Chapter Fifteen

COUNTERPOINTS TO THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE

"Is there any information available upon which I can rely to explain the first five books of the Bible and especially Genesis?" I sincerely asked the unseen source of information provided through our hypnotized channel, during those wondrous and startling years of the sixties when I first became involved in metaphysics and channeling.

"Yes, read The Zohar or Book of Light. It will tell you much of what you desire to know."

I had never heard of this book. "Where can I find it?"

"In the mid-east or the Vatican basement. It is not readily available."

Excited, naïvely I inquired of various bookstores, ministers, and even two rabbis in Seattle. No one seemed to know of the book. With no Internet resources available at that time, discouraged I ended my search, but never forgot it.

It seems reasonable to consider that it is distinctly possible that humans on Earth were planted, evolved, and mutated in ways referred to in Chapter Three, several of which plantings did not survive. There are hieroglyphics in existence from Sumer dated by archeologists to have been etched about 3500 BC, alerting us to the fact that something major occurred in antiquity that influenced a certain class of people, and those effects still continue.

Christians rely on Genesis 1 of their Bible as the explanation of the creation of Earth and all of its life forms. But the Bible is inadequate in that it gives us short statements that leave us floundering as to their true meaning. Genesis 2 takes up the history of Adam and Eve as the first in the lineage of an eventual ethnic grouping stemming from the advent of Abraham into the drama, later identified as the tribe of Israel, thereafter referred to as Hebrews.

According to the Bible, Abraham was eight generations removed from Adam through the lineage of Adam’s son, Shem, whose descendants had been intermarrying with inhabitants of Ur, a country that worshipped idols. Abraham’s father was a priest in one of the idolatrous temples and The Book of Jubilee states that Abraham separated himself from his father’s idols when two weeks old. From that moment on, Abraham demonstrated that he knew God.

Sometimes we forget that the Christian Bible is predicated on material believed to have been gathered by the Jews during their time of exile in Babylon, which dates about 600 BC. Some students of antiquity believe that Ezra probably wrote a history for the Jews while he was in captivity in order to maintain them as a cohesive, cultural group. Cultures who retain a mythical background seem to maintain their ethnicity. Whether Ezra actually wrote this history, the Bible contains stories that are so like the Chaldean and Babylonian tales that this fact cannot be ignored. Accordingly it raises the question of whether the Jews actually had this background or was it invented?

Zacharia Sitchin states that he wrote his The 12^th Planet and later books describing the Nephalim and Nibiru based on his interpretations of the hieroglyphic clay tablets of Sumer. Linguists and academicians challenge the correctness of Mr. Sitchen’s interpretations. As always, it is prudent to look at both sides of the coin.

Language is primarily a means of expression through human speech. It may also mean the expression of an idea through other instruments. In the old language of the Hebrew texts, written characters may denote distinctly separated series of ideas, other than those expressed by reading the sound signs. The second language may set out images that appear sensible and picture things considered real, but not rational. The adage is that "a picture is worth a thousand words." The more perfect languages and sciences could have been imparted to early humans by more advanced beings from other planets.

One viewpoint concerning interpretation of Akkadian, Sumerian, ancient Semitic, or Aramaic texts is made by Michael S. Heiser, PhD candidate, Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, whose URL site is listed in the Recommended Reading portion of this book. I only note it, not because I think he is totally correct, but much of what he covers is also covered below in the books I refer to. Another informational URL site of Ian Lawton, another linguist, is also listed in the Recommended Reading section, which also pertains to interpretation of these same texts. There are books by Kramer and Meier interpreting Sumerian hieroglyphics which I have yet to read.

Those studying the Dead Sea Scrolls have ventured the premise that Isaiah later rewrote much of the earlier works, which Ezra may or may not have written, and for the same reason. A dedicated man, Isaiah spent his life writing, teaching, and studying, and was considered a great prophet by his people.

Prophet does not always mean someone who foresees the future, but a preacher and messenger of information. Isaiah decidedly was a visionary with a deep spiritual nature. Many of the writings of the Old Testament are believed to be those of Isaiah.

The Jews and their history are important to those outside of the Jewish community only to the extent of such being the basis of Christianity and to a certain extent, Islamic works as far as the Old Testament pertains to Abraham, the patriarch of the lineage of the Arabs. But they have other early works perhaps more explicit than the first five books of Moses, which are also the first five books of the Christian Bible.

In his The Holy Bible in Modern English by Ferrar Fenton provides the information that in the third century BC, the Editorial Committee of the Great Sanhedrin arranged the first four volumes of the Old Testament as:

Vol. I contained the Book of Moses or the Law and was quoted as Thorah, the Law.

Vol. II contained the Book of Joshua to the end of Kings II and was entitled Nebiim Rishonim or The Early Reciters of Historians.

Volume III is known as Nebiium Akheroonim, The Later Preachers or The Prophets.

Vol. IV contained the remaining canonical books of the Hebrew Scriptures, commonly known as Kethobim, Sacred Writers, and included the Book of Psalms to the end of Second Chronicles.

Dr. Fenton spent over fifty years translating his version of the Bible directly from the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek sources in which they were first written.

I refer you to Genesis 1 through Genesis 6, or as far as you care to read. I particularly refer to the paragraphs on the Nephalim. Later there are people who are called the Raphaim and Gibborim, meaning giants. Mr. Heiser believes that the Nephalim and the Gibborim were not the same people. From the manner in which the translations have been handled, it is not clear. It is possible that the giant whom David fought was a member of the Raphaim tribe, and in the information it is said that they were the forefathers of the Philistines living in Canaan, whom the Jews continuously fought after invading their territory. The Philistines may be the forefathers of our present day Palestinians, although their physical stature has certainly shrunk.

I now refer you to The Book of Enoch, the Prophet translated by Richard Laurence, Archibishop of Cashel, from an Ethiopic manuscript held in the Bodlein Library.  This translation was finalyzed after 50 years of study. The cover says:

"In the year 1773 after a period of almost total obscurity lasting 1500 years, the Scottish explorer, James Bruce, discovered in what is now Ethiopia, The Book of Enoch.…… standing immediately before The Book of Job, which is its proper place in the Abyssinian Cannon; and a third copy I presented to the Bodleian Library at Oxford."

Dr. Laurence concluded that the first portion of the manuscript was written by a Jew of the Dispersion either prior to or during the Babylonian captivity. Later the author of Jude had a Greek translation of the same text as he refers to it often.

The histories from Saul to Herod are thought to have been penned at the beginning of Herod’s reign. The prophecies of a coming Messiah were probably envisioned by a pre-Christian writer, but never fulfilled in that the individual they expected would be a leader who would free them from the yoke of Rome and they would be a free country once again.

The early adherents of Christianity, which at the time of Jesus and thereafter were called followers of "The Way," freely appropriated the visions of Enoch to aid them in constructing their religious structure. Authors of the collected writings, as found in the New Testament, utilized or paraphrased many passages from Enoch. The Book of Revelations abounds with excerpts borrowed from the visions in Enoch, which is not unusual for they were simply reiterations by a man well versed in Judaic religious symbolism. The true purpose of Revelations is a mystery to the Western mind, and we are flooded with books providing its probable intention.

I suggest that Revelations was written to strengthen and reinforce the courage and zeal of fellow adherents during those early, harsh days of religious persecution. But it was written in symbols that had definite meaning to those early Jewish followers of The Way for whom the message was intended. It is like attempting to interpret what teenagers are saying when they develop a language of words only meaningful to them in order to circumvent adults.

Enoch was once cherished by Jews and Christians alike, but later fell into disfavor with powerful Christian theologians because of its radical statements on the nature and deeds of fallen angels. It was recognized by many early Church fathers as apocryphal writings, "apocrypha" in Greek meaning hidden or secret. Origen, one of the early Church bishops, distinguished between books proper for public worship and apocryphal books that were to be available to structured Church leaders. Consequently, many uninformed Church fathers in sincerity designated these books as heretical.

Some scholars speculate that The Book of Enoch (Ethiopian version) was penned some time during the second century BC and remained popular for at least 500 years. The Ethiopian text probably was translated from a Greek manuscript, generally considered to have been copied from an earlier text, probably in the Semitic language, now believed to be Aramaic. Although it was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, proving that the book existed before the birth of Jesus, the date is unknown.

For more reliable information relative to many of the unanswered questions about the manuscripts found at Qumran and the authority afforded The Book of Enoch and The Book of Jubilee, I refer you to The Mystery And Meaning Of The Dead Sea Scrolls by Hershel Shanks.

No one believes it is the actual works of the biblical patriarch Enoch, since based on information presented in Genesis, he had to have lived thousands of years earlier. But some sects of the Jews and early Christians accepted this book as authentic scripture. Many concepts of the New Testament attributed to Jesus seem to point directly to The Book of Enoch. Is it possible that one of the reasons the Sanhedrin decided to destroy Jesus was because if he was an Essene, he knew the truth about the divinity of the God in the Torah?

The Essenes taught a truly mystical, spiritual conception of an unexplainable, indescribable essence. If he revealed what he knew, would this destroy the entire controlling Jewish religious foundation? Whether the groups at Qumran were Essenes has not been definitely established, and I refer you once again to Dr. Shanks’ books.

When The Book of Enoch was translated, there was no knowledge or even suspicion of spaceships, extra-terrestrials, or Atlantis; consequently the later interpreters considered them to be visions or analogies. I suggest that we read it literally in light of what we now feel to be true about extra-terrestrials and Atlantis. I think these tales could be about either one, or analogies as they are reputed to be. It is possible that this is a tale of Atlanteans as they were capable of genetic engineering, cloning, and creating life forms. They were hated by other races because of exploitation of lesser cultures to do their labors. At least this is an interesting approach when reading these books.

I am setting forth here my notes that I made while reading the books. It is important that each of us decide as to how we choose to interpret this material. Referring to The Book of Enoch (Ethiopian version) as translated by Richard Laurence, which is just slightly different than that translated by R. H. Charles:

In Ch CV, it told of Lamech, son of Mathusala, flying to Enoch because he had a baby child that didn’t look human, but resembled the offspring of the angels of heaven. (Interesting…. was cohabitation still transpiring between spacemen and Earth women?) We read of something special about Noah that was different, like god.

For any who are still interested, I suggest that you read the book and decide for yourself. Aspects of this book are certainly intriguing.

In 1983 I purchased the book Zohar, An Expository Translation From Hebrew by Nurho De Manhar, which states that it contains short excerpts from the original Book of Zohar. Mr. De Manhar states that Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, the great Kabbalist, is the reputed author of The Zohar or Book of Light, who lived and taught in the reign of Hadrian, the Roman emperor. While in hiding, he developed the Kabbalistic science embodied in this book.

Mr. De Manhar states that there are two ways that the Kabbalists have when speaking of the Divine Being. When they speak simply and directly of his nature and attributes, their style is severely metaphysical and abstruse, but at other times they indulge in the use of metaphor and allegory. Following is an example:

He is the ancient of ancients, the mystery of mysteries, the concealed of the concealed. He hath a form peculiar to himself, but he hath chosen to appear to us the ancient of ancients. Yet in the form whereby we know him he remaineth still unknown. His vesture is white and his aspect that of an unveiled face. He sitteth on a throne of splendors, and the white light streameth over a hundred thousand worlds. This white light will be the inheritance of the righteous in the world to come.

I call attention to the similarity between the italicized words and the descriptions in Enoch. In other words, there are several aspects in attempting to seek the true meaning of the author.

De Mahar’s Zohar also states that there are only two of the original The Zohar or Book Of Light in existence and all other editions have many omissions. In reading DeManhar’s expository translation, I find many similarities to what we are presenting in this book; however, there is a definite difference in the description of god as we do not present god as having a gender represented by the pronoun "he" or "man" or "man" as being the epitome of god’s creations, but otherwise often it is a matter of semantics.

At the time of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, the teachings of Zoroaster permeated this mid-eastern culture, much of which is contained in the sacred book of the Persians, the Zend Avesta. It is said that these teachings parallel the prime teachings of the Kabbalists of that period.