On Genesis, Part 10: The Sins of Men and Angels

The pitiful condition of the surviving portions of the Enoch literature and other apocryphal or pseudepigraphal works, such as the Genesis Apocryphon of the Qumran sect, may not present an absolutely reliable picture of all of the details of the sins of men and angels, but compared to the words of the apostles of Christ we may at least understand some of the underlying truths which they have preserved to some degree. So, as we discussed in our last presentation here, Perfect in His Race, the apostle Jude in his one brief epistle had warned of infiltrators into the Body of Christ who would introduce corruption, and had associated them with the fallen angels of antiquity. Both Peter and Paul had warned similarly. Then, as we had already mentioned in Part 8 of this commentary, Giants and the Sons of God, in Colossians chapter 2 Paul of Tarsus wrote in reference to the humiliation which is found in the worship of angels, where he must have been speaking of those same fallen angels. Then in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, speaking of the pagan worship of the nations of Roman Europe, he wrote “18 Behold Israel down through the flesh: are not those who are eating the sacrifices partners of the altar?”, and in reference to that same thing a little further on, he continued and wrote that “20 … whatever the Nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. Now I do not wish for you to be partners with demons.”

So in those two passages, Paul had equated the pagan religions with the worship of both angels and demons, and the meaning of his words cannot be completely reconciled with the writings of the Old Testament without the Enoch literature. So in Charles’ edition of 1 Enoch chapter 19 we read: “1. And Uriel said to me: ‘Here shall stand the angels who have connected themselves with women, and their spirits assuming many different forms are defiling mankind and shall lead them astray into sacrificing to demons as gods, (here shall they stand), till the day of the great judgement in which they shall be judged till they are made an end of.’” This in turn accords with the words of Christ, where we read in Revelation chapter 20 that the devil, the beast, and the false prophet shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, and in Matthew chapter 25 where He attests that the goat nations – those nations who are not His sheep – have their destiny in the “everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Only their origin explains the reason why they are not found written in the Book of Life.

On Genesis, Part 8: The Giants and the Sons of God

The opening verse of Genesis chapter 5 announces that “This is the book of the generations, or race, of Adam”, and here that book continues. However since there is no explicit break in the context, nor do we see any other reference which may indicate the start of another new book, then this book continues all the way through to the very end of Genesis. While it seems that there should be a logical break in the narrative between the enumeration of the families of the sons of Noah and the time of the call of Abraham, there is not any explicit indication that this book has any further divisions. So in spite of the brevity of the first two books of Genesis, the first being from chapter 1 verse 1 through chapter 2 verse 3, and the second being from chapter 2 verse 4 through to the end of chapter 4, this book is comparatively quite lengthy.

The very construction of this book is also a statement, as the description of the tribes of the sons of Noah is historically relevant to the time of the call of Abraham, and also to the time of Moses when this book was written, but soon after that description the focus of the narrative of the race of Adam quickly narrows to the family of Abraham, and then to the children of Jacob exclusively. From that time, and throughout the subsequent books of the Bible, other Adamic families are mentioned only when they come into contact with the children of Israel, or when they are subjects of prophecy in relation to Israel. In the meantime, here in Genesis chapter 6, there are explicit references to the presence of another race of people, who are not of Adam but who had evidently been on the earth for a long time.

The word for book in that opening verse of Genesis chapter 5 is ספר or sepher, a word which was borrowed into English in the form of the modern word cipher. A ספר or sepher (Strong’s # 5612) is a book, missive or document, but also, as it is used in Scripture as a verb in Genesis chapter 15, an accounting, counting or numbering. The English word account also has all of the same general uses, and to cipher in Medieval English was to do arithmetic, although that word now has different uses in modern English. So this is the account of the race of Adam, and beginning with this sixth chapter of Genesis, any other people who are mentioned in this book, who are not of Adam, are interlopers who are only mentioned in this book as it becomes necessary in order to give an account of Adam, because they had come into contact with and had some impact on the history of people of the race of Adam. They are interlopers because they are not mentioned in the creation account of Genesis, and therefore they must have some other origin. Then, by the end of this book of Genesis, it becomes wholly apparent that the only portion of the race of Adam which is the direct concern of Yahweh God and the subjects of his further promises are the children of Israel. The last promises made to the Adamic race in general are found in the account of Noah in Genesis chapter 9.

On Genesis, Part 6: The Blooming of Trees

In our last presentation of the Book of Genesis, Truth and Consequences and the opening verses of Genesis chapter 4, we hope to have once again fully established as fact the consequences of Eve’s sin, as it is described in Genesis chapter 3, where three times it was acknowledged that she had already conceived, and that therefore, in spite of the surface reading of Genesis 4:1, she was already pregnant when “Adam knew his wife”. Doing this, we cited several other Scriptures, both apocryphal and canonical, which are in agreement with this interpretation. But there is no Scripture in canon which explicitly disagrees with it, and our therefore witnesses must stand, and Cain must have been the literal son of the “wicked one”, as the apostle John had explained in his first epistle. With this understanding it also must be admitted that Genesis 4:1 cannot be a record of Eve’s conception, as she was already impregnated where she had been admonished in Genesis chapter 3. For that same reason Adam had already called her name Eve because “she was the mother of all living”, and in that manner he had also acknowledged that she was already with child.

But Adam, having accepted his wife’s sin, was also compelled to accept what was in her womb, and even after his punishment was declared, he may not have even been fully cognizant of the troubles which his sin would cause him in the future. So it is apparent that for that reason, Adam had raised both Cain and Abel as his own sons, and the immediate consequences of the sin in the garden once again became apparent in the murder of Abel. The name Abel is interesting in this regard, as the Hebrew term הבל, hebel or habel (Strong’s #’s 1891-93), as a verb is to breathe, and as a noun it means breath or therefore also vanity, since breath is representative of something that is transitory. However the words for breath also provide expression for the concept of spirit in both Hebrew and in Greek. Although Abel’s life may have been of brief duration, as Paul of Tarsus had explained in chapter 11 of his epistle to the Hebrews, “4 By faith Abel offered to Yahweh a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he was accredited to be righteous, having testified of Yahweh by his gifts, and being slain because of it he still speaks.”

This Open Forum had a slow start, and improved as the evening progressed. Some participants evidently had technical problems with their microphones and could not participate. The server is in line for an upgrade.

I will publish a short list of subjects here soon...

On Genesis, Part 4: The Mourning After

Here we shall discuss the latter half of Genesis chapter 3 and the consequences realized for sin which become evident on the mourning after, which is a pun that alludes to the consequences outlined in the punishment of Adam and his wife for their sins. The phrase the morning after is defined as “a period, as in the morning, when the aftereffects of excessive self-indulgence during the previous evening are felt…” or “a moment or period of realization in which the consequences of an earlier ill-advised action are recognized or brought home to one.” But here we have used the word mourning instead, because it also describes how Adam and Eve must have felt as those consequences were declared by Yahweh their God, and since we ourselves also have a right to lament those consequences because they have adversely affected all of Adam’s descendants throughout history, as Paul of Tarsus had explained at length in chapter 5 of his epistle to the Romans.

In our last presentation, Sustainable Plausibility, we made the assertion that our Genesis interpretation is valid only so long as it is upheld throughout the entire Scriptures, but if it is upheld then it must be true and correct. With that, we demonstrated the meanings of the expressions found in the opening verses of Genesis chapter 3 from similar expressions which had been employed elsewhere in Scripture and also in other ancient literature, which do indeed reveal that the metaphors and allegories are euphemisms for sexual activity, and that illicit sexual relations certainly are the cause for the fall of the Adamic man. Now as we proceed through Genesis, among other things we hope to continually demonstrate that the Scriptures certainly do substantiate this interpretation, and therefore that it must reflect the true meaning as it was intended by the Author, Yahweh God Himself.

There are more colorful phrases by which we may have titled our last presentation, which may better have described the nature of the sin of Eden, which is the true so-called “original sin”. However our intention is to illustrate the fact that our method of interpretation is of the utmost importance. As we had already asserted in our commentary on Genesis chapter 1, since Yahshua Christ had come to reveal “things kept secret from the foundation of Society”, and since Genesis describes the foundation of that very Society, or world, then Genesis can only be properly interpreted through His words. Now here, in The Mourning After, we hope to further illustrate the truth of that assertion.

This recording has been appended to the Christogenea Saturdays program for January 27th, 2018. It merits this separate posting.

What if Jesus were descended from the Israelite tribe of Judah, as the Scripture says that He is? Well, of course He is, because the Scriptures do not lie. But what if the people known as Jews today were NOT of the tribe of Judah? Nor even of Benjamin or Levi? Then how could Jesus possibly be a Jew? The answer is easy, Jesus is not a Jew because the people known as Jews today are not of Judah. The Bible itself tells us this.

For this reason Jesus Himself told the church at Smyrna, in Revelation 2:9: "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan."

Just in case that is not understood, Jesus also said to the church at Philadelphia, in Revelation 3:9: "Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee."

So according to Jesus Himself, the people calling themselves Jews at this time are not "real" Jews, meaning that they are not actually of the tribe of Judah. But how can that be? First, we will see that Paul of Tarsus agrees with Jesus, and the events which Luke recorded in Acts chapter 26 had actually transpired about 35 years before John recorded the Revelation.