The Storehouses of the King; Or, the Pyramids of Egypt / What They Are and Who Built Them

by Jane van Gelder

After this, Eve was created. And it is recorded that “the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” He tempted the woman, and succeeded in making her break the commandment which God had given to Adam.

Now there is another sculpture in Upper Egypt, representing a man with a serpent’s head. So that the creature that tempted and seduced Eve was a man; and he made her commit two sins: she broke the commandment of God, and her troth to her husband. When she had thus doubly sinned, she beguiled her husband, and persuaded him to disobey his Creator.

The Lord God visited the garden of Eden at certain hours of the day, and Adam and Eve attended as keepers of it. But when the time of the visit of the Lord God arrived, the man and his wife hid themselves, so that the Lord called for Adam, “and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And He said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

“And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

From this it is evident that the serpent, before he was cursed by God, walked erect as a man, and it was only after the curse that he became the creeping animal that we see him now. The Almighty, in His pity, made coats of skins for Adam and Eve, and clothed them. This is another proof that this man and his wife were different from the rest of mankind, for these clothe themselves, whereas savages, to this day, go about without clothing of any kind—perfectly naked as in the day they were created.

Moses, in thus separating these two from other beings, gave a beginning to the Jewish nation, as descending from the children of God. He was the historian of this nation, and it was for these people that he wrote his laws and ordinances of religion. Other nations of the earth are only mentioned by him in his records incidentally, as coming in contact with his nation by chance or accident.

The confusion made by the seventy elders who translated the Pentateuch from the Hebrew into Greek, by having added six verses to the second chapter of the book of Genesis, has caused great mischief in the Church, resulting in disbelief of the Bible. If these first six verses were removed from the second chapter, the version would be quite correct, and as it was intended by Moses.

Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden, and, proceeding to the East along the Nile, they made the caves in the rocks their dwelling-place. In due time Eve gave birth to the child conceived in sin, and she called him Cain. She had another son after this, whom she called Abel. Cain had the vices of the serpent, and consequently hated this younger brother; and when they became old enough to offer sacrifices to God, he found that while his brother’s offering was accepted, his was rejected. Thereupon high words were spoken, and, rising up in anger, he struck his brother and killed him.

“And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And He said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

“And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from Thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.