The Above and the Below

(The Knowledge and Wisdom of Elohim)

Primary Content (From 1 Sefer Moses, the Book of Beginnings):

• Chapter 3 – As Above, So Below
• Chapter 4 – As Below, So Above

Additional Reading (Comparison Texts):

• Genesis 1-2 from the Inspired Version of the Bible
• – Or – LDS Moses Chapters 3-4 (From LDS Pearl of Great Price)
• Book of Abraham, Chapter 4 (From the LDS Pearl of Great Price)

Objectives:

• Compare and Contrast: The Above vs. The Below
• Compare and Contrast: Heavens vs. Earth

Kabbalistic Concepts:

• 7 Days of Creation
• Aligning that which is below with that which is above

Notes Before Reading:

For comparison texts, we have also included the King James Version of Genesis to see what differences it has with Joseph Smith’s Inspired Translation, and what is found on the plates of brass.  We have also included the areas of the Book of Abraham that cover similar passages, because it was from a pre-Moses source and it is interesting to see the variations there to look for depth from multiple perspectives.   For this course, the expected focus is to compare the previous sources with 1 Moses from the plates of brass, to see what is new and interesting that we can focus on.  Note that there are other creation accounts that we left out for brevity, and should be covered by any class doing a deep dive into the week of creation.  For those interested, Chapter 6 of the Book of Rayaneck has a creation account that is more similar to the Abraham account than the Moses account, but has some interesting parts all its own.  The Book of Remembrance has a creation account in Chapters 2 and 3.  And, 4th Moses chapter 2 from the plates of brass also has a retelling of the days of creation.  And, as a bonus, the Book of Melchizedek Chapter 6 (also from the plates of brass) lists out the 7 keys of creation, which have striking themes that overlap with the days of creation described elsewhere.  But our focus is to introduce the plates of brass through a full exploration of the first book of Moses, and this discussion has plenty to look into without pulling in all of those additional creation accounts.

Engage:

Engage the Text through Investigation

After you read it through, sometimes it’s useful to revisit the text with a goal in mind for extracting information of some sort, for instance, it would be productive to re-engage the text by doing something like:

• Skim through and make a list of the days and what things were created them in a notebook
• Make a list containing each of the things created and whether they are “above” or “below”

Engage the Concepts through Comparison

One great way of finding deeper meaning is to take two ideas and compare them to see if their differences or similarities make them more clear as you wrestle with the text and the juxtaposition of ideas.  Here are some opposing things that might be worth your consideration:

• Light, Darkness
• Creator, Creation
• Beginning, Ending
• Evening, Morning
• Foul, Fish
• Above, Below
• Land, Sea
• Adam, Eve
• Spiritual Creation, Natural Creation
• Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Tree of Life

Engage the Spirit through Contemplation

REMEMBER, the purpose here isn’t to think about each of these things a little bit.  The purpose of pondering is to focus on one idea or theme, and really explore it in your mind while sharing what you are learning with the spirit and inviting the Lord to increase your understanding.  The goal is in depth of what you ponder, not in the amount of things you ponder about.

If you start with the assumption that the parts of the text that are entirely missing in older versions, or the ones with significant differences from older versions are the places that need the most thoughtful consideration, you will come up with this list of passages that deserve intentional pondering.  (Listed in the order they are in the text, not in an order of importance necessarily).  Select some of them that stand out to you as interesting and worth engaging the spirit to learn more about them, and make those passages the focus of your quiet contemplations this week.

• v3:3, what used to be “In the Beginning” is changed to “I Knowledge and Wisdom”, and the rest of creation follows that introduction.  
• v3:11, the addition of the passage saying “And the darkness of evening was pierced by the light of the morning”, what’s going on there?
• v3:31, instead of creating “the moving creature that hath life,” it was changed to creating “the desires, passions, and appetite that hath life,” which sounds a lot more like the creation of something within Adam, not around him.  What’s going on there? Do other days sound that way too if you look at them that way?
• v3:39, says “And I said unto She which was with me from the beginning,” which is the first undeniable reference to the divine feminine.  v3:4 also is clearly using she/her pronouns when referencing the creation.  This might be a good time to ponder on some of the passages that reintroduce the feminine into the narrative that has been dominated by the masculine for a long long time.
• v3:43, what used to be “have dominion over” has been changed to “watch over … in righteousness.”  That might deserve some thoughtful consideration.
• v3:50, adam is told to “watch over and finish in my name, that I and my Creation may be one.” Is there something that mankind still needs to do in order to “finish” the creation?
• v4:33-37, the Creation of Ishshah (Eve) has significant re-working that probably deserves some thoughtful consideration.
• The Chapter Names tell us the topic here is the Above and the Below, but both chapters say they teach us about both of them.  One way to view their names is that they are telling the same story twice, from two different perspectives.  If that is the intent, what are the overlapping parts that unlock it?  If not, why are they named the way the are?

Engage the Group through Discussion

When you meet together as a group to discuss the content of these chapters, here are some ideas to help get the discussion going:

• How was everyone’s experience with pondering this week?  Were there successes? Were there struggles? Does anyone need encouragement to get over some roadblocks?
• What are people’s thoughts on the reintroduction of the feminine into the narrative, and what did you learn as you considered how and where she shows up?
• Is the idea of spiritual creation before physical creation (which only shows up in LDS branches of the narrative) something more significant than simply being “first we were born as spirits, and then we were born into physical bodies?”