Anakims was included in the spoil. After this, the Bible tells us that there is a period of peace but that the Israelites once again begin to complain against the Lord and have rejected Him as their true and rightful spiritual King. Some of the Israelites then demand that a human king be set over them. The Bible then records that Samuel eventually anoints Saul as the first king of Israel due to the hardness of their hearts. It isn't long before Saul likewise displeases the Lord, and the Lord rejects him as being king. We then get into the story of the power struggle between the house of Saul & the house of David during which time the Philistines once again attack the Israelites...and this time they have a giant of a hero named Goliath...a descendant of the Anakims. This guy was somewhere between nine to over eleven feet tall depending on which lengths you accept for the cubit and the span. We all know the story. With the anointing of God, David the young shepherd boy slays the Anakim giant and the Philistine army flees before the forces of Israel all the way back to Gath:

"And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span." (1 Samuel 17:4)

"And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines, and spake according to the same words: and David heard them." (1 Samuel 17:23)

"And the men of Israel and of Judah arose, and shouted, and pursued the Philistines, until thou come to the valley, and to the gates of Ekron. And the wounded of the Philistines fell down by the way to Shaaraim, even unto Gath, and unto Ekron." (1 Samuel 17:52)

In a strange twist of fate, David flees from Saul who refuses to give up his kingship, and ends up seeking refuge with his very enemies, Achish, the king of Gath who is a Philistine:

"And David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath." (1 Sam. 21:10)

"And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath." (1 Sam. 21:12)

"And David arose, and he passed over with the six hundred men that were with him unto Achish, the son of Maoch, king of Gath." (1 Samuel 27:2)

"And David dwelt with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, & Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal's wife." (1 Samuel 27:3)

"And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him." (1 Samuel 27:4)

We are then told that David dwells several years with Achish, the King of Gath. Eventually, the Philistines war again against Israel & Saul his three sons are killed in battle. While Achish participated in this battle against Saul & the Israelites, it is interesting to note that the Philistine lords did not trust David, so he was sent back to the land of the Philistines & had no hand in the death of Saul. Actually, Saul is seriously wounded during the war so falls upon his own sword as his armourbearer refuses to kill him. His armourbearer then also proceeds to take his own life. We later find out that an Amalekite comes upon Saul who has fallen upon his sword & is in great agony, but has not yet died, so this man, at Saul's request, finishes the job for him. Eventually the Philistines arrive and cut off the head of Saul and carry it through the Philistine citiesto brag of their deeds. As to the man who did a mercy killing on Saul. David had him slain because, even though Saul had turned against David, David still considered him the Lord's annointed. As far as Achish is concerned, there is no further mention of him. We can only assume that peace remained between him and David because of the kindnesses they had shown to each other...even though later David (and others) took the city of Gath.

The account of David and Goliath of Gath can also be found in the book of Second Samuel as well as in the book of First Chronicles. These books provide a little more detail about the destruction of Goliath the giant of Gath & his four sons: Ishbibenob, Saph (or Sippai), Lahmi, and a fourth unnamed son who were also giants. In these books, Goliath is referred to as Goliath the Gittite:

"And Ishbibenob, which was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of brass in weight, he being girded with a new sword, thought to have slain David." (2 Sam. 21:16)

"But Abishai the son of Zeruiah succoured him, and smote the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David sware unto him, saying, Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that thou quench not the light of Israel." (2 Samuel 21:17)

"And it came to pass after this, that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob: then Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Saph, which was of the sons of the giant." (2 Samuel 21:18)

"And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam." (2 Samuel 21:19)

"And there was yet a battle in Gath, where was a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was born to the giant." (2 Samuel 21:20)

"And when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea the brother of David slew him." (2 Samuel 21:21)

"These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants." (2 Samuel 21:22)

"And it came to pass after this, that there arose war at Gezer with the Philistines; at which time Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Sippai, that was of the children of the giant: and they were subdued." (1 Chronicles 20:4)

"And there was war again with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam." (1Chronicles 20:5)

"And yet again there was war at Gath, where was a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and twenty, six on each hand, and six on each foot: and he also was the son of the giant." (1 Chronicles 20:6)

"But when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea David's brother slew him." (1 Chron. 20:7)

"These were born unto the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants." (1Chronicles 20:8)

With the death of Goliath & eventually his immediate family, this did not end the wars between the Israelites & the Philistines. However, it must have weakened them considerably as we find several examples of the destruction of the Philistine cities of the giants. Speaking of David, we find:

"Now after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them, and took Gath and her towns out of the hand of the Philistines." (1 Chronicles 18:1)

And then there is Uzziah:

"And he went forth and warred against the Philistines, and brake down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities about Ashdod, and among the Philistines." (2 Chronicles 26:6)

We also have the Syrian King Hazael:

"Then Hazael king of Syria went up, and fought against Gath, and took it: and Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem." (2 Kings 12:17)

So it appears that beginning with the death of Goliath the giant of Gath, a son of the Anak, we have the beginning of the end of what is left of the Anakim. There are a few other light mentions of Gath in the Bible, but no further mention of the sons of Anak, or of any giants. Whether any of the other Philistine inhabitants of Gath, Ashdod, Jabneh, Arba or Gaza were giants, we really don't know. If they were, there is no specific mention of them in the Bible.

As mentioned earlier in this paper, no direct Biblical connection can be found between the giants of Genesis, commonly known as the Nephilim, and these later giants called the sons of the Anak. The Flood would have seemingly made it impossible. The fact that mere humans with the anointing of God were able to destroy this second group of giants also seems to indicate that these were not the same as the Nephilim. I prefer to think of them, (the Anak), as a genetic aberration. Consider that at least one of Goliath's sons had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. Perhaps Goliath did as well, but the Bible doesn't state this.

There is, however, one very interesting point I would like to bring up here. In the Old Testament, there are only four books where the devil is mentioned by the name of Satan. They are in Job, Psalms, Zechariah, & I Chronicles. In other places he is referred to as Lucifer or as a serpent or dragon. What I find interesting is that this last mention of 'Satan' is found exactly one verse after the four sons of
Goliath are slain. This verse says:

"And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel." (1 Chronicles 21:1)

The Devil was very upset that the seed of the Anak had been destroyed by David and his servants. Remember earlier how I mentioned that the war has been going on since Genesis to stop the Christ child from being born? Perhaps there is more here with the Anak than meets the eye...or perhaps they were just mortal men, albeit BIG ones, heavily influenced by Satan to fulfill his devious plan.

At any rate, having lost some of his best pawns, Lucifer then persuaded David to make a census of the children of Israel. This greatly displeased the Lord, and because of David's sin, 70,000 people were slain of the Israelites. But that isn't all. This same chapter tells us that the Lord sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem because of David's sin. We read that David lifts up his eyes and actually sees this angel:

"And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces." (1 Chronicles 21:16)

David regrets his mistake and the Lord repents of His desire to destroy the city. After David purchases some land from Ornan (who also sees the angel with his four sons), and makes a burnt offering to the Lord, read what happens next in 1 Chronicles 21:26-30:

"And David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering."

"And the LORD commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof."

"At that time when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there."

"For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at Gibeon."

"But David could not go before it to enquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the LORD."

Right after the defeat of the biblical giants, the sons of Anak, who some refer to as the Nephilim or Anunnaki, Lucifer causes David to blow it, and then we have this wonderful celestial visitation which is witnessed by at least six or more people. Now if this angel was seen suspended between the Earth and the Sky with his sword _over_ Jerusalem, and David clearly saw him as did the others, either this guy was very big, as was his sword, or else this is referring to something else.

Once we have the altar built, as in other instances in the Bible, the Lord confirms His presence by 'shooting' fire down upon the altar. Notice in the final verse that it says that David is afraid because of the angel's sword. It seems to me that there is a connection here between this large sword over Jerusalem, and the fire coming down to consume
the sacrifice.

Either we have one powerful lightening bolt here, or else this is another confirmation of the Lord's advanced technology. I leave the reader to decide for yourself. As I type this, I think too of the awesome destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah by two of the Lord's angels.

Whatever the case may be, this is one powerful event which follows the destruction of the Anakim, the giants of the Bible. As stated previously, I find it quite interesting that two areas of Israel which were once under domination of the Philistine giants, the Anakim, (i.e., Gaza and Hebron), are today once again the subjects of war, violence & international diplomacy. Could this be symbolic of the greater spiritual war which is going on? If these Nephilim, & Anakim or anunnaki are indeed related to each other in some way, could it be that they are once again preparing for war to try to stop the rightful heir of David from coming back to Earth to claim His own? It is certainly a sobering thought to consider.

With that, we bring this study of the giants of the Bible to a close. This has been quite an adventure for me in the wonderful Word of God. I trust that it has been as enlightening and as fruitful for you the reader as well. Any comments, pro or con, or any additional concrete supporting evidence would be greatly appreciated.

The Genesis of History

2009-02-24T06:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.adamqadmon.com/nephilim/antepositive.html
Contra Mundum
No. 2 Winter 1992

The Genesis of History
by T.E. Wilder
Copyright 1992 Contra Mundum

Headings

* Positively Antediluvian!
* History of the New World
* The Lessons of Biblical History
* New Covenant Times
* Evangelical Evasions

A biblical theology of history gives the basic model for historical interpretation that sees the kingship of Christ as central to the unfolding of events, yet does not make meaningless what takes place outside the church. Other philosophies achieve a Christocentric view of history at the price of making "true" history hidden or mystically religious, leaving the world apart from the church without significance; or pursue a barren abstract universal history without evaluating specific events in terms of God's kingdom. A biblical theology can be applied by the working historian.

Of course I do not intend to write an historical history. There are enough histories, many of them well written, in which the problem of the city's creation and development are treated for every part of the world. The Aztec city, the polis, the urbs, and the medieval free town have retained few of their secrets. But beside and under this superficial history there is a true history. There is Jesus Christ, who, in the approximate words of Karl Barth, makes history, because he is history. To state this brilliant but delphic formula more explicitly, there are forces running through history that form its substratum - the horsemen of Revelation - and which because of Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ are in permanent action as the explanation and the reality of history. These forces are the very form of his action. -- Jacques Ellul[1]

Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a great image representing the successive kingdoms of man ends with its destruction by a rock cut out without human hands, which smashes the image completely and then becomes a mountain that fills the whole earth. As Daniel explains: "In the times of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to other people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever." (Daniel 2:44) Though Daniel says "the dream is true and its interpretation trustworthy" historians find it extremely difficult to write their specific accounts of the past with such a theological interpretation of the events in view.

How does the historian make sense of the claim that Jesus Christ is the central active power in history? Jacques Ellul shows us one way. As a Barthian he expounds a history beyond history, or as he puts it, a history not historical. As with Barth's theology this history is highly Christocentric. But his Christ is somehow elusive, beyond access of the methods of the ordinary working historian whose business it is, after all, to write historical history, to reconstruct facts and actualities based on evidence.

As we go further into Ellul's philosophy of history the working historian's problems deepen. Only in Christ is there history, and the nations outside Christendom are outside history. Paganism has no history. Can the historian really do serious work from this perspective? Can he really afford to set aside what transpires in the larger world? Isn't Ellul really redefining history, so that true history now appears strange and esoteric, something just for theologians? But even within Christendom Ellul seems not to care about the stuff of history. "Jesus takes no part in the city. He rejects her money, arms, sciences. He ignores the capital and the progress of civilization. He knows that if he accepts man's wandering, he is building the kingdom where man will finally be able to come home from his millennial flight and find his full development in truth."[2] Here we have a rather Bultmannian concept of Christianity. True history is something hidden that happens along side of the apparent history. The Kingdom does not transform apparent history as it grows, rather Jesus "refuses man the possibility of settling down in the city, ... he 'sends forth' his disciples, with no respite, ... he condemns the city..."[3] Instead of seeking his security by creating a stable, even beautiful culture, the disciple must seek security only in Christ while following the cultural wandering of true discipleship. (But if they don't care about material and cultural security, why are Barth, Bultmann and Ellul all socialists?)

Yet despite the problem of how to make its claims concrete the Church proclaims that Christ is the meaning of history. The very times are called bc and ad in relation to his life of earth, and he is now the enthroned Lord of whose kingdom there will be no end. Furthermore, in the quotation at the head of this essay Ellul puts his finger on the right text. Revelation does depict the sovereign direction by Christ of history and his active participation in it in relation to his covenant people. How then can the point of view of the theologian and that of the historian be put together?

I met a shocked reaction when I once described Ellul's views to a Dooyeweerdian. Of course the pagans have history! The modal spheres are an aspect of creation and unfold the meaning of creation for all creation. The pagans are as much God's work as anyone else; the universality of history cannot be denied.

But how are the modal spheres related to the specific action of Jesus Christ? How are his Church and his Kingdom related to the universal spheres of meaning that develop in creation? Here speculative philosophy can provide many generalities, but is not much help to the working historian who wants to interpret the meaning for God's Kingdom of the particular events in his area of study. Even harder is to determine the meaning for these events of God's Kingdom. That is, it is hard for the historian to see how Christ is shaping historical events to bring the fullness of his kingdom.

But if the Bible gives us a guide to interpreting history we can get beyond speculative generalities to make progress on the project of writing history with a definite Christian interpretation. Because the Bible is an historical book we would expect to find the beginning of a Biblical interpretation of history at the beginning of the Bible. We turn therefore to Genesis for a primer on what makes history go.

Positively Antediluvian!

Even in the antediluvian era several basic principles of historical action are highlighted in the text. The historical period following the Flood is more continuous with us (some of the nations from the Table of Nations in Genesis 11 are still around). But there is greater and increasing complexity in this period and the historical flow must be interpreted with greater subtlety. It is well, therefore, to begin at the beginning.

The fall of man into sin brought guilt and corruption on all mankind and a curse on the earth. The effect of the fall and the curse was universal. Nevertheless there is a division introduced into mankind, not by sin, but by grace. "The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor." This division became a historical division. Genesis traces out a development of the society founded by Cain and portrays its character. After Cain killed his brother he went east. Cain founded a community by building a city. Thus he bequeathed a legacy to his descendants. After a genealogy of religious sounding names we reach Lamech, the seventh from Adam. Because the seventh generation completes, that is, epitomizes the line of Cain, we get here a portrait of this community. This includes the only women named between Eve, in Genesis 4:1, and Sarai the wife of Abram, in Genesis 11:29. Lamech, not satisfied with one wife, marries two, Adah and Zillah. His daughter Naamah is also named. Gordon Wenham suggests that these names may mean Pretty, Tinkle and Pleasant, and correlate with the remark in Genesis 6:2 that the daughters of men were fair, i.e. they sounded nice, looked nice, and were nice to be around (he also points to the parallel in Song of Songs 2:14).[4] In this context this might suggest that Lamech wanted to have the attractions of the three women for himself, and was not willing to forego something that appealed to him. Lamech also killed a man and announced or demanded to be avenged 77 times as opposed to Cain's seven times. Thus the violence of this family also is accented in the seventh generation.

At the same time the line of Cain develops culture. Lamech's son Jabal was the father of all cattlemen, and his brother Jubal the father of all who play the harp and flute. Notice that they are not just said to invent these things. Rather they are "fathers". Those who came after are indebted to them for their breakthroughs. Thus we have historical development among the ungodly.

They are part of history for they contribute to universal history. Jabal is the "father" of Abraham who also lived in a tent and raised cattle.

We should also notice Tubal-Cain and his sister Naamah. Tubal-Cain was a metal worker. There is another passage in biblical history which surely bears on this. In I Kings 14:21-31 there is the story of Rehoboam's rule in Judah. This account opens and closes with the curious remark that "His mother's name was Naamah." Judah fell into idolatrous worship and Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem and took away all the treasures of the temple and the royal palace which Solomon had had made. The very odd feature of this story is that almost nothing is said about this remarkable attack. The emphasis falls on the sequel where Rehoboam replaced the gold shields with bronze ones. Besides decay from gold to bronze, symbolizing the difference between Solomon and Rehoboam (recall Nebuchadnezzar's image), there is an implicit backwards reference to Tubal-Cain, that other worker in bronze who was the son of another notorious polygamist and related to a Naamah. The royal line of Judah through Rehoboam is taking on the characteristics of the Cainite line: apostasy, tyranny, and violence. An historical character is shared by two widely separated developments, an historical analogy.

Finally, though the Cainite line is wiped out in the flood, what they accomplished is not wholly lost, for the arts and crafts it developed are transmitted by the godly who inherit the new world. This is the second major element after grace. Judgement cuts short certain lines of development, but without necessarily nullifying everything that was accomplished within that historical sequence.

Turning to Adam's line through Seth we find much more detail of development. This is the more important history, the major theme (and it comes second, a frequent pattern in Genesis). Not everything in history deserves the same emphasis. Here we also find another major historical principle: providence. These antediluvian patriarchs seem much like the Cainites. Both lines have a Lamech and an Enoch. In fact, as Wenham shows, the names generally are very much alike. -

Line of Seth Line of Cain
Quenan Cain
Mahalalel Enoch
Yared Irad
Enoch Mehuya'el
Methuselah Methusha'el
Lamek Lamek
Noah & sons Jabal, Jubal, Tubal-Cain

If we were to exchange the places of Enoch and Mehuya'el in the second list, the two lists would correspond very closely.[5]
Beyond this surface similarity of the godly and the ungodly lie deeper workings of providence. The members of the line of Seth live for strange periods of time that match the periods of planets,[6] and are thus distinguishable as God's heavenly people by the keen observer who takes the long term view of lives and events. In addition the seventh generation also epitomizes this genealogical line (cf. Jude 14). Enoch walks with God until God takes him away.
Thus we observe several broad principles of historical action:

* Grace which introduces a division into mankind by opening up a new line of development and a separate destiny for the distinct groups.

* Continuity of development within the each historical-cultural group.

* God's providence not only in the overall flow of history, but in subtle details of the lives of the godly, which mark them out as distinct.

* A significance and legacy for general history of a particular group within a period of history.

The New World

The Flood story itself, when contrasted to pagan accounts, reveals a commentary on the historical process which is often overlooked. In the pagan Mesopotamian accounts men became a nuisance for the gods by multiplying too much and creating a great hubbub on earth. The gods, except for one, resolved to destroy humanity. The one intervened to rescue a single family and perpetuate humanity. After the flood there is a new arrangement in which the gods decree a limitation on human population. In the Bible's account it is the great violence in the world that leads to the flood, and following the flood there is a new decree and covenant to limit violence together with a command for man to multiply and fill the world. Thus the Bible places a unique emphasis on expansion and growth in its account of the mandate for post-flood history.

The Flood initiates a major transition in history, a new beginning. There are others. God calls Abram to make a special nation through which to channel his work, and the greatest transformation is the New Covenant which comes through Jesus Christ. Are the older transformations only prefigurements of the New Covenant leading up to Christ or do they also indicate a pattern which God's providential direction continues to produce, even in our time? Should we, for example, understand the patristic age, the mediæval period, and the time from the Reformation until now as among the distinct phases of God's work in history marked by revolutionary transitions from one to another?[7]

These questions about continuity and change in history, and what patterns of divine action the Bible allows us to carry forward to our own time, are related to debates about the significance of God's covenants with Abraham and at Sinai. There is disagreement about how radical a divergence in God's dealings with the new covenant groups is implied by these covenants.

As a result it is very controversial to extrapolate parallels from those covenant histories to our own times. Therefore, let us look closely at pre-Abrahamic history to see what can be learned.

Of course, this pre-Abrahamic history cannot really be separated from the Abrahamic covenant because from its beginning there is already an element in the historical development related to that covenant. In Genesis 9, in the story of the sin of Ham, there is a suggestion of an election of Shem in a way that was not made explicit for Seth, and there is a third brother, neither cursed like Ham nor blessed like Shem. We are told that Canaan the son of Ham is cursed, whereas the territory of Japheth is to be extended. God, however, is called the God of Shem, and Shem receives the blessing that God will dwell in his tents.

There follows what is commonly called the Table of Nations, seventy in all, but which the text calls the account, or history, of Shem, Ham and Japheth. The Japheth group is very surprising, once we have looked at Ham and Shem and noted the contrasts. Japheth's seven sons are Gomer (Cimmerians, southern Russia and later Asia Minor), Magog, Madia (Medes), Yavan (Ionians, i.e. Greeks), Tubal and Meshek (northern Anatolia), and Tyras (Anatolian or Aegean region). They and their sons, so far as they can be confidently identified, are all Indo European and lived west or north of the region of Ararat. Indo-Europeans are a linguistic and (though it is now politically correct to deny it) a cultural group. The various Indo-European languages became distinct generally through a process of divergence over time. Thus what we have here is a group which does not appear to have become involved in the confusion of languages at Babel, due to not having gone there in the first place, and who migrated away from the area that would be the center of main historical development for the next several millennia. Thus they largely fall out of the picture of Biblical history until the time of the exile of Judah in Babylon.

In the sections for Ham and Shem we find a much more confused situation. The names for two major language families were derived by early linguists from the Table of Nations. 'Semitic' languages spoken by Jews, Arabs, and others, were thought to derive from Shem, and certain African languages were formerly called 'hamitic'. This categorization is misleading. In the first place the Bible's Hamitic peoples mostly speak a 'semitic' language or one, like Egyptian, which is related to, and seems partly derived from the semitic language family.[8] One odd exception is the Hittites. Their language appears partly Indo-European but this is usually explained as a case analogous to India where an non-European people was ruled by an Indo-European upper cast. There is special emphasis in the text of this chapter on the Canaanite Hamite group because they and their land figure so prominently later on. It would have been better to name the 'semitic' languages 'hamitic', especially in view of their two most prominent modern members, Canaanite (of which Hebrew is one dialect), and the languages of the Arabian peninsula and some adjacent areas of Africa. The Canaanite people are an historical parallel to the antediluvians, for the Canaanite culture (the alphabet, the 'Hebrew' language, their poetry) survived their judgement and destruction, and was inherited by others, even entering the Bible to a significant degree in the poetical books. The historical 'dead ends' are really not dead ends.

The Shem family section is the most complex and intriguing. It has been suggested that the Sumerians were Shemites.[9] If so, they head a list of distinct language families. Sumerian is not known to be related to any other language.[10] Elam, the eastern neighbor, is Elamo-Dravidian, related to languages of mostly southern India. Ashur and Aram, though, are 'semitic', but Lud, if father of the Lydians, is not (but it is Afro-Asiatic). Here the confusion of languages predominates even more than in the case of Ham's descendants.

Wenham helps us to see the Babel story as an episode in the dispute over covenant succession among the descendants of Shem. Already we noticed that a greater election and promise for one group over another is present in Noah's prophesy and blessing for his sons. There is a sense in which God is with Shem's descendants for a special purpose. We also see introduced a theme which receives tremendous stress in the accounts of the patriarchs - the dispute, especially between brothers, over the right to inherent this promise. A narrative pattern from the antediluvian genealogies is repeated here. The 'false' line is given first, before the elect one. Thus we are told Cain's story before Seth's, and Ham's before Shem's (and in chapters 36 and 37 we will get the account of Esau before Jacob's).

Two sons were born to Shem's great-grandson Eber (the father of the Hebrews), Peleg and Joktan. We get Joktan's story first. He is the father of the Arabs. Wenham notes: "Tribes in southern Arabia claim that pure Arabs are descended from Qahtãn [Yoqtan]. The connection of Yoqtan with South Arabia seems to be confirmed by the names of his sons."[11] They are said (in 10:30) to live in the eastern hill country. Here the list of descendants temporarily breaks off at this sideline. The next chapter takes up the historical narrative of the settling of the world. Men moving east (it nowhere says this was everybody) find a plain in Shinar. They propose to build a city and a tower to make a name (shem in Hebrew) for themselves, and avoid being scattered. Already in the preceding section on Ham we were told that his descendants, particularly Nimrod, were active in this area. But, as we all know, God stopped this project through the confusion of languages, and scattered the people.[12]

The next sentence is "This is the account of Shem". We backtrack to Shem, and get his genealogy once again, but it ignores Joktan entirely, proceeding from Eber, to Peleg, and on to his son Reu. After a few generations we reach Nahor, Terah, and Abram. It is to Abram that God next addresses a promise and a blessing. "I will make you into a great nation and I will make your name (shem) great, and you will be a blessing."

Thus the story of the two lines, which first appeared with Cain and Seth, is repeated, this time with two branches of Shem. Certain people (Joktan) went east like Cain and in rebellion against God built cities. In fact we could say, founded great nation states and cultures from which a great cultural heritage comes down to us. Further, we see echoes of this purpose and identity in the cultures of Shinar (Assyria and Babylon) through succeeding millennia as they tried to impose their rule on the whole world, through the methods of Nimrod. But their basic project of claiming to be God's true people, and controlling the access to heaven was frustrated by God. After a few more generations God chose someone (Abram) from another Shemite line of descent (Peleg) to carry out his purposes in a surprising way, as He had chosen Noah.

Clearly to be seen here once again are the principles of division introduced through God's gracious promise, continuity of historical development and great achievement by the ungodly, and God's providential control of history both in dramatic judgment and quietly in the lives of individuals. New elements are:

* An explicit election and blessing of a group as God's special instrument in history.

* Rivalry over who is the true inheritor of that promise.

* A presumptuous attempt to redefine God's election and program in the terms preferred by rebellious humanity.

* Besides those who are elected to the messianic line of promise, and those who are cursed, there is a third group of those who are far off, but not outside the ultimate scope of God's salvific plan.

* The inheritance by others of the cultural attainments of the wicked who are cut off.

Biblical History Lessons

To summarize our Biblical study let us relate it to the issues introduced at the start of this essay. Is there a center to historical action, and what is it? We have seen that there is a direction and promise generally in view through all of early history and it gets sharper as we approach the call of Abram. God is going to raise up a Seed, someone of special importance and blessing to all mankind. Throughout the early period this is fairly vague, but there are those who rebel against God's purposes and those whose rebellion takes the form of trying to hijack God's program, as at Babel. From our vantage point we know that the promise to Shem finally achieved its fulfillment in Christ. Thus he was at the center of pre-Abrahamic history as that history moved toward and engaged in a struggle related to the coming of Christ.

Was this history universal, or does a Biblical valuation of history only concern itself with the people who carry the promise? After the Flood rebellious groups who did not inherit the promise were sometimes concerned with it, as in the Joktan line of Shem, who tried to be the true Shem by building a single world center and gate to heaven. It is that very rebellion that produced a phenomenon highly important to history, the confusion of languages. This would have happened anyway due to scattering and the passage of time leading to divergences among peoples out of touch with each other - just what the Babelites were trying to avoid - but not to as radical a degree. Second, great achievements are made even by, or especially by, those who are judged and cut off. The line of Cain extended the domestication of cattle, and developed metallurgy and musical instruments. The Canaanites left their literary instrument, the phonetic alphabet, and poetic culture to Israel, and through the Bible to us. The descendants of Shem and Ham who rebelled in Babylon left us urban culture, instruments of economic management, and the beginnings of science.

In this connection we should bear in mind, what is seldom noticed, that the judgment at Babel was itself an important new act of divine creation. The new languages were not degenerate fragments of the original language as gnostic and occult views would suggest, but marvelous new systems of ideation and expression. When we debate the value of Greek and Latin culture for Christian society we should not forget what was recovered for God's people from Jabal, Jubal, Tubal-Cain, Babylon, and the Canaanites. A study of the Psalms with this in view would be especially valuable.

New Covenant Times

So far avoided have been the problems raised by God's special calling and covenants with Abraham and Israel. Where they are concerned there are those who deny that parallels from these histories can properly be made to the general history of ancient times and to post-Advent history. The even greater problem of discontinuity in history is introduced by the New Covenant. Does the Church drop out of history to dedicate itself to its own new goals and destiny, while everything else just marks time until the whole number of the elect is gathered? If this is so, we should expect the discontinuity to be made clear in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, and especially in the Kingdom parables. I, however, will not drag the reader through a discussion of these matters. Instead, for the present discussion, I will assume that the general picture of history laid out in the early chapters of Genesis still holds, although with appropriate transformations.

What are these transformations? It is sometimes said that the Old Testament looks forward to the coming of Christ, and rest of history looks back on it. In an important sense this is true. The forward direction of Biblical history as it moves towards the reception of God's promise is evident. It is also the case that the New Covenant Church looks back, in that it places tremendous emphasis in its worship, devotion, and teaching on what took place in Palestine in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But history does not thereby take on retrograde motion. It undergoes a transformation but still moves forward.
There was a narrowing in Genesis, first to the line of Seth, then to Noah, then to Shem, to the Peleg branch, to Abraham, to Isaac and not Ishmael (whose seed joined those other rebels, the Hamites and Joktanites), to Jacob and not Esau, etc.

Sometimes the flow widened out. Jacob's sons all became part of the promise as members of the nation of Israel, although only one tribe was chosen for special ministry, only one family for the priesthood, and only one person as high priest. The rest of the tribes depended on and supported the Levities and priests as other nations depended on the priestly function of Israel. At the destruction of the nation of Judah, other nations took on a more central historical role, and within decades the Japhethic nations reentered the forefront of history where they have remained to this day. At other times there was a narrowing again as when the northern tribes broke away and finally went into exile and political oblivion. In general, however, we see a narrowing of God's election for his special purpose until it is fulfilled in the single individual Jesus Christ.

Since Christ brought the New Covenant all nations are able in principle to participate on an equal basis in God's Kingdom, and in history this participation is made effective as the Kingdom grows. God's instrument is the Church, and the Church is open to all those who repent, make profession, and obey. The primary division in history is now between those who are within and without the Church. Once again the fundamental division in mankind is introduced by God's grace as he sets aside a people for himself.

Secondly, there is continuity of development. Few readers of this journal will deny theological progress from the early creeds up through the great Reformed confessions, progress earned through titanic struggles, divisions, controversies, and a great amount of cumulative thought generation following generation. In this the Church has stood against the world outside. The greatest challenge was the first confrontation with the culture of classical paganism. This pagan culture perished, yet we carry on a tremendous legacy from it in art, literature, formal and natural science, law, etc. To those Greek haters who want to remove all "Greek thinking" (abstract categories, logic, clarity, etc.) from theology, do away with metaphysics entirely from philosophy, and abolish all Roman administrative law, I would ask, "How do you justify this great innovation and discontinuity?

Have God's people not always inherited, especially in culture, the achievements of the rebels?"

The problem, and it is an enormous one, is to separate the good from the bad, and to determine how far to use some elements which become dangerous or destructive if they become too dominant. This is not a new problem. The psalmists faced it when they confronted the Canaanite poetry with its imagery about the gods and nature which mixed the two in an idolatrous system.

When can we speak of God riding on the clouds, etc. and still not fall into a pagan immanentizing of God? What Sunday School teacher does not struggle with this even now in teaching these Biblical pictures of God's activity to children, while still making clear God's transcendence?

Recasting this problem in historical terms, we find the Church entering new nations (or new nations entering the Church) as the Church struggles to transform them, all the while sifting the good and the bad of their cultures. Thus the history of the Germanic peoples undergoes a great revolution with the adoption of Christianity. It undergoes another great transformation in the Romantic movement when cultural leaders repudiate Christianity. The Christian historian has to see these as key determinative events. Yet there was a great distance between the culture of Charlemagne's kingdom and that of the 13th century, a great change for the better.
The Church continues to have rivals. A movement such as Mohammedanism, which falsely claims to serve and speak for God, and which relentlessly opposes Christianity must be seen by the historian as basically evil. In addition there are those who seek to control history by controlling the churches, repeating the Babelite attempt to seize God's program and turn it to their own ends. Once the centrality of the Church in history is acknowledged this becomes more apparent to the historian.

In Europe in the late middle ages the state sought control of the churches. In those countries, such as France, where the state had large success the Reformation did not win. The Reformation itself was seen by state leaders elsewhere as a new opportunity to take control of the churches. England is a good example, with the Episcopalians seeking state dominance (and crafting a theology to make the Church subservient to the social establishment), and the Presbyterians opposing it. With the rise of strong central state power in Prussia, the state sought to subordinate the churches to its ends, mandating church union (Mobutu did the same in Zaire, as did many communist regimes), and making church functions such as education an instrument of state propaganda and administrative control of the population. The strength of the Church was to be absorbed into the power of the state.

Where church independence won, as in America, the strategy of its opponents then became to marginalize the churches. More and more functions - education is a prime example - were separated from church influence and subordinated ever more radically to the control and purposes of the state. In the view of the American enemies of God the power of the churches must ever give way in both force and extent to the power of the state.

Thus for the historian of modern western societies church-state relations serve as a major organizing theme for the last several centuries. When the emphasis within history shifts from this conflict to the transformation of culture by the Church once again, we will know that the tide has turned. How and when that will take place I do not know, but the providence of God, not some clever parachurch program, to be the determining factor.

In this perspective we see Jesus Christ as the center of history, not by making a new hidden history outside culture, outside the city, but by seeing him as the one who conquers and transforms. We see Christianity extended to new nations and their gradual internal transformation as their culture takes on more characteristics of Christian character. There are also important failures, or areas that resist this transformation, which call for moral assessments and judgements by the historian. Internal and external forces antithetical to Christianity attack Christian influences and attack the Church. All this gives a framework for interpretation and valuation by the Christian historian.

It also presupposes that the historian can bring to his analysis a definite idea of what Jesus Christ requires of a society. That is, the Bible must provide the necessary principles and patterns of cultural life. Whether it does, and the extent to which it does is, as the reader well knows, very much in debate today. Thus the work of the historian is bound up with the work of the theologian. If any historian agrees with my proposal he must also adopt a theology which informs his judgement on social matters. Those who reject this approach to history implicitly reject the theological premises to lead to it. In carrying out their work Christian historians are also doing theological battle with those of differing views. The Christian public, therefore, cannot leave them to their professional business undisturbed. Historians must be held accountable for their historical theologies.

Evangelical Evasions

In the preceeding section I addressed the question of the theological meaning of history that is raised by self-professed Reformed thinkers who try to answer it after a fashion. The next set of issues requires a descent to a lower level where self professed Reformed historians deny the possibility of a theological interpretation to history. What provoked the expression of these views was a book by a Lutheran theologian, John W. Montgomery. Where is History Going?, which appeared in 1969, distressed the evangelical historians who anticipated a career of comfortable secularism. About this time their professional organization, The Conference on Faith and History was getting underway, and the editor of the organization's journal asked Ronald J. VanderMolen to reply to Montgomery, initiating a lively exchange.
VanderMolen, a Calvin College graduate, did not like Montgomery's criticism of Barth's theology of history.

...while Calvin was willing to interpret biblical history, he avoided explaining God's reasons in historical events which occurred beyond biblical narratives. This is relevant to a discussion of Barth, because during his own lifetime it was the misuse of the idea of Providence which led many Christians to err; they supported Hitler as one responsible for German success after a long history of defeats. Though the validity of Barth's theology is debated in many circles, I would suggest that this view of history is plausible - even when one relies on Calvin's view of Providence. If Montgomery wants Christians to identify God's thinking by using a theory of Providence and thus create a Christian philosophy of history, he is looking in the wrong direction. The facts of history reveal success, failure, and change, but not God's disposition in these occurrences.[13]

Notice how academic secularism and antinomianism go together. Christians have no criterion with which to judge the program of someone like Hitler, VanderMolen assumes, so if they bring in some positive theological view of history it may as easily be used to baptize evil as not. Of course, he knows that what Hitler was pursuing was bad; although if he is consistent this knowledge cannot depend on the methods he uses as a professional historian.

VanderMolen argues that the historian must restrict himself to the understanding of history he can extract from his immediate sources. He must pretend that he himself has no values and no view of the purpose of history beyond his own private existence.

Montgomery ignores one of the major problem [sic] of doing universal history - the creation of a defensible axial scheme. McNeill [criticized by Montgomery, Ed.] needed an axiality to suit the entire "human community", as the sub-title of his work indicates, and therefore he could not rely on traditional western interpretations. For example, though the birth of Christ is central in western dating schemes, though the historical Christ is central to Christianity, and though Christianity has had a great influence in Western Civilization, McNeill surely cannot be bound by these facts in writing universal history. Historians who write universal history are rather required to use an axial system which can be substantiated; and though the historicity of Christ is necessary for an evangelical confession, the influence of Christ and his Church hardly provide what the scholar who writes universal history needs.[14]

He goes on to say, "The Christian has solved the basic problems concerning the meaning of life in a personal commitment; thus, he does not have to rely on general history to fulfill that role."[15] The reader should review the preceding sentence a second time and ask himself what kind of religion it presupposes.

Even worse than VanderMolen is W. Stanford Reid. The fundamental question, he says, in the debate about Montgomery is: "what is the Christian interpretation of history?" By way of answer we must "recognize and take seriously first of all, the hiatus between time and eternity." For Reid this takes the form of a fact/value dichotomy.

However much he may desire to reason from this space-time world to the eternality of God, the historian simply cannot do it. As a space-time conditioned creature who does not really understand time, man has even less ability to comprehend eternity and its relationship to the created material universe. Therefore he cannot reason his way from historical events back to the divine purpose in eternity. He knows God's purpose and view of particular events only in so far as God has revealed their meaning to him in the Scriptures...

For this reason the Christian historian cannot interpret the events of 'secular' history explicitly in the light of eternity. Even his understanding of the events of 'redemptive' history, although divinely interpreted and revealed sufficiently for salvation, is only very partial... He cannot say that this or that is the part which a certain event or individual plays in the plan and purpose of God. Christians have sometimes tried to do so in the past and frequently they have only revealed how foolish it is to attempt to deduce the secret purposes of God from historical happenings.[16]

As with VanderMolen what stands out is the foolishness of those who attempt to deny the possibility of a theological interpretation of history. He is confident that Christians in the past have failed in their attempts to identify the working of providence. How can he know this unless he himself has seen the working of providence in history clearly enough to see where others go wrong? His criticism of theological historical writing goes beyond VanderMolen's pragmatic objections, however, and finds a basis in philosophical principle. Reid adopts Kant's division between fact and value, the phenomenal and the numinal, history and religion. Whereas God may reveal the meaning of religious history, this revelation contains no principles which allow access to a religious meaning for general or 'secular' history. The acceptance of this dichotomy is for Reid the precondition of practicing the historical profession. Put another way, Reid adopts as his working philosophy the modern pagan definition of science. Then he finds that it is impossible to interpret history theologically while remaining faithful to the scientific methodology!

It is one thing to claim that the extension of God's kingdom through the instrumentality of the Church is what makes history go, but that in practice the study of this process is beyond the competence of the historian, and another thing to argue that the historian must disregard the meaning of history to be faithful to his discipline. In general, these two claims are mixed together uncritically by Evangelical academic historians. As long as the professionals don't attempt theological history it seems plausible to them to argue that the great mass of events do not reveal a meaning beyond what the secular historian usually finds. Such events just don't advertize their significance the way a movement such as the Reformation does. Thus historical writing, the historian can argue, must follow the canons of the secular profession. These pose questions that the historian can answer from his evidence, and make possible the real work of the historian. This is a skeptical position, and historians are not comfortable with so low an evaluation of their achievement. Besides this, they really have not mounted the effort necessary to confirm that theological history cannot be done.

Consequently Evangelical historians pass on to arguments to show that theological interpretations are impossible in principle or fall outside the bounds of their profession. Such a defense is no defense because implicit in it is a theology of history and it involves them in a theological polemic against points of view such as the one I represent. Thus they do not escape theological issues after all, but more importantly they do not establish their theological case. So difficult is the theological problem these historians face that it is very hard to find any who will undertake a serious sustained defense of their method. They prefer not to discuss it.

But I do not care what the historian would prefer to do. The important issue is, what does the Church require of its historians? If they cannot undertake the difficult task of illuminating the Christian meaning of the events they study, why pay them money? Let them work for the pagans, or else find some honest way to earn a living. If a theological interpretation of history is too hard for them, then perhaps they can change their area of study, or sell shoes. The Christian should have an idea of the sort of history he is willing to pay for, and simply refuse to support those Christian colleges and seminaries whose history departments don't write and teach it. CM

Notes

[1] Jacques Ellul, The Meaning of the City (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970) pp. 148-149.>
[2] Ellul, p. 122.
[3] Ibidem. [4] Gordon J. Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1-15 (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1987) p. 112.
[5] Wenham, p. 123.
[6] Wenham, pp. 130-134; James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World, (Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1988).
[7] See James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes for a perspective on this question.
[8] One theory is that a variety of tribes, some 'semitic' and others 'hamitic' or Libyan, migrated into the Nile valley as the Sahara dried up and there mixed to form a new people. In addition, the trend now is to include such language families in super-families, in this case Afro-Asiatic.
[9] Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (University of Chicago Press, 1963), pp. 298-299.>
[10] Recently some have classified Sumerian as Dene-Caucasion along with Basque and Etruscan, Navajo, Apache, etc.
[11] Wenham, p. 231.
[12] After this essay was written I read James Jordan's "Christianity and International Relations" in the Autumn 1991 Symbiotica where he treats much of the material I consider here. Jordan's article is part of a larger work which may be obtained from Biblical Horizons, PO Box 1096, Niceville, Florida, 32588, for $12 postpaid. There are definite affinities as well as distinct differences between these two essays. Jordan finds in the Babel account a confusion of religions as well as languages. Before Babel the whole earth is of "one confession". "What the story of the Tower of Babel tells us is that there was originally only one pagan, anti-God religion in the world." I, however, have suggested that not everyone was at Babel, and that there is textual basis for suggesting that one branch of the Shemites, at least, was not involved in the apostasy in Shinar. I take Genesis 11:1 to refer to the situation of unity before the migration to Shinar and apostasy occurred, and to refer to the whole world.
[13] Ronald J. VanderMolen, "The Christian Historian: Apologist or Seeker?", Fides et Historia, Vol. III, No.1, Fall, 1970, p. 43.
[14] VanderMolen, pp. 45, 46.
[15] VanderMolen, p. 50.
[16] W. Stanford Reid, "The Problem of the Christian Interpretation of History", Fides et Historia, Vol. 5, Nos. 1-2, pp. 98, 99.
5-11-95 tew

The Garden of Eden

2009-02-23T17:42:00.000-08:00

The Doctrine of Original Sin Part I
The Garden of Eden (No. 246)

(Edition 1.0 19980422-19980422)
This work is concerned with the question of the Garden of Eden, the fall of Adam and Eve and the Doctrine of Original Sin.
Christian Churches of God
PO Box 369, WODEN ACT 2606, AUSTRALIA

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(Copyright ã 1998 Wade Cox)

This paper may be freely copied and distributed provided it is copied in total with no alterations or deletions. The publisher's name and address and the copyright notice must be included. No charge may be levied on recipients of distributed copies. Brief quotations may be embodied in critical articles and reviews without breaching copyright.
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The Doctrine of Original Sin Part I
The Garden of Eden

Genesis 1:1-2
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (KJV)

Here we see the original creation of The Heaven and The Earth. This is the world that then was (2Pet. 3:5-6) to which all fossils and remains belong before it became Tohu and Bohu or without form and void. It was destroyed again in the days of Noah by flood. It was desolate here from another cause (cf n verse 1 and 2 of the Companion Bible).

The heavens and the earth were created by the elohim who said let us make man in our image and both male and female were made in the image of elohim. They were commanded to go forth and replenish (or fill) the earth (Gen. 1:28; cf Ps. 8 and Heb. 2:6-8).

We see in Chapter 2:1 ff that the activities regarding the generations of the heavens and the earth as plural stem from chapter 2 and the creation of Adam and Eve.

Genesis 2:1-17
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God [Yahovah elohim] made the earth and the heavens, 5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. 6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. 11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. 15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (KJV)

From this we see the geography was not the same as we have it today and the rivers flowed quite differently. The garden is clearly identified as being the area from Syria to Egypt encompassing what is now Israel.
The Garden of Eden as a topographical area dealing with the Four Rivers of Paradise have been examined in the paper The Cross: It's Origin and Significance (No. 39). The four Rivers of Paradise embodied in the Enclosed Sun Cross are examined in that work.

"The enclosed sun cross appears to represent the four rivers of paradise. The Bible refers to this as the river, which went out from Eden and parted into four heads. Tradition has it that the four rivers flowed in opposite directions. The tradition is found among the Navaho Indian narration of the Age of Beginnings. This tradition is also found in the story of the Chinese Paradise of Kwen-lun. The four rivers also appear in the Hindu Rig Veda, and the Vishnu Purana identifies the four streams as the paradise of Brahma at the world summit. They, too, flow in four directions (Talbot, ibid.). This story is found among the Iranian myths concerning the central font of Ardi Sura, and is the Sea of Life of the Siberian Kalmuks. The Mandaeans of Iraq maintain the same tradition as Genesis; as the Babylonians also spoke of the Land of the Four Rivers.

The home of the Greek goddess Calypso, in the navel of the sea, also had the central fountain from which four streams emanated in opposite directions.

The Scandinavian Edda speaks of the origin of the world's waters in the spring Hvergelmir in the land of the gods. The Slavs had them originate from the magic stone Alatuir in the island paradise of Bonyan. Talbot notes that Brinton finds the four mystic rivers among the Sioux, Aztecs and Maya as Fornander discovered them in Polynesian myth (Talbot, p. 121).
Few, if any, of the nations possessing the memory can point to any geographical source of the imagery. Thus, when the Babylonians invoke Ishtar as Lady, Queen of the land of the Four Rivers of Erech, or when the Egyptian text at Dendera celebrate the four Niles at Elephantine, the imagery is of an ancient mythology with no actual reality in the geography surrounding them. Talbot holds that the reason for the disparity between the mythical and terrestrial landscapes is that the four rivers flowed, not on our earth, but through the four quarters of the polar "homeland" (Talbot, p. 121). Talbot (ibid.) holds that for every dominant myth there are corresponding signs. The sign of the four rivers is the sun cross and the enclosed sun cross, the latter sign illuminating the former by showing that the four streams belong to the primeval enclosure. Issuing from the polar center (i.e., the central sun), the four rivers flow to the four corners of Saturn's Earth (emphasis added).

Thus, the concept embodied in the Genesis story (Gen. 2:10), whilst having a specific geography attributed to the four rivers, also represents a basic theme of the rivers of living water which flowed from the central source which was God through His morning star which at that time was Satan.

Thus, the central source which supplied the lands of Africa as well as the Tigris and Euphrates had a spiritual significance which has been attributed to the Babylonian religious system down to Ishtar and on to the Egyptians as well as throughout the world via shamanism as it was developed from the central system. The Babylonian system was, in essence, Animism (see Budge Babylonian Life and History, 2nd ed., London, 1925).

Thus to the ancients, the four corners of the world had a specific cosmological meaning which referred not to geography but to the map of the celestial kingdom. Talbot quotes O'Neill as one of the few scholars to recognise this quality of the mythical "four corners".

It results from any full study of the myths symbolism and nomenclature of the Four Quarters that these directions were viewed in the strict orthodoxy of heavens mythology, not as the NSEW of every spot whatever, but four heaven-divisions spread out around the "pole".

The sun-cross ... as the symbol of the four quarters, belongs to the central sun. In sacred cosmography the central position of the sun god often becomes the "fifth" direction. To understand such language, it is convenient to think of the mythical "directions" (or arms of the cross) as motions or flows of energy. From the great god the elements of life flow in four directions. The god himself, who embodies all the elements, is "firm," "steadfast," or "resting"; his fifth motion is that of rotation while standing in one place.

The "directions" can also be conceived as regions: the central (fifth) region and the four quarters spaced around it.
This is why the Pythagoreans regarded the number five as a representative of the fixed world axis. The Pythagorean idea clearly corresponds with the older Hindu symbolism of the directions. In addition to the standard four directions, Hindu doctrine knows a fifth, called the "fixed direction" the polar center (Talbot, pp. 122 123).

Talbot also identifies this idea with China and also in Mexican Nahuatl symbolism with five as the number of the centre (ibid.) " (as quoted from the paper The Cross: It's Origin and Significance (No. 39) CCG, 1997, pp. 4-5).
This theme is common to most peoples and forms a core of their ancient religious experience. The four rivers form the basis of the primeval enclosure we know as the Sun Cross. The paper on the Cross is essential to understanding what is happening in this Genesis Structure and the subsequent Satan inspired mythology of the Sun cults as they are now endemic to Christian symbolism.

The structure of the story of the Genesis account is central to most mythology, no matter from what side of the narrative the mythology is based. We see from the enclosed sun cross that the central cross is dropped to below the circle to represent the symbol of Venus as carnal desire and the symbol of the female. This is another reflection of the story we find in the OT from Genesis and throughout the Bible to the NT accounts of the fall and the relationship of woman under the law.

This view is fundamental to the story of human existence. The same struggle is being narrated by the myths of the nations and within the Bible accounts. They are not different stories. They are the same account told from different perspectives of Good and Evil as told by two spiritual forces in conflict.

One river gives rise to four rivers and this five-fold nexus is the message behind the Sun Cross. What is in issue in the narratives is the entity or deity that controls or is represented by the symbolism and in essence, who is true God. The Sun Cross is indicative of the rebellion and the claims made by Lucifer as controller or 'adon.
We return now to the Genesis account.

Positive Examples of the Commandments

In this section of Genesis in the Garden we see that God is establishing, by positive example, the Commandments and the first four commandments come out here in the act of the creation and the sanctification of the Sabbath Day as a day of rest and one that was holy.

Thus we see also from here the ordinance established as a responsibility with Adam directly of the prohibitions regarding the trees.

From this time the animals were created. In chapter 1 they are listed ahead of the creation of man on the sixth day. Here they are behind that creation but ahead of woman.

Genesis 2:18-25
18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (KJV)

Here we see the structure of dominion given to Adam who gave names to everything. This process of naming a thing symbolised power over that thing in the ancient times. Names indicate authority and delegation of the power of the name carried.

The creation of Eve from a rib of Adam is similar to the genetic processes we now understand. In this act also, the institution of marriage is set up from the moment of the creation of Eve.

The terms man and woman are the Hebrew ish and ishah the feminine of ish. Ishi means my husband (lit. my man).
Adam means ruddy (SHD 120) and comes from the word SHD 'adam meaning to show blood (in the face) to flush or turn rosy and to be dyed or made red.

Thus Adam was a red man in complexion.

The word ish is the Hebrew for man in the general sense. Berithish means a man of the covenant or confederacy as a compact made by passing between pieces of flesh (cf SHD 1285). This is the sense and derivation of the word British.

From Genesis 1:26 up until Genesis 2:23 the word SHD 120 adam is used. The word ish is used here in Genesis 2:23 and 2:24 for the first time.

This distinction is made because this act of union is applicable to all humans in God's creation. This has significance for what is about to follow in the subsequent chapter.

Here we see the next series of commandments established. The responsibilities to parents were established here as were the seventh and eighth commandments. God reserved ownership to himself by command. Thus thou shalt not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the same in effect as thou shalt not steal. The tenth commandment regarding coveting another's goods is also here established. Truth in acknowledging these institutions also entrenches Truth and False witness.
In Genesis chapter 3 we come across the most powerful allegory used in the Bible. The word in verse 1 refers to the Nachash or shining one and is rendered as serpent in the English.

This shining one is the Covering Cherub; the Angel of Light or Light Bearer or Lucifer of Isaiah chapter 14 and Ezekiel 28:13-17.

The same sense is used of the fiery serpents in Numbers 21:6,9. They are referred to as nachashim saraphim. The fiery serpents were so called because of the burning sensations from the bites but also probably because they were directed by angels when Israel spoke against God and Moses for bringing them to the wilderness. The term saraph means to burn. The seraphim of Isaiah 6:2 were called burning ones. Thus the angelic host were of a fiery or shining bronzed countenance.
The old serpent (in 2Cor. 11:3) is transformed as an angel of light (2Cor. 11:14). Thus the serpent is used as an allegory for Satan who spoke with the woman and deceived her. There is a great deal going on in this section about trees.

Genesis 3:1-5
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (KJV)

Elohim here is the same plural word. This plurality extends to more than one and in fact more than two but rather to an extended elohim. Abraham spoke with three of the elohim, or angels, according to Genesis 18:2 where he and Lot addressed them all as Yahovah (Gen 18:27: 19:18). This was changed to Adonai by the Sopherim from Yahovah to cover the plural usage (cf also Companion Bible notes to these verses and also Gen. 18:2 which attempts to confine elohim here to one entity but admits Yahovah is used of all three).

The word 'arum rendered subtil used here actually means wise or cunning or prudent (cf. Job 5:12; 15:5; Prov. 12:16, 23; 13:16; 14:8, 15, 18; 22:3; 27:12 and in relation to Ezek. 28:12, 13, 17). The word 'arum is also used for naked in the previous chapter in verse 25. They were both naked and knowing only good from the injunction in verse 17. They were not ashamed being before elohim. The use of the term beast in 3:1 is the same sense of the word zoon used for the four living creatures in Revelation 4:6-9 and 5:6, 8, 14 etc. Thus it is used of the Host in the highest levels as they all had one Father who created them all (cf. Mal. 2:10; Heb. 2:11). We can get the sense of this now by looking at Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 28:12-17 12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. (KJV)

So we see here that the covering cherub was placed in the garden of Eden and was full of wisdom. Thus we have two beings here in the Garden, Christ and Satan. Satan became corrupted by reason of his brightness. Thus his knowledge became the cause of his destruction.

We see here an unspecified number of trees only one of which could not be used for food.

The tree of life could be accessed with the other trees from this view. This tree that could not be eaten was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All other trees produced only good. This tree produced a knowledge of both good and evil. Evil is in effect sin which is the transgression of God's law. Thus we see the laws of God proceeded from his very nature and were extant from the beginning of the creation (see the papers The Government of God (No. 174) and Love and the Structure of the Law (No. 200)).

Thus the suggestion that God's laws were not given until Sinai and only to Israel is contrary to the statements and intent of the Torah itself.

Rabbinical Judaism tries to assert that there was such a thing as a Noahide law which we will examine next (see the paper The Tradition of the Noahide Laws). This assertion that Noah did not have the laws of God and the Gentiles had a basic law contrary to the Torah or less than the Torah is rabbinical fiction designed to introduce Gentiles to Rabbinical or Pharisaic Judaism by stealth in contradiction of Scripture.

Trees of the Garden as Beings

The concept that we need to examine also is that of the term tree.

Tree is used as a term for a spirit being of the host. This tree of the knowledge of good and evil also stands for Satan and the system that he wished to implement and with which he corrupted the host. We will examine this concept in more detail later.

Ezekiel 31:3-18 3 Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. 4 The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. 5 Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth. 6 All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. 7 Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters. 8 The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. 9 I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.

10 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; 11 I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. 12 And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him. 13 Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches:

The text here shows that we are speaking of the fallen host and particularly the cherub of Ezekiel chapter 28 and Isaiah chapter 14, Lucifer who became Satan and was cast down to the sides of the pit.

14 To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.

They were delivered to the midst of the children of men with them that go down to the pit. This tells us of the fate of the host in the last days. His fall in this process was mighty.

15 Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. 16 I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. 17 They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.

Here we see he is identified in and with Eden.

18 To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD. (KJV)

The being referred to here in Ezekiel was both the Assyrian and Pharaoh and was in the Garden of Eden as a Cedar of Lebanon and none was as wise or as beautiful as he or could be matched for beauty and perfection. Egypt and Assyria were still in Adam's loins and the other side of the flood at the time of the Garden of Eden. This being can only be the covering cherub who was cast out and the demons or trees that rebelled with him.

Thus the elohim in the Garden were multiple and under direction of God as to what they could or could not teach and do. The meat of the trees was not simply for physical food and fruit but also as teaching and guidance.
We note the comment of Satan in Genesis 3:1.

He said: Can it be that elohim has said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden! This was not really a question but an assertion of inequity. The woman then repeats the injunction with the punishment stated as: Ye shall not eat of it neither shall ye touch it lest ye die.

The Nachash or shining one then said "you will not surely die. For elohim knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as elohim knowing good and evil."

Thus the plural concept is involved here. Once you eat your eyes are opened and you will be as elohim. The plurality of the elohim is evident here. The term Yahovah elohim is used in specific sense from Genesis 2:4. The Nachash does not however use that term which implies some equality of the beings in this sense.

The Trinitarian usage of the term elohim and confining it to a three fold aspect obscures the meaning here. We know that the destiny of all mankind is to be as elohim but in stages. We know this from Zechariah 12:8 and also Psalm 82:6 which was repeated by Christ in John 10:34-35 and included by him as part of the law contrary to the usual division into the Law, the Psalms and the writings (cf Lk. 24:44)

Christ referred to the Psalms as law on at least two occasions.

This distinction may be deliberate and refer back to the first concept of the promise, which emerges here in its first form. Satan was thus not telling Eve a complete lie; he was merely producing a fabrication, which did not disclose the profound changes and consequences that would ensue from this act of disobedience.

The earth became cursed because of this action of Eve.

To compound the problem Satan has developed the Doctrine of the Immortal Soul so that immortality or aionian life, which is granted by God through obedience, is presented as an intrinsic attribute of the individual. Thus the lie You shall not surely die is now endemic to world theology (see the papers The Soul (No. 92) and On Immortality (No. 165)).
Satan was giving Eve a choice here, and there are a number of aspects to the problem.

These people were created and placed under Messiah as the Angel of Yahovah.

They were given a system, which was enough for their perfect sustenance.

The essence of the dispute here is that the knowledge of good and evil was seen by Satan as the way of making error; allowing freedom to err or freedom to experiment with the system under whichever one was governed.

Two Trees or More?

The confinement of the story here has been made to that of two trees. One tree was the knowledge of only good and reliance on the delegated authority of God through the Holy Spirit. The other tree was that of the knowledge of Good and Evil and that these two trees were literal trees with literal fruit of an unspecified type. The two trees are listed as the Tree of Life and the

Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. However there were more trees partaken of than one, namely, the Tree of Life.
The forbidden fruit thus conferred a type of thinking or knowledge of and by itself. This is a rather simplistic explanation of the parable or allegory and fails to address a number of very serious philosophical issues, which deserve to receive some acknowledgment.

We see here in this chapter that there were more than two trees and all of the other trees could be used for food. Only one tree could not. Thus the entire food system was set up and not one tree only.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden to them and Satan knew that it was so forbidden. He led Eve in entrapment and then Adam allowed himself to be likewise entrapped. This itself is a breach of the law in Exodus 23:2.

The punishment for eating of this fruit was death. That means that if Adam had not so eaten of the fruit it is axiomatic that he would not have died. Otherwise the punishment is meaningless and he would have died at any rate.

Thus we are speaking of death in a complex terminology.

When Satan said You shall not surely die he was looking at the long term effects of the plan of God where it was not God's will that any flesh should perish (2Pet. 3:9). So technically this was essentially true. These people even in sin would have the resurrection extended to them. But God said they would surely die.

Thus we see here that there were two aspects to the plan of salvation. If Adam and Eve had obeyed then they would not have died. However, the plan was that they should become elohim and so they had to become spirit beings. Thus there must have been a fundamental change in the plan concerning the first resurrection.

We are left with two choices:
1. Adam and Eve and the obedient would not have died and they would have then become spirit beings. This would have been by translation either:
A. At the beginning of the millennial system;
or
B. At some time in the sequence as we see with Enoch who was righteous and he walked with God. He was not because God took him (Genesis 5:24).

The disappearance of Enoch as well as that of Elijah has been examined in the paper The Witnesses (No. 135).

2. If the descendants were disobedient they sinned and would have died and thus the first resurrection would have been redundant and they all would have gone to the second resurrection or they would have been allowed the first resurrection on repentance and thus three effective systems would have been in place. The 144000 thus might have been another group with only the great multitude in the first resurrection.

This however strikes at the omniscience of God who knew the outcome and knew the elect, having written them in the book of life of the Lamb, before the foundation of the world. The lamb was slain also before the foundation of the world and thus we are seeing a known event.

If Satan and the Host had not tempted Eve then their position in the Host could not have been tested. Thus the fall in Genesis chapter 3 was as much a test or more on Satan than it was on Adam and Eve.

We lose sight of this fact and that from this point Satan set up an ancient religious system
and power.

Apples in Rome

We know that the fruit is often symbolised as an apple but there is no direct evidence for that conjecture in the Bible. The concept of the apple comes from Greek and Roman mythology. Known as the Apple of discord it was thrown by Eris, who was the personification of discord, into the assembly of the gods (theoi or elohim). The golden apple was contended for by Juno, Minerva and Venus (cf Oxford Universal Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1964, p. 86).

The Golden apple is also another term for the coronation orb of the United Kingdom (ibid).

Thus the idea of this central structure of Discord being sown by a piece of fruit, which centres around an apple, is ancient and is common to non-Hebrew systems as well. The contention for the structure by Venus as Morning Star or Evening Star is perhaps of more significance than we might at first think. The significance of Venus is examined in the papers The Golden Calf

(No. 222) and also The Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235).

We see in the legends of Juno from ancient times the idea that the serpent was identified with the chastity of the woman. This idea was carried from ancient into more modern times.

The Romans viewed this idea of religious chastity as important in approaching the gods.

This was central to the ideal of the temple of Vesta. It was with Juno Sospita at Lanuvium that we see the primitive idea carried into historical times (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (ERE) article Chastity, 3, pp. 496-497)

Once a young girl was chosen she offered a cake to the Temple Snake. If the cake was accepted it proved the virginity of the girl and assured well for the year. If the snake refused the cake the reverse was thought to be true (ibid).

Here we have the direct reverse of the concept where the meat offering of a cake was offered to the snake as a token of the chastity of the girl. In other words the concept here was that the serpent was the one who was guardian of and the object for the chastity of the female. This gives us an idea of what the idea is behind the parable here in Genesis chapter 3.

At the very least the connection was made in the minds of the Greco-Romans that there was a relationship with the serpent and the chastity of the ancient system.

Jupiter, Juno and Minerva were the great trias or Trinity of Capitoline worship in Rome. W. Warde Fowler is of the opinion that Roman religion was daemonistic rather than polytheistic (ERE Roman Religion, vol. 10, p. 823 ff). Thus the concept was that the daemon was the essence of the being and thus an individual could become a god through the immortality of the daemon or essence of the individual or formerly the later individual. The original form of this was as Jupiter Feretrius whose numen or spirit was said to have resided in a sacred oak tree on the Capitoline Hill. Romulus is said to have fixed the first trophy (spolia opima) of a conquered enemy. This view was held by the Germanic Suevi (cf ERE ibid) and thus was common to the Teutons as well as the Latins. We know also it was endemic among the Celts and all of the Aryans (cf the paper The Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235). Thus the Assyro-Babylonian system seems to have this view where the tree was representative of the being or deity and thus there is a meaning behind the use of the terms here in the Hebrew text.

The name of the deity Jupiter was derived from the term Diovis pater (which is derived from the root div. "Shining"). Thus the shining father was known as the deity of the sun and of light and of storms and the heavens under whatever form. This understanding is important to an understanding of ancient thought and religious symbolism generally. When the Bible is speaking of Trees it is through the prophets dealing with the religious systems of the Ancients generally. These spirit beings are represented as trees as we see above. The ancient primitive religion of the Latins as with the Teutons and all Aryans, including the Celts, took place in groves and usually groves of Oak or the other trees mentioned in the paper The Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235) and the paper The Cross: Its Origin and Significance (No. 39). The cult of the oak formed the Celtic image of Zeus (Max. Tyr. Diss., viii) and had a sacrosanct character (Pliny HN, xvi. 44 cf. ERE. Celts, p. 295 cf The Cross (No. 39).

The ash and the yew in Ireland were venerated more than the oak but each tree represented an aspect of the deities of the Sun system (The Cross (No. 39), ibid, pp. 9 ff). The trees were of special significance to the deities for specific purposes. The central cult of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, of Juno and Minerva on the Capitoline was actually of Etruscan origin and the temple there shows unmistakable evidence of Etruscan design. The triune cult was held not to be original to Rome but was common among the Greeks, and in Etruria it was represented by the names Tinia, Thalna and Minerva (ERE, 10, p. 830). This idealised form of the triune system was placed on the Capitoline in Rome to show the overpowering form of the Roman State in the mind of its people and to overpower the old cults thus uniting the state.

The Etruscans were not anciently native to Etruria and had origins in Asia Minor. The Greek deities were introduced from the fifth century BCE. In 493 BCE a temple was built to the Greek trias of Demeter, Dionysius and Persephone under the Roman names Ceres Liber and Libera. Apollo and the oracles of the Sibyl followed in 431 BCE. We see then Artemis as Diana and Aphrodite as Venus. Venus was anciently an old Roman deity of the garden. The Greek and Roman rites were both declared lawful and we see an amazing degree of syncretism and identification in the Roman system. What is evident from the entire group and the religious systems generally is that we have common ancient views, which attribute reality to the setting we see portrayed in the Garden of Eden, not only by the Hebrews but also by the entire ancient world.

The ancient Roman God Sylvanus deity of the field and woods and boundaries was placated as a goblin or nightmare being during childbirth by women (cf ERE, art. Birth, 2, p. 649).

In the ancient Roman system the religion was based upon the old idea that there were only two classes of intermediary beings between men and the Divine Deity. These two classes were firstly souls of the dead which ties in to the concept of the soul after death or the thou shalt not surely die argument and the second class was that of certain spirits who attend on the lives of individual human beings (ERE art. Demons and Spirits, 4, p. 620 ff.)

This is the original ancient idea that allocated no fixed boundaries to the spirit beings in that they could act as spirits on and through humans without specific division. Hence we see multiple demon possession. Polytheism was not the original system. These spirit beings were given identities among the Greeks and this idea was adopted by the Romans and that became what we understand as polytheism. This was not so anciently. The ancient idea was that the All-Father had created all of the theoi or gods and that each nation or city or state had been allocated to a spirit being. There was however no clear division of the entities. The entities could also represent a collective group.

These spirit beings were identified with and as trees in which their spirit and essence resided. They could nevertheless act on and through humans as a form of Daemonia.

The Spirit as a Separate Being

We are now in a position to understand the allegory and the context in which it was set when it was written and before that when it was told as a story to generations of ancient men both before and after the period of the flood. There are innumerable examples of this view of a notion of an invisible personality separate from yet closely allied to the life of the individual visible man. The Persians called it the fravashi, The Egyptians the ka, the Greeks the psyche. The Roman division of it will show us how it was understood and what is happening in the division. The term applied to the spirit in the individuals is the genius from which our term derives. The ancient Babylonian symbol of the Genii was an eagle-headed being. The ancient Italians attributed a separate entity to this ancient Genius isolated from the man himself and to which was attributed the power of propagating the race. The marriage bed, placed in the Atrium of an old Roman House was most clearly termed lectus genialis and we see from this a concept related to marriage and the joint union depicted in Genesis. From this concept we derive the terms to do one's genius a pleasure.

The Matron of the house termed this power her juno and the later goddess Juno is merely a generalisation and a glorification of the separate junones of the women. Now we are getting down to the concept of the Triune system. We have Jupiter as the physical manifestation of the structure and the deity and the male capacity of the Genii. The Juno is the collective manifestation of the female's spiritual capacity of the people. These elements came into existence with the individuals and went out of existence with them yet were able to exert strong influence on them and determine their "fortune" as it were (ERE, 4, p. 621).

The relationship to the doctrine of transmigration of the soul can be seen where the being then did not go out of existence with the body.

In time the logical absurdity occurred of inventing Genii of the great gods when they were in fact the genii themselves and representative of the collective structure. This became the corrupted polytheism of that system. In effect the original triune system of Rome and with all of the Aryans was as a giant fertility cult of which the Trinity stood supreme as a symbol of the collective interaction of the serpent and the pair here at Eden. The serpent was identified as the symbol of both the genius and the juno.

Horace declares the genius a god but declares he is subject to death (Ep. II, ii, 188 cf ERE 4, p. 621). The Greeks represented the genius by tuche but occasionally daemon is viewed exactly in the light of the Roman genius.
We are thus dealing with the common view that the genius (or daemon) is a god who is subject to death but has influence over the life of men and women and is represented by a tree.

One of the gods caused dissension among the divine realm by throwing the divine apple of discord and caused dissension being the source of the struggle between the male and female symbols of collective fertility which was exactly how we perceive Adam and Eve where Eve is the mother of all.

Sun, Moon and Stars Among the Ancient Religions

The Greek Zeus in his most ancient epithet of Wide Eye is the bearer of the light of day hence light bearer and sun god. In this respect Jupiter and Zeus are the same. The relationship with the Celts is continued not only with the oak or Duir as Zeus/Jupiter but also with the other trees in their sacred characters relating to the deities of the Mysteries including Apollo. The Druids (ie of the oak) even used Greek characters for public acts (cf. the paper The Cross 39)).

Celtic Reincarnation

The Celts seemed to have the ninefold system of the ancient shamans tied into their system of worship and reincarnation.
It appears that an aspect of the archaeological excavations of 1978-79, by Jorg Biel and his team, of the Hochdorf Chieftain of Baden Wurttemburg may have been overlooked. The tomb contained a complete funerary site not looted. Consequently we can draw conclusions from this tomb that might not otherwise be open to us.

The tomb contained a large Italian bronze cauldron dated ca 530 BCE and a set of nine bronze sets of dishes to meet the needs of nine people. There were also nine drinking horns with the ninth larger than the others. This was taken to be indicative of the Greek ideal symposium and the large cauldron of wine again indicative that the feasting or symposium in the after-life was in accordance with the expectations of the Celt in being transmigrated to another body in another place on death.

The other funerary items including wagons and his wardrobe will not be examined other than to say it was of fine attire and not of a military nature.

This explanation can be taken much further. The explanation of the Greek symposium was not far from the mark but a trivialization of the religious views being expressed here in the tomb.

In the paper The Cross Its Origin and Significance (No. 39) (3rd ed. CCG, 1994, 1997, p. 10) reference was made to the images of the sun symbols of swastikas, triskele and circles and crosses etched into bronze images of the god Dispater. The S symbol occurs on coins. Nine of these S symbols hang from a ring carried by the God with the wheel. The ERE (art. Celts, pp. 301-302) says

Various explanations of this figure have been given: the most probable is that which recognises it as a thunderbolt.

Now this is only a part explanation and it appears that the explanations in these matters to date are entirely too trivial.
The S is exactly what it purports to be in standard mythology namely a serpent. This serpent is associated with the Mystery cults and is found in exactly the nine sequence we see with Dispater. The nine links of the serpent can be found with the nine serpents which guard the corridors in the kingdom of the god Seker. The first, third and ninth serpents are symbolised by an ankh which is included in their names (see Budge, The Book of the Dead, Arkana, London, xcv f. cf. Cox; The Cross (No. 39) ibid The Ankh Cross, p. 6)

We thus see what is happening in the so-called Symposium of the Greeks and the feast preparations of the nine places in the Celtic Hochdorf Chieftain.

The Wheel of Dispater is the Wheel of Rebirth of the Hyperborean Celts. This religious system, centred on Apollo among the Hyperborean Celts living on the Danube was the reason Philosophy was formed as a religion in the first place (cf Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 4th ed. Black, London, 1958, pp. 81 ff).

What is happening is that the nine serpents of the Egyptian system and the nine serpents of the Celts are dealing with the reincarnation of the soul system set up also among the ancient Greeks. These cults spread in Thrace as the Dionysian form of the mysteries. Dionysius was associated with the drinking revels there. Among the Romans it was as Bacchanalian revels from Bacchus. It is also as Orphic rituals and so on. It was Pythagoras who took the Delian school to Italy (Burnet ibid).

The nine serpents or demons are placated at each level of ascent to the ninth and last level. This ninth level is the final entry to the seat of the god and hence of control over life and rebirth.

The ankh is based on the same concept as the Venus symbol and derives again as a form of the Enclosed Sun Cross with the cross re-located below the circle.

Ankh-em-beu-mit is the ninth serpent in the Egyptian system. It is too much to have a distinct similarity of systems with a tradition of common origin of priesthood and then to ignore the obvious inferences that must be drawn from the types of systems. The serpent is representative of the host in the language of the ancients. Hebrew is exemplary and the forms of Celtic, especially P Brythonic, are associated with Punic and Hebrew.

The Druids among the Celts came from Egypt with the Gadelians and were picked up by the Milesians in Spain or Iberia among the Gadelians (MacGeohagen and Mitchell, History of Ireland, Sadlier, New York, 1868, p. 42). The Greeks having contact with them were the ancient Graeci Vetustissimi. The more modern Greeks and Romans were not aquainted with Britain (ibid).

It can logically be concluded that the ancient Hochdorf Chieftain was in fact prepared for the initiatory rites of the ascent through the nine levels of the afterlife. Each level was guarded by a spirit being symbolised by the serpent at each level in the same way the seven levels of the Hekkalot in Merkabah Mysticism among Kabbalistic Judaism are guarded by an angel. Remember the Hebrew word for Seraphim is associated with the term for fiery serpent as a shining one. This system was the same from Egypt to India and on into Asia and beyond.

The ninth level was indicated by the size of the ninth drinking horn and the relative size and power of the deity. The symposium model was thus, in some ways, a participatory rite of passage and hence, ideally, only involved males (cf. Smiths Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities art Symposium, London 1851, pp. 1082 ff).

The conclusions regarding commonality are not made by modern scholarship because the paradigm of modern European archaeology excludes such commonality of view point and requires an aboriginal ethno-cultural genesis of the Celts which is being continually manufactured.

As we will see the legends are the same and point back to this biblical text regarding the Garden of Eden. The ancient religious systems carry a similar context.

Common Worship

The sun, moon and the morning and evening stars are shown to be objects of common worship among the Aryans among the tribes from the Baltic and to the Teutons to the Persians. All of these have the related phenomena of the sky connected with light. This goes back to the most ancient religious concepts common to all the Aryans before their dispersal (cf ERE The Aryan Religion, 2, p. 34 ff)

It appears that (from information from among the West Teutons) there was an ancient female deity also of Sunna, which was in the Old German Sunnen-aband or originally meaning evening before Sunday

From this the concept, fire comes as a sacred object, coming to the earth by fire as lightning and thus the cults of Vesta in Rome 'Estin in Greece and Fistia in the Arcadian as Hearth or Hearth mother are all related concepts of this ancient Aryan structure. It is tied to the oak as the tree symbolising the god who gave fertility to the collective state in the individual through the spirits that control men.

The other trees symbolise different aspects of the deity, later conveyed under a different name (cf. The Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235)). They were all originally understood as sons of God.
These gods had been anciently given no distinct names other than as this system of Sun, Moon and Morning star and the fertility system it portrayed. It was secondary that the Aryans produced names and personifications for these deities or identities. Thus we find in the ancient story of Genesis the allegory of the serpent as Shining one and the tree of Eden.

By his action we derive the dissension among the host and the explanation of the golden apple in Roman times as we see above.

The third element in that story is the Minerva, the goddess who struggled with Jupiter and Juno. The name is derived from an old root which is entirely extinct in the old Italian languages and Schreader considers this must be very old (ERE 4, p. 35). The name (Menese ova has the Greek forms menos and menes os). It appears to be related to the concept of the original goddess of the morning which in the Teutonic was called Ostara who was also the goddess of the spring and related as we have seen to the Ishtar system of the Assyro-Babylonians (see the paper The Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235)).
Here Minerva competes with Venus as Morning and Evening Star. Thus we have the collective male as Jupiter, the collective female as Juno and the Morning Star or light bearer as Minerva and Lucifer.

Thus we are back at the ancient system explained in Genesis and understood but twisted by the Aryans and the entire system based on the anima or the spirits which inhabited humans and influenced the conduct of the creation. The Aryans borrowed this system from the Semites and the Sumerians as early as the Indo Iranian period (ERE, 4, p. 36). This twisted explanation of the system among the Assyro-Babylonians became Animism and entered the entire world religious system as Shamanism among the nomads and developed higher orders of mysticism among the more sedentary peoples.

Mysticism develops this structure of ascent to these being through contemplation.

The explanation of what is happening in Genesis chapter 3 is far from a trivial allegory. It forms the basis of the explanation of the religious systems of the world and the sharp division between the Bible and the entire system based on the heathen cults symbolised by the systems based on Christmas and Easter and the entire solstice systems.

The religious systems show this anciently. Stonehenge was built over a period of 5000 years ago down to 3,500 years ago. Stonehenge has all the characteristics of the winter solstice system. The trenches of ash indicate sacred fires. The orientation is on the solstice. The stone is grey indicating stone for kindling sacred oak fires. The time scale is both before and after that usually attributed to the flood. This solstice system is the ancient religion of the host.

This is the distinction between the ancient system of the Assyro-Babylonians and the Bible.

We see this exemplified where Hermes and Apollo develop also into the concepts found in the Bible. Apollo means "He of the fold." Hermes means "He of the stones" or He of the Stone-heap" (see ERE, Aryan Religion, 4, p. 36).

This title of the stones gradually came to represent the Messenger of the gods and the protector of travellers and hence cairns were erected on roads (cf The Cross (No. 39), pp. 12-15).

He of the fold or the sheep fold became also he of the cattle-pen.

From the earliest times Apollo was linked with Phoibos or the Shining one as a sun deity (ERE ibid).

The Sun-god Phoebus opened the cattle pens in the morning and drove the cattle to the pasture. The deity of the boundaries of the woods as Sylvanus seems to be the boundary marker stones and we develop these concepts anciently into many faceted personalities which they were not understood to be originally.

What we have are the same concepts here referred to in the Bible and lost in understanding through the primitive cults.
The Phobos or the Lucifer (Isa. 14:12), the Light bearer was the anointed covering cherub that walked up and down among the stones of fire (Ezek. 28:14).

The messenger of the elohim was the Memra or Angel of Yahovah. The title of Morning star and Light bearer rested with Satan and is being transferred to Messiah. The functions of Messiah were usurped by Satan and he became teacher of humanity. This function of teaching is as we see from the Book of Enoch the common understanding of the ancient Hebrews in regard to the fall of the Host.

What we appear to be viewing is an ancient common concept that was collapsed into triviality by later misinterpretation of what was happening in the stories of the nations. Not the least responsible was the faulty theology of the early church theologians of the fourth and fifth century.

God had set up the nations according to the number of the sons of God (cf Deut. 32:8 RSV, cf also the LXX; 1 Clement and the DSS on this text). He placed humanity under these beings.

Israel, was placed under Yahovah as his portion (Deut. 32:9). The other nations were under the other members of the Host. This is why the text of Deuteronomy 32:8 was changed by Rabbinical Judaism after the fall of the temple in the Masoretic text (cf the paper The Pre-existence of Jesus Christ (No. 243)).

Two Roads; Two Systems

We now see that the trees represent the systems of order and experience.

God had set a system in place in which mankind could have produced a system without death and sin and by that system could have come to the knowledge of the truth and eternal life.

That was essentially the way the Host was created. All beings were products of God the Father and were subject to His will for retention of the Holy Spirit. He was Eloah as the singular one true God from the beginning who, as the Christ and the apostles and the church writers such a Irenaeus said, had nothing coeval with himself (cf John 17:3; 1Jn 5:20 etc and cf Irenaeus in

Against Heresies as quoted in the paper The Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 127)). In other words there were not two or three gods, in the beginning there was only true God.

The structure was dependent upon and acted within the will of the Father. The system set up on the earth was for Adam to be placed with the Angel of Yahovah or Yahovah elohim. This being was Elohim and Yahovah, and Jacob wrestled with him and prevailed as we see in Hosea 12:3-5. Yahovah of the Hosts is the memorial of this elohim. In other words he takes his name and authority from Yahovah of Hosts (cf the paper The Angel of YHVH (No. 24)).

Thus Adam was placed under Messiah who bore the title Yahovah elohim. Satan tried to persuade them to follow another system and do it his way. In this sense it was also a test of Azazel who became Satan.

Satan wished to sift mankind and accuse them before God. Essentially the adequacy of the Adamic creation is at issue.

The Temptation

We now come to the issue of the temptation and the fall. Did Eve eat a literal piece of fruit?

How did this eating open her eyes. How did it involve Satan and Adam?

The obvious question asked over the centuries is: Was this a sexual act?

The answers are in two forms.

Basically they are time dependent.

In ancient times up to Augustine of Hippo (writing ca 405 CE), the unanimous answer was yes, fornication was involved. The Angels committed fornication with women. The Bible contains a number of clear references to that fact. Ancient non biblical writings also have similar if not the same references or interpretations and these ideas are not confined to ancient Israel. In his Antiquities of the Jews (Bk, 1, 3, 1), Josephus says that some angels:

Made God to be their enemy; for many angels of God accompanied with women and begat sons that proved unjust.

William Whiston in the footnote to this verse says that:

This notion that the fallen angels were in some sense the fathers of the old giants, was the constant opinion of antiquity (Complete Works Kregel, 1981, p. 28).

The notion was not simply that some other lineage had done so as this was directly imported into the NT in Corinthians by Paul where he says:

1 Corinthians 11:9-10 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. 10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. (KJV)

We know also from Jude the brother of Jesus Christ that this was the case in his view.

Jude 6-7 6 And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day; 7 just as Sodom and Gomor'rah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. (RSV)

The KJV says fornication (SGD 1608 ekporneusasai from ekporneuo to be utterly unchaste) rather than unnatural lust and this was the opinion of the other texts also such as the Book of Enoch.
Thus the sense of the texts derive from the concept of the creation of woman and the fact that women were unchaste with the angels.
This was the opinion of antiquity and is the sense of Genesis 6:4 when children were born to them and the offspring of the giants were not allotted to the resurrection (cf the papers The Nephilim (No. 154) and also The Resurrection of the Dead (No. 143)). These were known as the Rephaim and they had no resurrection (cf Isaiah 26:13). These were the other lords that ruled over men.

Isaiah 26:13-14 13 O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. 14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish. (KJV)

The term other lords is SHD 113 'adon or sovereign or controller as human or divine but it is this word that is used in Psalm 136:3 and we see it used in Genesis in 19:2 and Deuteronomy 10:17.

At the very least in this context we see that some form of sexual awareness was involved between Eve and Satan.
The view of the other ancient religious systems from the flood seems to convey this concept in every facet of their symbolism. The triune or Trinity as it was understood anciently was the symbol of the Sun and the Moon and the Morning Star acting together in fertility. The two-fold aspect of it in the Babylonian and Ishtar system (extant we saw from the paper The Golden Calf (No. 222)) relates to Heaven and Earth. Thus the anima (which can only be a false spirit) enters men by virtue of the activities of Satan as Morning Star in concert with the aspects of male and female.

Thus the entire symbolism is corrupted from the Sun of Righteousness and the Moon the Church and the Holy Spirit acting in concert to three beings distinct from the elect as the church.

Augustine of Hippo
The second scenario was introduced by Augustine of Hippo at the beginning of the fifth century. He countered the idea that Seth had been of the true Adamic line and that Cain had intermarried with the offspring of the fallen host and that his offspring were not pure in their generations as Noah was pure or perfect in his generations (Gen. 6:9) (cf. The Genesis Apochryphon, DSS, cf Vermes, The Dead Sea scrolls in English, 2nd. ed., Pelican 1975, pp 215 ff).

Augustine in his work the City of God (Bk. XV, XXIII, NPNF 1st. series, vol. 2, pp. 303 ff) decreed that the angels had not cohabited with human females and that the sons of God were the pure line from Seth and the sons of men were the offspring of Cain and the giants that had to be destroyed were the descendants of Cain.

Now this nice tidy little scenario suited every person who could not reason the truth of the Bible as a literal inspired text. It gave the Christian church operating under the umbrella of the empire a clear pat answer that would satisfy curiosity and leave no questions dangling. That is, it served the purpose of an uninformed clergy up until the scientific discoveries of the industrial revolution.

People broke free of a mindless church and they began to dig up the past and with it they found the earth was old and there were other animals older than man and there were other older types of man that had nothing whatsoever to do with them.

Then the whole story of Augustine began to fall apart.

Strangely enough it was abandoned earliest within the very church that had advanced it namely the Catholic church. The Roman branch of it has recently accepted the theory of evolution rather than accept the literal truth of the Bible.

The greatest advocates of Augustinian line breeding theory as we will term it were in fact the fundamentalist sects that opposed the Roman Catholic Church yet were most like them in organisation.

This view made it very difficult to understand any deep allegory or meaning in the texts in Genesis.

There is no doubt that the fallen host are held by the Bible to have committed fornication with human females. Whether the first instance of it involved a sexual act or not, we cannot say. There seems to have been some form of understanding that was attendant upon the acts of the women acting at the behest of the serpent or Nachash, and that this act caused him to be cast down to the ground and be less than upright, as we see from the punishment inflicted upon him.

Whether this first act involved a sexual act or not it certainly was held to have led to that act in the woman's offspring. To deny that fact is to deny the plain words of the Bible text.

Marriage

The sense of marriage and offspring is the clear intent of Genesis 1:28. Adam was given the woman to be his helpmate and they were joined as one flesh and they were told to replenish the earth. This is the same command given to Noah after the flood.

So the view was one of established marital relations and they were not ashamed. However we see later that when Adam and Eve committed sin they were ashamed and made aprons of leaves for themselves to hide their nakedness.

The first acts did not involve shame the second acts obviously did involve shame and they were prompted by Satan in this matter.

God had given Adam clear instruction to obey him and not to eat of this fruit. This woman had disobeyed her husband and her elohim at the behest of another being.

Adam had a responsibility to his wife here to lead and to be strong and he was not. He allowed her to sin and she was no longer sinless before God.

In the same way the second Adam is responsible for his bride the church and he is responsible for placing her spotless before God. In this aspect the marriage relationship was set before the fall and is holy.

The Flood

The aim of the adversary was to interfere with the plan of God and this interference struck at the very purpose of the creation and caused the flood.

He had interfered with the creation to such an extent that by the time of the flood they were unfit and had to be destroyed leaving only people of perfect generations left.

Thus the structure of this rebellion was inherently sexual as it attempted to strike at the genetic capacity of the creation. This appears to have been stopped. But the genetic problems continued in reducing the capacity of the creation.

The Government

What is not examined in this matter is that the government of the planet was placed under Satan as Morning Star or Light bearer. The Government was not placed under Jesus Christ. Thus the system that God had set in place from at least as early as the fall had to have been as given to Satan.

The Original Sin therefore had the immediate effect of removing the human creation from the Garden of Eden and its relationship with God.

In the Garden the Ruach of God moved and Adam and Eve had the capacity to converse with God.

Genesis 3:8-12 8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God [Yahovah elohim] walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God [Yahovah elohim] amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And the LORD God [Yahovah elohim] called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? 12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (KJV)

Here they had cut themselves off from the Holy Spirit or Ruach of God. They heard the sound of Yahovah elohim. This was the breeze (SHD 7307) of the Garden or the cool or ruach of the day.

The Spirit of the day was the Ruach.

They had sinned and they hid themselves from God in the middle of the trees of the Garden.

The first question of the Old Testament is the question of God to the hiding sinner (Gen. 3:9). Yahovah elohim says to Adam and Eve "Where are you?"

This is in total contrast to the first question in the NT in Mat 2:2) of the sinner who says: 'where are you?'

Matthew 2:2 2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. (KJV)

Here we have Magi or wise men seeking the Son of God and the redemption they had lost when Adam sinned. Thus the being who sought them in the Garden was sought by the wise when he came to redeem them. This wisdom did not come of men but of the Heavens.

Adam heard the sound and hid himself because he was naked. This knowledge he did not possess previously and this knowledge came from knowing both good and evil. The argument put forward that only the knowledge of good was the way of God is not true.

Moreover we know that the being was the Angel of Yahovah or Yahovah Elohim because we know that no man has seen God or heard his voice ever on the testimony of this being as Jesus Christ (Jn. 5:37).

John 5:37 37 And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. (KJV)

So this Yahovah elohim on the testimony of Jesus Christ (and the apostles) was not the one true God.
We see further down that what Satan had said was in fact true and that the knowledge of good and evil, was necessary to elohim status.

What did the Yahovah elohim say to the others.

Genesis 3:21-24
21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God [Yahovah elohim] make coats of skins, and clothed them.
22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (KJV)

All these beings had the knowledge of good and evil. And Yahovah Elohim said behold the man has become as one of us to know good and evil. Now lest he take of the tree of life and eat and live forever he had to be banished from the garden
In the same way the demons were also denied access to the tree of life on an ongoing basis. In this sense they were no longer "immortal" in the sense of having aionion life but were confined in times and space as we see in the texts here and in the NT gospels generally.

Thus the knowledge of good and evil, combined with the tree of life made them as elohim.
Satan was correct in what he said to Eve. He as covering Cherub had this knowledge and so did the Yahovah elohim or the delegated commander who ruled in the name of Yahovah of Hosts which is what this being was.

So it is nonsense to assert that one tree necessarily led to death. The tree was forbidden because God did have a plan, which would have enabled humans to progress to elohim status within a structure different from that which we now experience.
Having brought this about Satan was then given responsibility for taking the creation through to the end and for that he would be judged. The way he decided to deal with humans dictated the way he and Messiah would themselves have to experience the creation.

Culpable negligence

There is a very serious argument in Determinism here. If God knew and placed both beings here in charge of the creation and he knew that Satan would interfere he has a responsibility in the events. Being omniscient he must have known and otherwise Messiah could not have been the lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

God either did not instruct Yahovah elohim correctly or he wished to allow these two beings to determine by their own actions the methodology of the plan of salvation over the period of the trial.

By non-interference God could also test the Host in their responsibilities at every level.

Christ as Yahovah elohim acting under delegation and not being omniscient as we see from later texts, must have either not been told or participated in the fall by not acting.

In either case the transfer of control was effected from Yahovah elohim to the Nachash who was cast to the ground.

This Nachash as Morning Star still had access to the throne of God on a repetitive basis as we see from Job 1:6; 2:1.

The earth was then cursed because of the transgression of Adam and Eve. This is the entire concept behind Deuteronomy 32:8.

The law thus had effect from then and the curses came into effect.

If the Yahovah elohim did not act to protect he is culpable in the same way parents are culpable if they fail to protect their child from dangers which will induce death.

The entire structure appears to have been initiated by God to test the elohim first and then having given them the structure and alternatives let them take the creation through to the end.

The Spirits here are of two kinds. The first is of obedience and the second is of a desire to be outside the will of God. This format is essentially what was induced here.

That it induced a sense of awareness of their condition in relation to the elohim was beyond doubt.

Thus we are not speaking of an awareness of their nakedness to each other. We are speaking of the awareness of the nakedness of each other before the elohim which knowledge they gained after their exposure.

That God the Father knew this would happen is beyond doubt. The participation of Christ as Yahovah elohim in this does not imply omniscience at the same level as that of Yahovah of Hosts.

The Plan of God thus encompassed much more than any other being including Christ knew. That is why Christ was also tested in obedience and faith for with omniscience comes the necessary absence of faith. For where certain knowledge is, there faith is unnecessary.

The prelude to this argument is often taken to state God as One Being in two or three hypostases. An example of this view is the statement of the Worldwide Church of God in their booklet In the Beginning: Answers to Questions from Genesis (WCG 1980, p. 2.)

Consider John 1:1: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God."
That is the very earliest prehistoric record. It could have been millions or thousands of millions of years ago. The two eternally living Spirit Personages, who together constituted the ONE God, were ALONE in empty space. There was no physical universe-YET.

The article then goes on to speak of God in the singular.

But even as man thinks, and designs and plans before making- so did God conceive the plan and design to create angels- immortal spirit beings, composed wholly of spirit. God created angels before creating the earth. We know that they had been created prior to the earth because they sang together and shouted for joy at the earth's creation (Job 38:4-7.) (emphasis retained).

This is straight heathen theology. It derives directly from the worship of the god Attis from which the Modalism of the Roman system was developed. This is examined in the paper The Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235). In that system God was two modes of existence as Father and Son. This was later taken to the Trinitarian stage by adding the Holy Spirit at the Council of Constantinople in 381. This Binitarian system which tried to make a distinction in the two entities was developed from the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE.

The system is however heathen and contrary to Scripture and the start of the Trinitarian rot in the churches of God. That commences from its application here at Genesis.

Look at the simple statements here in Genesis. Yahovah elohim spoke with Adam and Eve. Yahovah elohim spoke in the plural to the elohim there and said and man has become like one of us.

These are multiple beings. Satan is a Morning Star and these are mentioned in Job 38:4-7. Messiah is also a Morning Star.

There were three elohim beings termed angels and also Yahovah, which is the name of the elohim who spoke to Abraham and Lot as we see above.

Christ said no man has seen God or heard him speak ever. Yet Adam and Eve spoke with Yahovah elohim face to face as did Moses. Jacob wrestled with him. Clearly Yahovah elohim is not the Father, the one true God Christ spoke of in John 5:37.
Moreover there are at least three beings in the OT bearing the name of Yahovah none of whom are God the Father and three of which are identified as angels.

Thus the distinction is incorrect as it is made by these Binitarians. Later the same people could write that God and Christ as these two beings could have had a discussion as to who could have come down to be sacrificed. The reasoning is bizarre and jumps from Ditheism to Binitarianism incoherently without cognisance of the words of Messiah himself.

God Most High was not here at Eden except through the Holy Spirit. The two beings that were in a position of authority and control were the two senior beings there.

They set the system in place for the next phase. The senior being here as Yahovah elohim is the same being referred to in Hosea 12:3-4.

Thus the plan was set for the test of the elohim in control of the planet. They had rebelled and they were going to be tested in accordance with the reasons for their rebellion.

The system Satan had argued for was put into place and he was placed in command of it. The nation of Israel was however left out and given to Yahovah elohim in order to bring the entire world to salvation through that lineage and system which would be set aside under the laws of God. Thus the entire system was extant from the beginning.

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