Chapter 1. Our story begins with the story of the first ever
man. We call him Adam. For as we have read, before Eve there was Adam, and
then, as our fathers have written, a little while after Eve there was Cain,
and then Abel, who died by the hand of his brother Cain, and then Noah and
his wife and his three sons, that is, Shem, Ham and Japhet. Cain and Abel,
who in the days of their father’s death had each killed the other, begat
sons, but with themselves also they begat daughters. The children of men,
who were begotten on one mother but of different fathers, thus multiplied
and increased in number until they filled the whole world. And they
multiplied on every side, except the children of Eve, whom the evil spirit
had carried off into the West. These too had multiplied and spread over the
whole world, and they had a king who dwelled in many castles, on mount
Caucasus, that is called Altai by those who do not know, and they knew how
to smelt silver and how to melt gold. They worked these metals and made
many beautiful vessels of them, that is, cups, and mugs, and bowls, and
vessels of silver and gold.
The great dragon, i.e. the evil spirit who came to Eve
when she was being tempted by Satan, and who flew about the air, and went
round and round her, with his eyes full of fire, and breathed out great
venom, and drove her out of Paradise, and she was in labor the whole
twelvemonth, and the time of her travail was a full year, then at the end
of her labors, at the end of her time, the dragon put her to pain, and
wretchedly she gave birth to her children; the first was a boy, his name
was Seth; the second was a girl, her name was Asenath, in Hebrew,
Aisheshat; the third was a boy, his name was Enosh; the fourth was a
little girl, her name was Malkuth; the fifth was a girl, her name was
Hushimah, in Hebrew, Huzeima. And when she brought forth the fifth,
the dragon, who was as if wounded, that is to say, who was wounded, burst
asunder, and the children fell out of his body. And they fell upon the
earth and turned it up to heaven and with their hands they covered the
whole earth; and when they had covered it they went into the depths of the
earth, which we call the pit; and they covered the pit, and made a wall of
it, that is a great wall. And they sat and rested there a great time, and
they planted a vineyard, and they brought out of the vineyard the first
fruit, and they made wine of it, and they drank the wine and became drunk,
and they began to dance, because they were drunk. And when they saw a
squire in the midst of them, then they were afraid and took his sword and
cut off his head, and there were six. And they went up to heaven and took
their wives and brought them from the depth of the earth; these six women
were the first women.
Chapter 2. Now Cain had
fled from his father and his mother, and had sought out the land of black
mountains, and built him a city there, and named it after his name Cain.
And Cain begat three sons and three daughters. One of his daughters was
Lea, whose father begat Lamech, and Lea begat Balaam, and Balaam begat
Balak, and Balak was the prince of the land of the blacks, and he dwelt
near to the well Zarahemla, which the son of Lea dug out. Now the
brothers of Balak had come into the land of Sodom, and there he went to
find Balak and his princes, because Balak had a mind to know the brothers
of Lamech. But the sons of Lamech did not allow him to go to the cave,
and they went there and drove away Balak and his princes, and they cast
Lamech headlong down a precipice, and there were his skulls. And they put
three men as kings in the land. And they built a city, and named it
after the name of the son of Lamech, and they called it after his name,
even after Lamech, that is, after his name. Lamech’s sister was called
Ai, which signifies a vineyard, and Cain was called Arar, which signifies
a city. And Balak was the son of Zarahemla, because that is what his
mother’s name signifies, Zarahemla, which signifies a blackness;
therefore was that land called black land. And the son of Adam begat a
son, and this son of Adam begat a son, and this son begat a son. This son
begat a son, and this son of Adam begat two daughters. One of these
daughters was called Sarah, which means sorrow, because in the same year
in which she was born in the land of Sodom, and the city of Zarahemla,
Lamech had killed a man, whose name was Hai, i.e. misery, and Adam had
begat a son. The other daughter was called Naarah, i.e. the pain of
death; and the son of Adam begat a son, and begat a son, and begat a son.
Chapter 3. And the children of men begat other children
in the land, and they begat many giants in the land, whose hands were too
big to be bound, and they were able to kill a man at one stroke of the
hand. They were terrible, and very strong, and they became sires, and
sons, and grandsons, and great grandsons, and they became fathers, and
fathers, and grandfathers, and all of them together had never any
death, because they were strong and terrible.
Chapter 4. Now Lamech, son of Adam, begat another son,
who was called Nebuchadnezzar, who built a city on Mount Bermius, that is
in the land of Canaan, which is in the land of Jerusalem, and he ruled all
the land. And he had a wife, whose name was Naarah, and her name
signifies the pain of death, because she was the daughter of Duma the
King. And she begat two daughters, one of them was called Duma, and the
other was called Gaya, and the name of the eldest was called Rucha. And
Rucha’s name was a strong woman, and the name of her husband was
Lamech, and she had to do all the work of her husband. And when Lamech
was dead, she gathered his body and put it in a cave, and in the cave she
left his weapons. And there were many giants, and she kept his sword, and
his bow, and his spear, and his sword, and his bow, and his arrows, and
his breast-plate. Then she sent out a raven to Noah, saying, “The man
Lamech is dead, and his wife Duma is dead, and she begat two
daughters. Duma is dead, and Rucha is left, and she is strong. But I do
not know that she hath begotten a son. And the giants threaten me, and
they are terrible.”
Chapter 5. Now the raven came back, and said, “The
wife of Lamech is dead, and she is a black woman, and she will not die of
the sickness that is in the land. And thou art yet alive, and the giants
are terrible. Come with me and fight for us, that the giants should not
slay us.” And the raven came to Noah with this message, and Noah
gathered together the people of his household, and they went with the
raven. Now Lamech and his wife and his two daughters, Rucha and Duma, and
his sons, and his son-in-law, and his daughter, and all his household, and
Narah, and all her household, and all who were descended from his children
began to go and to take with them provisions for seven days. And they
departed. And when Rucha saw that the place was far from the village, she
said to her daughters, “Where is your faith? Let us go back to the
city, and this plague will not befall us.” But Duma said, “Nay.”
And Rucha said to her daughter, “Dost thou not know that death
will overtake thee? Why wilt thou not go back with me, for it is not God’s
will that thou shouldst remain here.” But Duma said, “Nay.”
And as they were arguing, behold a man whose name was Noah was upon the
