Picking Up Where I Left Off

I can't even believe me!  I retired so that I would have time to write every day and I am busier than ever!  I have spent so much time with my great grandchildren, grandchildren, and children that I am gone about every other week.  But it is Sunday and I am actually home, so I will try and pick up the thread of where I was in the story of creation.  There is much more to tell.

 

The Book of Abraham ends with the creation of Eve.  The Prophet Joseph told the Saints that there was more and also excerpts from the Book of Joseph in Egypt, but he didn't live long enough to complete the translation.  He was martyred at Carthage Jail in Illinois on June 27, 1844.  Therefore, I will move to the writings of Moses for the rest of the story of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and their family and generations of progeny.

 

First, I must go to a place in time not discussed in the Bible concerning Moses.  Most people know that Joseph, 11th son of the Patriarch Jacob/Israel, was sold as a slave by his older brothers.  He was wrongfully imprisoned and through his ability to interpret dreams, he was freed and taken into the confidence of the pharaoh himself.  He later brought his father and the whole family to live in Egypt because there was famine in other lands.  The family settled in a part of Egypt known as Goshen. 

 

After Joseph's death, the Israelite lost favor with the Egyptians and were made slaves.  Centuries later, a son was born to a Levite family in Goshen.  Pharaoh was so afraid of an Israelite prophecy of a boy child who would challenge the authority of Pharaoh, that he had decreed that all boy children be taken from the birthing stools and thrown into the Nile River for the crocodiles.  Moses' mother knew this law. 

 

The Israelite midwives found favor with God in that they were not carrying out Pharaoh's heinous orders, saying to Pharaoh that Israelite women were stronger than Egyptian women and delivered themselves upon the birthing stools before the midwives came.  This is what Moses' mother did.

 

Knowing that a boy child could not survive on the streets of Goshen, she hid him for as long as she could.  When she knew it was no longer safe to hide him, she wove a basket of reeds and pitched in with tar to make it waterproof.  Lovingly, she place her precious on in the basket and set it adrift upon the Nile, praying that God would deliver him.  She sent her daughter, Miriam, to follow and see where the basket went.

 

On that day, Pharaoh's daughter was bathing in the waters of the Nile where she spotted the basket.  She had recently been widowed and felt barren with an empty womb.  When she saw it was a baby, she sent her attendants away and drew him from the Nile, a gift from the God of the Nile, Hapi.

 

Moses was raised as a prince in Egypt and was favored by his grandfather, to the annoyance of his cousin, the crown prince.  As a young adult, Moses saw and Egyptian overseer beat an Israelite slave to death.  In rage, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.  When his crime was discovered, he was cast out of Egypt to die in the desert.

 

He didn't die, but found the tent of a Bedouin who sheltered him and allowed Moses to marry the sheik's eldest daughter.  Moses remained a shepherd and fathered children.  One day, while he was out with the sheep, he saw a bush on a nearby mountain.  It appeared to be burning, but was not consumed.  He was curious, so he climbed the mountain.  That is where he met God face-to-face, which is where we pick up the story.

 

Of course, it was a much more complex set of circumstances and political intrigue, but this is the heart of the story in a Reader's Digest version to bring us to where I want to go: The Book of Moses of the Pearl of Great Price

 

 

Mea Culpa

Sorry my posts have been so random lately.  Life is what happens when you had other plans.  I'm paddling as fast as I can.  'Nuff said.

 

 

Bone of My Bone and Flesh of My Flesh

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. (Genesis 2:20)

 

In all of creation, there was no living thing which was equal to stand by man's side.  While Genesis puts this in a context that makes it sound as if God was experimenting and created woman when all else failed, we know through a careful and prayerful reading of the text that this was God's plan all of the time. Neither the Book of Moses nor the Book of Abraham present this in such an "oh, by the way" manner.

 

What all three of the accounts have in common are the following facts:

• The Gods caused Adam to fall asleep
• While Adam slept, the Gods took a rib from his side and then closed his side back up.
• From that rib, they created a woman.

Adam, according to scripture, called her Woman for she was taken "out of man" and was "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh."  Whether or not God literally created Eve from Adam's rib is, to me, a moot point.  What is more to point is that Adam could not progress from a state of eternal innocence by himself and the whole purpose of Creation would be thwarted.  It is also important to me that Eve was not taken from his head to rule over him nor from his feet to be trodden upon.  She was taken from his side, the "other side" of man; the yin and the yang; equal in value to God as His sons and daughters are equal.  Equal, but different. 

 

The story of the creation of Eve is the perfect genesis for the term "one flesh" and underscores Gods' affirmation of marriage:

 

And Adam said: This was bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; now she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man; Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.  (Abraham 5: 15-18)

 

 

During Jesus' ministry, a group of his critics challenged him on the bill of divorcement allowed by the Law of Moses.  Jesus taught them that this was the lesser law, given to them because of the hardness of their hearts.  Then he went on to reaffirm the sanctity of marriage by quoting from this scripture:

 

But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;  And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Mark 10: 6-9)

 

In Hebrew, Adam means man.  In the Creation account, we are told that Eve was called Woman because she was taken from man.  However, modern-day revelation teaches us that the woman's name, Eve in Hebrew means mother.  Once Gods' creations were finished and Adam and Eve were married by God in the Garden, the next part of the plan was ready to go forward as planned.

 

The Crowning Event in All Creation - Mother of All Living

The last and greatest creation of the Gods was to create an help meet for Adam, for the Gods realized that it is not good for man to be alone.

 

And the Gods said: Let us make an help meet for the man, for it is not good that the man should be alone, therefore we will form an help meet for him. (Abraham 5: 14)

 

In the Book of Abraham, the text goes right into the creation process for woman, but the Book of Genesis inserts this information:

 

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. (Genesis 2: 18-20)

 

In these verses, God brings the animals He has created to Adam so that Adam won't be alone.  Adam names them all, but despite the abundance of life forms, Adam realizes that an help meet who can be his equal and his companion was not among them.  He need a human being, a woman, with whom he can fulfill the measure of his creation, i.e., to multiply and replenish the earth.  He needed an equal, not a duplicate.

 

For centuries, men and women have read the term help meet (or helpmeet) to mean that Eve was subservient to Adam, and for centuries, if not millennia, woman have been treated as subservient and of less importance and stature than men.  The Oxford Dictionary states that this misleading reading even effected the way we use the word: Late 17th century(as helpmeet): from an erroneous reading of Gen. 2:18, 20, where Adam's future wife is described as “an help meet for him” (i.e., a suitable helper for him). The variant helpmate came into use in the early 18th century.

 

According to Oxford, among other sources, the word really means: A . . . companion or partner, especially one’s husband or wife.

 

How different the lot of women would have been if these part of the creation story were understood the way God intended it to be.  Eve came for Adam's rib, so she was taken from his side and was thus the complement creation, not a lesser creation.  Women have suffered Eve's so-called shame for thousands of years and male clergy misread and miss-taught the creation story.

 

Even today in some parts of the world, woman are brutally mistreated.  Female babies are aborted at a geometrically higher rate than male babies.  Female babies are more likely to be abandoned to die than male babies. 

 

The mistreatment of woman among many very traditional Muslims has come to light with such things as honor killings, female circumcision (which God never commanded) and the blaming of women for men's lustful thoughts to the point of completely covering them when in public so only the eyes are seen.  And yet, this is what the Prophet said in the Koran concerning the creation of women (translated):

 

“And God said: ‘O Mankind!  Be dutiful to your Lord, Who created you from a single person (Adam) and from Him (Adam) He created his wife (Eve), and from them both He created many men and women.’” (Quran 4:1)

 

Adam opened his eyes and looked into the beautiful face of a woman gazing down at him.  Adam was surprised and asked the woman why she had been created.  She revealed that she was to ease his loneliness and bring tranquility to him.  The Angels questioned Adam.  They knew that Adam possessed knowledge of things they did not know about and the knowledge mankind would need to occupy the earth.  They said ‘who is this?’  and Adam replied ‘this is Eve’.

Eve is Hawwa in Arabic; it comes from the root word hay, meaning living.  Eve is also an English variant of the old Hebrew word Havva, also deriving from hay.  Adam informed the Angels that Eve was so named because she was made from a part of him and he, Adam, was a living being.

 

Both Jewish and Christian traditions also maintain that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, although in a literal translation of the Jewish tradition, rib is sometimes referred to as side.

 

The traditions of Prophet Muhammad relate that Eve was created while Adam was sleeping from his shortest left rib and that, after sometime, she was clothed with flesh.  He (Prophet Muhammad) used the story of Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib as a basis for imploring people to be gentle and kind to women.  “O Muslims!  I advise you to be gentle with women, for they are created from a rib, and the most crooked portion of the rib is its upper part.  If you try to straighten it, it will break, and if you leave it, it will remain crooked; so I urge you to take care of the women.” (Saheeh Al-Bukhari) [1]

 

I imagine that is not what you would have thought. How far have they drifted from their scriptural bases?   How far have we drifted? We can rationalize and misinterpret ourselves from truth into lies so easily.  That is why the companionship of the Spirit is so important.

 

 [1] http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/1193/story-of-adam-part-2

Hurried Season; Hurried Child

According to the calendar, August is past; September is hear.  It must be true because it the temperature dropped to a cool 99 degrees today.

 

In many parts of the country, leaves are already beginning to turn.  Sunflowers grow as high as the barn roof and crispy apples are ready to fall from the trees.  Not so where I live.  Here we are still swimming, shopping early to avoid the heat, and spending time in an air conditioned inside.

 

Things have really changed for this time of year.  Time was in my childhood and even the childhoods of my children, back-to-school occurred the day after Labor Day.  In most states, school children return at leas t by early August if no late July!  It's one of those iconic markers of life that has blurred into tedium. It seems as if we are losing more and more of these life event markers that divide time into manageable bites.

 

 

Here it is too hot for sunflowers or apples.  The stores are already selling candy and costumes for Halloween!  I love the season of pumpkin flavored everything, but that is not in September.

 

While I'm at it, we seem to rush everything.  We expect children to read before they leave kindergarten.  We send school work home with primary school-aged children who should be spending their afternoons playing in the late summer sunshine, using their imaginations, and connecting with their families.  They "reinvented" math so that children are supposed to understand the why of numerical equations when they should be mastering simple arithmetic first.  The wonderful curricula in art, music, drama, P.E. have become throw-aways to make room for more kill and drill math and incomprehensible common core objectives. Children are so stressed, the frequently melt-down and grow to hate school.

 

I think we need to slow down and reconsider our priorities.  Start school the day after Labor Day.  Give children the time to be children before they have to become adults.  They'll get there much faster if was allow a pace that is child-friendly.  Let their imaginations run free.  Don't do massive state and federal high stakes tests.  Simplify.  Trust teachers as the professionals they are.  Don't micro-manage them either.

 

Then let the barefoot boy with cheeks of tan put on his shoes after Labor Day and bring a ripe, crispy apple to his teacher.