The First Book Of Adam And Eve
1926 anthology, complete selected publisher reading text
Rutherford H. Platt
23 “If not, then take our souls from us; let us be rid of this animal lust. And if Thou give us no order respecting this thing, then sever Eve from me, and me from her; and place us each far away from the other.
24 “Yet again, O God, when Thou hast put us asunder from each other, the devils will deceive us with their apparitions, and destroy our hearts, and defile our thoughts towards each other. Yet if it is not each of us towards the other, it will, at all events, be through their appearance when they show themselves to us.” Here Adam ended his prayer.
CHAP. LXXIII.
The betrothal of Adam and Eve.
THEN God looked upon the words of Adam that they were true, and that he could long await His order, respecting the counsel of Satan.
2 And God approved Adam in what he had thought concerning this, and in the prayer he had offered in His presence; and the Word of God came unto Adam and said to him, “O Adam, if only thou hadst had this caution at first, ere thou earnest out of the garden into this land!”
3 After that, God sent His angel who had brought gold, and the angel who had brought incense, and the angel who had brought myrrh to Adam, that they should inform him respecting his wedding Eve.
4 Then those angels said to Adam, “Take the gold and give it to Eve as a wedding gift, and betroth her; then give her some incense and myrrh as a present; and be ye, thou and she, one flesh.”
5 Adam hearkened to the angels, and took the gold and put it into Eve’s bosom in her garment; and bethrothed her with his hand.
6 Then the angels commanded Adam and Eve, to arise and pray forty days and forty nights; and after that, that Adam should come in to his wife; for then this would be an act pure and undefiled; and he should have children who would multiply, and replenish the face of the earth.
7 Then both Adam and Eve received the words of the angels; and the angels departed from them.
8 Then Adam and Eve began to fast and to pray, until the end of the forty days; and then they came together, as the angels had told them. And from the time Adam left the garden until he wedded Eve, were two hundred and twenty-three days, that is seven months and thirteen days.
9 Thus was Satan’s war with Adam defeated.
CHAP. LXXIV.
The birth of Cain and Luluwa. Why they received those names.
AND they dwelt on the earth working, in order to continue in the well-being of their bodies; and were so until the nine months of Eve’s childbearing were ended, and the time drew near when she must be delivered.
2 Then she said unto Adam, “This cave is a pure spot by reason of the signs wrought in it since we left the garden; and we shall again pray in it. It is not meet, then, that I should bring forth in it; let us rather repair to that of the sheltering rock, which Satan hurled at us, when he wished to kill us with it; but that was held up and spread as an awning over us by the command of God; and formed a cave.”
3 Then Adam removed Eve to that cave; and when the time came that she should bring forth, she travailed much. So was Adam sorry, and his heart suffered for her sake; for she was nigh unto death; that the word of God to her should be fulfilled: “In suffering shalt thou bear a child, and in sorrow shalt thou bring forth thy child.”
4 But when Adam saw the strait in which Eve was, he arose and prayed to God, and said, “O Lord, look upon me with the eye of Thy mercy, and bring her out of her distress.”
5 And God looked at His maid-servant Eve, and delivered her, and she brought forth her first-born son, and with him a daughter.
6 Then Adam rejoiced at Eve’s deliverance, and also over the children she had borne him. And Adam ministered unto Eve in the cave, until the end of eight days; when they named the son Cain, and the daughter Luluwa.
7 The meaning of Cain is “hater,” because he hated his sister in their mother’s womb; ere they came out of it. Therefore did Adam name him Cain.
8 But Luluwa means “beautiful,” because she was more beautiful than her mother.
9 Then Adam and Eve waited until Cain and his sister were forty days old, when Adam said unto Eve, “We will make an offering and offer it up in behalf of the children.”
10 And Eve said, “We will make one offering for the firstborn son; and afterwards we shall make one for the daughter.”
CHAP. LXXV.
The family revisits the Cave of Treasures. Birth of Abel and Aklemia.
THEN Adam prepared an offering, and he and Eve offered it up for their children, and brought it to the altar they had built at first.
2 And Adam offered up the offering, and besought God to accept his offering.
3 Then God accepted Adam’s offering, and sent a light from heaven that shone upon the offering. And Adam and the son drew near to the offering, but Eve and the daughter did not approach unto it.
4 Then Adam came down from upon the altar, and they were joyful; and Adam and Eve waited until the daughter was eighty days old; then Adam prepared an offering and took it to Eve and to the children; and they went to the altar, where Adam offered it up, as he was wont, asking the Lord to accept his offering.
5 And the Lord accepted the offering of Adam and Eve. Then Adam, Eve, and the children, drew near together, and came down from the mountain, rejoicing.
6 But they returned not to the cave in which they were born; but came to the Cave of Treasures, in order that the children should go round it, and be blessed with the tokens brought from the garden.
7 But after they had been blessed with these tokens, they went back to the cave in which they were born.
8 However, before Eve had offered up the offering, Adam had taken her, and had gone with her to the river of water, in which they threw themselves at first; and there they washed themselves. Adam washed his body and Eve hers also clean, after the suffering and distress that had come upon them.
9 But Adam and Eve, after washing themselves in the river of water, returned every night to the Cave of Treasures, where they prayed and were blessed; and then went back to their cave where the children were born
10 So did Adam and Eve until the children had done sucking. Then, when they were weaned, Adam made an offering for the souls of his children; other than the three times he made an offering for them, every week.
11 When the days of nursing the children were ended, Eve again conceived, and when her days were accomplished she brought forth another son and daughter; and they named the son Abel, and the daughter Aklia.
12 Then at the end of forty days, Adam made an offering for the son, and at the end of eighty days he made another offering for the daughter, and did by them, as he had done before by Cain and his sister Luluwa.
13 He brought them to the Cave of Treasures, where they received a blessing, and then returned to the cave where they were born. After the birth of these, Eve ceased from childbearing.