Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets: And Other Old Testament Characters from Various SourcesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets: And Other Old Testament Characters from Various Sources
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Bible. Old Testament -- Legends
The angels answered, “O Hâreth, if we overcame the Jins it was in
obedience to God’s command. Now that God has created this thing, if He
orders us to submit to it, we must do so.” Now when Hâreth saw that the
angels thought otherwise, he changed his discourse and said, “You speak
the truth, I agree with you, but I wanted to prove you.”
When God gave the soul to Adam, it entered his throat and passed down
into his bosom and belly, and wherever it passed, the earth, the clay,
the dust, and the black mud became bones, nerves, veins, flesh, skin,
and the like. And when his soul entered his head, Adam sneezed, and
said, “Praise be to God.” And when he turned his head, he saw Paradise
and all its delights; and when the soul entered his belly, he wanted to
eat, so he tried to rise and get some food, but the soul had not yet
reached his extremities, which were as yet mere clay, so Gabriel said:
“O Adam, don’t be in a hurry.”[22] Then follows the story of Eblis
refusing to adore Adam. According to another version of the Mussulman
story, the soul showed such repugnance to enter the body, that the
angel Gabriel took a flageolet, and sitting down near the head of the
inanimate Adam, played such exquisite melodies that the soul descended
to listen, and in a moment of ecstasy entered the feet, which began
immediately to move. Thereupon the soul was given command by Allah not
to leave the body again till special permission was given it by the
Most High.[23]
In the Talmud we are told that the Rabbi Meir says that the dust from
which Adam was made was gathered from all parts of the earth: the Rabbi
Hoshea says that the body of the first man was made of dust from Babel;
the head, of earth from the land of Israel, and the rest of his limbs
from the soil of other countries: but the Rabbi Acha adds that his
hinder quarters were fashioned out of clay from Acre.[24] When Adam was
made, some of the dust remained over; of that God made locusts.[25]
A Rabbinical tale is to this effect. God was interrupted by the Sabbath
in the midst of creating fauns and satyrs, after He had made man, and
was obliged to postpone their completion till the Sunday, consequently
these creatures are misshapen. A Talmudic account of the way in which
were spent the hours of the day in which Adam was made, is sufficiently
curious.
At the first hour, God gathered the dust of the earth; in the second,
He formed the embryo; in the third, the limbs were extended; in the
fourth, the soul was given; at the fifth hour Adam stood upright; at
the sixth, Adam named the animals. Having done this, God asked him,
“And I, what is my name?”
Adam replied--“Jehovah.”
At the seventh hour, Adam married Eve; at the eighth, Cain and his
sister were born; at the ninth, they were forbidden to eat of the tree;
at the tenth hour Adam fell; at the eleventh he was banished from Eden;
and at the twelfth, he felt the sweat and pain of toil.[26]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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