From the traditional sources, Joseph Gaer has made a new collection of legends which grew up around the events narrated in the Hebrew Bible; the following selections are from his forthcoming book, The Lore of the Old Testament, to be published this month by Litde, Brown. These accessory tales sometimes make some moral or ethical point, explain away an apparent contradiction, or seem to embroider the Biblical text for the sheer sake of story telling. They come from sources of varying antiquity: the Aggadic portions of the Talmud (from which selections were published in Cedars of Lebanon in January, March, August, and September of 1950), from the Midrash (commentaries on specific books of the Bible), from various other commentaries on the Bible and Talmud, from the medieval mystical Zohar, and other works. The first seven days of creation were probably the subject most popular for elaboration. Some of the tales relating to the sixth day are printed below.—Ed.

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On the sixth day of Creation, God was confronted with a dilemma. Up to that day He had worked one day in heaven and the next day on earth, to avoid any jealousy between them. If on the last day of Creation He worked entirely in heaven, earth would be grieved. God therefore devoted most of the first Friday to the creation of man, whose body is of the earth and his soul of heaven.

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The First Hour of Man’s Creation

On the first hour of the Sixth Day, God took some dust from the very center of the earth, where the Holy of Holies was later to be built. Then he took dust from the four corners of the earth in equal measure. Some of the dust was red, and some black, some white and some as yellow as sand. These he mixed with water from all the oceans and the seas, to indicate that all the races of mankind shall be included in the First Man and none be accounted the superior of the others.

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The Second Hour of Man’s Creation

During the second hour of the Sixth Day God molded the clay, and in making the human body He created a work that by its very form was to excite the boundless wonder of the world, and to declare the wisdom of the Creator forever.

In each part the human body is a marvelous construction, but the greatest achievements are to be found in the human head. The face was made to measure no more than the distance between the outstretched fingers of one hand, yet it contains four varieties of water which do not intermingle: the water of the eye is salty, so that tears smart the eyes to keep one from grieving overlong; the water of the ears is oily, so that bad news and idle gossip can enter one ear and go out through the other; the water of the nose is fetid, so that when an unpleasant odor is inhaled it is tempered by the nose and does the lungs no harm; and the water of the mouth is sweet, so that if a man takes into his mouth food that is spoiled he can spit it out and the sweet water of his mouth washes away the bad taste and he is happy again.

The eyes, the ears, and the nose are not under man’s control, for he often must look on things he would rather not see, listen to words and sounds he would rather not hear, and inhale smells that he would rather not smell. But the mouth is under his control. He can speak and he can be silent. He may use blasphemous language or he may speak the language of the Holy Book. The tongue in man’s mouth, therefore, is capable of great good and great evil.

To keep the tongue from evil talk, two rows of teeth were placed around it, like locking doors; and like walls around them both were placed the closing lips.

The body was made so that in each man part resembles part, excepting the face as a whole. Though every living person is cast in the die of Adam, no two human faces are alike. This was done to protect man from committing adultery with every woman, mistaking her for his own wife.

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The Third and Fourth Hours of Man’s Creation

During the third hour on the first Friday, God covered the clay image with skin. And during the fourth hour He blew the living soul into its nostrils. When God said: Let Us make man in Our image, he referred only to the soul and not to the body. That is why when a man dies, his body, which comes from the earth, is returned to the earth, and his soul, which is from God, returns to Him in Whose image it was made.

Man’s divine semblance was given him so that no man should ever despise another, remembering that hatred of any man is hatred of God.

Where man’s soul resides is as great a mystery as the residence of God. But we know that man’s soul is to be found in his name and in his words: for man alone of all the creatures on earth has a separate name for each individual member of the race, and his name exists as long as man lives; and only man of all the creatures on earth can speak in many words and in seventy languages. In this respect man is the superior of even the angels, who speak only Hebrew, excepting, of course, the angel Gabriel, who knows all the languages of man and beast.

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The Fifth Hour of Man’s Creation

On the fifth hour of the day, God commanded man to rise, saying: “I name you Adam.” Adam arose and stood on his feet. He was like an angel, and his body reached from earth to heaven. His skin was as bright as daylight and covered his body like a luminous garment. The first words he uttered were a psalm unto the Lord, as he looked about him on the Garden of Eden.

He saw that the Garden was at the entrance of the Celestial Paradise. Sixty myriads of ministering angels, the face of each bright as the splendor of the firmament, stood guard at the ruby gates. But the gates of the Garden of Eden toward the world outside, in Beth-Shean, were unguarded.

Adam saw that the Garden of Eden was sixty times as large as the earth outside it; eighty myriads of species of trees grew in the garden; and in the center of them all rose the Tree of Life, on which grew five thousand varieties of fruit, each different in appearance, in aroma, and in taste. The branches of the Tree of Life extended over all the other trees and reached from one end of the Garden of Eden to the other. And over the Tree of Life bright clouds floated like bridal canopies, driven by the four winds of heaven, and they filled the world with the fragrance of the Garden of Eden.

And from every corner of the Garden, above the sound of the nightingales, were heard the soft sweet voices of angels singing.

Adam lifted his eyes and said: “How wonderful are Thy works, O Lord!”

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The Sixth Hour of Man’s Creation

In the sixth hour of the Sixth Day of Creation Adam arose, and God brought all the animals before him to be named.

Satan came up before God and pleaded: “You created me before Adam and I should like to name all the living things.”

Satan had hated Adam from the start. He had been against the creation of man to the last. When Adam first arose and sang a psalm unto the Lprd, the archangel Michael commanded the angels to pay homage to the image of God. And all the angels obeyed, excepting Satan. Whereupon Satan was banished to the nethermost part of the abyss.

Now Satan came to claim a prior right to name the living things on earth.

“Name them,” said God to Satan, “and name all the fruits and all the berries and all the herbs and all the things that I have created, including the insects.”

Satan tried, but he no sooner named one animal than he changed his mind and gave that name to another. When he came to the insects he grew so confused that he did not know how to go on and hung his head in silence. Then God told Adam to go on with the naming.

Adam named each creature according to its nature: the ass he called ass because it was clearly the most foolish creature, and an ass is a fool; the horse he named horse because he liked its joyful nature, and “horse” [Hebrew: SUS] means joyful; the eagle he named eagle because he knew that every ten years this bird would shed its feathers, and, at the age of a hundred years, would fly straight up toward the sun until the heat scorched him, and he would fall down into the great ocean and die, and “eagle” [Hebrew: nesher] means falling down. One creature in the sea he named leviathan because he was as large as a continent. And Adam said to God:

“That pair of leviathans, O Lord, are so big that if they are fruitful as You commanded them to be, they will soon fill the sea and even destroy the whole world.”

God then emasculated the male leviathan, and killed the female and preserved its flesh in the briny deep for the great feast to celebrate the coming of the Messiah.

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The Seventh Hour of Man’s Creation

As adam named all the creatures, he noticed that each creature had a mate. Though there were many beautiful females in the Garden of Eden, Adam saw none that he wanted for a wife. Yet he felt lonely.

The Creation of Woman: As Adam slept, God looked at him and thought: From what part of man shall I make his mate?

If she is made of his brain, she will be too proud—

If she is made of his eye, she will be too envious—

If she is made of his ear, she will be too curious—

If she is made of his mouth, she will be too talkative—

If she is made from his heart, she will be too possessive—

If she is made of his hands, she will be too acquisitive—

If she is made of his feet, she will be too adventurous—

Therefore He made her from the thirteenth rib of man’s right side, which is covered with flesh and cannot be seen.

But, alas, all this caution was of no avail. For though woman was not created from the brain, women are proud and walk with outstretched necks; though not made of the eye, women want to see everything and are envious; though not made of the ear, women are eavesdroppers and curious; though not made of the mouth, women delight in gossip; though not made of the heart or the hands women are possessive and acquisitive; though not made of the feet, women can’t stay still and must gad about.

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The Eighth Hour of Man’s Creation

In the eighth hour of the Sixth Day of Creation, Adam awoke and beheld woman beside him. And he saw that she was more beautiful than any of the angels. God had adorned her with the splendor of a bride, with wimples and bracelets and earrings and a caul shining with rubies, and rings on her hands and tinkling ornaments on her feet. Adam looked at her, and he embraced and kissed her.

God led Adam and his bride under a series of ten canopies studded with gems and pearls and ornamented with gold. The archangels Michael and Gabriel acted as grooms, and God pronounced the blessing.

After the ceremony, a watch was set over the bridal chamber and the angels danced in the Garden, beating their timbrels and singing many songs.

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The Ninth Hour of Man’s Creation

Adam’s happiness made Satan sad. And Adam’s wedding made Satan miserable.

Satan plotted Adam’s downfall. But he did not know just how to accomplish it until the ninth hour of the Sixth Day of Creation.

For in that hour God called Adam and his wife before him and said:

“The Garden east of Eden is yours to inhabit, and you shall have dominion over all the fish in the seas and the birds on wing and the living creatures that move over the earth. You may eat the Bread of Angels, and your meat may be all the sweet-smelling herbs and the fruit of every tree. But in the center of the Garden, next to the Tree of Life, there is the Tree of Knowledge. He who eats of the fruit of this tree becomes wise in the ways of good and evil. But also he who eats thereof becomes the pawn of Satan and the creatures of evil desire. You must promise not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. For if you do, on that day you will surely die!”

Adam and his wife promised.

They were happy with each other in the Garden of Eden, but, alas, not for long.

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