Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sourcesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sources
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends
God then called all created animals before Adam, and told him their
names and their natures. Then He called up all the angels, and bade them
bow before Adam, the man whom He had made. Israfiel obeyed first, and
God gave to him in recompense the custody of the Book of Fate; the other
angels obeyed in order; only Eblis refused, in the pride of his heart,
saying, “Why shall I, who am made of fire, bend before him who is made
of earth?” Therefore he was cast out of the angel choirs, and was
forbidden admission through the gates of Paradise. Adam also was led out
of Paradise, and he preached to the angels, who stood before him in ten
thousand ranks, a sermon on the power, majesty, and goodness of God, and
he showed such learning and knowledge—for he could name each beast in
seventy languages—that the angels were amazed at his knowledge, which
excelled their own. As a reward for having preached this sermon, God
sent Adam a bunch of grapes out of Paradise by the hands of Gabriel.[19]
In the Midrash, the Rabbinical story is as follows: “When God wished to
make man, He consulted with the angels, and said to them, We will make a
man in our image. Then they said, What is man, that you regard him, and
what is his nature? He answered, His knowledge excels yours. Then He
placed all kinds of beasts before them, wild beasts and fowls of the
air, and asked them their names, but they knew them not. And after Adam
was made, He led them before him, and He asked Adam their names, and he
replied at once, This is an ox, that is an ass, this is a horse, that is
a camel, and so forth.”[20]
The story told by Tabari is somewhat different.
When God would make Adam, He ordered Gabriel to bring Him a handful of
every sort of clay, black, white, red, yellow, blue, and every other
kind.[21] Gabriel went to the middle of the earth to the place where now
is Kaaba. He wished to stoop and take the clay, but the earth said to
him, “O Gabriel, what doest thou?” And Gabriel answered, “I am fetching
a little clay, dust, and stone, that thereof God may make a Lord for
thee.” Then the earth swore by God, “Thou shalt take of me neither clay
nor dust nor stone; what if of the creatures made from me some should
arise who would do evil upon the earth, and shed innocent blood?”
Gabriel withdrew, respecting the oath, and took no earth; and he said to
God, “Thou knowest what the earth said to me.”
Then God sent Michael and bade him fetch a little mud. But when Michael
arrived, the earth swore the same oath.
And Michael respected the oath and withdrew.
Then God sent Azrael, the angel of death. He came, and the earth swore
the same oath; but he did not retire, but answered and said, “I must
obey the command of God in spite of thine oath.”
And the angel of death stooped, and took from forty ells below the earth
clay of every sort, as we have said, and therefrom God made Adam.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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