What do the First Three Chapters of Genesis Really Mean? — Part 1
This follows on from an introduction where I suggested that the first three chapters of Genesis do not mean what Christians, and the West in general, think they do.
Several years ago I was browsing around a bookshop when I spotted this title, Genesis Revised: The Drama of Creation. I was immediately fascinated and took a look inside it. There I discovered that the full title is Genesis Revised: Commentary by Shabaz Britten Best, Based on Fabre d’Olivet’s ‘Hebraic Tongue Restored’, giving the correct English translation of the original Hebrew Script of the first ten chapters of Genesis, with Esoteric interpretations¹. This was even more fascinating, so I obviously bought the book.
I had never heard of Fabre d’Olivet, so wondered what his book might contain and, having read Best’s book, subsequently bought it².
In this brief series of articles I’ll focus on the first three chapters of Genesis, since these are the most important for the development of the Judeo-Christian tradition. As I argued in the introduction, these have been mistranslated, which has led to misunderstandings.
The author is a Sufi, a pupil of Inayat Khan. Here I’ll summarise his preface, picking out the key points. Some of his claims are controversial, and would not be accepted by many modern scholars. I also do not know how he acquired some of this information, except where he repeats details from d’Olivet’s own more lengthy account. For better or worse, however, this is what he says:
- The earliest version of Genesis was written by Moses, and “his original Hebrew Script contains much of the Ancient Wisdom teaching that was known and secretly taught in early Egypt prior to the time when Moses lived there”.
- The modern versions of Genesis are not in accordance with this original Script.
- Hebrew became a dead language about 500 B.C., therefore there are now very few scholars who would be able to translate or even understand it.
- When the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) was commissioned, “none of the Rabbis of the Synagogues in Jerusalem had the requisite knowledge of Hebrew and Greek languages to undertake such a work”. Ptolemy II therefore asked some qualified Essene scholars to undertake the task.
- When they saw sacred and secret Mystery doctrines in the text, they refused to reveal such teachings in their translations. They therefore introduced similes and extraneous words, in order to disguise the intended meaning.
- The various elements of the Garden of Eden story “were all spurious interpolations that were first introduced and included in their Greek translation, but which have no corresponding words in the original Hebrew”.
- The priests of Jerusalem blindly accepted this rather ridiculous translation (the Septuagint) as being wholly true… The actual Essene translators remained incognito.
- Much later, Jerome spent 20 years translating the Septuagint into Latin. His version, known as the Vulgate, “has been considered a foundation of the Roman Catholic Church since the latter part of the 4th Century A.D”.
- After a further period of several centuries there was no qualified Hebrew scholar to be found among the early Church Fathers of our era… Consequently the ‘Septuagint’ has been almost universally accepted and adopted as the only available Version of the scripture that was first written by Moses.
- In the 5th century the Old and New Testament books received the title of the ‘Holy Scriptures’, and were therefore considered beyond question or criticism, authoritative, without any justification.
- In 1515 Cardinal Ximenes published a book called the ‘Polyglot of Paris’ with the authority of the Vatican. In this book the Cardinal had presented the book of Genesis in three different languages: the original Hebrew text, the Latin Vulgate, and the Septuagint Greek. “His idea was to prove to the Catholic laity that the Vulgate… alone should be regarded as the sole source of the Word of God”.
- However, “by virtue of this extraordinary piece of sophistry, the Cardinal gave to the world a precious copy of the Mosaic Hebrew text that had been kept with the utmost secrecy for 3,200 years”.
- It was only in 1810, however, that it was discovered by someone who was well qualified to understand it and able to appreciate its value. This was Fabre d’Olivet, “who had acquired an exceptional knowledge of many of the languages spoken in the Near East, including ancient Hebrew, to the extent then available”.
- “After several years of concentrated study, and comparing it with Samarian, Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic translations of the same Hebrew text, he was able to produce his stupendous and erudite work, ‘The Hebraic Tongue Restored’. This book contains a comprehensive study of the Hebrew language , together with a complete copy of the first ten chapters of Genesis, printed in the original Hebrew script, with his literal translations in French and English, and thereby it reveals many of the Mystery doctrines”.
- “The French Government of that time authorised and paid for its publication in 1815. This was done on the understanding that Fabre d’Olivet would send a copy of his book to every University and Academy in France. He then requested the responsible heads to criticise and question it, or otherwise verify his work. But after an interval of six years, as no one had challenged the correctness of his translation from the Hebrew text of Moses, he publicly announced that he considered his work should be acknowledged and accepted as being unquestioned, and therefore correct and true”. (One might argue of course that no one was qualified to challenge the correctness, or that they considered him an eccentric not worthy of their attention.)
- Over 100 years passed before the book was translated into English by Nayan Louise Redfield, who he says is his friend and fellow pupil of the Sufi teacher Inayat Khan.
Best says that in his book he has “translated the text into more modern English, and given additional meanings to complex words. An esoteric explanation is also given to abstruse and profound expressions in the text of each chapter”.
So who is Fabre d’Olivet? There is a wikipedia article about him. The most important point there relevant to this article is that it says that “the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and the subsequent decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs that followed would prove much of this particular work technically mistaken”. No reference is given for this assertion, however, and wikipedia is not considered authoritative in academic circles.
D’Olivet and his book made a deep impression in esoteric circles. We should perhaps read the two books without any preconceptions therefore, and judge for ourselves the merit of the ideas contained there. She is obviously not an independent voice, but here is Nayan Louise Redfield’s estimation of d’Olivet, as expressed in the foreword to Hermeneutic Interpretation of the Origin of the Social State of Man and of the Destiny of the Adamic Race³, which she also translated as well as d’Olivet’s major work.
She describes him as a “great metaphysician of Esotericism of the 19th century, who penetrated far into the crypt of fallen sanctuaries to the tabernacle of the most mysterious arcanas”; “a man of genius, now almost forgotten”; “transcendental in his intelligence”; someone who “has penetrated the mysteries of the Bible” but was “never understood by his contemporaries, for he was a century in advance of his day”; “when he died (he) had but the reputation of a visionary or a fool”.
Perhaps the most interesting piece of information in her foreword is that The Hebraic Tongue Restored “was placed on the Index at Rome by the papal decree March 26, 1825”. If the Vatican forbids you to read something, that’s a pretty good sign that its author was on to something important and valuable.
In the next article I’ll say some more about d’Olivet, and will then move on to exploring some of his and Best’s translations and interpretations of Genesis.
I hope you have enjoyed this article. I have written in the past about other topics, including spirituality, metaphysics, psychology, science, Christianity, politics and astrology. All of those articles are on Medium, but the simplest way to see a guide to them is to visit my website (click here and here). My most recent articles, however, are only on Medium; for those please check out my lists.
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Footnotes:
- Sufi Publishing Co., 1964, 2nd printing 1970
- The full title is The Hebraic Tongue Restored and the True Meaning of the Hebrew Words Re-established and Proved by their Radical Analysis, Kessinger Publishing Company. This is a reprint of the 1918 translation.
- G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915
