The Book of Jubilees

Upholders of the World

THE BOOK OF EARTHS

By

EDNA KENTON

New York: William Morrow & Company

[1928, No renewal]

Upholders of the World

FLAMMARION'S OLD DRAWING of The Earth Floatingis a peculiarly desolate rendering of the ancient idea that the Earth was nothing more than an island in a sea. This idea would of course have its probable origin among races living near great seas or oceans whose other side they had tried in vain to reach.
FIGURE 30. The Earth Floating. (From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths, 1877.)
FIGURE 30. The Earth Floating.
(From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths, 1877.)The mind of men likes symmetry; if water stretching endlessly away bounded one side of their "island," even though that island were a continent whose other edge they did not know, water must lie also on its other sides. If the Sun rose from their eastern waters, say, at dawn, it must sink in some unknown western waves at night, if for no other reason than, by swimming through them, to arrive again by the next dawn, in the eastern sky. We may smile at this childish notion if we will, but it may very well be that no great "system" of the harmonious orbits of Sun and Moon and Earth explainthe mystery of the "rising and the setting of the Sun" any more or any better than the primitive idea that darkness came when the Sun was submerged in the sea, and that light came when the Sun sprang out of the sea. Perhaps all that we know to-day--really know--is that in the hour of dawn the Sun appears, and in the hour of twilight the Sun has vanished.

PLATE II: SUSTAINERS OF THE EARTH

A. Quetzalcoatl upholding the Heavens. From an original Mexican painting preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna.

(From Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities. 1831, Vol. II)

B. Atlas upholding the Earth.

(From Engravings after Stoddard: a collection in The New York Public Library)

C. A Hindu Earth.

(From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths, 1877)

The precise nature of the element in which the Earth-island floated came to be a matter of concern and much speculation. At first it was assumed to be simply water; later it was defined as "water or some other liquid," and finally it was believed to be a liquid not unlike the composition of the waters directly under the firmament or lower heaven, which were supposed to be a crystalline, congealed water, specially combined to resist the flame of the Sun, Moon, and galaxy of stars, to be itself full of fire, and yet not to burn. It was water, yet not water, air yet not air, fire, yet not fire. Probably this was an attempt to describe the medium in which the Island Moon floated, all sustaining, yet clear.

Doubtless too the roundness of the Sun and Moon, their discs so broad, yet thin enough to float in space, or aethereal waters, had as much to do with giving men the idea that the Earth's shape might also be flat and round, as the circular defining line of the horizon. Again, if the Moon was like a leaf, floating in the heavenly water, the Earth, like a leaf, floated on the world water, and like a leaf in water would develop roots. Ages ago, as we have already noted (p. 14 ), the ancient world, India, China, Egypt, made the lotus the water-flower that symbolises Earth and Heaven and all that lies between. For as a tree, rooted in the Earth, is a part of it, so Earth, rooted in the universal waters, must be a part of the universe from which it derives life and nourishment. And again, though the roots of an Earth-island might not be as firm as the roots of a great Earth-tree might, that is, be as supple and flexible as those of water plants, nevertheless it was an anchorage of the Earth to something outside itself.
FIGURE 31. The Earth with Roots. (From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths, 1877.)
FIGURE 31. The Earth with Roots.
(From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths, 1877.)Naturally evolving from this would rise an Earth set on solid pillars, an established, firmly founded disc. Fig. 32 is an old picture of just such an Earth--"the Earth of the Vedic priests." Its upper side is its only habitable side; its under side rests on twelve columns, these columns resting in turn on the Twelve Great Sacrifices of the Virtuous,--the aimful deeds, that is, of men aware of duty. Without this subterranean foundation, said the ancient priests, the pillars of the Earth would dry up, and the Earth would fall down. These pillars, says Flammarion, accounted more reasonably for the rising and the setting of the Sun, than the rather lazy guess that it swam through water from west to east every night; though there was another speculation that it might reach the eastern heavens by traversing a complicated system of tunnels, like great connecting caves, which pierced the Earth-disc from occident to orient.
FIGURE 32. The Earth of the Vedic Priests. (From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths, 1877.)
FIGURE 32. The Earth of the Vedic Priests.
(From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths, 1877.)But the twelve pillars, quite as little as the roots of the Earth-island leaf, failed to satisfy man's wonderings over the problem of what supported the Earth, or on what the Earth rested. One of the old familiar figures of Earth is that hemispherical Earth of the Hindus (Plate II, C ) supported on the backs of four elephants, which stand on the hemispherical shell of a gigantic tortoise floating on the surface of the world-waters. Sometimes, in addition to these three supports, there is a fourth, the coiled ring of the great world-serpent on which the tortoise rests--four foundations for Earth, and five for Heaven which must rest on the Earth.

But the elephant, the tortoise and the serpent are only three of the great animals which folk-lore and tradition say may support this planet. The Altaic people of Northern Siberia affirm that their mighty Ulgen created the Earth on the waters, and placed under its disc, to support it, three great fish, one in the centre and one on either side. The head of the middle fish being placed towards the north, floods occur there when it presses its head down; and, should it ever sink too low, the whole Earth will be deluged again. They believe that these fish are attached to heaven by a rope through their gills, whereby their heads can be lowered or raised, and that at the three posts of heaven to which these ropes are tied, the Bodhisatta Mandishire, or guardian of Earth, always watches. According to another tradition, only one great fish supports the Earth; when he changes his position earthquakes occur. In Hebrew myths, this mighty animal is the "fish-shaped Leviathan." Where the turtle or the tortoise is unknown, as in far northern lands, the "world-supporting Frog" will take its place; if its finger ever moves, the Earth shivers. Among Tartars and many of the tribes of Asia-Europe, the Earth is believed to be supported by a great bull; sometimes the Earth rests on its back, sometimes it is held aloft on the horns. Or, another variation, in the world-ocean there is a great fish, and, upon the fish, a bull which bears the Earth. Or again, in the world-ocean there is a giant-crab which gives support to the Earth-bearing bull. Some say that the terrible weight of the Earth has already broken one of the great horns, and that when the other breaks the world will come to an end. Another of the Tartar tribes says that after the Great Mammoth was created, it was found that the Earth was not strong enough to bear its weight, and so, to avoid a waste of creation in the universe, the Great Ruler solved the difficulty by commanding the Great Mammoth to bear the Earth.

PLATE III. ATLAS SUPPORTING THE UNIVERSE
(From Margarita Philosophica, 1517)
On what did the Earth rest? Not only on literal water, and great beasts. On a whirlwind, said Empedocles; on roots rooted in the Infinite, said Xenophanes; on a Soul of the World, said Plato and his school; on Twelve Pillars, said the Vedic priests, which must have for their foundation the "sacrifices of the virtuous." Earth, that is, depended ultimately on man for its support. And sooner or later, in all cosmologies and mythologies, we come upon some lurking or developed concept that the burden of supporting both Earth and Heaven rests on the shoulders of man. In countries as widely separated by race and by oceans as Greece and Mexico, we find an "Atlas of the World," a sustainer of the universe (Plate II , A and B). In Greece it is Atlas the "Endurer," brother of Prometheus the rebel bringer-of-fire, who supports the globe. Son of Poseidon, he knew the depths of the whole Ocean-world; it was his task to guard the pillars which held Heaven and Earth apart. According to one story, it was because he had attempted to storm the heavens that he was condemned to carry its vault on his head and hands. According to another version, it was only after the loss of his great Island realm Atlantis, that he was forced to become the sustainer of the sky.

Mexico appears to have had four--at least--heaven-bearing gods, and each of these appears to have exercised a number of functions other than the sufficiently onerous one of supporting the universe. Quetzalcoatl, although a Sun god and an earthquake god, was also, like Atlas, a water god. If Atlas, interpreted, means the Endurer, Quetzalcoatl, interpreted, means Heart of the Sea. God of the Sun, of the earthquake, and the water, he also up-held the heavens of the Mexicans. In the eastern world and in the western, thousands of years ago, these different races believed alike that some great force never to be understood and never to be overcome had wrenched the heavens from the Earth, but that, at the same time it separated them, it united them by another force, which each race represented by a human figure, a great man-god. Explain it as we will, call it nae or arrogant, it expressed one of man's few entirely admirable qualities, his lonely necessity to share, or to believe that he shared in the work of carrying on the universe. And it found expression in countless ways.

A curious old drawing of the Middle Ages (Plate III ) shows how the Atlas-myth persisted even into modern time. The Earth still occupies the centre of the universe, with all the other heavenly bodies revolving about it. From pole to pole of the firmament--his head marking the "Polus Arctic" and his two feet the "Polus Antarctic," stretches Atlas, or the Macrocosm, or the Great Man, or Adam Kadmon, whichever you will. To medial Europe Atlas represented the Macrocosm, or the long great world, in contrast to the Microcosm or man--little, but the epitome of all that had combined to produce him. Very often, in such circular designs, the two lower corners will be filled each with a toiling figure, the burden-bearer man, with his shoulders bent to the wheel. Only by his microcosmic, microscopic effort, they seem to say over and over again, may the Wheel of Life be kept revolving. Not only does the Earth--the pillared Earth of the Vedic priests--rest on the sacrifices of man, but, since Heaven itself leans on the Earth, without man's aid the whole universe must collapse.

It is easy to see how this ancient image of the Great Man rose before the eyes of the "little men" of the Earth. This was a being infinitely stronger, infinitely better, almost yet not quite a god because he was Man, who somehow stood or moved between the two worlds and kept them in touch with one another. He came to be called by many names, to be pictured under many disguises. He was the Being praised in the Creation chant of the Mahabharata; he was the "manitou to men and their grandfather" of the Lenape Creation story. He was the cosmic Pan Ku of the Chinese, who came into being "in the midst of the cosmic egg," whose very name Pan means "the shell of an egg," and who was hatched out of the cosmos. He created in the middle, out of the pure elements, Heaven; out of the mixed elements, Earth. Every day Heaven grew ten feet higher, Earth ten feet deeper and he ten feet taller, for 18,000 years. When he died, his breath became wind, his voice thunder, his four limbs the four directions, his five extremities the five sacred mountains, his left eye the sun, his right eye the moon, his blood the rivers, his beard the stars, his hair the trees and plants, his flesh the soil, his teeth metals, his bones rocks, his marrow precious stones, his perspiration rain, and his parasites men. The old Chaldeans drew a Great Man across the sky in such a way that the signs of their zodiac corresponded to the parts of his body. And, proof once again that the ancient peoples separated by the Earth's diameter from each other were inexplicably one in many of their fancies, the Tewa Indians regarded Opa--the world, the universe--as a living being, and worshipped it as the "Universal Man," whose backbone, they said, is the Milky Way. And the old Norse sagas have in their giant Ymir almost the facsimile--or it may be the original, who may say?--of the Chinese Pan Ku; for from Ymir's body was made the world, from his flesh the Earth, from his blood the rivers and oceans, from his bones the mountains, from his eyebrows the "encompassing" of Mitgard the Earth. From his skull was shaped Heaven, and his brains were changed into floating clouds and fogs.

PLATE IV. A very clear demonstration of the three kinds of vision in the Microcosm (or soul of Man) of the location of their objects, and of the manner of discerning them. (From Microcosmi Historia; Robert Fludd, 1619)
PLATE IV. A very clear demonstration of the three kinds of vision in the Microcosm(or soul of Man) of the location of their objects, and of the manner of discerning them.
(From Microcosmi Historia; Robert Fludd, 1619)What is interesting about all this is the fact that primitive man arrived without the aid of science at the tremendous idea that definite figureis an attribute of the heavens. It was the idea that so fascinated Herschel, discoverer of Uranus, and curious inquirer into the mysteries of the Milky Way. He was possessed by the "guess" that not only is our galaxy a stratum or confined bed of stars, but that this stratum is measurable, and that by comparison of his gauging or sounding lines, he might actually draw a chart of it. He "guessed" again that in the main--and this guess was wrong--the stars are scattered equably throughout our immediate Space, which would mean that, seeing as far in one direction as another, the figure of the heavens would tend towards a circular form. In an old book of 1848, Thoughts on Some Important Points Relating to the System of the World, by John Nichol, there is a very odd "Figure of the Universe," based on Herschel's gauging system, which illustrates as well as any other the method employed (Fig. 33 )

If, says Nichol, we were in the centre of a circular group, it would mean that whether we looked through the line C A or the line C B, the number of stars that could be counted would be the same. But if the group were an irregular one, the number of stars in the direction of C A would be much less than that along the line C B, and the proportions of their numbers would give the pro-portions of the two lines C A and C B. Supposing S (lower figure) the place of our Sun, "or," says Nichol, "what is the same thing, of the Earth, on which the observations are recorded," let a number of lines be drawn answering in direction to the position of Herschel's telescope, and in length to the number of stars revealed in that direction.

FIGURE 33. A Figure of the Universe. (From The System of the World; John Nichol, 1848.)
FIGURE 33. A Figure of the Universe.
(From The System of the World; John Nichol, 1848.)

Then, if the extremities of these lines were joined, the result would be "a figure which, however strange, must approximate to a sectionof our vast and dazzling vault." He goes on to imagine one with the power to depart from Earth, proceeding through Space towards the Milky Way, leaving behind the constellations which we know, coming upon new configurations, passing even through the Milky Way, until, looking back, he sees this universe so dwindled away as to present the appearance of nothing but a speck in Space, shining with a faint, irregularly diffused illumination corresponding in its rays to the outlined figure.

NATURALLY MOST OF THE EARLY STORIES of the "Great Man" of the heavens are odd mixtures of perception and fancy, of clumsy literalness and real imagination. All too often this OpaBeing was more earthly than heavenly, much more man than god, but, whatever his guise or disguise, he was always much more than man, and in some of his incarnations he was very close to divine. As Adam Kadmon he has meant not only the First Man created in the true image of God, but something more, "the divine man-forming power" capable of transforming a questioning little man cut off from wisdom into a divining Great Man who could know. Precisely such a conception of Adam Kadmon has been lying in Robert Fludd's Microcosmi Historiasince 1619 (), "A very clear demonstration of the three kinds of vision in the Microcosm (or soul of man); of the location of their objects, and of the manner of discerning them." Surely no figure of "Earth" was ever drawn before or since so lightly poised, so aethereally supported.

Unless it is the tiny figure of Earth as the end and the beginning of the Spiral World (Plate V ) which immediately follows in the Microcosmi Historia: "Another demonstration showing how the soul rises in a spiral ascent from the sensible things of the world to unity, through twenty-two stages, beginning with the Earth, and ascending upwards to God; that is, from multiplicity to unity." This is drawn in twenty-two whorls or "grades," beginning, by numbers, with "Terra" and ending with "Deus." Or, by the order of the Hebrew alphabet, beginning with "Deus" and ending in "Terra." These spiral grades or stages have each four signs to mark them; first, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, beginning with the outer whorl and winding continuously inward to the centre. (The Hebrew alphabet, according to the Kabbala, is based on the primitive alphabet in which Gods were Letters, Letters were Ideas, Ideas were Numbers, and Numbers were perfect Signs.) Second, the names of the procession of grades, from the first manifestation of the Godhead, Mens or Mind, to its final expression in Terra or Earth. Third, numbers, from 1 to 22. Fourth, the tiny winged heads common to each completed whorl. The spiral, reaching from Heaven to Earth, is shown here as lying in a flat coil, like a spring. But it may be re-imaged as the winding line described about a sphere that tapers irresistibly out to a point. It is just that line, says this figure, described by a point moving in space, beginning in Heaven and ending in Earth, which at once separates and unites them.

PLATE V. Another demonstration showing how the soul rises in a spiral ascent from the sensible things of the world to Unity. (From Microcosmi Historia: Robert Fludd, 1619)
PLATE V. Another demonstration showing how the soul rises in a spiral ascent from the sensible things of the world to Unity.
(From Microcosmi Historia: Robert Fludd, 1619)

Beyond Earth there is nothing. But in Earth there is everything--even the power to make the descending spiral an ascending one. It can be re-imaged as an ascending vine, climbing back by way of the great World-tree. For life, said the ancients, flows never in one way. Rooted in Heaven, it descends to Earth, and rooted in Earth it may ascend to Heaven.

September 25, 2011
0
Published in The Book of Earths
Written by LC Geerts

Figures

THE BOOK OF EARTHS

By

EDNA KENTON

New York: William Morrow & Company

[1928, No renewal]

FIGURES

Figure		Page
1.	The Stupa. From Ramusat's translation of Fa-heen's Foe koue ki. 1848.	6
2.	The Tetrahedron. From an old print.	7
3.	The Octahedron. From an old print.	7
4.	The Icosahedron. From an old print.	8
5.	The Cube. From an old print.	8
6.	The Dodecahedron. From an old print.	9
7.	A "rygge forme" or three-sided tablet. From Recorde's The Castle of Knowledge. 1556.	10
8.	The five-sided tablet. From an old print.	10
9.	The Cone. From an old print.	10
10.	The three-sided pyramid. From an old print.	10
11.	The four-sided pyramid. From an old print.	10
12.	The Sphere. From Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis. 1680.	10
13.	The Cylinder. From an old print.	10
14.	Spiral forms. From old prints.	12
15.	"Halfe a Sphaere." From Recorde's The Castle of Knowledge. 1556.	14
16.	"Hollow lyke a bolle." From Recorde's. The Castle of Knowledge. 1556.	14
17.	"A playne Flatte." From Recorde's The Castle of Knowledge. 1556.	15
18.	"Square like a box." From an old print.	16
19.	Squares, or "stages," within circles. From an old print.	17
20.	The six-faced Tetrahedron. From Green's Vestiges of the Molten Globe. 1875.	18
21.	The Oval, or "The Mundane Egg." From an old print.	19
22.	"Circles within the Oval." From an old print.	19
23.	"Parallel Circles." From an old print.	19
24.	"A whole circle," "A portion of a circle." From an old print.	20
25.	"Convex, concave." From an old print.	20
26.	"Right, Crooked, Mixt." From an old print.	21
27.	Glyph 8 from The Walam Olum of the Lenape.	31
28.	Glyph 7 from The Walam Olum of the Lenape.	31
29.	Glyph 16 from The Walam Olum of the Lenape, Part II.	31
30.	The Earth Floating. From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths. 1877.	38
31.	The Earth with Roots. From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths. 1877.	40
32.	The Earth of the Vedic Priests. From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths. 1877.	41
33.	A Figure of the Universe. From Nichol's The System of the World. 1848.	48
34.	The Primal Earth, with its Zones or greater Climates, and the general order and tracts of its Rivers. From Burnet's The Theory of the Earth. 1697.	52
34A.	Zones or Climates of the Earth, with the Zodiac. From Sacro Bosco's Spha emendata, 1601.	53
35.	Babylonian "Mappa Mundi." From Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets etc. in the British Museum, Pt. 036 II, Plate 48. 1906.	59
36.	Lunar and Solar Eclipses. From Sacro Bosco's Spha Mundi. 1482.	67
37.	The Figure of the Dragon: the Lunar Nodes. From Blundeville His Exercises. 1606.	68
38.	"When the Moone is betwixt the Sunne and the Earth." From Blundeville His Exercises. 1606.	68
39.	The first drawing of the Moon, by Galileo, 1610. From Wilkins's The Discovery of a World in the Moone. 1638.	70
40.	Frontispiece and Title-page of "The Discovery of a World in the Moone"; John Wilkins, 1638. From the original.	71
41.	The Comet of 1680 and the marvellous Egg. From Manestrier's Lettre dun gentil-homme de province une dame de qualitsur le sujet de la Comete. 1681.	78
42.	Outline map showing the locality of Pan, the submerged continent. From Newbrough's Oahspe, A New Bible in the Words of Jehovih. 1891.	85
43.	The geographical position of Mu. From Churchward's The Lost Continent of Mu. 1926.	86
44.	Yggdrasil, the Cosmic Ash. From Philpot's The Sacred Tree. 1897.	94
45.	Diagram of the Nine Worlds, supported by the World Tree Yggdrasil. From Litchfield's The Nine Worlds. 1890.	96
46.	Diagram of the Scandinavian Cosmos. From Litchfield's The Nine Worlds. 1890.	97
47.	Sketch of the World, by a Thompson River Indian. From Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. II. 1900.	100
48.	The Tree of Judas. From Maundevile's Voiage and Travailes. 1839 reprint.	105
49.	Osage Chart of the Universe, drawn by Red Corn. From Mallery's Picture-Writing of the American Indians. 1894.	106
50.	Our First Parents. From the Codex Cortesianus. Reproduced from Brinton's A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics. 1894.	112
51.	The "Tree of Life." From the Codex Peresianus. Reproduced front Brinton's A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics. 1894.	113
52.	The Sacred Tree of the Egyptians. From Sharpe's Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity. 1863.	114
53.	The Antipodal Polar Mountains. From Warren's Paradise Found. 1885.	122
54.	The Theory of Two Centres. Spherical Earth with no Antipodes. (After Rainaud.) From Mill's The Siege of the South Pole. 1905.	124
55.	"Feet to Feet." From Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis. 1680.	126
56.	A Kalmuck World-picture. From Mythology of All Races, Vol. IV. 1927.	131
57.	Mount Su-Meru of the Chinese. From Du Bose's Dragon, Image and Demon. 1887.	133
58.	An ancient Arabic Celestial Sphere. Northern Hemisphere. From Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 1830.	136
59.	An ancient Arabic Celestial Sphere. Southern Hemisphere. From Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 1830.	137
60.	Key to the Tibetan Wheel of Life. From Waddell's The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism. 1899.	139
61.	The Great Monad. From Du Bose's Dragon, Image and Demon. 1887.	146
62.	The Mitsu Tomoe of the Japanese. From Internationales Archiv f Ethnographie, Bd. IX, S. 265. 1896.	147
63.	Chinese Conception of the Creation. From MClatchie's Confucian Cosmogony. 1874.	149
64.	The Chinese Zodiac. From a Mirror of the Tang Dynasty. Reproduced from Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 1835.	151
65.	Gnostic Diagram of the Universe. 2nd cen. A.D. From Matter's Histoire critique du Gnosticisme, Vol. III. 1826.	159
66.	The Systems of the Universe. From Kircher's Iter exstaticum coeleste. 1660.	162
67.	The Universe according to Anaximander. 6th cen. B.C. From Evershed's Dante and the Early Astronomers. 1913.	163
68.	The Universe of Leucippus. 5th cen. B.C. From Evershed's Dante and the Early Astronomers. 1913.	165
69.	The Universe of Democritus. 5th cen. B.C. From Evershed's Dante and the Early Astronomers. 1913.	166
70.	The Universe of Pythagoras. 6th cen. B.C. From Evershed's Dante and the Early Astronomers. 1913.	168
71.	The Five Great Elements. From Orantius Fineus's Spha Mundi. 1542.	170
72.	"A Figure of the Whole World." From Blundeville His Exercises. 1606.	171
73.	System of the diverse spheres. From Apianus's Cosmographia. 1660.	172 .
74.	The System of Philolaus. From Evershed's Dante and the Early Astronomers. 1913.	175
75.	Pomponius Mela's Map of the World, with Antichthones. 1st cen. A.D. From Pomponius Mela's De situ Orbis. 1536.	177
76.	World Map of Claudius Ptolemy. and cen. A.D. From Margarita philosophica. 1503.	178
77.	The Square Earth of Cosmas Indicopleustes. 6th cen. A.D. From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths. 1877.	180
78.	The Square Earth. Its habitable plane. From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths. 1877.	181
79.	World-picture of the ancient Peruvians. In "Relacion de antiguedades desta Reyno del Piru," by Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayha (c. 1620), a manuscript in the Biblioteca National de Madrid.
	From a transcript of the original manuscript in the MSS. Division of the New York Public Library.	186
80.	Painted Tartar and Mongol drums. From Mallery, Picture-Writing of the American Indians. 1894.	194
81.	Painted Tartar and Mongol drums. From Mallery's Picture-Writing of the American Indians. 1894.	196
82.	Painted Tartar and Mongol drums. From Mallery's Picture-Writing of the American Indians. 1894.	198
83.	Monsters of the Antipodes. From Margarita philosophica. 1517.	200
84.	A T-O map of the XIIth century. In "Imago Mundi." Reproduced from Santarem's Atlas. 1849.	201
85.	The Turin Beatus World-map, c. 1150. Reproduced from Santarem's Atlas. 1849.	202
86.	The World-map of Marco Polo. From one of his manuscripts in the Library at Stockholm. Reproduced from Santarem's Atlas. 1849.	204
87.	Title-page of "Globus Mundi," originally printed at Strassburg, 1509, showing a trace of the Americas. From the Milan reprint, n.d.	205
88.	"This device Evidences the Earth to be a Globe." From Apianus's Cosmographia. 1640.	207
89.	The pear-shaped Earth of Columbus. From Warren's Paradise Found. 1885.	208
90.	The Earth of Dante. From Warren's Paradise Found. 1885.	211
91.	Dante's Scheme of the Universe. Slightly modified from Caetani's diagram. Reproduced from Studies in the History and Method of Science, edited by Charles Singer, Vol. I. 1917.	212
92.	Hildegard's first scheme of the Universe. Slightly simplified from the Wiesbaden Codex B, folio 14 r. Reproduced from The Scientific Views and Visions of Saint Hildegard, by Charles Singer. (In Studies in the History and Method of Science, edited by Charles Singer, Vol. I. 1917.)	219
93.	The excentric sphere of Mahmud ibn Muhammed ibn Omar al Jagmini, c. 13th cen. A.D. From Dreyer's The History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler. 1906.	229
94.	The "Guiding Spheres" of Nasir-Eddin Atti, 13th cen. A.D. From Dreyer's The History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler. 1906.	230
95.	The movement described by Mars, 1580-1596. From Kepler's Astronomia Nova. 1609.	231
96.	Theory of three centres and the movement of Venus. From Peurbach's TheoricNov 1581.	232
97.	The relation of the harmony of the Microcosmos to the Macrocosmos. From Fludd's Microcosmi Historia. 1621.	233
98.	The Balance. From Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus. 1678.	234
99.	"All things shew great through vapoures or myste." From Recorde's The Castle of Knowledge. 1556.	247
100.	Diagram showing the Earth as a hollow sphere with its polar openings and central Sun. From Gardner's A Journey to the Earth's Interior. 1920.	253

September 25, 2011
1
Published in The Book of Earths
Written by LC Geerts

Figures of Earth

THE BOOK OF EARTHS

By

EDNA KENTON

New York: William Morrow & Company

[1928, No renewal]

Figures of Earth

THE BELIEF THAT THE UNIVERSE is composed of five Great Elements is untraceably old. Even the savage knows very well four of these elements, Water, Air, Fire, and Earth, and has a vague sense of the fifth, Ether, or Space. From varying combinations of these five elemental substances, the ancients believed, all of the phenomena of Nature were formed. Earth itself was composed, in the last analysis, of these five. Man also, they believed, was a unique compound of these elements, and was, at death, resolved back into them. Each of these great "Creatures," as they were called, was symbolised by a certain shape, and the total figure of the five different forms, superimposed on one another in a regular order, is the stupaof China and India, the sotobaor go-rinof Japan, the "Five-circle" or "Five-zone" or "Five-blossom" funeral stone to be found everywhere in the Orient. The cube represents the Earth or stable foundation on which all builds; the sphere represents water; the pyramid or triangular tongue, fire or the elements in motion; the crescent or inverted vault of the sky, air or wind; the acuminated sphere or body-pyri-form, ether tapering into Space.
FIGURE I. The Stupa. (From Foe koue ki, by Fa-heen.)
FIGURE I. The Stupa. (From Foe koue ki, by Fa-heen.)Of course the old philosophers assigned particular places or grades to these five elements. Plato gave the first place to fire, the second to ether, then followed air, water, and lastly Earth. But Aristotle placed ether first, "as that which is impassable, it being a kind of fifth body," and after it he placed those elements "that are passable," in the order of fire, air, water, and Earth.

Sit down with pencil and paper, or, as the first mathematicians did, sit down on the sea shore and draw with a shell on the sands the simple or the complex geometrical figures, whatever you will. It will be a rather remarkable accident if you happen to put down a single figure that his not at some time represented either the figure of Earth directly, or a direct relation of the Earth to the universe.
FIGURE 2. The Tetrahedron.
FIGURE 2. The Tetrahedron.Take the five regular solids, for instance: the tetrahedron, the octahedron, the icosahedron, the cube, and the dodecahedron. The Earth has been a tetrahedron, and it has been, many, many times, a cube. It has been conceived of as an eight-sided figure--one of the Siberian tribes believes to-day that the octahedron is the true figure of Earth. It was by way of the "five regular solids," "the five mathematical bodies," that Kepler, as we shall see later on, sought to solve the mystery of "distances" in the heavens.
FIGURE 3. The Octahedron.
FIGURE 3. The Octahedron.Seeking for some fixed relation of distances between the six planets and the Sun, he found, or believed he found, that the five regular solids fitted between the six spheres in a very curious order, and he elaborated on the nature of these solids and their relation to our solar system all of his life. The "nature" of the tetrahedron was of fire. The nature of the octahedron was of "flying birds." The nature of the icosahedron was of water. The nature of the cube was of Earth, even though it fitted into place between Saturn and Jupiter, and the nature of the dodecahedron was that of the celestial vault, or ether.
FIGURE 4. The Icosahedron.
FIGURE 4. The Icosahedron.

FIGURE 5. The Cube.
FIGURE 5. The Cube.

FIGURE 6. The Dodecahedron.
FIGURE 6. The Dodecahedron.Earth has been given, also, at one time or another and in one way or another, all of the pyramidal forms. It has been figured as a three-sided and as a four-sided pyramid, and likewise as a cone. It has been a cylinder, filled with compressed air and balanced in the centre of the universe. It has been, at one time, a "rygge forme,"--"a three-cornered forme," says Recorde's The Castle of Knowledge(1556), "like the rygge of an house where one syde lyeth flatte, and the other two leane a slope. And thys forme they judged better for twoo causes. Firste they thought that it was more steddy than a cube forme, because it hath a broader foote, and a lesser toppe; and secondly for that they thought it a more apte forme to walke on and more agreeable to the nature of the earthe, where sometimes there risyth highe hill, and sometimes again men may see greate vales descendyng. . . . Againe they thinke this Rygge forme meetest for the standing of the sea and for the running of rivers, for in the first forme [a cube] if the sea should rest on the outermost plaine, then wolde it over runne all that plaine, and so flow over all the earthe; where as in this seconde forme it mighter reste about the foote of the earthe, and yet the slope risyng wyll not permit it to over run all the earthe. And so for rivers if there is no slopenes (as in a cube there is none) then cannot the rivers runne well."

Figures 7 through 13

FIGURE 7. A "rygge forme" or three-sided tablet.
FIGURE 8. Five-sided tablet.	FIGURE 11. Four-sided pyramid.
FIGURE 9. Cone.	FIGURE 12. Sphere.
FIGURE 10. Three-sided pyramid.	FIGURE 13. Cylinder.

Already in these dozen geometrical figures we have collected two groups, one of which, the five regular solids, has been noted. The other one is that group from which all the known crystalline mineral forms--except radium and helium--can be constructed--"the eight basic elemental geometrical magnitudes," with eight definite bounding surfaces that compose a perfect series.

The first is the sphere with its one and only surface.

The second is the cone with its two surfaces.

The third is the cylinder with its three surfaces.

The fourth is the tetrahedron with its four surfaces.

The fifth is the three-sided tablet with its five surfaces.

The sixth is the cube with its six surfaces.

The seventh is the five-sided tablet with its seven surfaces.

The eighth is the octahedron with its eight surfaces.

And then again the Earth has been represented by a figure quite outside the angular figures. The sphere, for instance, as a figure of Earth, appears to be as old as any of the others, and, like all the others, has undergone the test of recurrence. But an even more curious form has been ascribed to this still mysterious planet of ours--a spiral. The beginning, or the end, that is, of a spiral form, like the vine, or like a watch-spring, which, stretched, or sprung, may reach from Earth to Heaven, along which all that lives in the universe may descend and ascend--a sort of Jacob's ladder without rungs. Before man had the watch-spring, his own creation, he had before him the vine--Nature's handiwork, and he used it to symbolise that for which he was always seeking, the connecting link, the path of communication between Earth and Heaven.

FIGURE 14. Spiral forms.
FIGURE 14. Spiral forms.
Of the spiral forms given in Fig. 14 the two small ones in the centre are modern drawings of radium and helium atoms, but their duplicates are to be found in the oldest, crudest pictographs of the cosmos--man's attempt to represent by a line either Earth's creative power and strength and energy, or the mysterious, potent force of Nature itself. The lower spiral is the ordinary right-handed (or dextral) curve found everywhere in Nature. The upper left-handed (or sinistral) spiral with its flying birds in opposition is a curious little drawing taken from Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis(1680), perhaps suggested by Leonardo da Vinci's Notebook on "The Flight of Birds," written nearly two centuries earlier, while he was making his marvellous studies of spiral formations.

For the great struggle of one element against another, suggested in this sinistral spiral, was itself to Leonardo the very secret of the mysterious force which shapes the structure of waves, of reeds, of animals, of man, of shells and horns and flowers and climbing vines. The force itself he could not define, but its movement he could trace; and its path was not a line or a closed circle but a spiral "twist," which might take the right-handed or the rarer left-handed way. There came to him what might be called a revelation of spirality; and he found the coil of a worm, the curve of the humblest shell, the wreathing smoke of a candle, the tiny whirl of street dust, the budding of a fern or a cyclamen, of an onion or a rose, just as significant as the spiral-like flight of birds or the spiral formations of water. But thousands of years before him, ancient temples and tombs and sacred rocks had been engraved with significant "studies" in spiral forms--many of those of the Eastern world based beyond all doubt on the struggle of the lotus with the elements and on the analogy of the lotus to the Earth--even to the cosmos itself. The ancient Stupa(Fig. 1 ) was not only a symbol of the five great elements, but it was also, for the Orient, an almost literal drawing of the lotus plant, rooted in Earth, climbing through water, by grace of its inner fire, to air, lifting there its acuminated spherical bud, and blossoming with a spiral twist into Space. To the ancient mind the secret path of Nature's immortal force was always most significantly symbolised by a spiral line, and it was suggested in a thousand ways.

FIGURE 15. ''Halfe a Sphaere.'' FIGURE 15. ''Halfe a Sphaere.''

FIGURE 16. ''Hollow lyke a bone.'' FIGURE 16. ''Hollow lyke a bone.''

A sphere or a hemisphere may be a solid body, or it may be merely a shell--and Earth has been again many times imagined as a half shell, swimming like an upturned basket or boat, on the surface of limitless waters, not sinking because its concavity was filled with air which, pressing on the water, balanced the hollow shell. Or, again, Earth has been, and is still to-day believed by some to be, "a playne Flatte." "They fantasied," wrote old Recorde, "that it wold reste most steddily, and so it was very easy to walke on. We are," he adds, "more beholdynge to those men, for devising our easy walkynge, than we are bound to them for their wise doctrine. The fourthe secte, fearyng least by this opinion they should loose the sea and all other waters, imagined the forme of the earthe more apte to hold water, and devised it hollow lyke a bolle."
FIGURE 17. ''A playne Flatte.''
FIGURE 17. ''A playne Flatte.''It was always a problem for the early designers of the figure of Earth to account for the support of the heavens, and this idea of the habitable Earth "hollow lyke a bolle," was much more clearly and generally expressed by figurmg the Earth as a flat disc or plain surrounded by a continuous mountain wall on which the heavens rested. Only fourteen hundred years ago, with the theory of the spherical Earth the prevailing scientific one, but with all its vexing by-problems unsolved--not only that of an un-supported sky, but of men forced to walk like flies on the opposite ceiling of the Earth, one cosmogonist, Cosmas Indicopleustes, disposed of the whole matter by simply enclosing the entire visible universe in a hollow rectangular box and shutting down the lid. Man lived inside his box, like a squirrel in a cage.
FIGURE 18. ''Square like a box.''
FIGURE 18. ''Square like a box.''The Cosmasian idea was a simpler scheme of world-making than the model offered in Fig. 19 , but it happens that this simple geometric figure is very similar to the Babylonian conception of the universe--Earth as a series of "stages" or steps, pyramidal in structure, enclosed within a series of concentric spheres. For the idea that Heaven is round and that Earth is square is very old, as old perhaps as the square and the circle--the foundation of measure. "Heaven is round like an opened umbrella," say the Chinese; "Earth is square like a chessboard." Or, "Earth is square like a box; heaven is round like the awning of a carriage."

FIGURE 19. Squares, or ''stages,'' within circles.
FIGURE 19. Squares, or ''stages,'' within circles.Yet on what, if the Earth is square, may the dome of Heaven rest, not only that it may have firm support, but also that it may be tightly joined to the Earth? For the ancients greatly feared that Heaven, illy supported, might collapse and destroy its foundation; they feared also that, if Heaven and Earth were not hermetically cemented or glued together, untold horrors might creep into this universe from some fabulous "outside." For instance, the circular edge of the heavenly dome might find support firm enough by resting on the four quarters of the square Earth, in spite of the intervening arcs of water it must span. But there would be the open quarters; and un-known and unimaginable monsters might succeed in swimming through the depths of water under Heaven's unguarded edge, and so insinuate themselves into the Earth-waters, with the very probable result of the destruction of the world. Therefore, said some, Heaven's edge might very well begin as a square joined tightly to the Earth-square, and then melt insensibly into the rounded firmament. But, said others, Heaven is immeasurably high, Earth immeasurably deep; each covers the other, and both fit tightly together. Whether square or round, both must be one or the other.
FIGURE 20. The six-faced tetrahedron. (From Vestiges of the Molten Globe; William Lowthian Green, 1875, Plate I.)
FIGURE 20. The six-faced tetrahedron.
(From Vestiges of the Molten Globe; William Lowthian Green, 1875, Plate I.)A "six-faced tetrahedron," a solid giving the maximum of surface for the minimum of volume, represents, according to one theory, the figure of Earth. This particular theory--a theory, by the way, of the latter nineteenth century--would seem to argue for the existence of an "economical" universe, with the Earth modelled on a plan designed to produce the greatest possible surface from the least possible substance.

FIGURE 23. "Parallel Circles."

FIGURE 22. "Circles within the Oval."

FIGURE 21. The Oval, or "The Mundane Egg."

And Earth is also the Mundane Egg, or an Oval form.

"There is another thing in Antiquity," wrote Thomas Burnet in his The Theory of the Earth(1697), "relating to the form and construction of the Earth, which is very remarkable, and hath obtained throughout all learned Nations and Ages. And that is the comparison or resemblence of the Earth to an Egg. . . this notion of the Mundane Egg, or that the World was Oviform, hath been the sence and Language of all Antiquity, Latins, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, and others."

FIGURE 24.Burnet did not overstate his case, for this was his theory also. The concept of the Earth as the Mundane Egg or of the universe as the Cosmic Egg is one of the ancient of ancient figures of Earth. It appears everywhere, in the mythologies, cosmogonies, traditions, and folklore of all races and of all times. Heaven encloses the Earth from without as the shell encloses the yolk. Or the Earth's
FIGURE 25. ''Convex, concave.''
FIGURE 25. ''Convex, concave.''crust is the shell of the Mundane Egg; Burnet's whole theory of the Earth was built on this idea. There is no end to the analogy between the egg and the universe, or to the concept of the Earth as the Egg of the World.
FIGURE 26. ''Right, Crooked, Mixt.''
FIGURE 26. ''Right, Crooked, Mixt.''These are some of the geometrical figures by which the Earth and the universe have been represented. But "shapes" also have been used to describe it. Shapes are irregular things compared with geometrical figures, but they may be accurate nevertheless. "Pear-shaped," for instance, is for descriptive purposes just as exact as "triangular" or "round." And so the Earth has been described and drawn, not only as "pear-shaped," but as "boat-shaped," as "heart-shaped," as "egg-shaped," as "tomato-shaped," as "turnip-shaped," "gourd-shaped," "onion-shaped," "lotus-shaped," "rose-shaped." It has been--many times--a tree; a great island-leaf with roots; a flower; a mountain; an octave in the cosmic series, or a note in the cosmic scale; or the living body of the "God of Heaven," the "Universal Man," spanning the space between the highest heaven and the lowest Earth.

And for the last few hundred years it has been an "oblate spheroid."

But ask science to-day, What is the figure of Earth? and science will reply not with the geometrical figure of an oblate spheroid, nor with any definite "shape" drawn for the eye to see, but with a word:

Earth is a geoid.

Ask, What is a geoid? and science will reply:

An Earth-shaped body.

Ask, What is an Earth-shaped body? and science will answer:

A geoid. A shape, that is, expressed by a word, but not yet by an image. The mysterious figure of the Earth, the shape peculiar to itself, has not yet been determined, with all of man's questionings and guesses.

September 25, 2011
0
Published in The Book of Earths
Written by LC Geerts

Man's Quest in Space

THE BOOK OF EARTHS

By

EDNA KENTON

New York: William Morrow & Company

[1928, No renewal]

boe05

THE BOOK OF EARTHS

Man's Quest in Space

THIS BOOK OF EARTHS began years ago, with a single little figure of Earth taken from what old book I do not know. For a long time it lay by itself; then another, come upon by chance, was laid beside it; and still others as I happened on them, always by chance. Old odd maps joined the casual collection--maps of the Earth, the Moon, the heavens. It was never a collection in the usual sense of the word, because it was so casual; but, such as it was, it is the origin of this book. For it occurred to me, not long ago, that it would be "fun" to put them all together, and many others with them, chosen to fill in the gaps of the original group.

Luckily for the fun of it, the search about to begin would not be limited to what we know about the Earth, else it would have ended before it began; for we live in a universe of which we know little, and on a planet of which we know perhaps less. It would include not only what we know, or think to-day we know, but also any-thing that has been believed or felt or no more than "guessed" to be the picture of the Earth and its place in the universe. It would include not only science, modern and ancient, but tradition, the older the better; diagrams or pictures based on little more than folk-lore; cosmogonies of religions great and small; cosmogonies of philosophers, of poets, and of savages. It would gather together pictured theories, guesses, hypotheses, or merely flights of pure imagination, whether "true" or "false" to-day; since history teaches us nothing if it does not teach us that one century's false doctrine is another century's truth, and that the mistakes of any age or race are quite as illuminating as any "truth" by which it lived.

This collection of pictures, therefore, would not be "scientific," not "selected" to Evidence one thing or to disEvidence another, not prejudged by any standard but that of a record told in pictures and diagrams of what man has guessed this Earth to be ever since he first began to wonder what the figure of the body was on which he lived. It would be free play through sources, once those sources were discovered; play unhampered by any necessity for judgment or criticism, since what was sought was the record only.

And so the search began, and the story of the search is personally as interesting as what it uncovered. It would be endless--that was clear from the beginning, and so it must be made deliberately brief. It could not include everything, even if "everything" came promptly to the surface. But there were high lights in the record, and these began to show dimly from the first. The rest was a matter of blazing an unpathed trail that would lead to the goal--the record; but that must allow for twists and turns, by-paths, now and then blind alleys in which often, as it Evidenced, lurked the "tip" that had been lacking when one turned into them.

More and more, as the search went on, and one figure of Earth was added to another, it seemed worth while to bring a large number of them together. Inevitably, in such a collection of man's attempts to draw the planet on which we live and its relations to the heavenly bodies by which it is surrounded, there would be surprising similitudes, identifications, recognitions, even a queer unity. There would be, too, in such a collection, enormous differences, opportunity for endless comparison and endless wondering over the figures imaged by those supremely courageous men, the questioners of Space.

They are the men--anywhere, at any time--who have looked up at the unanswering heavens, and asked, "What and whence and why are those lights in the sky?" who have looked down at the unanswering Earth, and asked, "What is this land that forever gives everything--even to me my life, and forever takes everything--even from me my life? What are these waters around it that sustain its life and mine? this fire within it that pours through its mountain tops and heats its boiling springs, whose spark lies still within the rock and wood from which my father's fathers first struck out their own first fire? What is this air I breathe that is around the Earth and within it, in its secret caves? What is Earth? And what am I?"

They are the men who have questioned not idly but unceasingly; knowing all the while that to the tiny questioner below there is no great Answerer above; that any answer to the questions born of the speck in space that is man, must be born in its turn of just his questions; nothing more--but nothing less. There is no equipment for this lonely quest; there is only man the questioner and the universe--the Great Question; the answer lies within man himself. If ever we once realise this, we can never call them anything but supreme adventurers--those men curious enough to wonder enough to question enough to guess at last boldly enough to say, "Perhaps it is like this," and set down the image, even though it is no more than a small triangular peak of land rising from a watery waste, with the arch of the heavens above it, and between it and heaven the Sun and Moon and stars.

For guesswork is the beginning and the end of knowledge--man's own answers to his own questions. They may be right or wrong, but they are his. To-day we give scientific "guesses" a statelier title; we call them hypotheses; they are nothing more than guesses shot into still un-answering Space. The "hypothesis," for instance, that the Earth is an island, plain, mountain, or whatever, was first advanced when the first man of the first race drew the first figure of Earth. The "guess"--only that--that the figure of Earth is an oblate spheroid is of our own era. Our hypotheses are continually changing; one supplants another, and is in its turn discarded for a new--or an old--one; and this has been the history of knowledge ever since that remote and notable day when the first brain, by sheer pressure of questioning, focused in a point that exploded into a "guess." It is the process of induced thinking that has carried man on; the heavens and the Earth have continued to revolve whether his answers are right or wrong.

Man could not equip himself for this quest in Space. But he had been equipped, after a fashion. He had a few resources, a few means.

First of all, long before science told him that he had within his body vestiges of all the life-strata of the world, he had a vague knowledge that he is an integral part of the universe. And, because he is a part of the universe, he had a vague knowledge of truth, or of segments of truth. He had numbers, he had signs, he had characters, he had symbols, all of these drawn in the heavens before he drew them on Earth. He had words. He had the capacity to be curious, the capacity to wonder, the capacity to draw analogies between seemingly unrelated things. From this scant handful of means, his faculty for guesswork developed. This is the whole story of all his perceptions of the universe and of his planet. For he has continuously dared the great adventure, and has returned sometimes with pure gold.
boe05

September 25, 2011
1
Published in The Book of Earths
Written by LC Geerts

Illustrations

THE BOOK OF EARTHS

By

EDNA KENTON

New York: William Morrow & Company

[1928, No renewal]

ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATES

Plate		Facing page
I	Stages of Creation. From Haggadah von Sarajevo. Fourteenth century.	32
II	Sustainers of the Earth.
	A. Quetzalcoatl Upholding the Heavens. From an original Mexican painting preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna. Reproduced from Kingsborough's Antiquities of Mexico, Vol. II, 1831.
	B. Atlas Upholding the Earth. From Engravings after Stothard; a collection in the New York Public Library.
	C. A Hindu Earth. From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths. 1877.	38
III	Atlas Supporting the Universe. From Margarita philosophica. 1517.	42
IV	A very clear demonstration of the three kinds of vision in the Microcosm (or soul of Man), of the location of their objects, and of the manner of discerning them. From Fludd's Microcosmi Historia. 1619.	46
V	Another demonstration showing how the soul rises in a spiral ascent from the sensible things of the world to Unity. From Fludd's Microcosmi Historia. 1619.	50
VI	The Primordial Earth and Sea. From Muenster's Cosmographia Universalis. 1559.	54
VII	A. A kufa laden with stones and manned by a crew of four men. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bas-relief at Koyunjik. From Maspero's The Dawn of Civilization. 1894.	58
	B. Construction of the Akkadian, Chaldean and Babylonian Universe. From Myer's Qabbalah. 1888.	58
VIII	The Babylonian Universe. From Warren's The Universe as Pictured in Milton's Paradise Lost. 1915.	62
IX	The Sky Goddess Nut Bending over the Earth. From the Sarcophagus of Uresh-Nofer, Priest of the Goddess Mut(XXXth dynasty, 378-341 B.C.). In the Metropolitan Museum of the City of New York.	64
X	A. The Heavenly Goose. From Bryant's Ancient Mythology, Vol. II. 1774.	66
	B. The Sky Goddess Nut represented double. From Lockyer's The Dawn of Astronomy. 1894.	66
XI	Omnia Per Ipsum Facta Sunt. From Merian's Bybel Printen. 1650.	70
XII	The Earth after the Earth-Moon Catastrophe. Drawn by George D. Swazey for Popular Astronomy, Aug.-Sept., 1907.	72
XIII	One of the oldest drawings of the Moon, by PerCapucin Marie de Rheita (1645). From Kircher's Iter exstaticum coeleste. 1660.	76
XIV	"And Again He Sent Forth the Dove Out of the Ark." From Burnet's The Theory of the Earth. 1697.	80
XV	Situation of the Island of Atlantis, according to the ideas of the ancient Egyptians and the description of Plato. From Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus. 1678.	82
XVI	The Subterranean Bridge. From Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus. 1678.	84
XVII	A Conjectural Geography of the Translation of the Earth after the Deluge. From Kircher's Arca No 1665.	88
XVIII	Yggdrasil, the World Tree of the Norsemen. After Finn Magnusen's "Eddalen." From Folkard's Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics. 1884.	92
XIX	The WakWak Tree. From Tarikh al-Hind al-Gharbi. Constantinople. 1729.	104
XX	The World Tree of the Mayas. From Cogolludo's Historia de Yucathan. 1640.	110
XXI	Arber Sephirotheca. From Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi. Vol. II. 1621.	114
XXII	Dionysos in the Ship. A black-figured kylix by Exekias (6th cen. B.C.), in Munich (Furtwangler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, No. 42). From Mythology of All Races, Vol. I, Plate XLIX. 1916.	118
XXIII	"And God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light." From Fludd's Medicina Catholica. 1629.	120
XXIV	The Rose Tree of the Rosicrucians. From Fludd's Summum Bonum. 1629.	122
XXV	The Universe of the Lamas. From Waddell's The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism. 1899.	128
XXVI	Creatio Universi. From Scheuchzer's Physica Sacra. Vol. I. 1731.	134
XXVII	The Wheel of Life. From Du Bose's Dragon, Image and Demon. 1887.	138
XXVIII	The Wheel of Life. From Waddell's The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism. 1899.	142
XXIX	A. Deus Lunus.	152
	B. Ophis et Ovum Mundanum. From Bryant's Ancient Mythology. Vol. II. 1774.	152
	C. Earth as a floating Egg. From Flammarion's Astronomical Myths. 1877.	152
XXX	"A Divided Egg, or Earth." From Burnet's The Theory of the Earth. 1697.	154
XXXI	"The Whole Earth is an Egg." From Burnet's The Theory of the Earth. 1697.	156
XXXII	Frontispiece to "Almagestum Novum"; Ioannes Riccioli, 1561. From the original.	160
XXXIII	A World-Picture of the Aztecs. First page of the Codex Ferjvy-Mayer, representing the five regions of the world, and their tutelary deities. Reproduced from Mythology of All Races. Vol. XI, Plate VI. 1920.	190
XXXIV	The Osma Beatus World-Map, 1203. From Miller's Mappa Mundi: Die testen Weltkarten, Vol. I. 1895.	200
XXXV	The Earth of the Mystics--The Heart of God. From Pordage's Theologica Mystica, or The Archetypous Globe. 1683.	214
XXXVI	Map of the World, by Petrus Apianus, printed 1530. From the original in the British Museum. Reproduced from Nordenskid's Periplus, Plate XLIV. 1897.	Frontispiece
XXXVII	Nous pervaded by the Godhead embracing the Macrocosm with the Microcosm. From The Scientific Views and Visions of Saint Hildegard, by Charles Singer. In Studies in the History and Method of Science, edited by Charles Singer. Vol. I. 1917.	220
XXXVIII	IntegrNaturSpeculum Artisque imago. From Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi. Vol. I. 1621.	224
XXXIX	Kepler's diagram of "The Law connecting the relative distances of the planets." From Kepler's Harmonices Mundi. 1619.	228
XL	The Mundane Monochord. From Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi. Vol. I. 1621.	234
XLI	Man the World Octave. From Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi. Vol. I. 1621.	236
XLII	The Three World Octaves. From Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi. Vol. I. 1621.	238
XLIII	The Symmes Theory of Concentric Spheres. From the cover design of The Symmes Theory of Concentric Spheres, compiled by Americus Symmes. 1878.	240
XLIV	Gardner's Diagram of Symmes's Earth. From Gardner's A Journey to the Earth's Interior. 1920.	242
XLV	Chart of the Koreshan Cosmogony. From Teed's The Cellular Cosmogony. 1905.	246
XLVI	The Earth according to Gardner. From Gardner's A Journey to the Earth's Interior. 1920.	250
XLVII	Tetrahedral Collapse of the Earth's Crust in the Southern Hemisphere. From Green's Vestiges of the Molten Globe. 1875.	256
XLVIII	The Tetrahedral Earth. From the Sunday Magazine, New York. "World," Oct. 24, 1926.	260

September 25, 2011
1
Published in The Book of Earths
Written by LC Geerts

Acknowledgements

THE BOOK OF EARTHS

By

EDNA KENTON

New York: William Morrow & Company

[1928, No renewal]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WITHOUT THE ROUSED INTEREST and cordial co-operation of many people this collection of representations of the Earth and its relation to the Universe would have been impossible. For permission to use copyright material I am indebted to D. Appleton and Company, the Clarendon Press, the Cambridge University Press, Cassell & Co., Ltd., Gall and Inglis, the Guiding Star Publishing House, the Kosmon Press, Luzac & Co., Marshall Jones Company, Macmillan & Co., Ltd., Popular Astronomy, Frederick A. Stokes Company, Edward Stanford, Ltd., and the New York World; and also to Col. James Churchward, Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge, Dr. William Fairfield Warren, Mr. Marshall B. Gardner, Miss Mary Elizabeth Litchfield, Mrs. Richard Folkard, and Mrs. Daniel G. Brinton. For assistance in tracing material I owe thanks to various members of the staffs of the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, the Museum of the Hispanic Society of America, the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, the American Geographical Society, the Swedenborg Library of the Church of the New Jerusalem, Brooklyn, the New York Society Library, and the New York Public Library. In various translations I was aided by Dr. Arthur Livingston of Columbia University, and by an unknown member of the staff of the Biblioteca Nacional de Habana. Mr. Andrew Dasberg gave valuable suggestions in the choice and arrangement of various figures and plates. Special thanks are due Mrs. Mabel Reber without whose researches through numberless volumes this book would have lacked many of the representations it contains. Special thanks are also due many members of the staff of the New York Public Library in which most of these figures of Earth and the Universe were collected.

EDNA KENTON

September, 1928
New York

September 25, 2011
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THE BOOK OF EARTHS

By

EDNA KENTON

New York: William Morrow & Company

[1928, No renewal]

Man's Quest in Space,	1
Figures of Earth,	6
The Creation of the World,	22
Upholders of the World,	38
The Primal Earth,	51
The Babylonian Universe,	54
The Egyptian Universe,	63
The Earth Moon Catastrophe,	66
The Deluge,	77
The Lost Atlantis,	80
The Lost Land of the West,	83
Trees of the World,	89
Mountains of the World,	122
The Wheel of Life,	134
Earth the Mundane Egg,	145
Systems of the Universe,	160
The Square Earth of Cosmas Indicopleutes,	179
The Peruvian Universe,	185
The Aztec Universe,	189
Tartar-Mongol Worlds,	193
Maps of the Earth,	199
The Earth of Columbus,	208
Dante's Universe,	211
Earth the Heart of the Cosmos,	214
Saint Hildegard's Universe,	217
The Earths in the Universe,	226
Wheels upon Wheels,	228
The World Octaves,	234
Earth a Hollow Sphere,	238
The Tetrahedral Earth,	256
Bibliography,	263
Index,	269

September 25, 2011
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The Book of Earths

THE BOOK OF EARTHS

By

EDNA KENTON

New York: William Morrow & Company

[1928, No renewal]

NOTICE
This text is posted for research purposes only, as this book is still under a formal copyright in the United States. If you are the copyright holder and wish it to be removed please contact this site and we will comply promptly. Do not reproduce this material commercially.

PLATE XXXVI. Map of the World, by Petrus Apianus. printed 1530. From the original in the British Museum. (From Periplus; A. E. Nordenskid, 1897, Plate XLIV)

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The Book of Jubilees, Introduction

The Book of Jubilees

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

by R.H. Charles, Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1913.

Scanned and Edited by Joshua Williams, Northwest Nazarene College.

Introduction

Summary

Jubilees is a narrative of Moses experience on Mount Sinai. Here God commanded the "Angel of the Presence" to give Moses an account of Israels history. The book closely parallels the Genesis narrative from Creation to the time of Moses (Genesis 1Exodus 14), with additional stories told of the biblical characters. The book reports that the patriarchs observed festivals and legal practices later formalized in the Law. The book mentions two "Satan" figures: Belial and Prince Mastema. The title, Jubilees, comes from the fact that the narrative is broken down into divisions of time called jubilees (7x7 + 1 = 50 years). The book asserts that 49 jubilees passed from the time of Adam to this dictation to Moses.

Title

Also called "Little Genesis," the Apocalypse of Moses, and the book of the "Divisions of the Times," or simply "Divisions."

Sources

Jubilees is largely based on the biblical book of Genesis. Additional sources include the non canonical Books of Noah and Enoch.

Canonical Status: Among the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

Author: An anonymous Jewish priest, with Pharisaic sympathies.

Date: mid-2ndcentury BC (after the Maccabean revolt)

Original Language

Probably originally written in Hebrew; fragments of 12 such manuscripts discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls

Ethiopic translation (15th/ 16thcentury), which contains the entire text, is the essential basis for the English translation

Latin translation contains approximately one fourth of text.

Fragments have been found written in Greek

THE BOOK OF JUBILEES

INTRODUCTION

SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE BOOK.

The Book of Jubilees is in certain limited aspects the most important book in this volume for the student of religion. Without it we could of course have inferred from Ezra and Nehemiah, the Priests' Code, and the later chapters of Zechariah the supreme position that the law had achieved in Judaism, but without Jubilees we could hardly have imagined such an absolute supremacy as finds expression in this book. This absolute supremacy of the law carried with it, as we have seen in the General Introduction, the suppression of prophecy -at all events of the open exercise of the prophetic gifts. And yet these gifts persisted during all the so-called centuries of silence-from Malachi down to N.T. times, but owing to the fatal incubus of the law these gifts could not find expression save in pseudepigraphic literature. Thus Jubilees represents the triumph of the movement, which had been at work for the past three centuries or more.

And yet this most triumphant manifesto of legalism contained within its pages the element that was destined to dispute its supremacy and finally to reduce the law to the wholly secondary position that alone it could rightly claim. This element of course is apocalyptic, which was the source of the higher theology in Judaism, and subsequently was the parent of Christianity, wherein apocalyptic ceased to be pseudonymous and became one with prophecy.

The Book of Jubilees was written in Hebrew by a Pharisee between the year of the accession of Hyrcanus to the high priesthood in 135 and his breach with the Pharisees some years before his death in 105 B.C. It is the most advanced pre-Christian representative of the midrashic tendency, which has already been at work in the Old Testament Chronicles. As the Chronicler had rewritten the history of Israel and Judah from the basis of the Priests' Code, so our author re-edited from the Pharisaic standpoint of his time the history of events from the creation to the publication, or, according to the author's view, the republication of the law on Sinai. In the course of re-editing he incorporated a large body of traditional lore, which the midrashic process had put at his disposal, and also not a few fresh legal enactments that the exigencies of the past had called forth. His work constitutes an enlarged Targum on Genesis and Exodus, in which difficulties in the biblical narrative are solved, gaps supplied, dogmatically offensive elements removed, and the genuine spirit of later Judaism infused into the primitive history of the world. His object was to defend Judaism against the attacks of the hellenistic spirit that had been in the ascendant one generation earlier and was still powerful, and to prove that the law was of everlasting validity. From our author's contentions and his embittered attacks on the paganisers and apostates, we may infer that Hellenism had urged that the levitical ordinances of the law were only of transitory significance, that they had not been observed by the founders of the nation, and that the time had now come for them to be swept away, and for Israel to take its place in the brotherhood of the nations. Our author regarded all such views as fatal to the very existence of Jewish religion and nationality. But it is not as such that he assailed them, but on the ground of their falsehood. The law, he teaches, is of everlasting validity. Though revealed in time it was superior to time. Before it had been made known in gundry portions to the fathers it had been kept in heaven by the angels, and to its observance henceforward there was no limit in time or in eternity.

Writing in the palmiest days of the Maccabean dominion,in the high-priesthood of John Hyrcanus, looked for the immediate advent of the Messianic kingdom. This kingdom was to be ruled over by a Messiah sprung, not from Levi -that is, from the Maccabean family, as some of his contemporaries expected- but from Judah. This kingdom would be gradually realized on earth, and the transformation of physical nature would go hand in hand with the ethical transformation of man till there was a new heaven and a new earth. Thus, finally, all sin and pain would disappear and men would live to the age of 1,000 years in happiness and peace, and after death enjoy a blessed immortality in the spirit world.

VARIOUS TITLES OF THE BOOK.

Our book was known by two distinct titles even in Hebrew.

(a) Jubilees

Jubilees. This appears from Epiphanius (Haer. xxxix. 6) to have been its usual designation. It is found also in the Syriac Fragment entitled 'Names of the Wives of the Patriarchs according to the Hebrew Book of Jubilees,' first published by Ceriani, Mon. sacra et profana, ii. 1.9-10, and reprinted by the present writer in his edition of The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees. This name admirably describes the book, as it divides into jubilee periods of forty-nine years each the history of the world from the creation to the legislation on Sinai. The writer pursues a perfectly symmetrical development of the heptadic system. Israel enters Canaan at the close of the fiftieth jubilee, i.e. 2450.

(b) The Little Genesis

The Little Genesis. The epithet 'little' does not refer to the extent of the book, for it is larger than the canonical Genesis, but to its character. It deals more fully with details than the biblical work. The Hebrew title was variously rendered in Greek. 1 ((Gk.) he lepte Genesis (or Lepte Genesis)) as in Epiphanius, Syncellus, Zonaras, Glycas. 2 ((Gk.) he Leptogenesis) in Didymus of Alexandria and in Latin writers, as we may infer from the Decree of Gelasius. 3 (Gk.) ta lepta geneseos) in Syncellus. 4 ((Gk.) Mikrogenesis) in Jerome, who was acquainted with the Hebrew original.

The Apocalypse of Moses. This title had some currency in the time of Synceflus (see i. 5, 49). It forms an appropriate designation since it makes Moses the recipient of all the disclosures in the book.

The Testament of Moses. This title is found in the Catena of Nicephorus, i. 175, where it precedes a quotation from x. 21 of our book. It has, however, nothing to do with the Testament of Moses, which has become universally known under the wrong title -the Assumption of Moses. Ronsch and other scholars formerly sought to identify Jubilees with this second Testament of Moses, but this identification is shown to be impossible by the fact that in the Stichometry of Nicephorus 4,300 stichoi are assigned to Jubilees and only 1100 to this Testament of Moses. On the probability of a Testament of Moses having been in circulation -which was in reality an expansion of Jubilees ii-iii see my edition of Jubilees, p. xviii.

The Book of Adam's Daughters. This book is identified with Jubilees in the Decree of Gelasius, but it probably consisted merely of certain excerpts from Jubilees dealing with the names and histories of the women mentioned in it. Such a collection, as we have already seen, exists in Syriac, and its Greek prototype was used by the scribe of the LXX MS. no.135 in Holmes and Parsons' edition.

The Life of Adam. This title is found in Syncellus i. 7-9. It seems to have been an enlarged edition of the portion of Jubilees, which dealt with the life of Adam.

THE ETHIOPIC MSS.

There are four Ethiopic MSS., a b c d, the first and fourth of which belong to the National Library in Paris, the second to the British Museum, and the third to the University Library at Tubingen. Of these a b (of the fifteenth and sixteenth century respectively) are the most trustworthy, though they cannot be followed exclusively. In a, furthermore, the readings of the Ethiopic version of Genesis have replaced the original against bed in iii. 4, 6, 7, 19, 29; iv. 4, 8, For a full description of these MSS. the reader can consult Charles's Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees, pp. xii seqq.

THE ANCIENT VERSIONS-GREEK, ETHIOPIC, LATIN, SYRIAC.

(a) The Greek Version is lost save for some fragments which survive in Epiphanius ((Gk.) peri Metron kai Stathmon) (ed. Dindorf, vol. iv. 27-8). This fragment, which consists of ii. 2-21, is published with critical notes in Charles's edition of the Ethiopic text. Other fragments of this version are preserved in Justin Martyr, Origen, Diodorus of Antioch, Isidore of Alexandria, Isidore of Seville, Eutychius, Patriarch of Alexandria, John of Malala, Syncellus, Cedrenus. Syncellus attributes to the Canonical Genesis statements derived from our text. This version is the parent of the Ethiopic and Latin Versions.

(b) The Ethiopic Version. This version is most accurate and trustworthy and indeed as a rule servilely literal. It has, of course, suffered from the corruptions naturally incident to transmission through MSS. Thus dittographies are frequent and lacunae are of occasional occurrence, but the version is singularly free from the glosses and corrections of unscrupulous scribes, though the temptation must have been great to bring it into accord with the Ethiopic version of Genesis. To this source, indeed, we must trace a few perversions of the text: 'my wife' in iii. 6 instead of 'wife'; xv 12; xvii. 12 ('her bottle' instead of 'the bottle'); xxiv. 19 (where the words 'a well' are not found in the Latin version of Jubilees, nor in the Mass., Sam., LXX, Syr., and Vulg. of Gen. xxvi. 19). In the above passages the whole version is influenced, but in a much greater degree has this influence operated on MS. a. Thus in iii. 4, 6, 7, 19, 29, iv. 4, 8, v.3, vi. 9, , the readings of the Ethiopic version of Genesis have replaced the original text. In the case of b there appears to be only one instance of this nature in xv. 15 (see Charles's Text, pp. xii seqq.).

For instances of corruption native to this version, see Charles on ii. 2, 7, 21, vi. 21, vii. 22, x. 6, 21, xvi. 18, xxiv. 20, 29, xxxi. 2, xxxix. 4, xli. 15, xlv. 4, xlviii. 6.

(c) The Latin Version. This version, of which about one-fourth has been preserved, was first published by Ceriani in his Monnmenta sacra et profana, 1861, tom. i. fase. i. 15-62. It contains the following sections: xiii. 10b-21; xv. 20b-31a; xvi. 5b-xvii. 6a; xviii. 10b-xix. 25; xx. 5b-xxi. 10a; xxii. 2-19a; xxiii. 8b-23a; xxiv. 13-xxv. 1a; xxvi. 8b-23a; xxvii. 11b-24a; xxviii. 16b-27a; xxix. 8b-xxxi. 1a; xxxi. 9b-1 8, 29b-32; xxxii. 1-8a, 18b-xxxiii. 9a, 18b-xxxiv. 5a; xxxv. 3b-12a; xxxvi. 20b-xxxvii. 5a; xxxviii. 1b-16a; xxxix. 9-xl. 8a; xli. 6b-18; xlii. 2b-14a; xlv. 8-xlvi. 1, 12-xlviii. 5; xlix. 7b-22. This version was next edited by Ronsch in 1874, Das Buch der Fubilaen . . . unter Befugung des revidirten Textes der . . . lateinisehen Fragmente. This work attests enormous industry and great learning, but is deficient in judgement and critical acumen. Ronsch was of opinion that this Latin version was made in Egypt or its neighbourhood by a Palestinian Jew about the middle of the fifth century (pp.459-60). In 1895 Charles edited this text afresh in conjunction with the Ethiopic in the Oxford Anecdota (The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees). To this work and that of Ronsch above the reader must be referred for a fuller treatment of this subject. Here we may draw attention to the following points. This version, where it is preserved, is almost of equal value with the Ethiopic. It has, however, suffered more at the hands of correctors. Thus it has been corrected in conformity with the LXX in xlvi. 14, where it adds 'et Oon' against all other authorities. The Ethiopic version of Exod. i. 11 might have been expected to bring about this addition in our Ethiopic text, but it did not. Two similar instances will be found in xvii. 5, xxiv. 20. Again the Latin version seems to have been influenced by the Vulgate in xxix. 13. xlii. II (canos meos where our Ethiopic text = ((Gk.) mou to geras) as in LXX of Gen. xlii. 38); and probably also in xlvii. 7, 8, and certainly in xlv. 12, where it reads 'in tota terra' for 'in terra'. Of course there is the possibility that the Latin has reproduced faithfully the Greek and that the Greek was faulty; or in case it was correct, that it was the Greek presupposed by our Ethiopic version that was at fault.

Two other passages are deserving of attention, xix. 14 and xxxix. 13. In the former the Latin version 'et creverunt et iuvenes facti sunt' agrees with the Ethiopic version of Gen. xxv. 27 against the Ethiopic version of Jubilees and all other authorities on Gen. xxv. 27. Here the peculiar reading can be best explained as having originated in the Greek. In the second passage, the clause 'eorum quae fiebant in carcere' agrees with the Ethiopic version of Gen. xxxix. 23 against the Ethiopic version of Jubilees and all other authorities on Gen. xxxix. 23. On the other hand, there is a large array of passages in which the Latin version preserves the true text over against corruptions or omissions in the Ethiopic version: cf. xvi. 16, xix. 5, 10, 11, xx. 6, 10, xxi. 3, xxii. 3, (see my Text, p. xvi).

(d) The Syriac Version. The evidence as to the existence of a Syriac is not conclusive. It is based on the fact that a British Museum MS. (Add. 12154, fol. 180) contains a Syriac fragment entitled, Names of the Wives of the Patriarchs according to the Hebrew Book called Jubilees.' It was first published by Ceriani in his Monumeitta Sacra, 1861, torn. ii. fasc. i. 9-10, and reprinted by Charles as Appendix III to his Text of Jubilees (p. 183).

THE ETHIOPIC AND LATIN VERSIONS-TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GREEK.

Like all the biblical literature in Ethiopic, Jubilees was translated into Ethiopic from the Greek. Greek words such as (drus, balanos, lips, schinos, pharaggs, , are transliterated into Ethiopic. Secondly, many passages must be retranslated into Greek before we can discover the source of their corruptions. And finally, many names are transliterated as they appear in Greek and not in Hebrew.

That the Latin is derived directly from the Greek is no less obvious. Thus in xxxix. 12 ((Lt.) timoris = (Gk.) deilias), a corruption of douleias; in xxxviii. 13 ((Lt.) honorem = (Gk.) timen), which should have been rendered by (Lt.) tributum. Another class of mistranslations may be seen in passages where the Greek article is rendered by the Latin demonstrative as in (Lt.) huius Abrahae xxix. i6, huic Istrael xxxi. 15. Other evidence pointing in the same direction is to be found in the Greek constructions which have been reproduced in the Latin; such as xvii. 3 (Lt.) mem or fuit sermones' = (Gk.) hemnesthe tous logous: in xv. 22 (Lt.) consummavit loquens = (Gk.) Sunetelese lalon: in xxii. 8 (Lt.) 'in omnibus quibus dedisti' = en pasin ois edokas.

THE GREEK-A TRANSLATION FROM THE HEBREW.

The early date of our book -the second century B.C.- and the fact that it was written in Palestine speak for a Semitic original, and the evidence for such an original is conclusive. But the question at once arises, was the original written in Hebrew or Aramaic? Certain proper names in the Latin version ending in -in seem to bespeak an Aramaic original, as Cettin xxiv. 28; Adurin xxxviii. 8,9; Filistin xxiv. 14-16. But since in all these cases the Ethiopic transliterations end in -n and not in -nit is not improbable that this Aramaising in the Latin version is due to the translator, who, as Ronsch has concluded on other grounds, was a Palestinian Jew. Again, in the list of the twelve trees suitable for burning on the altar some are transliterations of Aramaic names. But in a late Hebrew work -written at the close of the second century B.C.- the popular names of such objects would naturally be used. Moreover, in certain cases the Hebrew may have already been forgotten, or, when the tree had been lately introduced, been non-existent.

But the arguments for a Hebrew original are many and weighty. (1) A work which claims to be from the hand of Moses would naturally be written in Hebrew; for Hebrew, according to our author, was the sacred and national language, xii. 25-6; xliii. 15. (2) The revival of the national spirit is, so far as we know, accompanied by a revival of the national language. (3) The existing text must be retranslated into Hebrew in order to explain unintelligible expressions and restore the true text. Thus (Ar.) la 'eleja in xliii. 11 = (Gk.) en emoi; which is a mistranslation in this context of (Hb.); for (Hb.) here = (Gk.) deomai, 'pray,' as in Gen. xliv. 18. In xlvii. 9 the text = (Lt.) 'domum (= Hb. ) Faraonis', but the context demands (Lt.) 'filiam (= Hb.) Faraonis',though here the argument is not conclusive, since (Hb.) might have been corruptly written for (Hb.) which in Aramaic = 'daughter'. Again in xxxvi. 10 (cp. also xxxix. 6) the text = (Gk.) ouk anabesetai (= ja'arg) (Gk.) eis to biblion tes zoes. But ja'arg must = 'will be recorded'. Now this meaning is unattested elsewhere in Ethiopic, but the difficulty is solved when we find that it is a Hebrew idiom: see I Chron. xxvii. 24, 2 Chron. xx. 34. (4) Many paronomasiae discover themselves on retranslation into Hebrew, as in iv. 9 there is a play on the name Enoch, in iv. 15 on Jared, in viii. 8 on Peleg, (5) Many passages are preserved in Rabbinic writings, and the book has much matter in common with the Testaments xii Patriarchs, 'which was written about the same date in Hebrew. Both books, in fact, use a chronology peculiar to themselves. (6) Fragments of the original Hebrew text or of the sources used by its author are to be found in the Book of Noah and the Midrasch Wajjisau in Jellinek's Beth-ha-Midrasch, iii. 155-6, 3-5, reprinted in Charles's edition of the Ethiopic text on pp. 179-81.

TEXTUAL AFFINITIES.

A minute study of the text shows that it attests an independent form of the Hebrew text of Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus. Thus it agrees with individual authorities such as the Samaritan or the LXX, or the Syriac, or the Vulgate, or the Targum of Onkelos against all the rest. Or again it agrees with two or more of these authorities in opposition to the rest, as for instance with the Massoretic and Samaritan against the LXX, Syriac and Vulgate, or with the Massoretic and Onkelos against the Samaritan, LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate, or with the Massoretic, Samaritan and Syriac against the LXX or Vulgate. But the reader must here be referred to Charles's Book of Jubilees (pp. xxxiii--xxxix) for a full classification of these instances. A study of these phenomena proves that our book represents some form of the Hebrew text midway between the forms presupposed by the LXX and the Syriac; for it agrees more frequently with the LXX, or with combinations into which the LXX enters, than with any other single authority. Next to the LXX it agrees most often with the Syriac or with combinations into which the Syriac enters. On the other hand, its independence of the LXX is shown by a large array of readings, where it has the support of the Samaritan and Massoretic, or of these with various combinations of the Syriac, Vulgate and Onkelos. From these and like considerations we may conclude that the textual evidence points to the composition of our book at some period between 250 B.C. and 100 A.D. and at a time nearer the earlier date than the latter.

THE VALUE OF THE BOOK OF JUBILEES IN THE CRITICISM OF THE MASSORETIC TEXT OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

From a study of the facts which are referred to in the preceding Section it will be clear that before and after the Christian era the Hebrew text did not possess any hard and fast tradition. It will further be obvious that the Massoretic form of this text, which has so long been generally as conservative of the most ancient tradition and as therefore final, is after all only one of many phases through which the text passed in the process of over 1,000 years, ie. 400 B.C. till A.D. 600, or thereabouts.

As we pursue the examination of the materials just mentioned we shall see grounds for regarding the Massoretic text as the result partly of conscious recension and partly of unconscious change extending over many centuries. How this process affected the text in the centuries immediately preceding and subsequent to the Christian era, we have some means of determining in the Hebrew-Samaritan text which, however much it may have been tampered with on religious or polemical grounds, still preserves in many cases the older reading, even as it preserves the older of the alphabet. Next we have the LXX of the Pentateuch, to which we may assign the date 200 B.C.; next the Book of Jubilees just before the Christian era; the Syriac Pentateuch before A.D. 100; the Vulgate of the fourth century; the Targums of Onkelos and Ps.-Jon. in their present form A.D. 300-600.

We have above remarked that the evidence of 6 shows that the Massoretic text is only one of the phases through which the Hebrew text has passed; and if we consider afresh the materials of evidence suggested in that Section in connexion with their dates, and given in some fullness in the Introductions to Charles's Text and Commentary, we shall discover that in some respects it is one of the latest phases of the Hebrew Pentateuch that has been stereotyped by Jewish scholars in the Massoretic text.

This conclusion will tally perfectly with the tradition that all existing Massoretic MSS. are derived in the main from one archetype, i.e. the Hebrew Codex left behind him by Ben Asher, who lived in the tenth century, and whose family had lived at Tiberias in the eighth.

We shall now proceed to give a list of readings in the Massoretic text which should be corrected into accord with the readings attested by such great authorities as the Sam., LXX, Jub., Syr., VuIg.

The following list was published in Charles's Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees in 1895. More than two-thirds of the emendations of the Book of Genesis here suggested were subsequently accepted independently, on the evidence of the Sam., LXX, Syr., Vulg., without a knowledge of Jubilees, by C.J. Ball in his edition of the Hebrew Text of Genesis, 1896, by Kittel in his edition of the Hebrew Text of Genesis, 1905, and more than half in the recent Commentary of Gunkel.

(What follows contains many phrases written in Hebrew. At the time of scanning there was not an accessible means to accurately reproduce the Hebrew script. If this information is desired please see Mr. Charles book.)

DATE OF (a) THE ORIGINAL TEXT AND (b) OF THE VERSIONS.

(a) Jubilees was written between 153 B.C. and the year of Hyrcanus' breach with the Pharisees. (1) It was written during the pontificate of the Maccabean family, and not earlier than 155 B.C., when this office was assumed by Jonathan the Maccabee. For in xxxii. 1, Levi is called a 'priest of the Most High God.' Now the only Jewish high-priests who bore this title were the Maccabean, who appear to have assumed it as reviving the order of Melchizedek when they displaced the Zadokite order of Aaron. Despite the objections of the Pharisees, it was used by the Maccabean princes down to Hyrcanus II (Jos. Ant. xvi. 6.2). (2) It was written before 96 B.C.; for since our author was of the strictest sect a Pharisee and at the same time an upholder of the Maccabean pontificate, Jubilees cannot have been written later than 96, when the Pharisees and Alexander Jannaeus were openly engaged in mortal strife. (3) It was written before the public breach between Hyrcanus and the Pharisees when Hyrcanus joined the Sadducean party. As Hyrcanus died in 105, our book was written between 153 and 105.

But it is possible to define these limits more closely. The book presupposes as its historical background the most flourishing period of the Maccabean hegemony -such as that under Simon and Hyrcanus. The conquest of Edom, which was achieved by the latter, is referred to in xxxviii. 14. Again our text reflects accurately the intense hatred of Judah towards the Philistines in the second century B.C. It declares that they will fall into the hands of the righteous nation, and we learn from I Macc. and Josephus that Ashdod and Gaza were destroyed by Hyrcanus and Alexander Jannaeus respectively. But it is in the destruction of Samaria, which is adumbrated in the destruction of Shechem, xxx. 4-6, that we are to look for the true terminus a quo. Now all accounts agree in representing the destruction of Samaria as effected by Hyrcanus about four years before his death. Hence we conclude that Jubilees was written between 109 and 105 B.C.

Many other phenomena point to the second-century origin of our book, which are given in Charles's edition, pp. lviii-lxvi. Amongst these we might mention the currency of older and severer forms of the halacha than prevailed in the rabbinical schools, or were registered in the Mishnah. The severe halacha regarding the sabbath in 1.8, 12, were indubitably in force in the second century B.C., if not earlier, but were afterwards mitigated by the Mishnah and later Judaism. Again the strict halacha in xv. 14 regarding circumcision on the eighth day was a current, probably the current, view in the second century B.C. and earlier, since it has the support of the Samaritan text and the LXX. This strict law was subsequently relaxed in the Mishnah. In xxxii. 15 the severe law of tithing found in Lev. xxvii. 15 is enforced, but rabbinic tradition sought to weaken the statement. As regards the halacha laid down in iii. 31 regarding the duty of covering one's shame, it is highly probable that such a halacha did exist in the second century B.C., when Judaism was protesting against the exposure of the person in the Greek games. See also iii. 8-14 notes and xx. 4 note.

Other cases of strict rules afterwards relaxed are the limitation of trees for use with burnt offerings (see xxi. 12-15 notes), the restriction of the eating of the passover to the court of the Lords house (see xlix. 20 note), the close adherence to the exacting demand of Lev. xix. 24 that the fourth year's fruit should be holy (see vii. 36 notes), though here we have a variant reading. Note that the rest of the firstfruits belong to the priests, who are to eat them 'before the altar.' On the other hand, the thank-offerings in xxi. 8-10 do not belong to the priest. The computation of the Feast of Weeks is different from the later prevalent Pharisaic reckoning (see xv. 1 note; xvi. 13, xliv. 4-5), while the account of the Feast of Tabernacles in xvi. 21-31 is peculiar to Jubilees.

Finally, we might draw attention to the fact that the Pharisaic regulation about pouring water on the altar (Jer. Sukk. iv. 6; Sukk. 44a) at the feast of tabernacles appears to have been unknown to him. We know that the attempt of the Pharisees to enforce its adoption on Alexander Jannaeus resulted in a massacre of the former. Attention might also be drawn to the fact that the Priests and Levites still numbered in their ranks, as in the days of the author of Chronicles, the masters of the schools and the men of learning, and that these positions were not filled as in the days of Shammai and Hillel by men drawn from the laity. This inference is to be deduced from the fact that the Levites are represented as the guardians of the sacred books and of the secret lore transmitted from the worthies of old time (x. 4, xlv. 16).

(b) Date of the Ethiopic and Latin Versions. There is no evidence for determining the exact date of the Ethiopic version, but since it was practically regarded as a canonical book it was probably made in the sixth century. Ronsch, as we have already pointed out in 4, gives some evidence for regarding the Latin version as made in the fifth century.

JUBILEES FROM ONE AUTHOR BUT BASED ON EASTERN BOOKS AND TRADITIONS.

Our book is the work of one author, but is largely based on earlier books and traditions. The narrative of Genesis forms of course the bulk of the book, but much that is characteristic in it is due to his use of many pseudepigraphic and ancient traditions. Amongst the former might be mentioned the Book of Noah, from which in a modified form he borrows vii. 20-39, x. 1-15. In vii. 26-39 he reproduces his source so faithfully that he leaves the persons unchanged, and forgets to adapt this fragment to its new context. Similarly our author lays the Book of Enoch under contribution, and is of great value in this respect in determining the dates of the various sections of this book. See Introd. to I Book of Enoch, in loc. For other authorities and traditions used by our author see Charles's edition, 13.

JUBILEES IS A PRODUCT OF THE MIDRASHIC TENDENCY WHICH HAD BEEN ALREADY AT WORK IN THE O.T. BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.

The Chronicler rewrote with an object the earlier history of Israel and Judah already recounted in Samuel and Kings. His object was to represent David and his pious successors as observing all the prescripts of the law according to the Priests' Code. In the course of this process all facts that did not square with the Chronicler's presuppositions were either omitted or transformed. Now the author of Jubilees sought to do for Genesis what the Chronicler had done for Samuel and Kings, and so he rewrote it in such a way as to show that the law was rigorously observed even by the Patriarchs. The author represents his book to be as a whole a revelation of God to Moses, forming a supplement to and an interpretation of the Pentateuch, which he designates 'the first law' (vi. 22). This revelation was in part a secret republication of the traditions handed down from father to son in antediluvian and subsequent times. From the time of Moses onwards it was preserved in the hands of the priesthood, till the time came for its being made known.

Our author's procedure is of course in direct antagonism with the presuppositions of the Priests' Code in Genesis, for according to this code 'Noah may build no altar, Abraham offer no sacrifice, Jacob erect no sacred pillar. No offering is recorded till Aaron and his sons are ready' (Carpenter, The Hexateuch, i. 124). This fact seems to emphasize in the strongest manner how freely our author reinterpreted his authorities for the past. But he was only using to the full a right that had been exercised for nearly four centuries already in regard to Prophecy and for four or thereabouts in regard to the law.

OBJECT OF JUBILEES -THE DEFENCE AND EXPOSITION OF JUDAISM FROM THE PHARISAIC STANDPOINT OF THE SECOND CENTURY B.C.

The object of our author was to defend Judaism against the disintegrating effects of Hellenism, and this he did (a) by glorifying the law as an eternal ordinance and representing the patriarchs as models of piety; (b) by glorifying Israel and insisting on its separation from the Gentiles; and (e) by denouncing the Gentiles and particularly Israel's national enemies. In this last respect Judaism regarded its own attitude to the Gentiles as not only justifiable but also just, because it was a reflection of the divine.

But on (a) it is to be observed further that to our author the law, as a whole, was the realization in time of what was in a sense timeless and eternal. It was observed not only on earth by Israel but in heaven. Parts of the law might have only a time reference, to Israel on earth, but in the privileges of circumcision and the Sabbath, as its highest and everlasting expression, the highest orders of archangels in heaven shared with Israel (ii. i8, 19, 21; xv. 26-28). The law, therefore, was supreme, and could admit of no assessor in the form of Prophecy. There was no longer any prophet because the law had made the free exercise of his gift an offence against itself and God. So far, therefore, as Prophecy existed, it could exist only under the guise of pseudonymity. The seer, who had like Daniel and others a message for his time, could only gain a hearing by issuing it under the name of some ancient worthy.

THE AUTHOR -A PHARISEE WHO RECOGNIZED THE MACCABEAN PONTIFICATE AND WAS PROBABLY A PRIEST.

Since our author was an upholder of the everlasting validity of the law, and held the strictest views on circumcision, the Sabbath, and the duty of complete separation from the Gentiles, since he believed in angels and demons and a blessed immortality, he was unquestionably a Pharisee of the strictest sect. In the next place, he was a supporter of the Maccabean pontificate. He glorifies Levi's successors as high-priests and civil rulers, and applies to them the title priests of the Most High God '-the title assumed by the Maccabean princes (xxxii. 1). He was not, however, so thoroughgoing an admirer of this dynasty as the authors of Test. Lev. xviii. or Ps. cx, who expected the Messiah to come forth from the Maccabean family. Finally, that our author was a priest might reasonably be inferred from the exaltation of Levi over Judah (xxxi-xxxii), and from the statement in xlv. i6 that the secret traditions, which our author claims to publish, were kept in the hands of Levi's descendants.

INFLUENCE ON LATER LITERATURE.

On the influence of Jubilees on I Enoch i-v, xci-civ, Wisdom (?), 4 Ezra, Chronicles of Jerachmeel, Midrash Tadshe, Book of Jasher, the Samaritan Chronicle, on Patristic and other writings, and on the New Testament writers, see Charles's edition, pp. lxxiii-lxxxvi.

THEOLOGY. SOME OF OUR AUTHOR'S VIEWS.

Freedom and determinism. The author of Jubilees is a true Pharisee in that he combines belief in Divine omnipotence and providence with the belief in human freedom and responsibility. He would have adopted heartily the statement of the Pss. Sol. ix. 7 (written some sixty years or more later) (Gk.) ta erga emon en ekloge kai exousia tes psuches emon, tou poiesai dikaiosunen kai adikian en ergois cheiron emon: v. 6 anthropos kai e meris autou para soi en stathmo ou prosthesei tou pleonasai para to krima sou, o theos. Thus the path in which a man should walk is ordained for him and the judgement of all men predetermined on the heavenly tablets: 'And the judgment of all is ordained and written on the heavenly tablets in righteousness -even the judgment of all who depart from the path which is ordained for them to walk in' (v.13). This idea of an absolute determinism underlies many conceptions of the heavenly tablets (see Charles's edition, iii. 10 note). On the other hand, man's freedom and responsibility are fully recognized: 'If they walk not therein, judgment is written down for every creature' (v. 13): 'Beware lest thou walk in their ways, And tread in their paths, And sin a sin unto death before the Most High God. Else He will give thee back into the hand of thy transgression.' Even when a man has sinned deeply he can repent and be forgiven (xli. 24 seq.), but the human will needs the strengthening of a moral dynamic: 'May the Most High God . . . strengthen thee to do His will' (xxi. 25, xxii. 10).

The Fall. The effects of the Fall were limited to Adam and the animal creation. Adam was driven from the garden (iii. 17 seqq.) and the animal creation was robbed of the power of speech (iii. 28). But the subsequent depravity of the human race is not traced to the Fall but to the seduction of the daughters of men by the angels, who had been sent down to instruct men (v.1-4), and to the solicitations of demonic spirits (vii. 27). The evil engendered by the former was brought to an end by the destruction of all the descendants of the angels and of their victims by the Deluge, but the incitement to sin on the part of the demons was to last to the final judgement (vii. 27, x. 1-15, xi. 4 seq., xii. 20). This last view appears in I Enoch and the N.T.

The Law. The law was of eternal validity. It was not the expression of the religious consciousness of one or of several ages, but the revelation in time of what was valid from the beginning and unto all eternity. The various enactments of the law moral and ritual, were written on the heavenly tablets (iii. 31, vi. 17, ) and revealed to man through the mediation of angels (i. 27). This conception of the law, as I have already pointed out, made prophecy impossible unless under the guise of pseudonymity. Since the law was the ultimate and complete expression of absolute truth, there was no room for any further revelation: much less could any such revelation, were it conceivable, supersede a single jot or tittle of the law as already revealed. The ideal of the faithful Jew was to be realized in the fulfilment of the moral and ritual precepts of this law: the latter were of no less importance than the former. Though this view of morality tends to be mainly external, our author strikes a deeper note when he declares that, when Israel turned to God with their whole heart, He would circumcise the foreskin of their heart and create a right spirit within them and cleanse them, so that they would not turn away from Him for ever (i. 23). Our author specially emphasizes certain elements of the law such as circumcision (xvi. 14, xv. 26, 29), the Sabbath (ii. 18 seq., 31 seq.), eating of blood (vi. 14), tithing of the tithe (xxxii. 10), Feast of Tabernacles (xvi. 29), Feast of Weeks (vi. 17), the absolute prohibition of mixed marriages (xx. 4, xxii. 20, xxv. 1-10). In connexion with many of these he enunciates halacha which belong to an earlier date than those in the Mishnah, but which were either modified or abrogated by later authorities.

The Messiah. Although our author is an upholder of the Maccabean dynasty he still clings like the writer of I Enoch lxxxiii-xc to the hope of a Messiah sprung from Judah. He makes, however, only one reference to this Messiah, and no role of any importance is assigned to him (see Charles's edition, xxxi. 18 n.). The Messianic expectation showed no vigorous life throughout this century till it was identified with the Maccabean family. If we are right in regarding the Messianic kingdom as of temporary duration, this is the first instance in which the Messiah is associated with a temporary Messianic kingdom.

The Messianic kingdom. According to our author (i. 29, xxiii. 30) this kingdom was to be brought about gradually by the progressive spiritual development of man and a corresponding transformation of nature. Its members were to attain to the full limit of 1,000 years in happiness and peace. During its continuance the powers of evil were to be restrained (xxiii. 29). The last judgement was apparently to take place at its close (xxiii. 30). This view was possibly derived from Mazdeism.

The writer of Jubilees, we can hardly doubt, thought that the era of the Messianic kingdom had already set in. Such an expectation was often cherished in the prosperous days of the Maccabees. Thus it was entertained by the writer of I Enoch lxxxiii-xc in the days of Judas before 161 B.C. Whether Jonathan was looked upon as the divine agent for introducing the kingdom we cannot say, but as to Simon being regarded in this light there is no doubt. Indeed, his contemporaries came to regard him as the Messiah himself, as we see from Psalm cx, or Hyrcanus in the noble Messianic hymn in Test. Levi 18. The tame effus1on in 1 Macc. xiv. 8-15 is a relic of such literature, which was emasculated by its Sadducean editor. Simon was succeeded by John Hyrcanus in 135 B.C. and this great prince seemed to his countrymen to realize the expectations of the past; for according to a contemporary writer (Test. Levi 8) he embraced in his own person the triple office of prophet, priest, and civil ruler (xxxi. i5), while according to the Test. Reuben 6 he was to 'die on behalf of Israel in wars seen and unseen'. In both these passages he seems to be accorded the Messianic office, but not so in our author, as we have seen above. Hyrcanus is only to introduce the Messianic kingdom, over which the Messiah sprung from Judah is to rule.

Priesthood of Melchizedek. That there was originally an account of Melchizedek in our text we have shown in the note on xiii. 2,5, and, that the Maccabean high-priests deliberately adopted the title applied to him in Gen. xiv, we have pointed out in the note on xxxii. I. It would be interesting to inquire how far the writer of Hebrews was indebted to the history of the great Maccabean king-priests for the idea of the Melchizedekian priesthood of which he has made so fruitful a use in chap. vii as applied to our Lord.

The Future Life. In our text all hope of a resurrection of the body is abandoned. The souls of the righteous will enjoy a blessed immortality after death (xxiii. 31). This is the earliest attested instance of this expectation in the last two centuries B.C. It is next found in Enoch xci-civ.

The Jewish Calendar. For our author's peculiar views see Charles's edition 18 and the notes on vi. 29-30, 32, xv. I.

Angelology. We shall confine our attention here to notable parallels between our author and the New Testament. Besides the angels of the presence and the angels of sanctification there are the angels who are set over natural phenomena (ii. 2). These angels are inferior to the former. They do not observe the Sabbath as the higher orders; for they are necessarily always engaged in their duties (ii. 18). It is the higher orders that are generally referred to in the New Testament but the angels over natural phenomena are referred to in Revelation: angels of the winds in vii. 1, 2, the angel of fire in xiv. 18, the angel of the waters in xvi. 5 (cf. Jub. ii. 2). Again, the guardian angels of individuals, which the New Testament refers to in Matt. xviii. 10 (Acts xii. 15), are mentioned, for the first time in Jubilees xxxv. 17. On the angelology of our author see Charles's edition.

Demonology. The demonology of our author reappears for the most part in the New Testament:

(a) The angels which kept not their first estate, Jude 6 ; 2 Peter ii. 4, are the angelic watchers who, though sent down to instruct mankind (Jub. iv. 15), fell from lusting after the daughters of men. Their fall and punishment are recorded in Jub. iv. 22, v.1-9.

(b) The demons are the spirits which went forth from the souls of the giants who were the children of the fallen angels, Jub. v. 7, 9. These demons attacked men and ruled over them (x. 3, 6). Their purpose is to corrupt and lead astray and destroy the wicked (x. 8). They are subject to the prince Mastema (x. 9), or Satan. Men sacrifice to them as gods (xxii. 17). They are to pursue their work of moral ruin till the judgement of Mastema (x. 8) or the setting up of the Messianic kingdom, when Satan will be no longer able to injure mankind (xxiii. 29).

So in the New Testament, the demons are disembodied spirits (Matt. xii. 43-5; Luke xi. 24-6). Their chief is Satan (Mark iii. 22). They are treated as divinities of the heathen (I Cor. x. 20). They are not to be punished till the final judgement (Matt. viii. 29). On the advent of the Millennium Satan will be bound (Rev. xx. 2-3).

Judgement. The doctrine of retribution is strongly enforced by our author. It is to be individual and national in this world and in the next. As regards the individual the law of exact retribution is according to our author not merely an enactment of human justice -the ancient lox talionis, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; it is observed by God in His government of the world. The penalty follows in the line of the sin. This view is enforced in 2 Macc. v. 10, where it is said of Jason, that, as he robbed multitudes of the rites of sepulture, so he himself was deprived of them in turn, and in xv. 32 seq. it is recounted of Nicanor that he was punished in those members with which he had sinned. So also in our text in reference to Cain iv. 31 seq. and the Egyptians xlviii. 14. Taken crassly and mechanically the above law is without foundation, but spiritually conceived it represented the profound truth of the kinship of the penalty to the sin enunciated repeatedly in the New Testament: 'Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap' (Gal. vi.;); 'he that doeth wrong shall receive again the wrong that he hath done' (Col. iii. 25, ). Again in certain cases the punishment was to follow instantaneously on the transgression (xxxvii. 17).

The final judgement was to take place at the close of the Messianic kingdom (xxiii. 30). This judgement embraces the human and superhuman worlds (v. 10 seq., 14). At this judgement there will be no respect of persons, but all will be judged according to their opportunities and abilities (v. 15 seq.). From the standpoint of our author there could be no hope for the Gentiles.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

(a) Greek Version: see above, 4 (a). Ethiopic Version: this text was first edited by Dillmann from two MSS. cd in 1859, and by R. H. Charles from four MSS. abcd. The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees with the Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Latin Fragments, Oxford, 1895. Latin Version: see above, 4 (a).

(b) Translations. Dillrnann, Das Buch der Jubilaen . . . aus dem Aethiopischen ubersetzt (Ewald's Jahrbucher d. bibl. Wissensch., 1850-1, ii. 230-56; iii. 1-96). This translation is based on only one MS. Schodde, The Book of Jubilees, translated from the Ethiopic ('Bibliotheca Sacra,' 1885-7): Charles, The Book of Jubilees, translated from a text based on two hitherto uncollated Ethiopic MSS. (Jewish Quarterly Review, 1893, v. 703-8; 1894, vi. 184-217, 710-45; 1895, vii. 297-328): Littmann, Das Buch der Jubilaen (Kantzsch's Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des A. T., 1900, ii. 31-119). This translation is based on Charles's text.

(d) Critical Inquiries. Dillmann, 'Pseudepigraphen des A. T.,' Herzog's R. E.2, xii. 364-5; 'Beitrage aus dem Buche der Jubilaen zur Kritik des Pentateuch-Textes' (Sitzungsberichte der kgl. preussischen Akad., 1883); Beer, Das Buch der Jubilaen, 1856; Singer, Das Buck der Jubilaen, 1898; Bohn, 'Die Pedeutung des Buches der Jubilaen' (Theol. Stud. u. Kritiken, 1900, 167-84). For a full bibliography see Charles's Commentary or Schurer.

THE BOOK OF JUBILEES

Notes and dates added by Mr. Charles will not be given due to length and difficulty in scanning and editing. If this information is desired, please see his book.

September 24, 2011
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Jubilees 50

The Book of Jubilees

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

by R.H. Charles, Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1913.

Scanned and Edited by Joshua Williams, Northwest Nazarene College.

Chapter 50

Laws regarding the jubilees, 1-5, and the Sabbath, 6-13)

And after this law I made known to thee the days of the Sabbaths in the desert of Sin(ai), which is between Elim and Sinai.

And I told thee of the Sabbaths of the land on Mount Sinai, and I told thee of the jubilee years in the sabbaths of years: but the year thereof have I not told thee till ye enter the land which ye are to possess.

And the land also shall keep its sabbaths while they dwell upon it, and they shall know the jubilee year.

Wherefore I have ordained for thee the year-weeks and the years and the jubilees: there are forty-nine jubilees from the days of Adam until this day, (2410 AM) and one week and two years: and there are yet forty years to come (lit. 'distant') for learning the (2450 AM) commandments of the Lord, until they pass over into the land of Canaan, crossing the Jordan to the west.

And the jubilees shall pass by, until Israel is cleansed from all guilt of fornication, and uncleanness, and pollution, and sin, and error, and dwells with confidence in all the land, and there shall be no more a Satan or any evil one, and the land shall be clean from that time for evermore.

And behold the commandment regarding the Sabbaths -I have written (them) down for thee- and all the judgments of its laws.

Six days shalt thou labour, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it ye shall do no manner of work, ye and your sons, and your men- servants and your maid-servants, and all your cattle and the sojourner also who is with you.

And the man that does any work on it shall die: whoever desecrates that day, whoever lies with (his) wife, or whoever says he will do something on it, that he will set out on a journey thereon in regard to any buying or selling: and whoever draws water thereon which he had not prepared for himself on the sixth day, and whoever takes up any burden to carry it out of his tent or out of his house shall die.

Ye shall do no work whatever on the Sabbath day save what ye have prepared for yourselves on the sixth day, so as to eat, and drink, and rest, and keep Sabbath from all work on that day, and to bless the Lord your God, who has given you a day of festival and a holy day: and a day of the holy kingdom for all Israel is this day among their days for ever.

For great is the honour which the Lord has given to Israel that they should eat and drink and be satisfied on this festival day, and rest thereon from all labour which belongs to the labour of the children of men save burning frankincense and bringing oblations and sacrifices before the Lord for days and for Sabbaths.

This work alone shall be done on the Sabbath-days in the sanctuary of the Lord your God; that they may atone for Israel with sacrifice continually from day to day for a memorial well-pleasing before the Lord, and that He may receive them always from day to day according as thou hast been commanded.

And every man who does any work thereon, or goes a journey, or tills (his) farm, whether in his house or any other place, and whoever lights a fire, or rides on any beast, or travels by ship on the sea, and whoever strikes or kills anything, or slaughters a beast or a bird, or whoever catches an animal or a bird or a fish, or whoever fasts or makes war on the Sabbaths:

The man who does any of these things on the Sabbath shall die, so that the children of Israel shall observe the Sabbaths according to the commandments regarding the Sabbaths of the land, as it is written in the tablets, which He gave into my hands that I should write out for thee the laws of the seasons, and the seasons according to the division of their days.

Herewith is completed the account of the division of the days.

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Jubilees 49

The Book of Jubilees

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

by R.H. Charles, Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1913.

Scanned and Edited by Joshua Williams, Northwest Nazarene College.

Chapter 49

The Passover: regulations regarding its celebration. (Cf. Exod. xii.6, 9, 11, 13, 22-3, 30, 46; xv.22.)

Remember the commandment which the Lord commanded thee concerning the passover, that thou shouldst celebrate it in its season on the fourteenth of the first month, that thou shouldst kill it before it is evening, and that they should eat it by night on the evening of the fifteenth from the time of the setting of the sun.

For on this night -the beginning of the festival and the beginning of the joy- ye were eating the passover in Egypt, when all the powers of Masthad been let loose to slay all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh to the first-born of the captive maid-servant in the mill, and to the cattle.

And this is the sign which the Lord gave them: Into every house on the lintels of which they saw the blood of a lamb of the first year, into (that) house they should not enter to slay, but should pass by (it), that all those should be saved that were in the house because the sign of the blood was on its lintels.

And the powers of the Lord did everything according as the Lord commanded them, and they passed by all the children of Israel, and the plague came not upon them to destroy from amongst them any soul either of cattle, or man, or dog.

And the plague was very grievous in Egypt, and there was no house in Egypt where there was not one dead, and weeping and lamentation.

And all Israel was eating the flesh of the paschal lamb, and drinking the wine, and was lauding, and blessing, and giving thanks to the Lord God of their fathers, and was ready to go forth from under the yoke of Egypt, and from the evil bondage.

And remember thou this day all the days of thy life, and observe it from year to year all the days of thy life, once a year, on its day, according to all the law thereof, and do not adjourn (it) from day to day, or from month to month.

For it is an eternal ordinance, and engraven on the heavenly tablets regarding all the children of Israel that they should observe it every year on its day once a year, throughout all their generations; and there is no limit of days, for this is ordained for ever.

And the man who is free from uncleanness, and does not come to observe it on occasion of its day, so as to bring an acceptable offering before the Lord, and to eat and to drink before the Lord on the day of its festival, that man who is clean and close at hand shall be cut off: because he offered not the oblation of the Lord in its appointed season, he shall take the guilt upon himself.

Let the children of Israel come and observe the passover on the day of its fixed time, on the fourteenth day of the first month, between the evenings, from the third part of the day to the third part of the night, for two portions of the day are given to the light, and a third part to the evening.

This is that which the Lord commanded thee that thou shouldst observe it between the evenings.

And it is not permissible to slay it during any period of the light, but during the period bordering on the evening, and let them eat it at the time of the evening, until the third part of the night, and whatever is left over of all its flesh from the third part of the night and onwards, let them burn it with fire.

And they shall not cook it with water, nor shall they eat it raw, but roast on the fire: they shall eat it with diligence, its head with the inwards thereof and its feet they shall roast with fire, and not break any bone thereof; for of the children of Israel no bone shall be crushed.

For this reason the Lord commanded the children of Israel to observe the passover on the day of its fixed time, and they shall not break a bone thereof; for it is a festival day, and a day commanded, and there may be no passing over from day to day, and month to month, but on the day of its festival let it be observed.

And do thou command the children of Israel to observe the passover throughout their days, every year, once a year on the day of its fixed time, and it shall come for a memorial well pleasing before the Lord, and no plague shall come upon them to slay or to smite in that year in which they celebrate the passover in its season in every respect according to His command.

And they shall not eat it outside the sanctuary of the Lord, but before the sanctuary of the Lord, and all the people of the congregation of Israel shall celebrate it in its appointed season.

And every man who has come upon its day shall eat it in the sanctuary of your God before the Lord from twenty years old and upward; for thus is it written and ordained that they should eat it in the sanctuary of the Lord.

And when the children of Israel come into the land which they are to possess, into the land of Canaan, and set up the tabernacle of the Lord in the midst of the land in one of their tribes until the sanctuary of the Lord has been built in the land, let them come and celebrate the passover in the midst of the tabernacle of the Lord, and let them slay it before the Lord from year to year.

And in the days when the house has been built in the name of the Lord in the land of their inheritance, they shall go there and slay the passover in the evening, at sunset, at the third part of the day.

And they shall offer its blood on the threshold of the altar, and shall place its fat on the fire which is upon the altar, and they shall eat its flesh roasted with fire in the court of the house which has been sanctified in the name of the Lord.

And they may not celebrate the passover in their cities, nor in any place save before the tabernacle of the Lord, or before His house where His name hath dwelt; and they shall not go astray from the Lord.

And do thou, Moses, command the children of Israel to observe the ordinances of the passover, as it was commanded unto thee; declare thou unto them every year and the day of its days, and the festival of unleavened bread, that they should eat unleavened bread seven days, (and) that they should observe its festival, and that they bring an oblation every day during those seven days of joy before the Lord on the altar of your God.

For ye celebrated this festival with haste when ye went forth from Egypt till ye entered into the wilderness of Shur; for on the shore of the sea ye completed it.

September 24, 2011
0
Published in The Book of Jubilees
Written by LC Geerts

Jubilees 48

The Book of Jubilees

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

by R.H. Charles, Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1913.

Scanned and Edited by Joshua Williams, Northwest Nazarene College.

Chapter 48

Moses returns from Midian to Egypt. Mastseeks to slay him on the way, 1-3. The ten plagues, 4-11. Israel goes forth out of Egypt: the destruction of the Egyptians on the Red Sea, 12-19. (Cf. Exod. ii.15; iv.19, 24; vii. seqq.)

And in the sixth year of the third week of the forty-ninth jubilee thou didst depart and dwell

And thou thyself knowest what He spake unto thee on (2410 AM) Mount Sinai, and what prince Mastdesired to do with thee when thou wast returning into Egypt

Did he not with all his power seek to slay thee and deliver the Egyptians out of thy hand when he saw that thou wast sent to execute judgment and vengeance on the Egyptians?

And I delivered thee out of his hand, and thou didst perform the signs and wonders which thou wast sent to perform in Egypt against Pharaoh, and against all his house, and against his servants and his people.

And the Lord executed a great vengeance on them for Israel's sake, and smote them through (the plagues of) blood and frogs, lice and dog-flies, and malignant boils breaking forth in blains; and their cattle by death; and by hail-stones, thereby He destroyed everything that grew for them; and by locusts which devoured the residue which had been left by the hail, and by darkness; and

And everything was sent through thy hand, that thou shouldst declare (these things) before they were done, and thou didst speak with the king of Egypt before all his servants and before his people.

And everything took place according to thy words; ten great and terrible judgments came on the land of Egypt that thou mightest execute vengeance on it for Israel.

And the Lord did everything for Israel's sake, and according to His covenant, which he had ordained with Abraham that He would take vengeance on them as they had brought them by force into bondage.

And the prince Maststood up against thee, and sought to cast thee into the hands of Pharaoh, and he helped the Egyptian sorcerers,

and they stood up and wrought before thee the evils indeed we permitted them to work, but the remedies we did not allow to be wrought by their hands.

And the Lord smote them with malignant ulcers, and they were not able to stand, for we destroyed them so that they could not perform a single sign.

And notwithstanding all (these) signs and wonders the prince Mastwas not put to shame because he took courage and cried to the Egyptians to pursue after thee with all the powers of the Egyptians, with their chariots, and with their horses, and with all the hosts of the peoples of Egypt.

And I stood between the Egyptians and Israel, and we delivered Israel out of his hand, and out of the hand of his people, and the Lord brought them through the midst of the sea as if it were dry land.

And all the peoples whom he brought to pursue after Israel, the Lord our God cast them into the midst of the sea, into the depths of the abyss beneath the children of Israel, even as the people of Egypt had cast their children into the river He took vengeance on 1,000,000 of them, and one thousand strong and energetic men were destroyed on account of one suckling of the children of thy people which they had thrown into the river.

And on the fourteenth day and on the fifteenth and on the sixteenth and on the seventeenth and on the eighteenth the prince Mastwas bound and imprisoned behind the children of Israel that he might not accuse them.

And on the nineteenth we let them loose that they might help the Egyptians and pursue the children of Israel.

And he hardened their hearts and made them stubborn, and the device was devised by the Lord our God that He might smite the Egyptians and cast them into the sea.

And on the fourteenth we bound him that he might not accuse the children of Israel on the day when they asked the Egyptians for vessels and garments, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and vessels of bronze, in order to despoil the Egyptians in return for the bondage in which they had forced them to serve.

And we did not lead forth the children of Israel from Egypt empty handed.

September 24, 2011
0
Published in The Book of Jubilees
Written by LC Geerts

Jubilees 47

The Book of Jubilees

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

by R.H. Charles, Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1913.

Scanned and Edited by Joshua Williams, Northwest Nazarene College.

Chapter 47

Birth of Moses, 1-4. Adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, 5-9. Slays an Egyptian and flees (into Midian), 10-12. (Cf. Exod. i.22; ii. 2-15.)

And in the seventh week, in the seventh year, in the forty-seventh jubilee, thy father went forth (2303 AM) from the land of Canaan, and thou wast born in the fourth week, in the sixth year thereof, in the (2330 AM) forty-eighth jubilee; this was the time of tribulation on the children of Israel.

And Pharaoh, king of Egypt, issued a command regarding them that they should cast all their male children which were born into the river.

And they cast them in for seven months until the day that thou wast born

And thy mother hid thee for three months, and they told regarding her. And she made an ark for thee, and covered it with pitch and asphalt, and placed it in the flags on the bank of the river, and she placed thee in it seven days, and thy mother came by night and suckled thee, and by day Miriam, thy sister, guarded thee from the birds.

And in those days Tharmuth, the daughter of Pharaoh, came to bathe in the river, and she heard thy voice crying, and she told her maidens to bring thee forth, and they brought thee unto her.

And she took thee out of the ark, and she had compassion on thee.

And thy sister said unto her: 'Shall I go and call unto thee one of the Hebrew women to nurse and suckle this babe for thee?'

And she said

And afterwards, when thou wast grown up, they brought thee unto the daughter of Pharaoh, and thou didst become her son, and Amram thy father taught thee writing, and after thou hadst completed three weeks they brought thee into the royal court.

And thou wast three weeks of years at court until the time (2351-) when thou didst go forth from the royal court and didst see an Egyptian smiting thy friend who was (2372 AM) of the children of Israel, and thou didst slay him and hide him in the sand.

And on the second day thou didst and two of the children of Israel striving together, and thou didst say to him who was doing the wrong: 'Why dost thou smite thy brother?'

And he was angry and indignant, and said: 'Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Thinkest thou to kill me as thou killedst the Egyptian yesterday?' And thou didst fear and flee on account of these words.

September 24, 2011
0
Published in The Book of Jubilees
Written by LC Geerts

Jubilees 46

The Book of Jubilees

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

by R.H. Charles, Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1913.

Scanned and Edited by Joshua Williams, Northwest Nazarene College.

Chapter 46

Prosperity of Israel in Egypt, 1-2. Death of Joseph, 3-5. War between Egypt and Canaan during which the bones of all the sons of Jacob except Joseph are buried at Hebron, 6-11. Egypt oppresses Israel, 12-16. (Cf. Gen. l.22, 25-6; Exod. i.6-14.)

And it came to pass that after Jacob died the children of Israel multiplied in the land of Egypt, and they became a great nation, and they were of one accord in heart, so that brother loved brother and every man helped his brother, and they increased abundantly and multiplied exceedingly, ten (2242 AM) weeks of years, all the days of the life of Joseph.

And there was no Satan nor any evil all the days of the life of Joseph which he lived after his father Jacob, for all the Egyptians honoured the children of Israel all the days of the life of Joseph.

And Joseph died being a hundred and ten years old; seventeen years he lived in the land of Canaan, and ten years he was a servant, and three years in prison, and eighty years he was under the king, ruling all the land of Egypt.

And he died and all his brethren and all that generation.

And he commanded the children of Israel before he died that they should carry his bones with them when they went forth from the land of Egypt.

And he made them swear regarding his bones, for he knew that the Egyptians would not again bring forth and bury him in the land of Canaan, for Makamaron, king of Canaan, while dwelling in the land of Assyria, fought in the valley with the king of Egypt and slew him there, and pursued after the Egyptians to the gates of 'Ermon.

But he was not able to enter, for another, a new king, had become king of Egypt, and he was stronger than he, and he returned to the land of Canaan, and the gates of Egypt were closed, and none went out and none came into Egypt.

And Joseph died in the forty-sixth jubilee, in the sixth week, in the second year, and they buried him in the land of Egypt, and (2242 AM) all his brethren died after him.

And the king of Egypt went forth to war with the king of Canaan (2263 AM) in the forty-seventh jubilee, in the second week in the second year, and the children of Israel brought forth all the bones of the children of Jacob save the bones of Joseph, and they buried them in the field in the double cave in the mountain.

And the most (of them) returned to Egypt, but a few of them remained in the mountains of Hebron, and Amram thy father remained with them.

And the king of Canaan was victorious over the king of Egypt, and he closed the gates of Egypt.

And he devised an evil device against the children of Israel of afflicting them and he said unto the people of Egypt: 'Behold the people of the children of Israel have increased and multiplied more than we.

Come and let us deal wisely with them before they become too many, and let us afflict them with slavery before war come upon us and before they too fight against us; else they will join themselves unto our enemies and get them up out of our land, for their hearts and faces are towards the land of Canaan.'

And he set over them taskmasters to afflict them with slavery; and they built strong cities for Pharaoh, Pithom, and Raamses and they built all the walls and all the fortifications which had fallen in the cities of Egypt.

And they made them serve with rigour, and the more they dealt evilly with them, the more they increased and multiplied.

And the people of Egypt abominated the children of Israel.

September 24, 2011
1
Published in The Book of Jubilees
Written by LC Geerts

The Book of Jubilees (1030)

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

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by Dr. Herman L. Hoeh

A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Ambassador College Graduate School of Education In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

1963 1966, 1969 Edition

BY W. SCOTT-ELLIOT

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE, LTD.; LONDON

[1904]

Scanned at sacred-texts.com, March 2004. John Bruno Hare, redactor. This text is in the public domain in the United States. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose, provided this notice of attribution is left intact.

Containing an Account

OF THE

Original of the Earth

AND OF ALL THE

GENERAL CHANGES

Which it hath already undergone

OR

IS TO UNDERGO

Till the CONSUMMATION of all Things

by Thomas Burnet

The Second Edition,

LONDON

Printed by R. Norton, for Walter Kettilby, at the Biƒhops-Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard

[1691]

De Dea Syria, by Lucian of Samosata

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The Book of Jubilees

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament