Identifying the Biblical “Beast of the Field”, Part 3

Identifying the Biblical “Beast of the Field”, Part 3

In my presentation last week, The Role of Faith in a Successful Insurgency, Movement, or Community, I discussed the fact that if we as Christians are going to overcome this world, then we must dehumanize our enemies, referring to those who are also the enemies of Christ. While, once again, I cannot prove in a few statements that all of the other or non-White races are among those enemies, we have proven that long ago in other presentations here at Christogenea. In brief, in the New Testament parables of Christ, there are sheep and there are goats, and only one particular race of people are ever identified as sheep, while all the other nations are goats. In the Revelation, the serpent sends a flood from his mouth after the Woman, the Bride of Christ who represents the children of Israel in their reconciliation to God which is through Christ, and that vision corresponds to the prophecy of Satan gathering all of the world’s nations against the Camp of the Saints, which are the same White Christian people of God. These statements only summarize the Biblical proofs by which we may support our position.

So in last week’s presentation I included material showing that it was not very long ago, perhaps only a hundred and twenty years, that books were printed by both poets and churchmen which debated whether the non-White races were even human, as many of them had indeed considered the non-White races to be beasts, or devils, and not people. Then I made the assertion that the Bible already does that same thing for us, that it dehumanizes our enemies, but that I could not possibly offer all of the proofs in a short space. While many of those proofs are found in our Pragmatic Genesis series and in other presentations, this series on the so-called Beast of the Field is meant to be yet another part of that proof, but from a different perspective.

Going back to last week’s presentation, some may feel that the word insurgency was a little strong. The concept was not really aimed exclusively at Christian Identity adherents, but at all of the White Nationalists and casual Christian Nationalists who are without a compass, or still following some worldly church or some foreign or pagan religious authority while pretending to be Nationalists. An insurgency is generally defined as an active revolt or uprising. That describes Identity Christians as well as certain nationalist groups, although in different ways.

As Identity Christians, we seek to revolt against the established religious sects which are neglecting the Word of our God and lying about His Covenants and the identity of His people. As Christian Nationalists, whether we are in any particular nationalist organization or not, we seek to revolt against the American empire and all other oppressive governments of the world which are now forcing us to accept every form of perversion and corruption in open defiance and disobedience to our God. I am not calling for open revolt, but we certainly await the day that it comes, which is the day that Mystery Babylon finally falls. So while for now, and from either perspective, that revolt is only a spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of our people, one day it shall become a real battle, and we have a promise from our God, that if we stay true to His Word then we shall prevail.

So while we are an insurgency in a philosophical sense, we are also a movement, because we are trying to win others of our kind over to our cause. In that sense, a movement is generally defined as a group of people working together to advance their shared political, social, or artistic ideas. That is precisely what we are, even in the artistic realm where, for example, we would dispose of the grotesque Jewish-inspired modern art, which is not art at all, in favor of our own traditional classical art. But more importantly, we know that church – in the New Testament sense of the term – should never have been separated from State. And on the other hand, the legitimate State is not a kingdom or government of man. Rather, the Christian ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven which we seek after shall only be achieved once Christ is King before the eyes of all men – of all those who are truly men.

Finally, we are a community if we come together and work together to attain to those objectives. Then if we are serious about achieving them, we will also very naturally look after one another and care for one another in a spirit of brotherly love and cooperation whereby we may develop a common edification for all of our fellow-workers, which, in addition to our common blood, is what joins us together as members of a community. For now it may be a spiritual community, but the day is coming when the Kingdom of Heaven does become manifest, and then it will be a concrete community. The time to begin building is now, or in the end we shall not be found worthy of its rewards.

The law of our God was only for the children of Israel. It was not for all races and nations. So all the other races and nations could not expect its protections or its benefits. There were several exceptions made for sojourners dwelling in their lands only so that the sojourners violating the law would not lead them to sin, so that were the sojourners required to keep the same laws. These mostly concerned things such as buying or selling on the Sabbath. However not just any sojourners were ever supposed to dwell in their lands, and there were laws governing which sojourners may dwell in the lands and under what circumstances. So we read in Psalm 147, speaking of Yahweh: “19 He shows his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. 20 He has not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye Yahweh.” If Christ came to “redeem them that were under the law”, which is in the words of Paul of Tarsus and which is evident in many other Scriptures, and if the law is only for the children of Israel, how can we include anyone of any of these non-White, non-Adamic races in our lawful Christian society?

The children of Israel were to be a separate and holy people, as we read in Exodus chapter 19: “5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: 6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” Then we see again in 1 Kings chapter 8: “53 For you didst separate them from among all the people of the earth, to be thine inheritance, as you spoke by the hand of Moses thy servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord Yahweh.” Likewise, we see the same expectation of Christians, and Peter was indeed speaking to a portion of the anciently dispersed Israelites, in 1 Peter chapter 2: “9 But you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, so that you should proclaim the virtues for which from out of darkness you have been called into the wonder of His light….” This concept was also expressed by Paul, in 2 Corinthians chapter 6: “17 On which account ‘Come out from the midst of them and be separated,’ says the Prince, and ‘do not be joined to the impure, and I will admit you’. 18 ‘And I will be to you for a father, and you will be mine for sons and daughters, says the almighty Prince.’ Then continuing in chapter 7, Paul wrote: “1Therefore having these promises, beloved, we must cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and of Spirit, accomplishing sanctity in awe of Yahweh.” In awe, or in fear or respect of Yahweh.

But the so-called people of alien races were not even to be respected. In old English, the word fear included the concept of reverence, which along with awe is even included in many of the commonly accepted definitions for the corresponding Hebrew or Greek terms which were typically translated as fear in our King James Version. The word reverence describes a deep respect for a person or thing. Fear requires respect, and one does not fear those whom one does not respect. An examination of the Scriptures in this light informs us that the children of Israel were not even to respect alien peoples. So we read in Numbers chapter 14: “8 If Yahweh delights in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it [to] us; a land which flows with milk and honey. 9 Only rebel not ye against Yahweh, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and Yahweh is with us: fear them not.” The children of Israel had also been warned in Exodus chapter 23: “ 32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.” Reverencing, or respecting, the aliens is tantamount to respecting their gods. Yahweh is only the God of Israel, so respecting them is a form of idolatry. This would also preclude even trading with the enemy, which is a form of covenant, or agreement to fulfill a pledge. Where it says “for they are bread for us”, that means that they were to be completely deprived of their food and possessions and driven off of the land. This is the attitude we should have to this very day, even if, for the time being, we have no power to exercise it in practice.

I say these things this evening to reinforce some basic Biblical concepts. Studying the Scriptures from a Christian Identity worldview for 11 years before emerging from prison and engaging with most other Identity Christians, I was absolutely appalled by the relaxed and even friendly attitudes that many of them had towards the non-White races. I also thought, since I understood the errors which were made by Swift and Comparet and knew that I was able to correct them, that most of my fellow Identity Christians would be happy to hear that Yahweh our God did not create the non-White races as we now know them. Even as a youth, long before I learned anything like our Christian Identity truth, I would have been thrilled to have learned that my God did not create the niggers and spics whom I saw as a plague upon my people, and to find out that they were actually a corruption of His creation, for which reason they spread corruption and cause decay wherever they are found. The Christian truth is this: by their fruits you shall know them.

In the beginning of my studies, I also followed and believed the errors of the earlier Identity teachers, thinking that they made sense. They were indeed an improvement compared to the teachings of the universalist churches. However after years of deeper study it is fully apparent that they do not make any sense, and that the Genesis heresy that God created all of the races of so-called people does not hold up when it is compared to all of the Scripture.

So, Yahweh did not create in His image negroes or orientals or any of these other races of so-called people? You would think that the typical White Christian Nationalist or Identity Christian would be absolutely thrilled to hear that news! They should be overjoyed that those who hate them are not created in the image of their God! Neither did He create them as “beasts” and call them “good”! Identity Christians should be over-abundantly elated at the prospect of learning this truth! I can certainly prove that this is true, and I believe that I have on many occasions. But I am quite puzzled that even to this day, many of those calling themselves Christian Identity still scoff at the concept, and refuse to even listen to the evidence.

Evidently, as I sometimes am persuaded, these scoffers do not want to part with the lies that justify their affections for their favorite niggers. It is attested that many devils had infiltrated the old kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and instigated the corruption, and it is just as evident that today we have devils among us instigating the same corruption. In answer to some of those devils, Clifton Emahiser wrote this series of essays Identifying the Beast of the Field. The series was inspired by some of the arguments we faced which I have just described, even from people who had originally claimed to agree with us.

So Clifton had written this series relatively recently, parts 1 through 6 being done from March through November of 2010, and part 7 in June of 2012. The first 6 parts were to answer some of the heresies which Eli James, whose real name is Joseph November, was trying to introduce at that time. He was one of those people who, when I first got out of prison, had originally claimed to agree with us. This had also precipitated our ultimate split in January of 2011. Eli James had claimed that I changed my position on the other races, but that is a lie. It had, by 2010, already been at least 7 years since either of us – meaning Clifton or myself – had begun proclaiming as a fact our assertion that Yahweh did not even create the non-Adamic races, at least as they are known to us today, which we began doing no later than 2003. I stated in Broken Cisterns, Part 2, a paper which Clifton had published and which was on the Israelect.com no later than 2005, that “There is no record in all of Scripture of Yahweh creating the other, the non-Adamic, races. Rather, He rejects them time and again (i.e. Matt. 25:31-46). I would assert, by means of logical deduction, that the creators of the non-Adamic races are these same angels which Jude discusses here, boldly accusing those angels of fornication!” Now, they really did not create those races in a Biblical sense, but they created them by corrupting what Yahweh had originally created.

That paper was published at least a year before Eli James wrote his first letter to me, in 2006, where began by saying that “I have been receiving Clifton’s newsletters for many years now, so let me congratulate you on the fine work you are doing for him.” Eli may have been receiving Clifton’s material, but he could not have been reading it, or he would have understood our position on the non-Adamic races long before he ever asked me to do podcasts with him, which he had done even before I got home from prison in December of 2008. So I never really expected this to be an issue between us in 2010, until Eli showed his true colors and he made it an issue.

But Eli is not the only adherent to that version of CI which really stands for Compromise Identity. Quite frequently I have had the same conflict with the followers of Ted Weiland, Pete Peters, Dan Gayman, and a hundred other clowns. Most of the old-time Identity teachers cling to the notion that Yahweh created all races, in spite of the fact that Christ Himself spoke of “every plant which My Heavenly Father did not plant”, and informs us that all non-Sheep nations, which are all non-Israelite nations, shall ultimately go into the “fire prepared for the devil and his angels”. Therefore Yahweh could not have created them, if they share the same destiny as the devil. How difficult is that to understand? In spite of the odds against us, Clifton and I had always retained the confidence that the truth would ultimately prevail, and it shall.

Understanding this concept is integral to a sound Christian Nationalist worldview. If Yahweh created the other races as we know them, then they must be “good”, since everything which Yahweh created is good. But if Yahweh did not create them, and if they are indeed corruptions of His creation, then we can plainly see why in the end all of the goat nations are destroyed in the proverbial fire, as our Redeemer informs us in His Gospel. Only with this is there a firm moral foundation for White Nationalism. Once one thinks that other races can be Christians, Nationalism has no defense, because there is only one body of Christ. Understanding where the lines are drawn, as Christians we must therefore also acknowledge where our own allegiances should lie, and what we must separate ourselves from if we are to truly please our God.

Now that we have more fully recalled what heresy it was that he was attempting to answer when he wrote this, we shall present Part 3 of Clifton Emahiser's series:

IDENTIFYING THE “BEAST OF THE FIELD”, #3

Clifton A. Emahiser’s Teaching Ministries

In [the first two essays] on this subject I have given substantial evidence that the Biblical phrase “beast of the field” (often meaning four-footed/quadruped animals, domesticated or wild) is sometimes used as a Hebrew idiom for two-legged/biped creatures appearing as men. In [the first essay], I showed adequate documentation that neither Strong’s Hebrew word #2423 “chêyvâ”, nor #2416, “chay”, could support, or be translated or interpreted [to] a two-legged/biped “beast of the field” [wherever they appear in Scripture]. With this paper I will show evidence that the “devil” and the “ape” have the same name! Also, that “Satan” is likened to “orangutan”. To document this, I will use Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary, volume 1, pp. 47-50 under “Notes On Chapter III” [meaning Genesis chapter 3], and especially on the terms “nachash” and “beast” at Genesis 3:1.

I would point out, what you are about to read was edited out of Ralph Earle’s abridged edition of Clarke’s Bible Commentary, no doubt believing he was doing God and nominal churchianity a favor! Also, Clarke was a master of several languages.

Throughout his research, Clifton endeavored to use mainstream denominational sources in order to establish the fact that our Christian Identity concepts of Scripture certainly can be found in at least some of them, and therefore our scholarship cannot rightfully be mocked. But of course, Clifton himself also explained that much of the content of those same sources was in error, mostly because their authors were tainted with Church dogmas and presuppositions long before they even began writing. So before he himself wrote on a subject, Clifton would pull all available sources from his bookshelves and arrange them in a neat circle on his dining room table, open to the necessary pages, and read through each of them one at a time in order to find everything that they had to say which was relevant. If it was useful, he made a citation, but as he himself also confessed, very often the articles were not useful.

Now to continue with Clifton’s citation of Earle’s edition of Adam Clarke’s commentary:

“NOTES ON CHAP. III

“Verse 1. Now the serpent was more subtle] We have here one of the most difficult as well as the most important narratives in the whole book of God. The last chapter ended with a short but striking account of the perfection and felicity of the first human beings, and this opens with an account of their transgression, degradation, and ruin. That man is in a fallen state, the history of the world, with that of the life and miseries of every human being, establishes beyond successful contradiction. But how, and by what agency, was this brought about? Here is a great mystery, and I may appeal to all persons who have read the various comments that have been written on the Mosaic account, whether they have ever yet been satisfied on this part of the subject, though convinced of the fact itself. Who was the serpent? of what kind? In what way did he seduce the first happy pair? These are questions which remain yet to be answered. The whole account is either a simple narrative of facts, or it is an allegory. If it be a historical relation, its literal meaning should be sought out; if it be an allegory, no attempt should be made to explain it [this is Clarke’s opinion - WRF], as it would require a direct revelation to ascertain the sense in which it should be understood, for fanciful illustrations are endless. Believing it to be a simple relation of facts capable of a satisfactory explanation, I shall take it up on this ground; and, by a careful examination of the original text, endeavour to fix the meaning, and show the propriety and consistency of the Mosaic account of the fall of man. The chief difficulty in the account is found in the question, Who was the agent employed in the seduction of our first parents?”

Now Clifton comments, answering in contrary to Adam Clarke:

It is my opinion that the story of “Satan” and “the beast of the field” are in allegory and hidden in idiomatic language, and that we will find the answers to the hidden symbolism in other passages of Scripture, as in many cases the Bible explains itself!

And Clifton is certainly correct. The explanation of the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew chapter 13 should be the first passage to which one must go to understand Genesis chapter 3, and Revelation chapter 12 should be the next passage. So he continues by going…

Back to Clarke:

“The word in the text which we, following the Septuagint, translate serpent, is נחש nachash; and, according to Buxtorf and others, has three meanings in Scripture. 1. It signifies to view or observe attentively, to divine or use enchantments, because in them the augurs viewed attentively the flight of birds, the entrails of beasts, the course of the clouds, &c.; and under this head it signifies to acquire knowledge by experience. 2. It signifies brass, brazen, and is translated in our Bible, not only brass, but chains, fetters, fetters of brass, and in several places steel; see 2 Sam. xxii. 35; Job xx. 24; Psa. xviii. 34; and in one place, at least filthiness or fornication, Ezek. xvi. 36. 3. It signifies a serpent, but of what kind is not determined. In Job xxvi. 13, it seems to mean the whale or hippopotamus: By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens, his hand hath formed the crooked serpent, נחש ברח nachash bariach: as ברח barach signifies to pass on or pass through, and בריח beriach is used for a bar of a gate or door that passed through rings, &c., the idea of straightness rather than crookedness should be attached to it here; and it is likely that the hippopotamus or sea-horse is intended by it.

Here I must interrupt briefly. In Job 26:12, the dividing of the sea must be a reference to the account in Exodus. In Job 26:13, within the context of the reference to the heavens, the crooked serpent must be a description of the constellation Draco, or the Dragon. Constellaiotns may also “passing through”. The most ancient Egyptians also had this constellation described in their mythology. While serpent is an idiom for the devil, or Satan, not every mention of a serpent in the Bible refers directly to the devil. We should also note, however, that in the portions of Pragmatic Genesis titled Primordial Two-Seedline, I explained that Draco, the Egyptian Apophis, had a part in ancient Egyptian myths as attempting to destroy the ship of the sun god Re, whereupon Re was always successfully defended by his son, Set, who was also called the “lord of life”. These early Egyptian myths certainly contain elements of Two-Seedline truth, as the Egyptian culture in its earliest stages was clearly related to the Hebrew. Continuing with Clifton’s citation of Adam Clarke:

“In Eccles. x. 11„ the creature called nachash, of whatever sort, is compared to the babbler: Surely the serpent (נחש nachash) will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better.

“In Isa. xxvii. 1, the crocodile or alligator seems particularly meant by the original: In that day the Lord – shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, &c. And in Isa. lxv. 25, the same creature is meant as in Gen. iii. 1, for in the words, And dust shall be the serpent’s meat, there is an evident allusion to the text of Moses. In Amos ix. 3, the crocodile is evidently intended: Though they be hid in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, (חנחש hannachash,) and he shall bite them. No person can suppose that any of the snake or serpent kind can be intended here; and we see from the various acceptations of the word and the different senses which it bears in various places in the sacred writings, that it appears to be a sort of general term confined to no one sense.”

Here I must interrupt again, only to state that Clarke was evidently impervious to the fact that all of these Scriptures are allegories referring to people within the general population of their time. For example, in Isaiah chapter 27, the serpent in the sea is a reference to the seed of the serpent – the descendants of the fallen angels – mingled among the greater Adamic race in the sea of the world’s peoples. In Amos chapter 9 the use is the same. Continuing again with Clifton’s citation of Clarke:

“Hence it will be necessary to examine the root [נחש] accurately, to see if its ideal meaning will enable us to ascertain the animal intended in the text. We have already seen that נחש nachash signifies to view attentively, to acquire knowledge or experience by attentive observation; so נחשתי nichashti, Gen. xxx. 27: I have learned by experience; and this seems to be its most general meaning in the Bible.”

To interrupt once more, now we see why the corrupt races propagated by the fallen angels, who are the collective serpent, are referred to as the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”, as that is an element of the meaning of the title serpent, or nachash. Again continuing with Clarke:

“The original word is by the Septuagint translated οφις, a serpent, not because this was its fixed determinate meaning in the sacred writings, but because it was the best that occurred to the translators: and they do not seem to have given themselves much trouble to understand the meaning of the original, for they have rendered the word as variously as our translators have done, or rather our translators have followed them, as they give nearly the same significations found in the Septuagint: hence we find that οφις is as frequently used by them as serpent, its supposed literal meaning, is used in our version. And the New Testament writers, who seldom quote the Old Testament but from the Septuagint translation, and often do not change even a word in their quotations, copy this version in the use of this word. From the Septuagint therefore we can expect no light, nor indeed from any other of the ancient versions, which are all subsequent to the Septuagint, and some of them actually made from it. In all this uncertainty it is natural for a serious inquirer after truth to look everywhere for information.”

Interrupting once again, here I must agree with Clarke, but to add that the supposed literal translation of nachash to serpent is indeed plainly evident in some passages, such as one he cited at Job 26:13. So the Septuagint translators chose οφις to represent nachash, however that does not mean we have to limit our understanding of the term nachash to a literal serpent whenever it is encountered. Now Clarke resorts to an unlikely source for further understanding, and we may want to reject it at first, but later I will endeavor to defend his choice as being significant:

“And in such an inquiry the Arabic may be expected to afford some help, from its great similarity to the Hebrew. A root in this language, very nearly similar to that in the text, seems to cast considerable light on the subject. Chanas or khanasa signifies he departed, drew off, lay hid, seduced, slunk away; from this root come akhnas, khanasa, and khanoos, which all signify an ape, or satyrus, or any creature of the simia or ape genus. It is very remarkable also that from the same root comes khanas, the devil, which appellative he bears from that meaning of khanasa, he drew off, seduced, &c., because he draws men off from righteousness, seduces them from their obedience to God, &c. See Golius, sub voce. Is it not strange that the devil and the ape should have the same name, derived from the same root, and that root so very similar to the word in the text? But let us return and consider what is said of the creature in question. Now the nachash was more subtle, ערום arum, more wise, cunning, or prudent, than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. In this account we find, 1. That whatever this nachash was, he stood at the head of all inferior animals for wisdom and understanding. 2. That he walked erect, for this is necessarily implied in his punishment – on thy belly (i.e., on all fours) shalt thou go. 3. That he was endued with the gift of speech, for a conversation is here related between him and the woman. 4. That he was also endued with the gift of reason, for we find him reasoning and disputing with Eve. 5. That these things were common to this creature, the woman no doubt having often seen him walk erect, talk, and reason, and therefore she testifies no kind of surprise when he accosts her in the language related in the text; and indeed from the manner in which this is introduced it appears to be only a part of a conversation that had passed between them on the occasion: Yea, hath God said, &c.”

Interrupting once more: Of course, Clarke said at the beginning of his argument that the text of Genesis chapter 3 should be read as a narrative of the facts, rather than as an allegory. Clifton and myself would argue that the text is highly allegorical although it certainly represents a historical event. Here Clarke also seems to be leaning in the direction that the serpent of Genesis chapter 3 was some sort of ape. That we find impossible, since literal apes cannot speak, nor would an actual ape be imagined as appearing as an angel of light, as Paul referred to the seducer of Eve in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. We would rather imagine other reasons for the devil and an ape sharing the same name in Arabic, upon which we shall comment later. Continuing with Clifton’s citation of Clarke:

“Had this creature never been known to speak before his addressing the woman at this time and on this subject, it could not have failed to excite her surprise, and to have filled her with caution, though from the purity and innocence of her nature she might have been incapable of being affected with fear. Now I apprehend that none of these things can be spoken of a serpent of any species. 1. None of them ever did or ever can walk erect. [Here Clarke has a cognitive disconnect. The serpent never could walk erect, but the ape never had the power of speech.] The tales we have had of two-footed and four-footed serpents are justly exploded by every judicious naturalist, and are utterly unworthy of credit. The very name serpent comes from serpo, to creep, and therefore to such it could be neither curse nor punishment to go on their bellies, i.e., to creep on, as they had done from their creation, and must do while their race endures. 2. They have no organs for speech, or any kind of articulate sound; they can only hiss. It is true that an ass by miraculous influence may speak; but it is not to be supposed that there was any miraculous interference here. God did not qualify this creature with speech for the occasion, and it is not intimated that there was any other agent that did it; on the contrary, the text intimates that speech and reason were natural to the nachash: and is it not in reference to this the inspired penman says, The nachash was more subtle or intelligent than all the beasts of the field that the Lord God had made? Nor can I find that the serpentine genus are remarkable for intelligence. It is true the wisdom of the serpent has passed into a proverb, but I cannot see on what it is founded, except in reference to the passage in question, where the nachash, which we translate serpent, following the Septuagint, shows so much intelligence and cunning: and it is very probable that our Lord alludes to this very place when he exhorts his disciples to be wise – prudent or intelligent, as serpents, φρόνιμοι ὡς οἱ ὄφεις [which means “wise as the serpents”, noticing that the terms for wise and serpents are both in the plural - WRF], and it is worthy of remark that he uses the same term employed by the Septuagint in the text in question: ὄφις ἦν φρονιμώτατος [literally the serpent was more wise - WRF], the serpent was more prudent or intelligent than all the beasts, &c. All these things considered, we are obliged to seek for some other word to designate the nachash in the text, than the word serpent, which on every view of the subject appears to me inefficient and inapplicable.”

Adam Clarke, insisting that the text should be read as a literal historical account of the facts of the incident, insists upon a more technically correct term than serpent for the enchanter of Genesis chapter 3. Returning to the citation:

“We have seen above that khanas, akhnas, and khanoos, signify a creature of the ape or satyrus [or satyr - WRF] kind. We have seen that the meaning of the root is, he lay hid, seduced, slunk away, &c.; and that khanas means the devil, as the inspirer of evil, and seducer from God and truth. See Golius and Wilmet. It therefore appears to me that a creature of the ape or ouran outang (orangutan) kind is here intended; and that Satan made use of this creature as the most proper instrument for the accomplishment of his murderous purposes against the life and soul of man. Under this creature he lay hid, and by this creature he seduced our first parents, and drew off or slunk away from every eye but the eye of God. Such a creature answers to every part of the description in the text: it is evident from the structure of its limbs and their muscles that it might have been originally designed to walk erect, and that nothing less than a sovereign controlling power could induce them to put down hands in every respect formed like those of man, and walk like those creatures whose claw-armed paws prove them to have been designed to walk on all fours. Dr. Tyson has observed in his anatomy of an ouran outanq (orangutan), that the seminal vessels passed between the two coats of the peritoneum to the scrotum, as in man; hence he argues that this creature was designed to walk erect, as it is otherwise in all quadrupeds. Philos. Trans., vol. xxi., p. 340. The subtlety, cunning, endlessly varied pranks and tricks of these creatures, show them, even now, to be more subtle and more intelligent than any other creature, man alone excepted. Being obliged now to walk on all fours, and gather their food from the ground, they are literally obliged to eat the dust; and though exceedingly cunning, and careful in a variety of instances to separate that part which is wholesome and proper for food from that which is not so, in the article of cleanliness they are lost to all sense of propriety; and though they have every means in their power of cleansing the aliments they gather off the ground, and from among the dust, yet they never in their savage state make use of any, except a slight rub against their side, or with one of their hands, more to see what the article is than to cleanse it. Add to this, their utter aversion to walk upright; it requires the utmost discipline to bring them to it, and scarcely anything irritates them more than to be obliged to do it. Long observation on some of these animals enables me to state these facts.”

Here we shall interrupt Clarke once more. He cannot prove that the Orangutan ever walked upright, but only conjectures from the seminal vessels alone that it was designed to walk upright, in spite of the many biological factors that refute that assertion. He also insists that the orangutan “answers to every part of the description in the text” in Genesis chapter 3, while ignoring the part in verse 6 which says “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” But we cannot imagine that the orangutan is possibly an object of such desire. So we can agree with Clarke’s findings in reference to language, but we cannot agree with his conclusions. For now he himself continues in regard to this same thing:

“Should any person who may read this note object against my conclusions, because [they are] apparently derived from an Arabic word which is not exactly similar to the Hebrew, though to those who understand both languages the similarity will be striking; yet, as I do not insist on the identity of the terms, though important consequences have been derived from less likely etymologies, he is welcome to throw the whole of this out of the account. He may then take up the Hebrew root only, which signifies to gaze, to view attentively, pry into, inquire narrowly, &c., and consider the passage that appears to compare the nachash to the babbler. Eccles. x. 11, and he will soon find, if he have any acquaintance with creatures of this genus, that for earnest, attentive watching, looking, &c., and for chattering or babbling, they have no fellows in the animal world. Indeed, the ability and propensity to chatter is all they have left, according to the above hypothesis, of their original gift of speech, of which I suppose them to have been deprived at the fall as a part of their punishment.”

Of course, it was not stated to be part of their punishment, so Clarke is inventing things. Also, note here that Clarke admits that his conclusion is predicated upon the idea that to find the identity of this serpent-creature, he is limited to the animal world. But the Revelation of Christ informs us that the serpent was a fallen angel. So Clarke arrived at an errant conclusion, not having considered all of the necessary facts, but we shall arrive at a different and better one. While Clarke refers to the New Testament often, this leads us to wonder whether he actually ever read it. But the bottom line is this: we cannot interpret Genesis by itself, because Yahshua Christ informs us that He came to reveal things kept secret from the foundation of the world. So attempting to interpret Genesis by itself is attempting to interpret an incomplete account, because Yahweh purposely left some things out, so that Christ could later reveal them.

For now, he continues:

“I have spent the longer time on this subject, 1. Because it is exceedingly obscure; 2. Because no interpretation hitherto given of it has afforded me the smallest satisfaction; 3. Because I think the above mode of accounting for every part of the whole transaction is consistent and satisfactory, and in my opinion removes many embarrassments, and solves the chief difficulties. I think it can be no solid objection to the above mode of solution that Satan, in different parts of the New Testament, is called the serpent, the serpent that deceived Eve by his subtlety, the old serpent, &c., for we have already seen that the New Testament writers have borrowed the word from the Septuagint, and the Septuagint themselves use it in a vast variety and latitude of meaning; and surely the ouran outang (orangutan) is as likely to be the animal in question as :(1 nachash and οφις ophis are likely to mean at once a snake, a crocodile, a hippopotamus, fornication, a chain, a pair of fetters, a piece of brass, a piece of steel, and a conjurer; for we have seen above that all these are acceptations of the original word.”

Clarke insists that crocodile and hippopotamus are viable translations of nachash, only because he does not understand the allegorical meaning of certain passages. We are certain that they are not viable translations of the word, because the allegorical significance of the term is quite different than Clarke had imagined. Now to read Clifton’s citation of Clarke to its conclusion:

“Besides, the New Testament writers seem to lose sight of the animal or instrument used on the occasion, and speak only of Satan himself as the cause of the transgression, and the instrument of all evil.”

If Clarke had read the Revelation, here he rejects it!

“If, however, any person should choose to differ from the opinion stated above, he is at perfect liberty so to do; I make it no article of faith, nor of Christian communion; I crave the same liberty to judge for myself that I give to others, to which every man has an indisputable right; and I hope no man will call me a heretic for departing in this respect from the common opinion, which appears to me to be so embarrassed as to be altogether unintelligible.” (Clifton notes: End of quoting Adam Clarke, and all underlining was mine.)

Now Clifton himself responds to Clarke and says:

While I believe that this is a valuable contribution on the part of Adam Clarke, I am not entirely in agreement with him. Especially, I do not accept the idea that nachash may have been only an “agent” for Satan in the seduction of Eve, where Clarke asked the question: “Who was the agent employed in the seduction of our first parents?” What the serious Bible scholar must understand is that the Hebrew, as we have it in our Bible, doesn’t represent the complete Hebrew language. Whenever one is consulting Strong’s Concordance on any one word, and it says that it’s from [a word at] another Strong’s number, that word is considered the root word of the word one is referencing. Some of the Hebrew root words are known and others are not. Strong was a Hebrew scholar and was aware of this, and that is why he’ll direct the reader to the root word. But when they [meaning Hebrew scholars in general - WRF] can’t find the origin of the root word in the Hebrew, they will go to the Arabic because it is a similar language and has some of the missing root words. [Strong’s often has the phrase “from an unused root” in its definitions - WRF] This is simply what Adam Clarke was doing, and he did a superb job of it. McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia states: “It is well known that after the Jews [sic Judahites] returned from the captivity of Babylon, having lost in great measure the familiar knowledge of the ancient Hebrew, the readings from the books of Moses in the synagogues of Palestine were explained to them in the Chaldaic tongue.” Thus, we can begin to see why some of the Hebrew root words were lost! Also, we can begin to comprehend why Adam Clark investigated the Arabic language to clarify Genesis 3:1 on the word “serpent”, and the phrase “beast of the field”. Inasmuch as Genesis 3:15 speaks in part, “... and between thy (the serpent’s) seed ...”, Cain and his offspring were the direct descendants of Satan, not through some kind of third party agent! With this paper, I will show how Clarke is in agreement with the Dead Sea Scrolls!

And although Clarke is surely incorrect about a third party “agent” seducing Eve, we must seriously consider his equating satyrus ( asatyr), ape and ouran outang (orangutan) with the “serpent” and “beast of the field” at Genesis 3:1! Surely the phrase “the beast of the field” is a foundational Hebrew idiom for the existence of the non-white peoples who were not created by the Almighty, but are a product of fallen angel-kind mixed with animal-kind! And the ape family are four-footed/quadrupeds as are the [animals classified as] #929, “bhemah” in the many (but not all) passages where the nonwhite races are meant.

Before we continue, I would like to support the statement that the Hebrew language as we can know it is far from complete, because no book – not even the Bible – unless it is specialized, such as a dictionary or encyclopedia, uses a vocabulary which encompasses the entire lexicon of a language. The Septuagint employs a lexicon of nearly different 14,000 words, if the Bible Works software is correct, and the New Testament employs a lexicon of around 5,400 different words. Only about 4,000 words are common to both volumes. Strong’s Hebrew lexicon has not quite 8,700 entries, representing the vocabulary of the Hebrew Old Testament. From the large collection of surviving Greek literature, we can understand the meanings of the more than 15,000 words which appear in the Greek Scriptures, but we also have the use and meanings of many more thousands of words which were not used in Scripture. We do not have that luxury for the Old Testament Hebrew, since there is very little surviving Hebrew literature of any great antiquity outside of Scripture. So to understand the shades of meaning or the root origins of some words, it often helps to look at the literature of related languages, such as Aramaic or Akkadian or in this case, even Arabic.

I would also assert that the use of the words khanas, akhnas, and khanoos to describe both apes and satyrs, as Adam Clarke has explained, and the further use of khanas to describe either ape or devil, are not necessarily original to whatever original Adamic language it was that Adam and Eve had spoken. The Arabic tongue as it exists now is not original even to the time of Moses, who wrote these accounts circa 1450 BC, nor is it even to the time of Ezra, who was writing around 450 BC. The development of Arabic as a distinct language is not fully evident in history until about the 2nd century BC. Claims exist which date the language much earlier, but are based on thin evidence. However, Arabic has its origins in Aramaic, or in older variations which are related to Hebrew and Aramaic. So for that reason, root meanings of words in Arabic can indeed have some value when assessing the possible root meanings of Hebrew words.

The original Arab tribes were White Shemites and Hamites, who became mingled with one another, and with the apparently White Canaanite bastards in the lands to the east and south of the Israelites. They only became brown later in their history as they mingled in turn with other, non-White races. It is very likely that they, or the original authors of the language they maintained, had later equated apes to devils and satyrs simply because they understood that the ape-like non-Adamic races were devils and satyrs, which are hybrid human-animal creatures from Greek mythology. Since the word satyr has a Hebrew origination, it is all the more likely that this is true. So for that reason, the word khanas can describe either an ape or a devil.

Now we shall proceed with Clifton’s paper, and his own conclusion, where he offers a concise quotation from a portion of the Enoch literature which speaks about the sins of the fallen angels:

From the book, The Dead Sea Scrolls, A New Translation by Michael Wise, Martin Abegg Jr. and Edward Cook, ©1996, on page 247, a translation of 1Q23, fragments 1 + 6: “1 [... two hundred] 2 donkeys, two hundred asses, two hund[red ... rams of the] 3 flock, two hundred goats, two hundred [... beast of the] 4 field from every animal, from every [bird ...] 5 [...] for miscegenation [...]”.

Now Clifton comments and says:

These fragments are from the oldest known manuscripts of The Book Of Giants reputedly written by Enoch whom we are told “... walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”, (Gen. 5:24). Being found among early manuscripts dating before the time of Christ, is sufficient evidence that they were considered vitally important to the text!

If this text does anything else for us, it also demonstrates that the term “beast of the field” referred to animals, and not to so-called “people”. Clifton continues:

Even more solemn evidence can be found in the book The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (second edition) by Florentino Garcia Martinez, ©1996, where on page 260 he translates line 5 of fragment 1Q23 as: “5 of dilute wine [six] thousand, of [...].” As many of us know, most wine is red in color, and therefore would be #119 in the Hebrew in Strong’s Concordance, and is the exact same Hebrew as for Adam-man, or #120. In fact, #’s 119, 120 & 121 are all the same exact Hebrew word, except #119 is a verb, #120 is a noun, and #121 is usually a pronoun (understood as a proper name)!

Actually, Clifton is apologizing for Martinez here, but this is an error on the part of Martinez, who missed the meaning of the original text as it was properly translated by Wise, Abegg and Cook. Now Clifton concludes:

Adam Clarke is not the only one to declare that satyr means “ape”. From A Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell & Scott, page 1232, on the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew word “satyr” we find the following definition: “ὁνοκένταυρα, ἡ, or ὁνοκένταυρος, ὁ, a kind of tailless ape, Ael. NA 17.9. 2. a kind of demon haunting wild places, LXX Is. 13:22, 34:11, 14.” Notice especially Isa. 34:14! What better description could be given of a negroid than a “tailless ape”? [underlining mine]

Even though the word ὁνοκένταυρος literally means ass-centaur, or donkey-centaur, it was imagined to represent ape-like hybrids and demons. So here we have a second witness to Adam Clarke’s assessment of the significance of the Arabic khanas, which they used to translate the Hebrew word nachash and which can mean either ape or devil. These other races of so-called people are indeed tailless apes, and they are indeed related to devils! That is a correct conclusion.