The Mysteries of Creation: The Genesis Story

Book arrived on time and in great condition. I own several commentaries by George Lamsa so this area of study is not new to me. Errico explains the mindset of the people who used the Old Testament as well as the writers of the New Testament very well.

This book was written in 1993, but is based on a 20-pages booklet of 1978/79, called "Genesis - chapter one", based on the Aramaic Peshitta Text of the Hebrew Bible. The new book is 135 English text pages long, with additional 12 pages of Genesis in Aramaic and Western Aramaic. As usual with Rocco A. Errico's explanation of Bible texts via a translation by meaning of Aramaic idioms, this book is worth being read. It is much shorter, but far superior to Ralph Ellis' take on Genesis, which is based on literal word-by-word translations forth and back of parallel meanings/connotations of ancient Egyptian. For the daring, this in other aspects rather hilarious book is called Eden In Egypt. In turn, Errico followed up his book with Aramaic Light on Genesis which is longer and goes more precisely into details of the entire Genesis chapter. The book at hand concentrates merely on the creation part. Overlaps are negligible. This first book appears in a semi-mystical light, if there is such a thing. For example, the take on (the non-existence of) races is as ambivalent as is the one on the gender(s) issue, in respect to mysticism. (In this context mysticism meaning the disbelief in separations of any un-kind.) However way (dis)agreeable, for the special interested, it is worth to read the rather brief thoughts on these issues in the parameters of this book. The book doesn't quite reach the quality of Errico's books on the New Testament (e.g. Let There Be Light: The Seven Keys and Setting a Trap for God: The Aramaic Prayer of Jesus), even though it is recommendable. Still, I wonder wether the OLD Testament really has ARAMAIC at its source, but maybe this is meant as an intermediate step or the immediate text version at hand. Knowing the idioms and cultural context leading to a better overstanding than the later literal translations of these words.

Excellent revelation of the real interpretation of the bible. Studied under the orginal George Lamsa. A "must-read" for those who are sincere students of Truth.

I'll start by stating that the book did stick to it's title: The Mysteries of Creation THE "GENSIS" STORY. To help one better gauge this book, if i had my own ranking system, i would give this a 4 on the nose. It's not 4.5 or 4.9, falling short of a 5 star rating. If you're looking for a book that compares creation accounts extensively in great detail, this is not it. At times, the author's writing style can be a bit vanilla but he makes up for it by sharing some interesting tidbits to tickle your mind. For example, he gives a little background on how there were other Hebrew creation poems and traditions that existed in Israel in ancient times. He refers the reader to Job38:7 and Isaiah40:12,21-22 as remnants and allusions to those earlier epics. He states that the Hebrew Creation account based on biblical experts(no names given) plausibly date the text narrative around the 6th century, B.C.E. and belive the author wrote it for the exicled Jews in Chaldea (Babylon). He does wet the appetite for one to do more research on Creation accounts. He gave a side by side of the Hebrew account vs. the Babylonian Cosmogony, 'Enuma Elish': GENSIS (Hebrew Creation Account) 1) Chaos; darkness covering the deep 2) Light created 3) Creation of firmament 4) Creation of dry land 5) Creation of luminaries 6) Creation of man 7) God rests and hallows the seventh day ENUMA ELISH (Babylonian Cosmogony) 1) Primeval chaos; the Ti'ama(the sea) enveloped in darkness 2) Light from the gods 3) Firmament 4) Dry Land 5) Luminaries 6) Man 7) The gods rest and are festive the seventh day He also touched on the authorship of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy with reference to sources such as: "J" - Yahwist(Judah/Southern Kingdom); "E" -Elohist (Ephraim/Northern Kingdom); "P"-Priest and "D"-author of Deuteronomy. And also, "R"-Redactor(Editor of the J,E,P, and D accounts.) To better understand this belief or methodology, i'd refer one to Richard Elliott Friedman's: WHO WROTE THE BIBLE? This book is an excellent read but would have been better titled: 'WHO WROTE THE TORAH' or 'WHO WROTE THE FIRST FIVE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE?' This book will give one a greater understanding of what was going on during the time of the judges and kings. I highly recommend it! Back to the Mysteries of Creation. The author made reference to the HEPTADIC Principle, which focuses on the number 7. He goes on to explain that the number seven was not uncommon to be used as a daily part of Near Eastern Semitic customs and manners. Ex. When a king sat in council he generally had six ministers of state seated with him. He states that in the original Semitic language, Genesis1:1 consisted of "seven" words; the second verse contained fourteen(2 x 7); the literary of teh creation account itself consisting of six creation days and the final day of rest. He lengthens this point by sharing that teh nouns "God(35 times, 7 x 5)," "heaven and earth (2