by Brian Godawa
He fell out of sight behind the altar. The She-wolf howled with sympathetic pain and went to the body trying to lick its wounds. But it was futile.
By the time the three reached the altar to free Lamech, the She-wolf had already transformed back into the human body of Awan. She wept bitterly, holding onto the corpse of her beloved Cain, now a distorted grotesque figure of hardened ash and bone.
Awan glared up at the group of four. She snatched up the sacrificial dagger and pointed it at them.
The four of them stepped back, ready to fight.
Awan would not fight anymore. She drew the blade across her own throat and fell on top of her Cain, mixing her blood with his body of wrath.
Betenos embraced Lamech for all her worth. Methuselah fell to his knees. Uriel looked up to heaven. They prayed to Elohim and gave thanks for his loving-kindness and strength.
All of a sudden, Betenos snapped a look at Uriel. “How did you know what we were doing in the forest? Were you peeping on us?”
Uriel laughed. “Do you really think Elohim and his angels do not see what you are doing?”
Lamech and Betenos looked at each other shocked. They never really thought about it that way.
Uriel calmed their fears. “I was not ‘watching’ you. I was watching over you. I do have some decency to turn my head, you know.”
Lamech and Betenos smiled.
Methuselah piped up. “How did you know she was pregnant with the Chosen Seed?”
“It is not the Chosen Seed,” said Uriel. “Not yet.”
“You lied?” said Methuselah, indignant.
Uriel sighed, “If you were listening, you would have noticed I did not say she was pregnant with Lamech’s ‘Chosen Seed,’ I said pregnant with ‘Lamech’s seed.’ That was not a lie.”
“That is being picky,” said Methuselah.
“That is being tactful,” said Uriel. “Something you should consider more often, Methuselah.”
Methuselah blushed. He knew he did not think enough before speaking.
Uriel added, “But if you must know, Elohim does allow lying in order to save lives, so I consider it quite an accomplishment having avoided an appeal to an exception, would you not say?”
Methuselah rolled his eyes. This angel was a bit full of himself. “Well, now that this Hidden Valley is cleaned up, I am going to miss it. It might make a great place to retire before I die.”
Uriel glanced around. “Remember one thing: you could build a big boat in here and no one would ever know.”
They had no idea what he was talking about.
But one day, Methuselah would remember.
Chapter 57
The aftermath of the war on Eden was devastating. Mounts Sahand and Savalan had rained down ash, fire and brimstone on the battling armies of Nephilim and Cherubim. Some of the Nephilim deserted when they saw the river of lava rolling toward them like a tsunami of molten fire. The Cherubim held their ground, only too happy to be extinguished in their act of valor defending the Garden and its invaluable sacred prize, the Tree of Life.
Everything burned up under the wave of magma. The Garden was completely and utterly consumed forever, thus protected from the conquest of evil. The Watchers would now have to achieve their goals by other means.
• • • • •
Far away in the bowels of Mount Hermon, the Watchers planned their other means. But first there would be Sheol to pay for the absolutely disastrous miscarriage of their plans that had been Inanna’s war on Eden. They had lost everything they had planned meticulously and worked for over generations. Inanna, the most aggressive and violent of the gods, was stripped of her garments and laid bare to the miserable punishment of approximately two hundred lashes, one from every god present.
Her back became a bloody pulp of scaly flesh, her spine breaking through. Watchers could not die, but they could experience pain and suffering. Though they healed with supernatural speed, they retained scars just like any other creature. These scars would be an eternal reminder of Inanna’s utter humiliation at the hands of her compatriots in rebellion.
She screamed in agony as the lash fell down from the hands of Enlil, who had particular delight in her agony. He stole a second lash before being scolded by Anu for over zealousness.
Utu and Enki received half the punishment, as they were Inanna’s inferiors in the campaign. She had ignored their strategic and tactical advice enough times to have jeopardized the outcome of the war.
When they had finished their punishment, Inanna, Utu, and Enki lay in their affliction as Anu called the council to order.
He said, “Gods of Mount Hermon, let this be a reminder to us. Inanna is one of the strongest and most loyal members of this assembly. Yet her failure has not only cost us the war, but has set us back for generations. We will never again have the opportunity to seize the Garden or the Tree of Life. They are gone forever. For her punishment, Inanna will forfeit her co-regency of the divine council and of the city of Nippur. She will become my personal consort in the city of Erech. Enlil will now be sole ruler in Nippur.”
Whisperings blew across the assembly. They knew that was a pain far greater than her bleeding body for Inanna.
Enlil smirked. Serves her right, he thought, stupid cow.
“We will continue to breed our Nephilim, but they will be our security forces in our cities, not our standing armies. Any more concentration of Nephilim will only be thwarted no doubt by Elohim.”
Then he dropped his special revelation on them, “I think it is time we pursue more diligently our miscegenation project. We have already achieved great successes with the mushussu and other creatures. I have been working on the creation of a new soldier. One that is a chimera of human and animal, not human and god as the Nephilim. This creature is more obedient and capable of communal conformity than a Naphil. I introduce the Bird-men and Dog-soldiers.”
A platoon of ten hybrid soldiers stepped out from behind Anu’s throne. They moved and walked as one. They were sinewy human bodies with the heads of predator birds and canines: falcons, hawks, jackals and wolves. They stood in perfect unison, then engaged in a brief military exercise that illustrated pinpoint precision and harmony in the platoon. They did not have the strength of Nephilim but they also did not have the individual wills of the Nephilim. They were a unified body. They were a fighting machine. They were the new army of the gods.
The assembly murmured with excitement. Anu concluded, “We have had the dubious distinction of being the recipients of the prophet Enoch’s prophesy and judgment. We now know that the time is close, and that Elohim is sending a ‘Chosen Seed’ who will seek to ‘bring an end to the reign of the gods.’”
Murmuring broke into panicked whisperings.
“SILENCE!” yelled Anu. The assembly quieted down.
He continued, “We do not know when, we do not know where, we only know soon. So the duty of every one of the gods in this assembly is to seek out, by any means necessary, this ‘Chosen Seed’ and bring him to me, because his is the bloodline of the seed of the Woman that will war with the seed of the Serpent, our father. It is this Chosen Seed and his anointed bloodline that we must corrupt at all costs.”
Epilogue
The city of Shuruppak stood on the Euphrates river in the middle of Shinar, closer to Erech than Nippur. In the seventy short years since it had been settled by Lamech and his clan, it had grown to be quite a commercial depot for shipping. After their experience in the Hidden Valley, Lamech, Betenos, and Methuselah had found a suitable location to build a new city with their kin who had survived the Sahand volcanic eruption.
As the city grew, it drew others from the plain of Shinar who did not share the convictions of the founders. Lamech was the first priest-king and he dedicated the city to Elohim. They based their legal and political system on the covenant of Elohim. They became a commercial trading center for grains, wood, cattle and livestock, shipped through their port in large commercial barges.
But the
influence of foreign traders came quickly with commercial trade. The foreigners brought many gods of the pantheon into the culture of Shuruppak. The pantheon held tight their grip on the souls of men. A growing cult of Ninlil, the consort goddess of Enlil, took hold of the city. Many of her followers pressured the government for special status. They protested to Lamech, petitioning him to build a temple for Ninlil. When they were denied, they caused a riot that ended in Lamech giving in and allowing them their temple.
The ultimate authority of a culture is its god. The deity provides meaning, sustenance, cultic religion, and law codes. Because of the city’s diversity, it seemed inevitable that it be drawn toward a diversity of deities. And those deities did not like a solo incomparable divinity like Elohim ruling over everything with dictatorial authority. They demanded equality. Thus the Sumerian pantheon came to overtake the city of Shuruppak, as it had with all the cities on the alluvial plain. The pantheon spread like a disease.
Eventually, Lamech became dispirited with the developments of his city. It seemed that the only people who did not become slaves of the pantheon were the nomads. These free-spirited wanderers drifted through the territories free to worship as they pleased, without the interference of the cities and their pantheon bureaucracies. Some of the nomads worshipped even stranger gods than the Sumerian pantheon, but at least they were free to do so.
Lamech looked for the right moment to resign his priest-kingship, sell all his land and goods, and journey into the desert with his extended family. He wanted to live the life of a nomad and worship Elohim as he wished. Methuselah fully supported his desire. But that time had not yet come.
Lamech waited in a closed room with Methuselah. Hi father was now about three hundred and seventy years old. He was still young. Most of their ancestors had lived eight hundred to nine hundred years. Of course, Enoch was only on earth three hundred sixty five years, because he had been taken by God into heaven. The longest lived so far had been Jared, who lived to a ripe old nine hundred and sixty-two. Methuselah was competitive but thought there was no way anyone would beat that record.
A midwife came into the room all covered in blood. Lamech and Methuselah looked at her with fear.
“It is a baby boy,” said the midwife.
“Is Betenos safe?” Lamech asked through tired, worried eyes. It had been a difficult pregnancy. Once, they thought she would miscarry.
“Your wife is fine,” said the midwife.
Methuselah grabbed Lamech and hugged him tightly. He still felt the sting of loss of his Edna. He wished she could be here to celebrate. Nothing seemed real to him unless he could share it with her. But this was real.
The midwife said, “Come see her and your son.”
They followed her into the delivery room being cleaned by a couple other midwives. Being priest-king provided some rather nice privileges such as the best of midwives and medicine that the city could provide.
When Lamech and Methuselah entered, they saw Betenos holding his new son. She was not smiling. She looked concerned. She looked up at Lamech and said, “My love, I think there is something wrong with him.”
Lamech’s spirit sank. Was he sick? Missing an arm or leg? What could it be?
He ran to the bed and she held out the boy to him. He saw what she had meant. The little tyke had white hair on his head and his skin was shiny all over.
“What is wrong with him, Lamech?” said Betenos. “What is wrong with our son?”
Lamech looked up. They all suddenly noticed that Uriel was in the room. Uriel the archangel, who had protected Lamech because his lineage bore the Seed.
He was smiling.
Methuselah’s eyes went wide with excitement.
Uriel said, “The time is arrived.”
Lamech prophesied over the child, “This is the Chosen Seed who Elohim promised would come to end the rule of the gods and bring rest to the land.”
Betenos turned from frowning to tearful joy.
Methuselah raised his hands to heaven.
Lamech looked at Uriel and said, “His name shall be called Noah.”
Chronicles of the Nephilim continues with the next book, Gilgamesh Immortal.
Appendix
Retelling Biblical Stories and the Mythic Imagination
in Enoch Primordial
In my novel, Noah Primeval, I retell the story of the Biblical Noah as a nomadic tribal warrior. He refuses to worship the divine council of gods in Mesopotamia and is subsequently hunted down by assassin giants, leading the chase through Sheol, and ending in a climactic battle involving Leviathan and other hybrid monsters. In my novel, Enoch Primordial, I creatively imagine the untold story of the Biblical Enoch as a bounty hunter, a holy monk with a mission to kill giants who travels through a fantastic world of chimeras, gods, monsters and men.
“What?” you may say. That’s not in the Bible! That sounds more like the non-canonical book of Enoch or the fantasy world of The Lord of the Rings than Holy Scripture. Isn’t that mythologizing the Bible?
It is hard enough to get some religious believers to appreciate the imagination of the fantasy genre. But when it comes to retelling a story from the Bible, don’t even think of putting those two things together; Bible and fantasy. That borders on tampering with the Word of God worthy of the curse in Revelation 21 on those who “add or take away from the words of the book.” Or at least that’s what some well-meaning believers think.
I think this negative impulse comes from an essentially good intent; the desire to avoid denigrating their sacred stories or reducing them to the level of false pagan myths. But such good intent does not necessarily produce the good result of a well thought out Biblical understanding of story.[1]
What would surprise many of these concerned believers is the fact that the same ancient Hebrews who championed the Scriptures as their sacred text containing the very words of God, were also the holy ones who wrote those Scriptures utilizing pagan imagination and motifs. And they were also the same devout ancient believers who wrote many other non-canonical texts that retold Biblical stories with fantastic embellishments worthy of mythopoeic mastery.
Retelling Bible Stories and Non-Bible Stories
The ancient Jews loved to retell their Bible stories with embellishments in literature we now call apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. And they did so, not with a disdain for “the facts of history,” but rather with deep respect for the original theological meaning as they understood it. As scholar George Nickelsburg explains, they wanted to “expound sacred tradition so that it speaks to contemporary times and issues.”[2] Biblical scholar Peter Enns adds, “It is a characteristic of ancient retellings of Scripture that the exegetical traditions incorporated in to these retellings are not clearly (if at all) marked off from the Biblical texts. The line between text and comment was often blurred, so much so that the two often went hand in hand.”[3]
Thanks to manuscript discoveries in recent centuries, we now have access to many of these Jewish retellings of Bible narratives, some of which include Jubilees, The Genesis Apocryphon, The Testament of Moses, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Books of Adam and Eve and others. In these non-canonical texts we are retold, with creative embellishments, various episodes in Biblical history, from Adam and Eve, to Noah, through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Moses and more. I have used some of these Second Temple texts and other Jewish legends to embellish the Biblical narrative in The Chronicles of the Nephilim.
Not only do non-canonical Second Temple texts retell Bible stories, but the Bible itself uses some of these non-Biblical manuscripts as source texts for holy writ.
The orthodox doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture is “God-breathed” human-written words (2Tim. 3:16). Human men wrote from God, moved by the Holy Spirit (2Pet. 1:20-21). The Bible was not dictated directly by God to the authors, nor was it written by God’s direct “hand” (except for the tablets on Sinai), nor does it claim to be an automatic writing scenario where God uses the hands of writers
as puppets to do his bidding. Scripture itself attests to human authors compiling, editing, and drawing from other source texts to achieve their authoritative canon, all under the providential oversight of God.
There are well over fifty references in the Scriptures to just over twenty non-canonical source texts used by Biblical authors that are lost to history. Some of them are The Book of the Wars of Yahweh (Num. 21:14), The Book of Jasher (Josh. 10:12-13; 2Sam. 1:19-27), The Acts of Solomon (1Kings 11:41), Acts of Gad the Seer (1Chron. 29:29), Acts of Nathan the Prophet (2Chron 9:29), Prophesy of Ahijah the Shilonite (2Chron. 9:29), Visions of Iddo the Seer (2Chron. 9:29), Acts of Jehu Son of Hanani (2Chron. 20:34), Acts of the Seers (2Chron. 33:19) and others.[4]
One of these source texts quoted by Joshua and Samuel, the Book of Jasher (or Jashar), is believed by some to be extant in a medieval copy of a Hebrew manuscript[5] (which I incidentally used as a source for Enoch Primordial and Noah Primeval).
The New Testament continues this tradition of non-canonical sources in Scripture. In 2Tim. 3:8 Paul refers to “Jannes and Jambres” who opposed Moses, a reference to Pharaoh’s magicians in Exodus 7-9 attempting to reproduce God’s miracles and plagues. But there is no mention of the names Jannes and Jambres in the entire Old Testament. So how did Paul know the names of the two magicians? The ancient church fathers, Origen[6] and Ambrose claimed these names were drawn by Paul from the Jewish pseudepigraphal work entitled Jannes and Jambres that describes the Exodus episode from the perspective of these two magicians, one repentant, the other unrepentant.[7] There is also a long Jewish tradition recorded in the Targum Jonathan of these two names.[8]
The New Testament book of Jude tells us of Michael the Archangel disputing with the devil over the body of Moses (Jude 9), an incident that is spoken of nowhere else in Scripture, but appears, according to some ancient Church fathers, in a lost Jewish book called The Assumption of Moses.[9]