The origin of sin, and dotted words in the Hebrew Bible

Front matter

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THE

Pre lN OF SIN

BOOK I Page

OE Ca TO Gi ay he ya eee ie US oe ae ee aera £3 BOOK II.

The Dotted Words in the Hebrew Bible....... 61 BOOK III.

The Religions of the East of this day.......... 87 BOOK IV.

HEU COU IE CLR SATO RaBe Se een Hee Bee Eee ee T47e: BOOK VII

x CONTENTS.

BOOK VIII.

Page

‘he. Women; of the Old Testament, 1.0572 ac 181 BOOK IX.

The Women of the New Testament........... 217 BOOK X.

Songs of the Women of the Bible............. 295 BOOK XI.

BOO Kao!

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ORIGIN OF SIN. [xi]

ORIGIN OF SIN.

THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE.

In these days of growing unbelief in the Bible, and even in God's word, it is the duty of those who are loyal and true to God to give their thoughts to the world in which we live ; so l am here giving mine in great humility, for I shall speak of the things which are hard to understand, but which all who have any mind whatever should think out for themselves always with prayer to God for right direction. Trusting, then, that He is helping me by the whispers of the Spirit to my listening mind, I take courage to write the following.

The Origin of Sin.

Christ, when teaching his disciples, told them that He “had many things to tell them, but that they could not dear them then.” They had so much difficulty in comprehending the Spiritual teachings of Christ, that He had to teach them by parables, and by earthly things as examples to make their earthly minds understand. But Christ did not mean that we should remain so dull of understanding, so ignorant of His spiritual teachings, “that he may run that readeth it.” We are to search the Scriptures, for Christ told us to do so, because, as He said, they testify of Him. Therefore, whosoever doubts about Christ, let her first search the Scriptures, with her mind totally free from all views and dogmas and > prejudices of other people.

This is what I am trying to do in telling you my idea of the origin of s¢z, and the reason that it ts, and always has been, on this earth.

Christ tells his disciples that He saw Satan fall from Heaven like lightning. His words were: “I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven.” Satan means Sin. ‘To this earth Satan fell, broken to pieces. Having once been in Heaven there was within Satan the germ of the //fe which lives in Heaven—the spark that never dies. Satan, then, was reduced to nothing but the pulsating heart, which science tells us is the point to which they can trace back life on this earth—a pulsating heart on a muddy beach. This pulse of life, then, may have come to this earth in this way This pulse science traces dack from man, through animals, plants, and other things. We can understand very well that this pulse can be traced wp to mankind. We are, then, in the body direct descendants of Satan, and from him we get all sin and evil, and, besides, we get the spark of “fe which can not die, but which can, and which ad grow stronger in mankind, until “men began to call upon the name of God,” and as the spark of life grew stronger, God breathed upon mankind and gave them ‘¢heir Souls—the Image of. God—“ for God is a Spirit,” said Christ (whose words I shall take for the authority of what Iam writing) and no flesh and blood can be the Jmage of God. Nothing in which evil dwells can be the Image of God—nor did God ever create anything in which were sin and evil and call it good. ‘The story of Adam and Eve is an allegory or symbol, and we are

‘ to hunt fer its meaning. Adam and Eve were the “ race of mankind when life evolved to the state we now have, called mankind, and to whom God gave “ living souls ”—“ and man became a living soul.” The words “God breathed upon man,’ when man became a living soul, were used by the writer to make us understand the invisible nature of the soul,—the same as Christ said, “the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof but cannot tell from whence it cometh or whither it goes ; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” Also, when the apostles received the Spirit—or Holy Ghost—a sound like a mighty rushing wind filled the place. So we understand that the breath of God means the Spirit of God,—the Soul given to mankind.

Now, what was the sin of Satan ?

Liden means, in my mind, Heaven; “ Adam and Eve,” the race of men and women banished from - Heaven to this earth. The storysays: ‘“ Banished from Eden”—Heaven. The tree of knowledge of vila good and evil, which they ate of, was the sin of creat- “jiu ing: that is, they had a child after their own image. I do not believe that God said, “increase and multiply and fill the earth,” for this reason : God never commanded ew? and sin to increase. All animal nature, in which there is power to increase and multiply, have in them, ev: and siz. Search and see! Can you find any living thing or being in which there is not sin and evil? Do you think that God has told us to zucrease and multiply that sin and evil ? Eve was punished in the story of the creation ; in this way : “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.” And her first child was not bornin Eden, also he was a murderer and a liar. Christ said, “Satan was from the beginning a murderer and a liar.’’ Cain lied in his offering to God, and murdered his brother. ;

The punishment to Satan's descendants in the flesh is the necessity to increase and multiply in the i Bo flesh, as all flesh does, and will do to the end of the world (Only those who have strong souls can overcome the flesh). Christ has told us that at the end of the world there will be marrying and giving in marriage. The curse of increasing sin remains to the end of the world and is only excused by Christ’s blessing marriage at the marriage at Cana. He sanctified it by His presence and afterwards gave the “mits which alone would receive His blessing. The limits you will find in what He says about divorce and marriage.

At the marriage in Cana, which Christ honored with His presence, He also showed the first sign of His power. The turning of water into wine has a deeper meaning than the mere fact of the water being made wine. All of Christ’s miracles and words had a spiritual meaning, and those spiritual meanings it is our duty to search out. We may not be able fully to search out a// the meaning, but as we have advanced in knowledge in other things so far beyond those who lived years ago, so should we advance in knowledge of spiritual things, and not remain exactly where they were in such knowledge.

The word of God is the word spoken by Christ, and also by the Prophets—such as the ten Commandments, which Christ confirmed. But, as J said before, it is Christ’s words which ] take as my guide in these thoughts. Therefore, I think this water means baptism, the wine a new and stronger life. This marriage, then, was different from all marriages before it, for they were only carnal, the same as all animal life. As the weak water was turned to strong wine, so the weak human nature was turned to strong nature, and the marriage was raised on to a higher plane. Now I go back to the origin of sin. We have a way of calling this earth “God's world,” yet Christ said that the Prince of this world had nothing in Him, that is, in Christ. This world is Satan’s. When Christ was tempted by Satan, Satan showed him all the glories of ¢izs world, and said, “all these things will I give thee, for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will I give it.” Therefore, this world is Satan’s, the kingdoms and the glory of this world, and the power, all are Satan's, and the lie of Satan was in that he said he could create good the same as God. (Read the story of Adam and Eve.) Satan hid from God, for he had created evz/—for look at the race he created, are we good or evil? Satan was a murderer, for he created death—nothing on this earth lives, all things die. Satan could not create a Soul, he created nothing but sinful flesh. God gave us the Soul. This is the reason of the never ending battle between animal life in us and the soul in us, The animal life we get from Satan, and tt must die. God never made evil and sin. The soulis from God and can never die, it must conquer in the fight and overcome the animal in us, that is, overcome Satan. Satan being once in heaven had within him the life that cannot die ; he was teduced on this earth after the fall to a living pulse of life. Science tells how slowly that pulse emerged through the lowest life up to mankind, and mankind slowly emerged from animal life only and animal inclinations, until it was fit for the growth or the life of the soul—that spark of life which lived in Satan and lives in his descendants, which we all are. When God breathed on mankind, the spark received life and became a living soul, and cannot die. Our bodies of flesh and blood we get from Satan ; Hence the sin in us and in this world, hence the suffering in this world from which none are exempt, hence the power and triumph of evil and sin, the inclination to evil and sin, evil thoughts, which cease not to war against the soul so.long as the soul is imprisoned in the flesh. And when mankind turned to God for help in this struggle, in His great compassion for these struggling atoms of the life once in heaven, He sent to us His Son. Christ called Himself the Son of God in the same way that He used many earthly things to make plain His teachings to those who

- heard Him. His strong Spirit was the son of God. His body, like ours, being of mankind, was the son of mankind, yet without sin, being born only of a pure virgin. He was a pure, strong Spirit or Soul from God, sent, and willing to come and dwell in the body of flesh, to show to all mankind that the spirit within them was able to conquer the flesh if they took the way He showed them. He says, “I am the way.” Being in the flesh He was tempted by Satan the same as we are—for the flesh 7s Satan—but Christ conquered in the flesh ai the temptations of the devil—for in that flesh dwelt the strong Spirit of God. He died as aH flesh must and does die. I also believe that shat flesh being so purified by the Strong Spirit of God, “saw not corruption,” and so was not given to this earth and to the Prince of this earth, who is Satan. The sin of Satan, as I have said before, was the art of creating, expressed in the story of Adam and Eve, the serpent, and the fruit eaten. . We are told no child was born in Eden, and sin and evil are always being created on this earth.

Christ often tells his disciples that He (Christ) is not of this earth. He tells them that they are from beneath (that is, of this earth), that He is from above, that is, from Heaven. Christ also tells some of His hearers that they are of their father the Devil, He even says this to those who claim

ORIGIN OF SIN. oT

Abraham as their father—that is, the chosen race of Jews. Ifthese Jews, who were truly the chosen race, were descendants of the Devil, it was because they were only flesh and blood. Their souls had no power over their animal natures.

Now, a great many good people are shaken in their faith because, as they say, God fermits sin to be on this earth. Ina certain way they accuse God of the sin which has always been on this earth, and will be to the end of the world; for this earth is Satan’s—therefore the wicked prosper here, and the good suffer. 3 God, in His great mercy and goodness, sent the willing Christ, the pure Spirit of God, to take the body of flesh and blood from a pure Virgin, and He was born in a stadle, which typifies the descent of mankind. And He lived the human life to show us the way back to Heaven, and to suffer for us in that flesh, and to tell us that it is only through what this world calls suffering,—that is, suffering to the flesh inherited from Satan, and which is the nature of flesh,—it is only in that way, that is the way Christ showed us,—only in that way can our souls, which are a spark from Heaven, ever return to Heaven.

“COMMUNION OF CHRIST. THE PASSOVER.

Christ blessed the bread, broke it and gave it to His disciples, saying : “ Take, eat, this is my body,”

And He took the cup, saying: “ Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood, shed for many, for the remission of sins. I will not drink of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” Christ kept the Passover, that feast which called to remembrance that God passed over the children of Israel when all the first-born diedin Egypt—and at that feast He (Christ) changed the Passover to the Passover of our natural sins, that is, that all who believe in Christ and His death and ascension, who accept Christ as their leader, and by the help of the Spirit overcome or struggle to overcome their natural sins in the flesh, will be passed over for Christ’s sake in the judgment to come. Those who obey and are faithful and true to the inward conscience, which is in all of us, will be judged with others, but will also be passed over, as the children of Israel were passed over by the angel of death in Egypt.

When Christ said the bread was His body and the wine His blood, I understand Him to mean, this human body, which could not live unless fed by bread and wine—or by food and water—for it must eat and drink to live this earthly life. In this way He tells them that his earthly body will be broken and His blood shed, as a sacrifice for them. Christ means that He gives the life of the flesh-and-blood body, in which He then dwelt. That they must eat it, means that they must give the life of their body of flesh and blood for the life of the Spirit within them. They must rule the flesh by the Spirit, govern it as they would govern any thing outside of themselves. Christ said plainly to His disciples that it is the Spirit that quickeneth, meaning, gives life. The flesh profiteth nothing; it is the Spirit within you that lives, your flesh like all flesh must die. Therefore, what we call the Communion, is like the eating of the Passover; we keep the feast, we eat the bread and wine by Christ’s command, so as to remember the death of His earthly body, which was like our earthly body, and lived by food and drink. And He tells us He will drink the new wine in His Father’s kingdom with us. The new wine means the new life, the life of the Spirit, which He sent to us by the Holy Spirit, which came to us after His death on this earth—and it means the True life in Heaven.

GENESIS.—MY HUMBLE THOUGHTS THEREON,

Whoever wrote Genesis tells us that all things were made by God. We are not to make a translation of Genesis into our language, “aux pied de la lettre,” as it is said in French, which means we are not to understand a thing written, as understanding it at the foot of each letter. Who can find out

God ? whothen can understand all things which are made by God?

The author of Genesis tells us of the sun and moon and stars—and he tells us they were made to rule the days and the nights of his earth. This earth, in those days, was thought to be larger than the sun, and the sun to move in truth as we see 7# move round the earth. The sun teaches us what /fazth is, or belief in a thing contraty to what we see it to be. We do not see or feel the earth to revolve around the sun; we sce it to do just the reverse, but because we delteve what others ¢e/l us, others in whom we trust, and trust without having ever seen them, or spoken to them, but whose books we have read. We delieve that what we see is not so, but that the truth is the reverse. Why, then, do we not believe what Christ has told us in his book, the New Testament? Though we do not see the things which He tells us and tells us that they are true, and we believe not because we see in our darkened minds the reverse of what zs ¢rue. We trust to our earthly eyes and use not the eyes of our reasons or minds or souls. Now Genesis says that God set these stars in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. Were all these lights in the heavens only made for this earth? I think not; but you who read can think it out perhaps much better than | can. Doso and give the thoughts to the world. We need all the thoughts of those who are God’s, if they fail in their efforts or no. © arr

Genesis tells us that God gave to mankind—not yet called Adam—every herb, every fruit of trees yzelding seed. ‘To you it shall be for meat; and to every deast of the earth, every fow/ of the air, and to every thing that creepeth wherein there ts life, 1 have given every green herb for meat.”

Now here we read that man and beast, fowl and creeping things, have the same meat—that ///e is in them all. There seems to us no difference made between them and mankind until mankind received a soul by the breath of God, and became in soul the image of God. Then God said to mankind: “ Szddue the earth, and have dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” These living things on this earth are the descendants of Satan ; also our earthly living bodies ; and our Souls from God are to subdue and have dominion over our bodies and all earthly living things.

Genesis tells us of the seventh day being a day in which God rested. 'This idea of God’s resting, and the possibility that God needed rest, shows very clearly that there was no idea in the writer’s mind of a Spiritual God—it was a God. made in all respects as a human man needing rest. The setting of a time as the morning and evening, the first or seventh day, isthe same mistake. We know that all created things work or grow by the set rules of God. How then did God need res¢? Rest is of this earth ; there can be no need of rest in Heaven.” We have in Revelations iv, that the four beasts before the throne “rest not day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God arene which was, and is, and is to come,” ddan ms for) As

He who wrote Boe ea not make others understand about the Sabbath but by so writing Christ tells us the Sabbath, was made for man ; not man for the Sabbath. Christ understood mankind. Unless we keep one day in seven to think of and pray to God, we will forget Him ; in our rush after earthly things we would neglect our Souls. “God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.” Earthly things so needed for our earthly bodies are not Spiritual things. Genesis says: “ These are the generations of the earth, when they were created’—every plant, every herb. I think this is the generations of the earth, first a plant or herb, then animals.. The plant grew from “the dust of the ground.” We are told that “ God formed man of the dust of the ground,” before He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life which caused man to become a living soul,

ORIGIN OF SIN. o7

Genesis here tells us that God made the plant and herb before it grew, ‘“ because it had not rained and because there was not a man to till the ground.” We can not take this “aux pied de la lettre,’ for mist causes rain, and many green things grow where there is no man to till the ever all things are: , possible to God.qa~ net ths RR SOOT G NTT oy Seen

Now we have hoe said what we think the word “Eden” to mean—a garden was the only thing man’s mind could liken Heaven to. We have also said what we believe about the fall of mankind, that Christ said he saw Satan fall from Heaven, and we believe it was to this earth that Satan fell ; hence the origin of sinon this earth, and the fact that Satan’ s sin was creating evil, the result of his attempt to know good and evil. And being banished from Heaven to this earth, he brought death to this life and all things living here ; as all flesh descends from him and is his, flesh must die. The spark of life which he had in Heaven is the life that goes on in his generations, given from father to son on and on until this world must end. Happy is the man or woman, we think, who having a strong soul can conquer the body, overcome all temptations; and giving himself to Christ, live his life on this earth, so that he transmit no sin to generations to come, either by body or mind, When God gave mankind a Sou/, as we are told He gave Adam, it was given with the command ¢0 subdue the earth—the soul was to subdue the flesh—and by so doing mankind would and could rise above his fellows, the beasts of the earth. Let us ask of those who read this, examine yourselves and see have you nothing of the beast in you ; if you find that you have, how then can you, in your body of flesh and blood, be the /mage of God? ADAM.

“A deep sleep fell upon Adam,” that is, upon mankind. This, we think, means oblivion, between the time that mankind evolved from a lower animal into his present state, and when he received his soul, his mind becoming strong and his intellect growing, and his conscience awaking—in the deep sleep he forgot his former state of being a brute beast.

Eve, or woman, we are told, was born of Adam (man). Mankind being evolved into a higher state than the brute beast, was no longer to cohabit with brute beast. Among the beasts of the field “for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.” Gen. li, 20.

Now, science tells us that life began very low down in the scale of animal life, and evolved until it reached mankind ; if this is so, then woman is the highest evolution, as we read she was created after man. This Bible birth of Eve we think is figurative

(as we think much in the Bible is, and we are to search out the meaning), her evolution took place at the same time as Adam’s, for all living things were made, male and female. It may mean.that Adam was the flesh and blood body, Eve the mind and intellect of the race called Adam. And we are told that the serpent addressed Eve, not Adam—that is, he addressed the mind or intellect of mankind, not his body of clay. The verse referring to marriage must have been written by some one else and much later than the rest, for in those early days a man did not forsake his father and mother and cleave to his wife. How could Adam do so, if he had no father or mother ; for he certainly had no father or mother like himself ; and his being called in the generations the Son of God, means his soul was the Son of God, his soul given to him by the breath of God—which is the true life within us.

“Eve did eat the fruit of the tree.” We eat with our minds as wellas with our bodies. Christ told us that we cannot live by bread alone, and that He was the bread of Heaven, come down from Heaven. He meant that by our minds and hearts and souls, we must eat the bread he gave us,if we wish to live. That is, we must hear and learn what his words mean, and with the truths He gave us we must feed our minds and hearts.

Eve did eat the knowledge, ‘that ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” The mind of Adam or mankind, the descendants of Satan, thought evil in their minds—wished to know good and evil, and sinned to get the knowledge. ‘‘ Your eyes shall be opened ’ this, we suppose, is understood by everyone to mean the eyes of their mind, and notof their human bodies. Why, then, do we understand the rest to be literal and not to contain some deep meaning that we are to search out ?

“Their eyes were opened and they new that they were naked ”’—it does not say that they saw they were naked, but new; that is, comprehended in their minds. WVaked ; that is, they knew that they were only animals, a soul within an animal body.

We have already said what we think the punishment of the serpent means. ~ The woman’s punishment was to bear children ; Cain was zot born in Eden. The man’s punishment, this earth was cursed for his sake; that is, for Satan’s sin; sorrow shall last as long as this earth shall last. ‘‘ Thou shalt eat the herb of the field,’ we have already said, refers to mankind when man was only animal. We do not think we are to read Genesis as we read any book written in our day. What is written in Genesis does not follow one event after another—we must search the spirit of the book here and there,

ORIGIN OF SIN. ot

“Dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return.” Here we find evolution from a spark or a pulse of life. Wecame from the dust of this earth, and to it our bodies inherited from Satan will return. Our Souls from God will always live. ‘Coats of skins ” also refers to the animal life of animal man.

Satan or Sin, if permitted to remain in Heaven (Eden), would live forever, and his descendants, men and women of clay, would have lived there for ever, men and women born of sez, Therefore Satan fell from Heaven to thisearth. Thisis what we think is meant in verses 22, 23, 24 of 3rd chapter of Genesis. “The flaming sword” is death to the body of clay, it cannot enter Heaven (Eden) where eternal life is to be found. The body of clay must die.

Again, we think that Cain means the body of clay, a child of Satan. Christ has said that Satan wasa murderer and a liar, from the beginning. Satan lied to Eve, and is the father of Death. Cain lied in offering to God what was not of the best of what he had, and he slew his brother. Abel means the soul. He brought to God the best of his flock. ; that is, he worshipped God in his soul and mind, and was accepted of God.

“Cain went out from the presence of the Lord,” means, we think, Satan ; sin, lies, and murder, all of which the word Satan means, went from God's presence, in the body of this child of Satan, Cain. And so sin lives on this earth, and Satan, driven from heaven, is the origin of sin on this earth, and this world and all the glories of it are Satan’s.

We must read Genesis all through with this idea. We cannot know how many years are between events, and we must search the deep spiritual meanings which undoubtedly are given to usin it. For if we only take the letter, how can we understand it? For where did Cain find his wife ? He was the first child of Adam and Eve. The first child of Cain, we are told, “ builded acity.”” And many more accounts like these we will find in Genesis. We know that the Serpent was used by the old nations as a sign of wisdom. Therefore, we think it is so used in Genesis. “ The serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field;” it had this earth’s wisdom, the same as Christ tells us, ‘the children of this world are for their generation w7ser than the children of light.” That is, in their earthly life they are wise in earthly wisdom, while the children of light—that is of heavenly wisdom in the soul—these are not so wise in earthly things ; they do not succeed in getting earthly treasures, which the children wholly of this earth do get. The serpent zf not here used as a symbol, was certainly on the same level as mankind, for it spoke the language of Eve, also had reason, mind and thought