Abreha and Atsbeha Church - Adam and Eve 01

The ''Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan'' (also known as ''The Book of Adam and Eve'') is a 6th-century

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

extracanonical work found in Ge'ez, translated from an

Old Arabic Old Arabic is the name for any Arabic language or dialect continuum before Islam. Various forms of Old Arabic are attested in scripts like Safaitic, Hismaic, Nabataean alphabet, Nabatean, and even Greek alphabet, Greek. Alternatively, the term ha ...

original which is translated from a Syriac source, namely ''

Cave of Treasures The ''Cave of Treasures'' (, , Ge'ez: ''Baʿāta Mazāgebet'', Tigrinya: መዝገብ ገዛ), is an apocryphal and pseudoepigraphical work, that contains various narratives related to the Christian Bible. It was written in the Syriac language ...

''.

Editions and translations

It was first translated from the Ge'ez Ethiopic version into German by

August Dillmann Christian Friedrich August Dillmann (25 April 18237 July 1894) was a German orientalist and biblical scholar. Life The son of a Württemberg schoolmaster, he was born at Illingen. He was educated at the University of Tübingen, where he became ...

. It was first translated into English by

S. C. Malan Solomon Caesar Malan (22 April 1812 – 25 November 1894) D.D., Vicar of Broadwindsor, Prebendary of Sarum, was a Geneva-born Anglican Anglicanism#Anglican divines, divine, a polyglot and oriental studies, orientalist. He published around 50 ...

from the German of Ernest Trumpp. The first half of Malan's translation is included as the "First Book of Adam and Eve" and the "Second Book of Adam and Eve" in '' The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden''. The books mentioned below were added by Malan to his English translation; the Ethiopic is divided into sections of varying length, each dealing with a different subject.

Content

Books 1 and 2 begin immediately after the expulsion from the

Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden (; ; ) or Garden of God ( and ), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2–3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31.. The location of Eden is described in the Book of Ge ...

, and end with the testament and translation of

Enoch Enoch ( ; ''Henṓkh'') is a biblical figure and Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch prior to Noah's flood, and the son of Jared (biblical figure), Jared and father of Methuselah. He was of the Antediluvian period in the Hebrew Bible. The text of t ...

. Great emphasis is placed in Book 1 on Adam's sorrow and helplessness in the

world The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...

outside the

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

. In Book 1, the punished Serpent attempts to kill

Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...

and

Eve Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and there ...

, but is prevented by God, who again punishes the Serpent by rendering it mute and casting it to

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Satan Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...

also attempts to deceive and kill Adam and Eve several times. In one of his attempts on their life, he throws a boulder which ends up encompassing Adam and Eve. God eventually saves them and compares this event with the upcoming

Resurrection of Christ The resurrection of Jesus () is Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, starting—or restoring—his exalted life as Christ and Lord. According to the New Testament writing, Jesus w ...

. God also predicts several other future Biblical events, including Noah and the flood. In Book 2, the "

sons of God Sons of God (, literally: "the sons of Elohim") is a phrase used in the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh or Old Testament and in apocrypha, Christian Apocrypha. The phrase is also used in Kabbalah where ''bene elohim'' are part of different Jewish angelic ...

" who appear in are identified as the children of

Seth Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. The Hebrew Bible names two of his siblings (although it also states that he had others): his brothers Cain and Abel. According to , Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, ...

, and the "daughters of men" as women descended from

Cain Cain is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He is the elder brother of Abel, and the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, the first couple within the Bible. He was a farmer who gave an offering of his crops to God. How ...

, who successfully tempt most of the Sethites to come down from their mountain and join the Cainites in the valley below, under the instigation of Genun, son of Lamech. This Genun invents musical instruments, generally attributed to Jubal; however he also invents weapons of war, generally attributed to

Tubal-Cain Tubal-cain or Tubalcain ( – ''Tūḇal Qayīn'') is a person mentioned in the Bible, in , named therein as the first blacksmith. He is stated as the "forger of all instruments of bronze and iron". A descendant of Cain, he was the son of Lamec ...

. The Cainites, descended from Cain the first murderer, are described as exceedingly wicked, being prone to commit murder and incest. After seducing the Sethites, their offspring become the

Nephilim The Nephilim (; ''Nəfīlīm'') are mysterious beings or humans in the Bible traditionally understood as being of great size and strength, or alternatively beings of great power and authority. The origins of the Nephilim are disputed. Some, ...

, the "mighty men" of Gen. 6 who are all destroyed in the deluge, as also detailed in other works such as ''

1 Enoch The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch; Hebrew: סֵפֶר חֲנוֹךְ, ''Sēfer Ḥănōḵ''; , ) is an ancient Jewish apocalyptic religious text, ascribed by tradition to the patriarch Enoch who was the father of Methuselah and the great-gran ...

'' and ''

Jubilees The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered Biblical canon, canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Haymanot, Haymanot Judaism, a denomination observed by membe ...

''. Books 3 and 4 continue with the lives of

Noah Noah (; , also Noach) appears as the last of the Antediluvian Patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran and Baháʼí literature, ...

Shem Shem (; ''Šēm''; ) is one of the sons of Noah in the Bible ( Genesis 5–11 and 1 Chronicles 1:4). The children of Shem are Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram, in addition to unnamed daughters. Abraham, the patriarch of Jews, Christ ...

Melchizedek In the Hebrew Bible, Melchizedek was the king of Salem and priest of (often translated as 'most high God'). He is first mentioned in Genesis 14:18–20, where he brings out bread and wine and then blesses Abraham, and El Elyon or "the Lord, Go ...

, etc. through to the

destruction of Jerusalem The siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), a major rebellion against Roman rule in the province of Judaea. Led by Titus, Roman forces besieged the Jewish capital, which had beco ...

Titus Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September AD 81) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death, becoming the first Roman emperor ever to succeed h ...

in AD 70. The genealogy from Adam to Jesus is given, as in the Gospels, but including also the names of the wives of each of Jesus' ancestors, which is extremely rare.

Textual origin

''The

'' is a Syriac work containing many of the same legends; indeed, as Malan remarks, a whole body of stories expanding upon the Old Testament is found in the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, in the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

, and in other late antique texts.

Differences from Genesis

* 1st Adam and Eve LXXVIII:16 "Then on the morrow Adam said unto Abel his son, 'Take of thy sheep, young and good, and offer them up unto thy God; and I will speak to thy brother, to make unto his God an offering of corn. By contrast, says: "And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the . And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the had respect unto Abel and to his offering". * Book 2 has discrepancies with Old Testament saint lifetimes: ** Enos lived 985 years (2nd Adam and Eve XIV:4) whereas Genesis says that he lived 905 years (). ** Mahalaleel lived 870 years (2nd Adam and Eve XVI:2) whereas Genesis says that he lived 895 years (). ** Jared lived 989 years (2nd Adam and Eve XXI:13) whereas Genesis says that he lived 962 years ().

References

External links