Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves

Otherwise, if an Easterner should travel to the West, or a Westerner to the East, and the hour of his death came upon him, the soil of that region might cry. ‘This dust is not mine, nor will I accept it; return, sir, to your place of origin!’ But whereas Adam’s body was fashioned from terrestrial elements, his soul was fashioned from celestial ones; though some believe that this also proceeded from Earth. 91
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) The hour at which God created Adam’s soul has been much disputed: whether at dawn on the Sixth Day (his body being made a little later), or whether on the Fifth Day before the appearance of sea-beasts; or whether this precious thing was the very first of God’s handiworks. Some hold that the creation of Adam’s inert clod preceded not only his soul, but even Light itself. They say that God, when about to breathe His spirit into it, paused and reminded Himself: ‘If I let Man live and stand up at once, it may later be claimed that he shared My task… He must stay as a clod until I have done!’ At dusk on the Sixth Day, therefore, the ministering angels asked: ‘Lord of the Universe, why have You not yet created Man?’ He made answer: ‘Man is already created, and lacks only life.’ Then God breathed life into the clod, Adam rose to his feet, and the work of Creation ended. 92
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) God had given Adam so huge a frame that when he lay down it stretched from one end of 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 withEve, 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. 93
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) All living things approached the radiant Adam in awe, mistaking him for their Creator. But as they prostrated themselves at his feet, he rebuked them saying: ‘Let us come before God’s presence with thanksgiving; let us worship and bow down, kneeling before the Lord our Maker…’ God was gratified, and sent angels to pay Adam homage in Eden. They bowed submissively, roasted his meat and poured his wine. The envious Serpent alone disobeyed; whereupon God expelled him from His presence. 94
    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. 95
    Elsewhere it is told that Adam’s huge frame and radiant countenance so amazed the angels that they called him ‘Holy One’, and flew trembling back to Heaven. They asked God: ‘Can there be two divine Powers: one here, the other on Earth?’ To calm them, God placed His hand on Adam and reduced his height to a thousand cubits. Later, when Adam disobediently ate from the Tree of Knowledge, God further reduced his stature to a mere hundred cubits. 96
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) It has been said that God did not shrink Adam’s body, but trimmed innumerable flakes off his flesh. Adam complained: ‘Why do You diminish me?’ God replied: ‘I take only to give again. Gather these trimmings, scatter them far and wide: wherever you cast them, there they shall return to dust, so that your seed may fill the whole Earth.’ 97
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) 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. 98
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. It is doubtful whether the masculine word
Adam
(‘man’) and the