and analogously, the fishes would have to be joined to the Orbis terrarum fluidus fluid sphere of the earth, or the seas, and the birds to the heavens eo ipso by that very fact. But that is of no consequence. Whether the author, from his perverse standpoint, goes one step further or not, will likely not carry much weight in the balance.

By placing the plants on the third day, the author would actually be finished, as he would have: Day 1: Light; Day 2: Heaven; Day 3: Orbis terrarum fluidus the seas, the fixed earth, the plant world; Day 4: Sun, moon, and stars; Day 5: Animal world; Day 6: Humanity. But he does not want to be finished. Insisting on the right he took for himself to distribute the world-parts over six days, he says: not only is it my prerogative to distribute the world-parts over six days in such a way that exactly one world-part does not fall on each day, but it is also a necessity. It is impossible to get through with a distribution where one world-part falls on each day; this is shown by actual Jewish Alchemy, which allows three world-parts on the first day and two world-parts on the third day. This now gives us the hint to drop this principle of distribution entirely. I will handle the matter in such a way that I get several world-parts on each day, then I am on the right path, whereas actual Jewish Alchemy is on the wrong path. In the mentioned manner I am consistent, for I allow to one day what is fair for the other. Actual Jewish Alchemy, however, is inconsistent, for it gives one part to four days and several parts to two days.

Now, as the author assigns several world-parts to each day, he distributes them as follows:

To the first day he gives two parts: Light and Darkness. The light is his mysterious light of the first day, which we know. The darkness is the darkness in the world-egg, which is there before the light is created. Compare the following section.

To the second day he gives two parts: Heaven and Clouds. He thus adds the clouds to the heaven. Compare the following section.

To the third day he gives three parts: Orbis terrarum fixus fixed sphere of the earth, or land, Orbis terrarum fluidus fluid sphere of the earth, or sea, and the plant world.

To the fourth day he gives three parts: Sun, Moon, Stars. He does not view these from the single perspective of shining heavenly bodies, but from a triple perspective: first the sun, second the moon, and third the stars.

Regarding the last two days, he then divides the animals into general and special classes. Compare the section: "The Creation Story in the First Chapter of the First Book of Moses." The general classes are: 1. Water animals, 2. Flying animals, 3. Land animals. The special classes are: for 1. a) Great whales, b) animals which live and move and are stirred by the water; for 3. a) Cattle, b) Creeping things, c) Animals of the earth in the narrower sense. Then he gives:

to the fifth day 3 parts: 2 types of water animals, flying animals;

to the sixth day 4 parts: 3 types of land animals, and humanity.

Thus he arrives at:

With this, the author has extracted 17 world-parts. For a cosmogenesis that counts by six days, and which should therefore present six world-parts, he has 17, I say seventeen world-parts! And all this for the sake of the mysterious light of the first day, for that alone is what conjures up these complications.

We see, therefore, that the cosmogenesis in the first chapter of the First Book of Moses is a fragmented alchemical piece of work, and that we have not done wrong in the preceding pages when we gave the first creation story this title.

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We now want to examine the first part of the first creation story specifically; regarding the second part, this has already been done in the section "The Creation Story in the First Chapter of the First Book of Moses."

Special Cosmogenesis of the First Part of the First Chapter in the First Book of Moses

First Creation Period

Verse 1

Bereshit bara Elohim et ha-shamayim ve-et ha-aretz In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
In the beginning God created heaven and earth (Luther).

This verse belongs to the manuscript which the author of the present creation story has before him compare the previous section, and he interprets it in the sense of actual Jewish Alchemy.

In the beginning. This is not the beginning of all things, but this beginning dates from the point where God hits upon the idea of undertaking the water-transformation experiment on a large scale. There is no beginning of all things in the sense of the author, for the water, which now comes into the scope of his experiments, precedes it, exists from eternity, and eternity has no beginning.

Heaven. This is the vessel which is necessary for the water-transformation experiment on a large scale. From this vessel, from this weltenei world-egg, from this world-egg shell, the heaven is to become; therefore it is called "heaven" by presumption. In alchemical terminology, there is nothing striking about this.

Earth. This is the earth which is put into the pure water that has existed from eternity, so that out of this water, which does not qualify for the water-transformation experiment, comes water which does qualify for the water-transformation experiment.

So, at the point where God hits upon the idea of undertaking the water-transformation experiment on a large scale, he prepares it. He first creates the vessel for himself, surrounds the water that has been there from eternity with it, mixes this water with earth, and thus makes the water qualified for dropping a sediment. God must do the latter because, according to the Jewish conception as well as in Egyptian Alchemy of the water-transformation experiment, pure water yields no sediment.

Verse 2

Ve-ha-aretz hayetah tohu va-bohu ve-choshech al-pene tehom ve-ruach Elohim merachephet al-pene ha-mayim And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters
And the earth was a jumble, and darkness on the surface of the abyss, and the spirit of God hovered on the surface of the water.

Luther: And the earth was waste and empty, and it was dark on the deep, and the spirit of God hovered on the water.

This verse also belongs to the manuscript which the author of the present creation story has before him. We shall call this manuscript "the original" in the following.

Tohu va-bohu waste and void is not, as Luther translates, waste and empty, but a jumble. The earth was thus a jumble. This is what we have stirred together with the water. God does not proceed by taking the created earth, so to speak, with his hands and throwing it into the water. If God did that, then the water-transformation experiment would not be necessary. Then it would be self-evident that earth results as a sediment. No, the water-transformation experiment is instituted with such water as is intimately mixed with earth compare Egyptian Alchemy. Thus, with the "jumble," the standpoint is specifically designated which Jewish Alchemy is to claim for the water-transformation experiment.

Abyss. By abyss Septuaginta: abyssos bottomless pit; Luther: Tiefe depth the water clouded by the earth is understood.

There was darkness on the surface of the abyss. The hollow space of the world-egg is divided into two sections, an upper and a lower.

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The lower one is filled with water, the upper one is not. This is necessary. For at the moment when the striking the alchemical condensation or impact takes place, a precipitate forms on the shell of the egg-casing which, as we know, serves to form a vessel within the vessel so that the water does not run out. If there were also water in the upper half of the vessel, a precipitate would also form there, and in that way the sky that is above us would have an earth-crust, which would be a perversity. Furthermore, the upper half of the egg has no water because God is supposed to hover on the water. See immediately below. If the egg were completely filled, God would have no place to hover on the water. The original points out that it is dark in the heavenly egg to mark that the sun, moon, and stars belong in the heavenly egg as long as it is still an egg and not yet struck; however, they do not belong there for the time being, but only arrive there on the first day. The author of the present creation story interprets the matter differently. For him, the first day brings the light. This light provides him with the day, that is, the day as a division of time which encompasses day and night. For such a day, only the day is given in his light of the first day, but not the night. The clouded water, however, does not allow light, and not the light. He now wants to bring purely the light on his first day, in contrast to the sun, moon, and stars of the actual Jewish Alchemy. Therefore, he pre-forms the darkness here. Moreover, the darkness in his sense is also emphatically highlighted here to give his beloved light a prominent foil on the one hand, and on the other hand to throw down the gauntlet to the Jewish alchemists: what use are your sun, moon, and stars of the first day; even if they were created, they could not shine. But it does not say that it was dark in the heavenly egg; rather only that it was dark on the surface of the water. Well, whether one or the other is said remains the same. Through clear water one might eventually be able to see, so that could perhaps, without special reference, not fall prey to darkness. The clouded water, however, does not allow seeing through; it falls prey to darkness without any reference. Thus, what is to be said of the darkness in the heavenly egg is complete when it is said there was darkness on the surface of the abyss.

The Spirit of God hovered on the surface of the water.

Let us first consider the water. In the first verse, the author avoids the water. He mentions nothing about the fact that water is there before everything else. This is well-considered; it happens on the basis of the dark style of writing peculiar to alchemists. Here in the second verse, however, he can no longer avoid the water. For he is quite specifically concerned with drawing the Jewish standpoint that the water with which the experiment is made should be intimately mixed with the earth. In and of itself, the earth cannot be mixed; it must be intimately mixed with something, and this something is precisely the water. This necessitates that the author cannot avoid the water at all in this verse. As this takes place, a threefold thing presents itself to him: 1) earth, 2) water, 3) the clouded liquid which both form in union. The latter he calls the abyss. He now wants to present these three things. In what chronological order should he do it? First he brings the earth; that is obvious, so that the second verse begins where the first left off. Now, actually, the water should come, which is that with which the earth is mixed, and thirdly the abyss should come, which is the product of the things mixed together. The author, however, making an alchemical diversion here, reverses the matter and brings first the abyss and then the water. Thus he has 1) ha-aretz the earth, 2) tehom abyss, 3) ha-mayim the water. To these three things he now links what he wants to bring in more detail in verse 2. He wants to bring 1) that earth and water are a jumble, 2) that it is dark in the egg, 3) that God is

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found within the egg. The first he links to the earth, and therefore it says: the earth was a jumble. The second he links to the abyss, and therefore it does not say it was dark in the egg, but dark on the abyss. The third he links to the water, and therefore it says here, the Spirit of God hovered on the surface of the water, over the water, and not that God hovered over the abyss.

Spirit of God. The text is Ruach Elohim Spirit of God, which means the wind of God, the breath of God, the spiritual aspect of God; God is thus introduced here spiritually. The matter is not to be understood as if God consisted of water and also of a Ruach Spirit/Wind among other things. This Ruach specifically was supposedly the one hovering over the water. Not so. The Ruach of God is God, simply God; God thought of as a spiritual being. It is as if it simply stood here: And God hovered on the surface of the water, on the water.

Now, as for the whole idea of God hovering on the water, the situation is as follows. Suppose someone comes to us and says: if you take water, you can effectively transform it into earth. We say no, that is not possible; if it happens anyway, it at least does not happen with natural things, it would have to be a miracle. A miracle; well, the Jewish alchemists assumed exactly such a thing. It is a miraculous phenomenon that the water-transformation experiment takes place. One takes water and mixes it with earth into a jumble, lets it stand, and the earth goes to the bottom. Why, they asked, does the water not persist in this clouded state? Or why does the earth not dissolve in the water? If we take nitrum natron or saltpetre, pour it into water and stir, then we also have a mixture. This mixture, however, passes into the state of solution. Why does that not also happen with the water-transformation experiment? That is precisely a miraculous phenomenon. If it is a matter of the water-transformation experiment on a small scale, then one says it is a miraculous phenomenon and the matter is finished. But if it is a matter of the water-transformation experiment on a large scale, that is, the water-transformation experiment which God himself institutes, then it is obvious that one lets God himself guide the miracle, that God himself presses down the präcipitat precipitate or sediment. Therefore, God is now located above the water so that he can undertake the miracle of the water-transformation himself. But it is not only appropriate to the subject that God hovers over the water to guide the miracle of water-transformation, but also absolutely necessary to guide the water-transformation. In the water-transformation experiment on a small scale, the alchemist has nothing further to guide. He takes a vessel, puts in the water suitable for the experiment, and now he lets it stand. Without his further guidance, the water-transformation experiment proceeds. It is different with the water-transformation experiment on a large scale. There it is a matter of a three-fold type of precipitate: the first is to settle on the surface of the eggshell, the second is to occur in a horizontal plane, the third is to settle in heights and depths. Now, to cause each of these different precipitates to occur in its own time, it is appropriate that the alchemist be at hand. And as God hovers over the water, the divine alchemist is at hand here. He can now cause each precipitate to occur in its own time in the appropriate manner.

Taken absolutely, it is not strictly necessary for God to be in the egg; God could also be outside the egg, especially in the view of the author of the present creation story. He takes, after all, a position outside the egg in order to arrive at his light. Well, if he can do it, God certainly can. But in relation to the situation described earlier, it is better, more fitting, that God is precisely within the egg.

Second Creation Period. First Day.

Verse 3

Va-yomer Elohim yehi or va-yehi or And God said: Let there be light, and there was light
And God said: Let there be light. And there was light. (Luther.)