By Chief Ita Awak
A young friend of mine, who has been following and is familiar with my general views on religion and spirituality, sent me one of the video clips of Pastor Chris Oyakhilome proselytizing his audience on what he dogmatically believes is the reason God created the feminine sex in nature and what he imagines ought to be the correct role the womenfolk are supposed to assume in marriage. The young lad asked to know what my thoughts were on the views expressed by the pastor.
After a careful review of the clip, I confess that one was taken aback hearing the smooth-talking and charismatic pastorpreneur of the Christ Embassy Church audaciously asserting that the creation of the human female was not in the original creation plan of GOD; but that the creation of the woman was an afterthought by GOD. It was, indeed, puzzling to hear a renowned Christian priest who professes an omniscient deity claim that this GOD only got aware of the need or necessity to create the female sex on earth when it suddenly dawned on Her/Him that it was not good for Adam, the first biblical human male, to be “alone.”
This essay is, in part, to venture a modicum of esoteric insight into the generally misconstrued creation fable and, most importantly, to deconstruct Pastor Oyakhilome’s misleading and grossly distorted understanding and interpretation of the Hebraic creation myth as presented, particularly in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis.
Here is a snippet of the priest’s contentious remarks:
“The reason God made [the] woman was because of man. He [God] made the woman because of the man, that is why He made the woman. So, woman was not His [God’s] original idea.“
The priest’s audience got understandably riled by the bizarre opinion that the creation of the feminine gender on earth “was not in the original plan of God.” But to get a biblical crutch on which to support and/or validate this clearly male chauvinistic and rabidly condescending view of womanhood, Pastor Oyakhilome grabbed at the flimsy straw that came by way of the text in Genesis 2: 18-23. It reads:
“And the LORD God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner…So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs…And the ribs that the LORD God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man…” NRSV.
Eureka! In this passage, especially the statement that “God said it is not good for man to be ALONE,” the priest found the pious justification to erroneously preach that the creation of the human female was an afterthought, an idea that was not in God’s original creation plan.
It is worth noting here that the above-quoted passage which relates to how the second creation of the human female was figuratively cloned or formed from an insignificant part of the anatomy of the second creation of Adam, his rib, is what is usually held up by the male chauvinists and misogynists as the unquestionable biblical justification to bluntly bar the woman’s inalienable right of self-expression. This also provides the religious justification for why some unenlightened men feel it morally right to subjugate and inferiorize women in myriad ways and make them suffer religious, social, and cultural discrimination. And more, view her as being below and inferior to the male on spiritual matters, all because of the wrong interpretation of the fable of being cloned from one of Adam’s ribs.
It is pertinent to instance here with the St Paul’s epistle in First Timothy 2:11-13 that helps to amplify this notoriously misogynistic viewpoint:
“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. For I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.” KJV.
There are a handful of other Pauline texts in the letters to the Corinthians, Ephesians, Romans and to Timothy, Thessalonians, etc. that scripturally enable and/or that are supportive of the unenlightened, misogynistic, and backward attitude towards all of Womanhood. It needs to be pointed out that these kinds of ossified anti-feminine teachings in the Old and New Testaments provide the unfortunate basis for the religious justification for the subjugation and exploitation of the womenfolk.
No doubt, Pastor Oyakhilome reechoed some of the views of St Paul in the video under review when he reasoned that since the husband is the “master” and superior in a marital union, the wife or woman, who is supposedly inferior in the relationship, must be totally submissive and slavishly subservient to the man or husband; and that doing otherwise, by trying to exercise any form of independent individuality, showing or demonstrating any sign of intelligence or assertiveness and freedom, amounts to a sinful rebellion against the authority of the husband; amounting to a dreadful sin that God finds offensive.
Be that as it may, it is fitting to point out here that our Judeo-Christian Bible presents its readers with two seemingly diametrically contradictory tales of the creation of two Adams and two Eves. There is the first myth of the creation of the first man and woman in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. The second version, gleefully quoted in the video clip by Pastor Oyakhilome, is in chapter two of Genesis and it gives the fable of the second creation of Adam and Eve.
One critically important point that the majority of our priests, millions of Christians the world over, many biblicists, and biblical scholars refuse to pay relevant attention to, and which I suggest my readers take serious note of, is the fact that the first five books of our Judeo-Christian Bible, called the Pentateuch, is not Christian. It was adopted wholesale from the epic Jewish Torah and grafted into the Christian Bible. The Book of Genesis, which contains the Jewish cosmogonic myth and the fable of the creation of humanity on earth is the first book of the Pentateuch.
Concerning the Torah, it is related that the rabbinical class of ancient Judaism did dexterously weave into the scriptural texts of the Pentateuch cryptic codes of the essentials of the profoundest esoteric teachings of the Mosaic or Jewish mysteries called the Sacred Kabbalah. It follows, therefore, that one must have at least a basic knowledge and general understanding of Jewish kabbalistic lore and teachings in other to give a meaningful and spiritually enlightening interpretation of, for instance, the allegorical creation of the world and the primordial Adam in Genesis.
Those of our Christian priests and others who have no knowledge of or who have and express deep hostility towards and who dishonesty, intolerantly and ignorantly diabolize the sacred science of kabbalah, gain nothing other than shortchange and deprive themselves of its regenerative gnosis.
It is, however, sad that in the deceptive ploy to obscure their bereftness of a higher intuitive understanding of some of the opaque scriptural texts, they poison such texts as the Hebraic creation myth in Genesis with their superficial and literalist interpretations. It is this kind of priestly unctuousness that has unfortunately led hundreds of millions of devout believers astray, pushing them deep into the forest of erroneous religious beliefs, false doctrines, absurd religious dogmas, cruel and inhumane actions that stunt the collective spiritual growth of humanity.
In light of the above, I humbly submit that the simplistic and popular interpretation that we Christians have been dogmatized and doctrinally conditioned to have of the mythic creation of Adam in Genesis is of no material, intellectual or spiritual value. I further submit that it is through the guided doors of Sacred Kabbalah that can we enter into the arcanum and be privileged to have a liberating knowing of the most sublime gnosis this allegorized tale holds for the spiritual awakening and upliftment of humanity.
Speaking specifically, therefore, Jewish esoteric tradition teaches that the tale of creation transmitted through the first two chapters of Genesis took place in four distinct Kabbalistic Worlds or Planes or Spheres of existence namely i] Atziluth; ii] Briah; iii] Yetzirah and iv] Assiah. In Christian esoteric tradition, these four worlds or planes of consciousness correspond to i] Spiritual; ii] Mental; iii] Astral or Emotional, and iv] the Physical planes respectively. The existence of these four worlds of creation is the reason that the Jewish kabbalah speaks of four distinct Adams, each inhabiting one of the worlds.
Anyone who has made the effort to carefully study the two creation fables about Adam and Eve in the first and second chapters of Genesis cannot fail to see that the two versions look, on the surface, to be diametrically contradictory. It is my humble submission that this apparent contradiction in the tales will vanish, as we see the sequence and seamless flow in a continuum when the two creation fables are interpreted from the perspective of and integrated into the four kabbalistic worlds.
First and foremost, let’s take the tale of the first creation of Man as per Genesis 1:26-28 and see what spheres fits in the four kabbalistic worlds. The passage reads:
“And God said, Let [us] make man in [our] image, after [our] likeness….So God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth….” KJV
There are a few encrypted codes in this first version of the creation myth of Man that we shall attempt to break and reveal here.
i) In the conception of the original Jewish myth-makers of the biblical creation fable, the Unknowable Supreme Intelligence or Universal God first outwardly expressed Him/Herself in the Atziluthic world of Emanation. This plane of consciousness is the topmost of the four worlds of creation in the Kabbalah teachings. The archetypal Cosmic Man or what is also characterized as the “Heavenly Man,” was a psychotheistic or spirit being. This Being had no physical body; It had an ethereal body of luminous light. The Kabbalists call this Archetypal Man Adam Kadmon or the Pythagorean Monad.
ii) Next, the second Adam or humanity was created in the second kabbalistic sphere of Briah, the World of Creation or the cosmic mental plane of consciousness. It Is important to note that the word “created” in Genesis 1:27 is “bārā” in Hebrew, which may also be translated to mean “brought forth,” as per H 1254 of Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. In other words, the passage can alternately read as “the Gods [Elohim] brought forth [created] man…in THEIR OWN image, after THEIR likeness…Male and female created THEY them.”
The Man, Adam or humankind of this mental plane or Briatic sphere, just as its prototype, Adam Kadmon, were ethereal beings with bodies of brilliant light. And since they came forth from or were created in the “image and likeness” of their Creator Gods, within Who are the masculine and feminine potentialities, it logically follows that the ethereal human beings in Briah must by necessity be bisexual or androgynous or hermaphroditic, having within the unity of their ethereal bodies both the masculine and feminine polarities, “male and female.”
iii) As the cyclic evolution of humanity progressed, the third Adam evolved or was created in the sphere below Briah, the World of Yetzirah, the astral or emotional plane of consciousness. It is at the Yetziratic plane that Adamic humanity started manifesting in forms. Nonetheless, they were also hermaphroditic and their bodies were ethereal.
In summary, the essential takeaway from verse twenty-seven of the first chapter of Genesis is that contrary to what we have been religiously indoctrinated to believe, the progenitors of our first human race were not physical beings as we are today. Humankind was originally ethereal and androgynous beings who had no individualized and/or distinct “females” that were bodily separated from their “males;” and they abode the Atziluthic, Briatic, and Yetziratic planes of our earth.
But, this begs the question: At what point in the Hebraic creation myth did Adam or humankind evolve out of its androgyny or bisexual nature to express the distinct and separate sexuality of the masculine and feminine genders that humanity is today? In addition, when did humanity transit from having and living in luminous ethereal bodies into being housed in the material and physical bodies we now use on Earth?
To answer this question, we shall now consider the second creation of Adam as presented in Genesis 2: 7 against the background of its kabbalistic roots. The passage reads thus:
“And the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
The main points to note on this second version of the biblical creation of Adam are as follows:
a] The Genesis 2:7 account narrates the creation of the fourth Adam or humankind on the Assiatic sphere, the physical and fourth kabbalistic worlds. At Assiah, the ethereal beings which took form in Yetzirah, finally solidified or condensed and/or physicalized on material earth, the Malkuth of the Jewish kabbalistic Tree of Life.
b) The formation of “man from the dust of the ground [earth]” is an allegorical allusion to the building or forming of the physicalized body of the androgynous fourth Adam or humankind on earth with earthly materials from the mineral [dust], plant and animal kingdoms.
But for the body, having transited from the ethereal to materiality and passing through the complex physiological changes resulting in the formation of bones, nerves, tissues, blood, and organs, etc, to achieve its cosmic purpose, it was vivified and ensouled by the “breath of life,” resulting in the “attainment of self-conscious individuality or the Soulship of humanity:” AND THE ANDROGYNOUS HUMANKIND BECAME A MATERIAL, FLESH AND BLOOD, LIVING SOUL ON EARTH!
c) The humankind or Adam that physicalized on earth and is biblically said to have lived in Eden WAS NOT A MAN, as people think. THE ADAM IN EDEN WAS AN ANDROGYNE who had within the pure unity of its earthly shell both male and female sexes. It is this Adam, in its pristine purity, beauty, and innocence and who was not conscious of its sexuality, a being who was without the crude impulse of desire and passion, that was ALONE in the Garden of Eden.
THIS ANDROGYNOUS AND PHYSICAL ADAM OR HUMANKIND WAS THE SECOND HUMAN RACE ON EARTH.
d) The text in Genesis 2:22 tells the tale of God removing a rib from Adam to make the woman. This is an entirely allegorical story that has been deliberately and mischievously distorted out of proportion by misogynistic priestcraft.
As we said earlier, Adam, even as it physicalized in Assiah or on earth, was still bisexual or androgynous. However, the complex evolutionary and developmental processes and pressures its whole system experienced on the earth plane over aeons of age resulted in the feminine nature of Adam being physically and psychically separated from the masculine. It is the splitting of the two opposite sexes to inhabit the two distinct bodies of the male and female that is allegorically related in the Bible as a woman being formed or made from one of the ribs of man.
In any event, the Hebrew word “tselah” translated as “rib” in Genesis 2:27, according to H 6763 of Strong’s Concordance, also means the “side (of a person).” Against the backdrop that the kabbalist authors of the original text conceived Man, Adam, an androgyne, one can see the compelling logic why they poetically mythicized the separation of the sexes into the distinct “male and female” genders with the allegory that the Gods [Elohim] or the Lord God “made [They or] He a woman” from out of the “side” He took from the body of the bisexual man.
THE SEPARATION OF THE BISEXUAL HUMANITY INTO THE TWO DISTINCT MALE AND FEMALE BODIES INAUGURATED THE THIRD HUMAN RACE ON EARTH.
In concluding this first part of the essay, it is necessary that the following be unequivocally emphasized:
1] The creation of the feminine polarity in nature and/or the creation of the human female sex on earth was not an afterthought by God to humour Adam. The two polarities of male and female, positive and negative work complementarily to bring unity, beauty, stability or equilibrium and harmony in nature. One cannot exist without the other, in the same way that darkness will be nonexistent without light.
2] God, the Supreme Intelligence of the multiverses is not a masculine Being. God is a pantheistic and spirit or psychotheistic Being in Whom the male and female potencies or natures exist. In a manner of speaking, therefore, God is Hermaphroditic or an Androgyne; and this is the logical reason why It brought forth the male and female sexes. In all of creation, this duality of the positive and negative polarities, the male and female aspects, expresses itself in the mineral, plant, animal and human kingdoms.
3] The woman was not formed from the rib of the man, Adam. Eve, the primordial woman, attained her distinct sexual individuality when the body of the androgynous human separated into male and female bodies.
Chief Awak, a politician and public administrator, lives in Uyo
NOTE: Second and concluding part of this essay shall address other related issues in Pastor Oyakhilome’s views.
