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The Book of the Bee
The Book of the Bee is a collection of theological and historical texts compiled by Solomon of Akhlat in the thirteenth century. The book consists of 55 chapters discussing various topics including the creation, heaven and earth, the angels, darkness, paradise, Old Testament patriarchs, New Testament events, lists of kings and patriarchs, and the final day of resurrection. This edition, edited by E. A. W. Budge, gives the original Syriac text with an English translation. The edition also includes an extract from the Arabic version of the same text.
- GenresTheologyChristianity
360 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 2, 2020
En längre sammanfattning av judisk och tidigkristen mytologi, samman med kronologier över evangelisterna i Mellanöstern och Asien. De största delarna av texten är kommentarer på gamla testamentet, med fokus på esoteriska muntliga traditioner. De senare delarna innehåller tidigkristna berättelser, profetior som inte inkluderades i standardverionen av nya testamentet och de tidigare nämnda kronologierna.
Nu läser jag udda abrahamitisk teologi och mytologi som nöjesläsning, eftersom jag räknar med att den egentliga visheten finns i de mer accepterade verken, men ganska ofta hittar jag faktiskt guldkorn. Tyvärr var inte denna det. Det stora nöjet med boken var tyvärr kuriosan mer än innehållet.
Jag rekommenderar den bara för de som är intresserade av tidig abrahamitisk religion.
Nu läser jag udda abrahamitisk teologi och mytologi som nöjesläsning, eftersom jag räknar med att den egentliga visheten finns i de mer accepterade verken, men ganska ofta hittar jag faktiskt guldkorn. Tyvärr var inte denna det. Det stora nöjet med boken var tyvärr kuriosan mer än innehållet.
Jag rekommenderar den bara för de som är intresserade av tidig abrahamitisk religion.
September 18, 2024
A medieval Syrian recap of the Bible, with non-canonical tidbits added. It’s called the “Book of the Bee” because, like a bee goes from flower to flower and takes what it desires, the author has skimmed through the Bible and taken what interested him.
Some of the more interesting additions it includes:
The description of the “wind flood”, where humans started practicing magic with Nahor around the construction the Tower of Babel. As punishment, God sent devastating winds to scourge mankind.
The original language of Adam was Syriac. He says those who argue it was Hebrew are mistaken as the Hebrew people didn’t exist then.
Upon his expulsion from Eden, Adam took a branch from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to use as a staff. This was handed from father to son to Moses, then hidden and used as the cross beam at Christ’s crucifixion.
I didn’t know what it was when I started it, but I wasn’t expecting an, at times strange, Bible abridgment.
Some of the more interesting additions it includes:
The description of the “wind flood”, where humans started practicing magic with Nahor around the construction the Tower of Babel. As punishment, God sent devastating winds to scourge mankind.
The original language of Adam was Syriac. He says those who argue it was Hebrew are mistaken as the Hebrew people didn’t exist then.
Upon his expulsion from Eden, Adam took a branch from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to use as a staff. This was handed from father to son to Moses, then hidden and used as the cross beam at Christ’s crucifixion.
I didn’t know what it was when I started it, but I wasn’t expecting an, at times strange, Bible abridgment.
April 16, 2019
Aside from one or two curious nuggets of medieval theology/biblical fan-fiction, this is just a paraphrasing of the bible.
Dig that the commentators at the time were keen for narrative satisfaction through reintegration. There is a nice lil ‘genealogy’ of the stick that Adam took from the tree of good and evil through to that being the rod that Moses had and later still was the crossbeam for Jesus’ crucifixion. Similarly, the stone rolled in front of the tomb was the same stone struck by Moses for water in the desert, and the pieces of silver paid to Judas can be traced back through many transactions to pre-exodus times.
Dig that the commentators at the time were keen for narrative satisfaction through reintegration. There is a nice lil ‘genealogy’ of the stick that Adam took from the tree of good and evil through to that being the rod that Moses had and later still was the crossbeam for Jesus’ crucifixion. Similarly, the stone rolled in front of the tomb was the same stone struck by Moses for water in the desert, and the pieces of silver paid to Judas can be traced back through many transactions to pre-exodus times.
April 2, 2015
I wasn't sure what the book was going to be about but had seen in mentioned in some other works dealing with Syriac Christianity. It is the work of (I believe) a 13th Century Syriac writer and is basically a short paraphrase of scripture through the lens of Christianity and a summary of their beliefs about Christian theology.
January 31, 2020
These are some of the many stories compiled by King Solomon. He tells the accounts of creation, events of Heaven, angels and demons. God bless Earnest A. Wallis Budge for his English translation otherwise I would have never had the privilege of reading these stories.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews