| Creation of Adam
"While Adam lay a prostrate clod, stretched immobile across the world, he could nevertheless watch the work of Creation. God also showed him the Righteous Ones who should descend from him - not in vision, but by pre-creating them for his instruction. These Righteous Ones were dwarfed by Adam’s frame and, as they thronged about him, some clung to his hair, others to his eyes, ears, mouth and nostrils."
1.
"Some say that all the ministering angels conceived a hatred for Adam,
lest he might become God’s rival, and tried to scorch him with fire;
God, however, spread his hand over Adam and made peace between him and
them." 2.
"God did not use earth at random, but chose pure dust, so that Man might become the crown of creation. He acted, indeed, like a woman who mixes flour with water and sets aside some of the dough as a halla offering: for He let a mist moisten the earth, then used a handful of it to create Man, who became the world's first halla offering.
Being the son of Adama ( ‘Earth’ ), Man called himself ‘Adam’ in acknowledgement of his origin; or perhaps Earth was called Adama in honour of her son; yet some derive his name from adom (‘red’), recording that he was formed from red clay found at Hebron in the Damascene Field near the Cave of Machpelah."
3.
"God had given Adam so huge a frame that when he lay down it stretched from one end of the Earth to the other; and when he stood up, his head was level with the Divine Throne.
Moreover he was of such indescribable beauty that though, later, the fairest of women seemed like apes when compared with Abraham’s wife Sarah, and though Sarah would have seemed like an ape when compared with Eve, yet Eve herself seemed like an ape when compared with Adam, whose heels-let alone his countenance-outshone the sun!
Nevertheless, though Adam was made in God’s image, yet he too seemed like an ape when compared with God."
4.
1. Exodus Rabba 40.3
2. Abot diR. Nathan 23
3. Genesis Rabba 132
4. Baba Bathra 58a All of the above has been quoted from "Hebrew Myths" by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai 1964 Doubleday |
