Testament of Adam

And now it’s time for another Apocalypse! I chose Testament of Adam (not to be confused with Revelation of Adam) (I did and so was very surprised when it suddenly ended with no mention of a lesser God that created Adam and Eve but wasn’t the God). This is another one from the Scriptural Research Institute, so if there are any translation errors, you know whom to blame.

The text, which was likely written in the second century AD, is super short and takes the form of a dying Adam’s (yes, that Adam) last words to his son Seth. It’s split into 3 distinct parts: Chapters 1 & 2 have instructions for the praising of God; Chapters 3 & 4 predict the coming of Jesus; and finally Chapter 6 has the end of the world. The Foreword says Testament of Adam is a patchwork of different texts and you can see that in how those 3 parts don’t really connect with each other. Chapter 5, which is nothing but a brief praise of God, doesn’t help. What is that doing there? It would’ve made more sense to add it to Chapter 7, which just says that Seth wrote down what his father told him. By the way, there’s a whole Sethian collection of alternate holy texts that sounds kinda loopy and an ancient version of Scientology, but Testament of Adam is pretty standard stuff. And by that I mean it’s the expected psychedelic Biblical weirdness that makes one wonder how many shrooms the author took. The first 2 chapters consist of a worship timetable which details exactly when each group of beings has the privilege of praising God. This happens every hour of the day and also night, and also includes some interesting information like this:

At the tenth hour the Holy Spirit overshadows the waters, and the devils flee away and remove themselves from the waters. If the Holy Spirit did not overshadow the waters at this hour every day, no one could drink of the waters, as his flesh would be destroyed by the evil devils.

So, does this mean that the devils are lying in wait like crocodiles ready to grab whoever is foolish enough to try to drink water at that time? Or are they soluble devils that you drink like a probiotic in a yogurt and then claw their way out of you? Sadly, Adam isn’t more specific. However, I’m sure everyone will be glad to know that there’s no need to worry about devils, soluble or solid, at the first hour of the night because they’re all too busy praising God. What?! No self-respecting devil would do that! By the way, Adam never mentions Satan, just ‘devils’. He also mentions angels, and while there are no weird wheels-with-eyes descriptions, we get this at the fifth hour of the night:

Now, long ago I sat and listened to the angels at this hour, and how they cried out like the noise of a mighty wheel, and they cried out like the waves of the sea with the voice of praise to God.

And if that’s too much water for you, there’s fire, too:

At the third hour the fire praises him, now it is in the lowest depth, and in that hour no one can address him.

I’m starting to suspect that in addition to the shrooms, Adam may have licked a frog or two.

All the praising and grovelling are followed by Adam relaying what God told him about the coming of Jesus, which sounds as something out of a horror movie. First, it's the prophecy in a demonic possession movie version:

He told me that his word in later days should become man from a woman who was a virgin whose name was Mary, and should hide in her, and put on flesh, and be born like a man with great power, and operative skill and knowledge.

Hmm, God? That’s not how babies are made. Also, the ‘operative skill’ bit made me doubt this translation, even if everything else looks like what you’d expect from this type of text. In the next chapter, God guilt trips Adam by enumerating all the things he did for his rebellious ass, including that time when he showed him some compassion only 5 and a half days after kicking him out of Paradise. Well, Adam did do the one thing he was told not to do, so I’m on God’s side here. And now we’ve come to the alien parasite version of the coming of Jesus:

I will come down into your house, and I will live in your flesh, and for your sake I will be pleased to be born like a child.

Oh, shit! Lock the door, Adam! Were people in the olden days incapable of coming up with cute, non creepy metaphors? And of course, it’s for Adam’s sake that God will let himself be crucified wearing his Adam meatsuit because God is one of those people who expect you to be grateful for stuff you never asked them to do. Really, God, no one asked you to martyr yourself! Funnily, there’s no mention of the Flood here. Did he do that for Adam, too?

After a tiny chapter exclusively praising God, it’s time for the APOCALYPSE. Now Adam mentions the Flood, and blames the children of Cain. He also mentions a different version of the murder of Abel. So, remember how it was always a little odd how the entire earth was populated by only one couple with no mentions of incest? Well, in some legends, each brother had a twin sister, Luluwa and Balbira, and Adam planned to marry each sister to their non twin brother, but Cain didn’t like it because he wanted to marry his twin, Luluwa (no, I’m not going to make a Game of Thrones joke, it’s too easy). That was definitely not a good start for Humankind, which is probably why God drowned almost everyone. If the first end came through water, the next one will come through fire:

After the flood and many weeks the latter days will come, and everything will be completed, and his time will come and fire will consume everything which is found before God, and the earth will be sanctified, and Lord of Lords will walk about it.

And that’s it. Not a single trumpet of DOOM, no weird phenomena; everything just burns and then God walks around on the ashes like a psychopath. There are no threats to sinners, no exceptions for the faithful, no Heavenly rewards - it all just burns. That bit about how ‘everything will be completed’ is pretty sinister. Maybe it’s just about the earth reaching its end, but it makes it sound like there’s some secret goal and the earth and its dwellers have fulfilled it and so are of no use to God anymore.

TESTAMENT OF ADAM VS OTHER APOCALYPSES

Of all the Apocalyptic texts I’ve reviewed (Book of Revelation, Book of Enoch, Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra, and Greek Apocalypse of Ezra), this is the least flashy prophecy and Adam the most passive prophet. Seth doesn’t do much either, like his father, he just listens and in the final chapter, we’re told he wrote it down and sealed it. Adam asked no questions, much less disagreed with what he was told; though, to be fair, he was told very little. There’s no going to Heaven or elaborate descriptions of destruction and sinner smiting. The praising timetable and the mention of the coming of Jesus add some weirdness, but they’re not connected to the Apocalypse itself. And while that creepy quote from the paragraph above has some of Greek Apocalypse of Ezra’s Cosmic Horror vibes, as a literary work this manages to be the least interesting of the bunch.

By Danforth