The Testament of Adam — True Church Edition
The Testament of Adam 25
1Now for the genealogies. The Syrians say that no one looked after them after the last devastation of Jerusalem, except among the tribe of the Philistines, and no one looked after the genealogy of the people among whom the children of Israel married, nor from whence was the beginning of the priesthood.
2Jehoiachin did not cease to be bound in the land of Babylon, and shut up in prison for thirty-seven years. Meanwhile there was born to Mardul a son named Mardahi, and the king let Jehoiachin out of the prison, and married him to Helmuth the daughter of Eliakim.
3By him she gave birth in the land of Babylon to a son, who was called Salathiel. Then he married another who was called Melkat the daughter of Ezra the teacher, and had no child by her in Babylon.
4At that time Cyrus reigned in Babylon. He married Masabet the sister of Zerubabel a nobleman of the Jews, according to the custom of Persia; he let her rule his affairs; she begged him to restore the children of Israel to Jerusalem, and he did this to its place where it had been before him.
5He commanded a herald to proclaim, that there should not remain one of the children of Israel, who should not present himself to Zerubabel his brother-in-law. When they were gathered together, he commanded him to take them to Jerusalem and that they should build it.
6The children of Israel returned to Jerusalem in the second year of the reign of Cyrus the Persian. At that time was completed the fifth thousand from the beginning. The children of Israel after their return to Jerusalem remained without a teacher to teach them the law of the Lord or any writings of the prophets.
7When Ezra (Azariah) saw this, he went to the well in which the Law had been put, uncovered it, and found the vase full of fire and incense, and he found the writings faded, there was no means to get them.
8God revealed to him that he should receive of them from His hands; he succeeded, and threw it on his mouth once, and twice and thrice, and God put into it the power of the spirit of prophecy; he kept all the writings, and that fire which was in the vase in the well was from the fire of Paradise which was in the house of the Lord.
9Zerubabel journeyed to Jerusalem as king over it. By Joshua son of Jozadak the High Priest and by Ezra, the writing of the Law and the Books of the Prophets were completed. After their return, the children of Israel kept the feast of the Passover, and all the feasts that they celebrated were three.
10The first was the feast of Moses in Egypt, the second the feast of Josiah, and the third after their return from Babylon in the days of Cyrus the Persian. The number of the years of the Captivity which Jeremiah the prophet mentions are seventy years. The children of Israel built the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, and its building was finished by the hands of Zerubabel and Joshua the son of Jozadak the priest, and Azariah (Ezra) the scribe of the Law, in six and forty years.
11When the books of the genealogies were destroyed, the fathers were in despair about genealogy, and there was despair about it after them, until their accuracy was guaranteed by the secret books of the Hebrews.
12I relate this to thee, my son Clement, that when Zerubabel journeyed to Jerusalem, he married Malka the daughter of Azariah (Ezra) the teacher, and by her he begat a son called Abiud. She had already been the wife of Jehoiachin before him. When Abiud grew up, he married Ragib, daughter of Joshua the son of Jozadak the priest. By he he begat a son called Jehoiachim. Jehoiachim married a wife, and begat a son by her.
13When he grew up, he married Alfeet, daughter of Hesron, and by her he begat Zadok. Zadok married Felbin the daughter of Rahab, and by her he begat Atin. Atin married Hesheeb, daughter of Jula, and by he he begat Tur (Eliud). Tur (Eliud) married Salsin, daughter of Hasoul, and by her he begat Eleazar. Eleazar married Habeeth, daughter of Malih, and by her he begat Manar (Matthan).
14Manar (Matthan) married Seerâb, daughter of Phinehas, and by her he begat Jacob. Jacob married Yartâh and begat Joachim. Jacob also married Had, by her he begat Joseph. Joachim married Hannah, daughter of Ka‘rdal, and by her he begat Mary, by whom our Lord the Christ was incarnate.
15On account of our knowledge, O my son Clement, about the genealogy of the Lady Mary, and the genealogies of her ancestors, the Jews begin by assertions about us that we do not understand the genealogies, and we do not know them; and they venture to mock the mother of Light, the Lady Mary, the Virgin, and they attribute he genealogy to fornication, because they do not know that it was the Holy Ghost who came down on us, a company of twelve in the upper room of Zion, who taught us all that we need to know about the genealogies and the rest of the mysteries, as He had taught Azariah (Ezra) the teacher all the Law, so that he kept it and renewed it.
16Let the mouths of the cursed Jews now be stopped, and let them know assuredly that Mary the pure was of the race of Judah, also of the race of David, also of the race of Abraham; that they have nothing against the genealogies which the Holy Ghost taught us, and there is not a book left in their hands from which they can make a stand against genealogy, since their books have been burnt three times; the first time in the days of Antiochus, who defiled the temple of the Lord, and commanded sacrifices to idlos; the second by Herod at the time of the devastation of Jerusalem; and the third, hear, O blessed son, what the Holy Ghost has revealed to me, about the sixty-three fathers, whose names are registered, and how the pedigree came about to the tribe from which was incarnate our God the Christ.