Show REMARKABLE BIBLELEGENDS I I F Chronicles of Jerahmeel Evidently Written in Palestine Aboutthe First Century Just Found in the BocCe ian i Library Tell Many Supplementary and Interesting Tales A most remarkable and unique manuscript I uscript nag been discovered in the famous fa-mous Bodlein library by the well known Hebrew scholar Dr M Caster It Is nothing lessthan a chronicle dating from about a century before the Christian Chris-tian era Dr Gaster In publishing a translation of his find for the Royal Asiatic society calls it the Chronicle of Jeralhmell Every reader of the Bible has felt from time to time as if there were gaps in the narrative This feeling was responded to by the ancient Hebrews in the creation of a large number of legends which are scattered through infinite volumes of Rabbinical law The Chronicles of Jerahmell embody many 01 tiicpe ancient legends and include in-clude also a large number of interesting interest-ing tales hitherto unknown The compilation of the present manuscript man-uscript 5s due to a certain Eleasar ben Asher the Levite who lived at the beginning be-ginning tine fourteenth century but his chief source of information was Jerahmell the most ancient of those who attempted to fill out the lacunae in the Biblical narrative He did not report the Bible stories at all Those he knew were in the reach of every one but he tried in every case to supply what seemed to him lacking in those stories He took up the problems prob-lems which uggest themselves to the minds of most readers of the Bible and for which they look to the Bible for light and very often in vain There is no detail of life too small for a legend and one of the most interesting of these is that relating to the seven ages of man The Seven Ages of Man And why does the child cry at birth Because of the world it has left behind For at that moment seven new worlds are awaiting It In the first world it is like unto a king after whose welcome all people ask all desire to see it and embrace it and kiss it because it is in the first year In F the second world It Is like unto a swine which wallows in mire a child does the same until it reaches two years In the fnrd world ii is like unto a kid thut skips and gambols about on the meadows Thus a child skips about here and there until it is 5 years of I I age In the fourth world it is like into a horse who strives along haughtily In the same way does a child walk along proud of his youth until he is 18 years old In the fifth world he Is like unto an ass upon Whose shoulders burdens bur-dens are placed In the same manner burdens are heaped upon mans shoulders shoul-ders he is given a wife and children He must wander to and fro in order to obtain food for them until he is about 40 years old In the sixth stage fIle is like unto a dog insolent and wandering wan-dering about in all places for food stealing and robbing in one place and enjoying It in another In the seventh stage he is like unto an ape whose appearance ap-pearance is changed in every respect All the household curse him and desire h5s death even the young children make fun of him and even the smallest bird wake S him from his sleep I Paradise Described A description of Paradise ncivhere plainly mentioned in the Old Testament Testa-ment is most striking Paradise has two gates of carbuncle and sixty myriads of ministering angels an-gels keep watch over them Each of these angels shines with a lustre of the heaven When the just man approaches them they divest him of the clothes in which he had been buried and clothe him with eight cloths wo en put of clouds of glory and place upon hIs head two crowns one of precious stones and pearls and the other of gold and they place eight myrtles in his hand and praise him and say to him Go and eat thy bread with joy And they leadhim to a place full of rivers surrounded by SOO species of roses and myrtles Each one has a canopy according to his merits mer-its as it is i said in the Bible for overall over-all the glory shall be spread a canopy And through It flow four rivers one of oil the other of balsam the third of wine and the fourth of honey Every canopy is overgrown by a vine of gold and thirty pearls hang down from it each of them shining like the morning stars In every canopy there is a table of precious stones and pearls and sixty angels stand at the head of every just man saying to him Go and eat with joy of the honey for thou has worked assiduously in the law of r which it is said And It is sweater than honey and drank of the wine preserved pre-served from the sixth days of creation for thou hast worked in the law which is compared with the wine as it is said I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine The least fair of them is as beautiful as Joseph and Johanan and as the grains of the pomegranate lit up by the rays of the sun There is I no night as it is said And the light I of the righteous is as of the shining light And they undergo four iransforma i lions according to the four watches of I the day In the first watch the dust 1 j is changed into a child and he enters j the compartment of children and tastes of the joy of childhood In the second watch he is changed into youth and there he enjoys the delights of youth In the third watch he becomes a middle aged man and rejoices accordingly In j the fourth watch he is changed into an old man he enters the compartment of the old and ejoys the pleasure of mature ma-ture age ageThe The Tower of Babel The process of the confusion of languages lan-guages at the Tower of Babel has always al-ways been an interesting question and Jerahmell supplies the following account ac-count as supplementing the Blbte story And it came to pass when they commenced to build the tower that God confused their tongues and changed their form into that of mon = i keys so that one could not recognize JI his own brother nor could one man understand the language l of his neighbor = neigh-bor so that when the builders ordered the people to bring stones they brought water and when they told them to bring water they brought stubble In this way their evil intentions inten-tions were frustrated and they ceased building the tower and the Loci I scattered them over the face of the i I whole earth For they had said Come and let us build for ourselves a city and let us take axes and break open the firmament so that the water flow < frpm there the same as below that i I he may not do to us as he did in the generation of the flood And let us I iva i e war with those in heaven and d establish ourselves there as gods But I how could they build the city since I they had no stones They made bricks I from clay and pitch and burnt them as a potter burns his hops in the oven and hardens them In this way they made the brick and built the city and the tower exceedingly high with seventy sev-enty steps The ascent was made from the east and the descent from the west I If a man fell therefrom they dill not heed it much whereas if a brick fell I they wept bitterly and said When oh when will another be brought up When Abram saw their wicked ways he cursed them in the name of the I Lord but they did not pay attention to his words The Lord then descended I from the 70001 angels that surround his throne and at that time of the dispersion Ii dis-persion he confounded their tongue into seventy different languages The legends of Abrahm 1 The legends clustered around the personality per-sonality ofAbraham are innumerable but this one is peculiarly characteristic l of the Hebrew conception 1 of Abrahams work It is related that the whole household of Abrahams father Were idol worshipers moreover they made idols and sold them upon the streets But when a man approached Abraham to sell him an Idol he would ask him How much is i this image Three want as he would reply How old art thou Abraham ould ask Thirty years Thou art 3Q years of age and yet worsh pest this idol which we made but today The man would depart and go his way Again another would come I to Abraham and ask How much 15 this idol i Five manasj bev 1 would say How old art thou would Abraham I continue Fifty years And dost thou who are 50 years of age bow down to this idol which wt made but today With this the man would depart and go his way When Nimrod heard Of Abra hams uttenances he ordered him to be brought before him and said Thou stir of Terah > mike m e > a beautiful gotl Abrahamthen entered1 his fathers fath-ers house and said Jlkd 1 a beautiful Image for me They accordingly < made It finished it and i4int i d > it with many colors He went and br Jight it toNim rod And on that < day Abrahams righteousness right-eousness shovfnTicOrth It was ° a cloudy day and rain r 1 Qieretjqre when they were aoout toy thrust t him Into the burning furnaqeNImrQd sat down and all the people of the dlsperBion did likewise like-wise Abraham then enteied and standing stand-ing i in the center be pleaded his cause After which IStimrjod asked If not the I gods whom shall I servo Abraham replied The God of Gods and Lord of i Lords whose Kingdom is everlasting in heaVen and blt earth and in the heavens heav-ens of the high heaveris I shall worship wor-ship said Kinjrod the God p Jt Fire > and behold j shalj < cystatrtee therein I Let then the Godto iH qm digs testi 11eth dellv8r theer t1n i llieijurt1ing fur nac Ihey ife n imtni i tclYbound him strongly > and rtfehiiy and placed him on the ground They then surrounded sur-rounded him with wood dn tHe four sides500 cubits thickness to the north 500 cubits to the south 500 cubits to the west and 500 to the east They then set the pile on fin r The whole house of Terah were worshiprs l of idols and until un-til that moment had not recognized their Creator Their neighbors and fellow fel-low citizens assembled and beating their heads said ta Terah Oil shame great shame1 ThJson of whom thou > did say that he will inherit this world and the AVOrld to come has Nimrod burnt in fire Immediately then Gods mercy was moved so that he descended descend-ed from the habitation of his glory his greatness his majesty and the holiness of his great name and delivered Abraham Abra-ham our ancestor from that shame from that reproach and from the burning burn-ing furnace as It is said I am the Lord who brought thee out of the fire of the Chaldeans Loss of the Ten Tribes I There has been a strange fascination about the loss of the ten tribes of Israel and Hebrew legend attempts to supply an account of the fate of those ten tribes in various ways There is a peculiarly j interesting legend tUg t-Ug the s canto children of Moses connected ofcourset o with the exile by KebUchadnezzar When they arrived I ar-rived In Babyjon their enemies and I captors said t < y thdnij Sing us a song of Zion and they replied How can we sing a song of Zton upon strange ground Now retorted their captors ye shall sing by force but they atones at-ones cut off their fingers with their teeth and cast them before tHem and they reoifed How can those fingers i which struck the strings bf the heart I and the temple strike them here in a strange lann And God exclaimed I If I forget Jerusalem my right hand I shall be forgotten A cloud then descended and lifting I all tho children of Moses with their sheep and cattle brought them to the east of Havila Jin tho night they Wore let down and on that same night they heard a great noise surrounding them like that of a river without seeing a drop of water descending but heard only the rolling of stones and sand where there had never been a river This river then rolled great stones and the sand without any water made a noise as of a great earthquake This continued until the Sabbath The river they called Sabbatyon > or Sabbatianus On the Sabbath ceases to flow and on the eve of Sabbath ascends full of smoke No one is able to approach them neither do they approach them There are no wild beasts no unclean animals nor any reptiles or creeping thincs Nothingexcept their flocks and herds They reap and sow and they ask the others and thus they learn of the destruction of the second temple It is behind this region in which the children of Moses dwell that the remnants rem-nants of the ten tribes are said to be found The tribe of Isaacltarr dwell on the mountains of the igreat deep in the nethermost narts of Medfrt and Persia and there they fulfill the ctfin nrandmeatt The book of the Torah shall not d i > art from their mouths nor do they take upon themselves the yoke of any earthly kingdom butr only the yoke of heaVen and the yoke of the law They have many captains of the army but never fight with any man but discuss the Torah They dwell in peace and tranqulllty and no rebellious rebel-lious thought of evil enters their minds They possess a country whose area covers land often days journey and they have an abundance of cattle camel and servants but do not bring the horses nor do they possess any warlike Instruments except knives for I preparing food and to kill the animals I for that purpose They are men of e faith hatinsj oouression or rOb l berv The children or Zebulun encamp on the mountains of Saran and pitch their tents made oil the hair of Armanla and stretch as far as the Euphrates The tribe 1 of Reuben dwell opposite them behind the mountains of Paran and between them there is loveiunify and peace T he tribe oC Ephrafm and half the tribe of Menassah dvceU opposite op-posite the cltr otfMeuaa In a similar I way each and every one of the tonI ton-I tribes is located in this fabulous region to the east 0f Havila 1 which every I Bible reader will easily connect with r the Garden of Eden as located by the Second chapter of Genesis Many legends oC Moses Daniel and all of the other famous Bible characters charac-ters are Included In this great chronf cle It will attract the attention not only 4f scholars who have found so much that Is Interesting Inj the legendary legend-ary law of Israel reflecting as it does the religious consciousness of tho Foo1 ole but it will also Interest the mass of I the people because of the peoples fancies I fan-cies and sympathetic legends I which arcs hero recorded I |