The First Book of Adam and Eve
This book is a pseudepigraphal bible book that details the creation story written in Genesis. The First Book of Adam and Eve was in both the Septuagint and the original King James Bible.
The story of Adam and Eve is synonymous with the introduction of sin, death, and deception into human existence, but the story of creation has far more depth.
It is also about the power of temptation, the difficulty of overcoming obstacles, forgiveness, redemption, mercy and love. This story expresses the difficulties of battling Satan on your own and why you need God’s Word to guide you. Adam was born perfect and sincerely wanted to follow the teachings of God, yet even he needed God’s Word to lead him in his fight against Satan. The cunning deceiver Satan often beguiled Adam. The lying devil not only came to Eve in the serpent’s form, he comes to both Adam and Eve as apparitions on 13 different occasions in the book. He came as a beguiling angel of light, as an old man sent by God to help lead them and as a beautiful maiden to sow dissent and discourse between them.
Satan deceived Adam and Eve on multiple occasions after God expelled them from the Garden of Eden but could not change their hearts toward God. Each time he deceived them, they showed remorse and sought forgiveness. In fact, committing these unwilful sins left Adam so distraught and his heart so heavy he hurled himself off of a mountain, and Eve after him, and would’ve died had God not sent his Word to raise them. God showed much mercy and love to Adam because he knew Adam loved him in his heart.
The book further illustrates the concept that a man’s heart shall be his judge by telling us that if Adam’s son Cain was repentant about killing his brother Abel, he too would have been forgiven and shown mercy.
This book shows how far Satan will go to turn Adam away from God. It is incomprehensible that he’s using these same deceits today as he continues to roam back and forth across the earth seeking whom he may devour. Today, on an international level, nuclear bombs and biological weapons are available that can destroy millions of innocent lives. At the other end of the spectrum, now through cloning, we’ve been able to create life. Why do you think man has such desire to create and destroy lives? Is it possible that we continue to be beguiled by Satan? Even in what some might say is the most civilized nation in the world, most homes in the USA, out of fear, have guns that can destroy lives in an instant.
There are now over 300 mass killings in the USA every year. Consider the number of murders that occur worldwide daily. How does a society get to a place where an event like the Holocaust is even possible? How did we accept putting a race of people in slavery and valuing their lives so little we could kill them without cause, or take their babies away and sell them?
Why have we had so much political and religious persecution, oppression and avarice down through the ages? As with Adam, our story ends with a loss, but not an irreparable one, for it is possible for us as descendants of Adam to access the garden and the tree of life by simply feeling remorse, being repentant and trying to make amends.
About Reverend Solomon Caesar Malan
- The First and the Second Book of Adam and Eve, also known as the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, is a pseudepigraphal work found in the Ethiopian language Ge’ez, translated from an Arabic original, written by an Egyptian author, and thought to date from the 5th or 6th century AD.
- It was first translated from the Ethiopic version into German by August Dillmann. It was first translated into English by Solomon Caesar Malan (S. C. Malan) from the German of Ernest Trumpp in 1882.
- The first half of Malan’s translation is included in Rutherford Hayes Platt Jr’s book The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden as the “First Book of Adam and Eve” and the “Second Book of Adam and Eve”. We find parts of this version in the Talmud, the Koran, and elsewhere, showing what a vital role, it played in the original literature of human wisdom.
- Malan was born in Geneva on April 22, 1812, and died on November 25, 1894. As a young boy he displayed a remarkable faculty for the study of languages, and when he came to Scotland as tutor in the marquis of Tweeddale’s family at 18 he had already made progress in Sanskrit, Arabic and Hebrew. He later became proficient in many other languages including English, Greek, French, Latin, Spanish and Chinese. In 1833 he enrolled at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and in 1880 the University of Edinburg conferred upon him the honorary degree of D. D.
Works by S.C. Malan
- The Book of Adam and Eve, also called The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, a Book of the early Eastern Church, translated from the Ethiopic, with notes from the Kufale (Jubilees), Talmud, Midrashim, and other Eastern works, 1882.
- The Conflict of the Holy Apostles, an apocryphal book of the early Eastern Church translated from and Ethiopic Ms.
- The Epistle of S. Dionysius the Areopagite to Timothy, translated from an Ethiopic Ms.
- The Rest of Assumption of S. John the Evangelist, translated from the Armenian.
- The Life and times of S. Gregory the Illuminator, founder of the Armenian Church.
- On the Corean version of the Gospels, original documents of the Coptic Church.
- Original notes on the Book of Proverbs mostly from eastern writings.
- Seven Chapters from S. Matthew I-VI to S. Luke XI of 1881, revised.
- A short history of the Georgian Church
About Rutherford Platt
- This version of The First Book of Adam and Eve was edited by, RUTHERFORD HAYES PLATT, JR. (August 11, 1894-May 28, 1975) in 1926 and was included in his book The Forgotten Books of Eden, wherein he collected several apocryphal biblical writings. The authors of these works are unknown, having hidden themselves behind the names of the great religious legends that they wrote about. These works aren’t considered part of the official “Apocrypha,” despite their timeless wisdom and helpful additions to Christian, Jewish, and Islamic understanding and lore.
- Rutherford H. Platt, Jr.’s father was a son of a sister, Fanny Arabella Née Hayes of President Rutherford B. Hayes. Rutherford H. Platt, Jr., born in Columbus, Ohio, was an American nature writer, photographer, and advertising executive. He died at 80 years of age in Boston, Massachusetts and was survived by his widow, his children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. At age 42, he divorced his first wife, Eleanor, and in 1937 he married his second wife, Jean Dana Née Noyes. There were two children from the first marriage and three children from the second marriage. One of his sons, Rutherford H. Platt, III, became a professor of geography at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a specialist in land and water resource policy for urban areas.
Books
- The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden By: Rutherford Hayes Platt, Brett Alden
- The First Book of Adam and Eve
- The Forgotten Books of Eden By: Rutherford Hayes Platt, Paul Laune
- The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan (Annotated)
- The Psalms of Solomon & the Odes of Solomon By: Rutherford Hayes Platt(Editor)
- The Lost Books of the Bible By: Rutherford Hayes Platt, Matthew Vossler
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