Bringing Hell to Earth
by Olaf H. Hage III
Humanity has, it seems, always been divided into two conflicting camps. Just as the ancient peoples of the world had a nearly universal tale of a Great Flood, so also did they tell the story of the two primordial brothers at the dawn of civilization: the herder and the farmer. The two contended together until the farmer killed the herder and fled into exile to form a clan that has never been at peace with the rest of the human family.
In the Biblical account, of course, this is the story of Cain, the farmer, who kills his brother Abel, the shepherd. Cain attempts to conceal the body, but God is not fooled. Cain is sent into exile with his twin sister-wife. The pair are doomed to wander the earth, yet inexplicably, we are told that Cain defiantly stops and builds a city shortly after a son is born to him. (cf.Genesis 4:17) He has clearly not repented but remains openly defiant of God.
In the later version given by the Jewish historian Josephus at the close of the first century, writing in his Antiquities, he relates a tradition that Cain actually built two cities: Enoch and Ur, supposedly named after his first two sons. The latter may be named after Hor, a dimly-recalled figure known to the Egyptians as “Horus the Elder.”
When one studies Genesis 1:2, we learn the following:
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)
It becomes apparent that the planet we call earth existed prior to the creation of this world. Rabbi Ginzberg argues that several other worlds were created prior to our own. He also contents that our world is the only one YHWH was ever pleased with. (Ginzburg, Legends of the Jews, I:5) The Bible does not concern itself with the creation of angels, demons, or even a class of beings called the bena h'elohim (Hebrew: בני האלהים). It is important to understand that the Bible does not deal with the origin of evil.
While the Bible does not deal with the origins of evil, it goes to great lengths to expound upon what it is and what it intends to do to the human race, the apparent apex of YHWH's creation. The first event that deals with evil's attempts to corrupt creation is the "beguiling" of Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. Using the guise of a "serpent," the most subtil of all the beasts of the creation, evil attacks the weaker element of YHWH's creation: the woman. The serpent does this by attacking the viability of the Word of YHWH.
Specifically, the "serpent" attacks a Word that was given to Adam but not Eve. (cf. Genesis 2:16-17) This "serpent" could then use the uncertainty of heresay evidence to make his arguments seem more viable. The "serpent's" statement was a very simple one:
For Elohim doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be like Elohim, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:5)
The "serpent" made being like Elohim, something to be desired. He suggested that if Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that she would gain some kind of personal advantage. What the "serpent" did not tell her was that a major life burden comes with having the "Knowledge of Good and Evil." But deep within Ancient Evil... that is what he wanted humanity to have: the ability to determine Good and Evil on their own. Once Ancient Evil got humanity to that place, there would be no place for YHWH to guide humanity in its course of life.