← Contents
Theme
083 / 293

Listen

Dhammapada · narration sample

A one-minute narration sample. Every book in the library is narrated end to end — hear the rest in the app.

The Forgotten Books of Eden · 83 of 293

Second Adam and Eve: Chapter I

THE SECOND BOOK OF

Adam and Eve

The grief stricken family. Cain marries Luluwa and they move away.

1.WHEN Luluwa heard Cain’s words, she wept and went to her father and mother, and told them how that Cain had killed his brother Abel.

2.Then they all cried aloud and lifted up their voices, and slapped their faces, and threw dust upon their heads, and rent asunder their garments, and went out and came to the place where Abel was killed.

3.And they found him lying on the earth, killed, and beasts around him; while they wept and cried because of this just one. From his body, by reason of its purity, went forth a smell of sweet spices.

4.And Adam carried him, his tears streaming down his face; and went to the Cave of Treasures, where he laid him, and wound him up with sweet spices and myrrh.

5.And Adam and Eve continued by the burial of him in great grief a hundred and forty days. Abel was fifteen and a half years old, and Cain seventeen years and a half.

6.As for Cain, when the mourning for his brother was ended, he took his sister Luluwa and married her, without leave from his father and mother; for they could not keep him from her, by reason of their heavy heart.

7.He then went down to the bottom of the mountain, away from the garden, near to the place where he had killed his brother.

8.And in that place were many fruit trees and forest trees. His sister bare him children, who in their turn began to multiply by degrees until they filled that place.

9.But as for Adam and Eve, they came not together after Abel’s funeral, for seven years. After this, however, Eve conceived; and while she was with child, Adam said to her “Come, let us take an offering and offer it up unto God, and ask Him to give us a fair child, in whom we may find comfort, and whom we may join in marriage to Abel’s sister.”

10.Then they prepared an offering and brought it up to the altar, and offered it before the Lord, and began to entreat Him to accept their offering, and to give them a good offspring.

11.And God heard Adam and accepted his offering. Then, they worshipped, Adam, Eve, and their daughter, and came down to the Cave of Treasures and placed a lamp in it, to burn by night and by day, before the body of Abel.

12.Then Adam and Eve continued fasting and praying until Eve’s time came that she should be delivered, when she said to Adam: “I wish to go to the cave in the rock, to bring forth in it.”

13.And he said, “Go and take with thee thy daughter to wait on thee; but I will remain in this Cave of Treasures before the body of my son Abel.”

14.Then Eve hearkened to Adam, and went, she and her daughter. But Adam remained by himself in the Cave of Treasures.

Asked of Guide

Why did Adam and Eve place a lamp by Abel’s body in the Cave of Treasures?

They placed a lamp by Abel’s body to honor him and keep watch: the chapter says they “placed a lamp in it, to burn by night and by day, before the body of Abel.” The lamp is an act of continual care tied to their mourning and the sanctity they ascribe to Abel’s purity, which emitted “a smell of sweet spices.”

That lamp also marks the Cave of Treasures as a sacred, guarded spot where Adam fasted and prayed while Eve went to give birth. This detail echoes burial veneration found in other early Jewish-Christian writings, like the Testament of Adam, which treats tombs and memorial keeping as focal places of prayer.

Guide is the guide inside the Gnosis app, where every book on these shelves is free to read. Guide is the part you pay for — your guide has read all of them, and answers about the passage you’re actually on. Ask your guide your own question.