The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the Vicinity of Caesara Philippi (Matthew 16)
- Chapter 214 -
The contradictions in Genesis.
1
(Cyrenius:) "I have often in my fairly lengthy earth life, vainly thought about how the first people of this Earth actually came to the knowledge of a supreme spiritual Being, and also their own spiritual part. I have read the books of the Egyptians, the Scriptures of the Greeks and Your Moses' books; and an Indian work also came into my hand once, which I asked an Indian at Rome to read out to me and to translate; but everywhere I found a mystic language of imagery, from which no clever man could get more clever, and I therefore even less, because in my youth I had always imagined that all other people were much cleverer than I. Everywhere there appear logical inconsistencies which, taken literally, are nonsensical.
2
Thus it says in Your Moses: "In the beginning God created heaven and Earth, and the Earth was desolate and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said: let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And between evening and morning was the first day."
3
After which, in short sequences, the making dry of the land and the creation of herbs, vegetation and trees is touched upon. With this creation, three days pass, and nights therewith. Since days and nights already come into being with the creation of the light upon the darkness of the deep, I really cannot see how on the fourth day God found it necessary to create another two great lights and to set them in the firmament, for the greater one to rule the day and the lesser one the night.
4
If we now consider that in conjunction with the nature of the Earth, and keep in mind what in accordance with Your explanation the sun, moon and all the stars are, then the whole Creation story of Moses is such complete nonsense as no other anywhere upon the entire Earth, surely! Who can make sense of it? We few know that the Earth is no endless circle but only an immense globe, as You Yourself already as a tender child have shown me in Egypt, and subsequently to many others in a most concrete fashion. Night never occurs on the entire Earth at once, because one part of the Earth is always lit by the sun. On the other hand the moon is a most changeable customer, caring spot little about ruling the night, except at the most, a few days per month.
5
And it is likewise nonsense to say that a day is made out of evening and morning, when everybody knows from life experience that day always comes between morning and evening and never between evening and morning; for night surely always follows evening until morning, and day always follows morning until evening, and logically therefore, day lies between morning and evening, and night between evening and morning.
6
Notwithstanding the fact that this in itself needs to be regarded as lunacy, the notion that God saw that the light was good only after creating it is a lunacy without parallel! For God's highest wisdom surely must have, as Himself the light of all light, seen and noticed that the light was good!?
7
In the Book of the Indians, before the material Creation there is mention of a creation of pure spirits, which at some stage Moses mentions later. These were pure light, and the first-created in particular was named light-bearer.
8
If therefore God obviously could have already at the creation of the pure spirits of light gauged the advantages of light, if He had perhaps before that since eternity taken His rest within deepest darkness - which incidentally would not resemble Him, - then it is ludicrous ridiculous that God, after the creation of light upon this earth as it were, only then realised anew that the light was good!
9
You Yourself see that the entire story of Creation as told by Moses is the sheerest and even maddingly annoying nonsense, if one views the issue in only a moderate natural sense; and it therefore is not surprising that those very Scribes of the Jews among themselves lend such doctrine not a spark of credibility, nevertheless maintaining same on account of the people, allowing themselves nevertheless to be paid handsomely for it. This also all the Patricians of Rome recognize, yet letting it go on in spite of its crass nonsense, because the blind people still have a very high regard about this, and thereby behaving quite nicely throughout the country.
10
It is apparently clear as daylight that all principles and ancient doctrines handed down to us are nothing but fairy tales and fables - if taken in the natural sense; for there cannot be half a syllable of truth to them in the natural sense. If indisputably so however, then the fundamental question goes begging: as I had touched upon earlier in this questionable pre-sensation: how did man arise upon this Earth? How did he come to the recognition of God and recognition of himself, and who first taught him the difference between good and evil? - About this, oh Lord, give us a little light, and we are satisfied!