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180 a

Adam, Book of

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Adam ^admon

them the new order of Ihitifrs. From

this moment for A<liiiii ami Eve were afraid to partake of earthly food, and fasted for the first seven days after their expulsion from jjamdise, as is prescribed in Talnuulic law before an imminent

to

the sutTerinjrs

of

life beiriin

famine (Mishnali Taanit.



i.

6).

Humiliated and weakened by hunger and suffer-

Adam

ini;.

became eonseious of th(^ gravity of his sin. for which he was now ])repaied

Repentance

to alone (Er. xh. Gen. K. xxii, i:i). He. therefore, like Moses, Elijah, and Abraham (Apoe. Abraham. V2). fasted for forty days, durinj; which he stood up to his neck in (he waters of the river Gihon (pn'3). the name of which is etymologieally comicctcd by the writer with the roots jn3 "to stoop" and 'nj "to jiray aloud" (Pirke U. El. xx.). Accordiui: to the Vita Ad;e et Kviv. Adam stood in the .Ionian versicm which may be ascribed to the Christian copyists, who, for obviuus reasons, wished to represent Adam as having had his baptism in the .Jordan, forgetting that since Eve. as they themselves stated, bathed in the Tigris, Adam would have selected another of the rivers of |)aradisc for that purpose. The days of repentance having passed, the twins Cain and Abel were liorn to Adam and Eve (Gen. i. xxii. 2). And soon Cain rose, ran away, and lirought a reed to his mother (njp = J'p; compare Gen. K, xxii. 8): "Cain killed his brother with a reed (njp)"; for, according to the unanimous opinion of the Ilaggadah, the children of Adam and Eve were born fully developed (Gen. R. xxii. 2). Eve siiw in a dream that Cain had assji.ssinated his brother, an<l Abel was found slain with a stone (Gen. H. xxii. 8; Book of .lubilees, iv.31); but the earth refused to receive his blood (Git. .JT/'), As a compensation for the Tuurdered Abel, God promised Adam a son who should "make known everything that thou doest." Adam, at the age of nine hundred and thirty years, became very ill; for God had cursed him with seventy -two ailments. He sent his Illness and son Setii, with Eve, to the Garden Death of of Eden for the oil of healing, to

of

Adam.

—

him to health (Pirke R El. XXX v). On his way to paradise Seth was attacked by a wild animal. l'|»on Eve's demanding how an animal could dare to attack an

Adam.

restore

image of God, the animal repHed that she herself, through her sin, had forfeited the right to rule over the animal kingdom (Pesik. v, 4-t/i, ed. Bubcr. and Sanh. llKii'*). Not until Seth exclaimed: "Wait until the day of judgment " or. "Stop! If not. thou wilt be brought to judgment before God " (both readings based on •[]}) did the animal let him go. However, the mission of Seth was in vain, for the angel Michael, to whom God had given the control over the human body for he it was who had gathered !

—

the dust for

H."

ii.

Adam's

creaticm (Midr. IConen, in "B.

him that his father's life was at an soul would depart from him within

2T). told

end. and his the cfinrse of a week. Three days after the death of Adam (Gen. R. vii), which took place, as in the case of Moses and Aaron, in the presence of many angels and Funeral even in the jirescnce of the Lord, his

of

Adam,

.soul

was handed over by God

chael,

third lieaven (Hag.

who

assigned

12A) until the

to Jli-

an abode in the day of resurrec-

it

The body was interred with exceptional honthe four archangels, Jlichael, Gabriel, Uriel. and Rapiiael (in the exact order of enumeration given by the Haggadah; see Kohut. " Angelologie." p. 25), buried it in the neighborhood of paradise, the precise spot being (Pirke R. El. xii, and xx.) tion.

ors;

180

Hebron near .lerusaleni; for the site of the altar Temple, whence the dust of Adam was taken,

till'

in is

the gate to paradise. few days after the interment of Adam by the rirtiitiD, Eve felt that her end was approaching. She called lur children together and ordered them to write down th<' naniesof the first two human beings on two slalis of clay and stone, for she had learned from .Michael that (iod had decided to bring a flood and a destructive lire over the earth and that only these slabs would escape destruction (.losephus. "Ant." i. 2. §3). Evepas.sedaway after a lapse of six days that is, after the mourning week of Adam as the nV3!;* (»/"'''"/') niay consist, according to Talmudie law. of six days only and a few moments of theseveiith day M. K. lil/<). Eve was buried by the angels at the side of Adam, and theangelsinstructed Seth not to mourn mole than six days, and to rest and rejoice on the seventh day. for on that sjuneday Goil and the angels would receive in gladness the soul which is lifted above all earthly matter (Sanh. ^~>l>). and, moreover, rest upon the seventh day was to be the svmbol of the resurrection in future ages nac "i7nt;' bv (Sanh. !):c, Mosis nor the Vita <an be considered to represent a true eojiy of the original. But it makes clear that the.se two apocryphas are based on the Hebrew or Aramaic Book of Adam and that the latter belongs to the midrashic literature, as many of its allusions can only be cxjilained by the Midrash. The legendsof Adam with which rabbinical literature abounds seem to |ioint to the s;une source. Thus the statement in Abot de-Hablii Nathan (i, 6. ed. Shechter) that Eve always addressed Adam as " lord " is apparently not intelligible, until compared with the Vita and the Slavonic Book of Adam, both of which contain similar statements, which, therefore, nuist have existed in the original, from which they both drew independently of each other. With re.iiard to the alleged Christian elements and reminiscences of the New Ti'siiunent in the Apoc. Mosis and Vita they will be sulliciently eharacteri/.ed by the followingexamples: Apoe, Hlosis. iii,. "Child of Wrath," is based on a haggadic etymology of the name Cain, and has nothing to do with Eph. ii, 3 and Ajioe. Mosis. xix,, " Lust is the Ijcginning of all sin," is thoroughly Jewish (seeabove), and need not therefore have been taken from such a source as James, This, moreover, is the case willi all the other i, 1"), alleged Christian passjiges in the Apoe, .Mo.sis. which would prove nothing, even if they were of Christian origin for it can not be surprising to find Christian allusions in the langua,!re of a book so widely read among Christians as the Apocrypha. Even jiassages where one would expect that a Christian editor or compiler would interject Christological notions are (juile free from tliini; all of which tends to show that neither the Apoc. Mosis nor the Vita nas in any way tampered with by Christian writers.

A

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M

Bini.IOGR.vpnv Schiirpr. flrsrh. prt.. iff., 2SS rt srq.: Fuclis, in Ijie Atnihrifphfu uml Psi tnh I'iijraiihi it ilis Alli n Ttstiimrtits (tnins. aiut e(>at!!fpxi!hiiniUinuii It ilrr Tinjiri.^c}tnt AUadi iiiU'tU'r M'issi nucha fteui

l>liiU,si,pltisi]i.phihitinimhe Klitxsr. xiv. (ISTS); llieold Slaiif Aiiaiit Jaine. in I>fitlu'<c}iriftfn ilrr JVlener yVissntarliiifli It, Phihisophisrh-HisfiiriKchc Khissi (isicij, i. ct -•<*«/., xlii.; Mulan. Ittmli nf Aitaiit ami F.vCf tnmslated from the Ethiopic, Ix)ndon, 18Si.

vonic IttHtk



AiiiKii'tiiii: ilir

j

ADASI iii.

16,

(

Adam

Red ") is

q

City near the Jordan. In Josh, describee! as the city " that is beside