Home | Angels, traditional accounts | Gospel of Philip | SIMON MAGNUS & OTHER INSPIRED WORKS | THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH THE CARPENTER | The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs--Ebionite | THE JESUS INTERPOLATION IN JOSEPHUS | The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary | MARTIN LUTHER'S WRITINGS | ACTS OF ST. BARNABAS THE APOSTLE | Hyppolitus--Against All Heresies | THE INFANCY GOSPEL OF MATTHEW | WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE NEW TESTAMENT TALES | VATICAN DEED, ANOTHER FORGERY | STORIES ABOUT OUR ADAM'S APPLE | COMMENTARY ON GOSPEL OF THOMAS & NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY | GOSPEL OF THOMAS | INFANCY GOSPEL OF THOMAS--Latin text | DEATH OF PILATE

ANCIENT SACRED WORKS OF THE CHRISTIANS

STORIES ABOUT OUR ADAM'S APPLE

 

Although these two stories about

the Adam's apple is of an Old

Testament character, the style is

clearly Christian.  Though it is

possible to have originated with

the Jews, I know of no Jewish

source; and it is of a style

common to the Christians. 

 

Christian  Mythology

George Every

 

The traditional site of the invention, or discovery, of

the cross itself is not the Holy Sepulchre, but a

discarded cistern of the appropriate period, which

was probably found and cleared while the Martyrium

was being built. The fragments referred to by St Cyril

may have been found there, or they may per­haps

have been in circulation in places like Edessa before

Helenas discoveries made relics of the passion

popular. What is important is that all our earliest

references are to fragments or to objects made with

nails from the crucifixion. No one claims to have

seen the whole cross, and it should be obvious that

nothing found intact would have been broken so

soon. The number of fragments of the true cross may

be best explained if we assume that every bit of

wood gathered near the site became a relic, and in

many cases a means whereby a sense of direct

contact with Christ was communicated. Mirac­ulous

healings were the result of faith, not of the

application of a particular holy object, but it is not

surprising that they should be taken as evidence of

the authenticity of the relics.

 

What may be called the prehistory of the cross

became interesting as the crucifix became a central

religious symbol. The simplest and most widely

diffused form of the legend of its origin survives in

the name Adams apple for the epi­glottis (sic)[1]. This

is based on a just-so story of how man got his apple,

that the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil got

stuck in Adams throat. From the seed, after he was

buried, one or three trees grew, of which one was

the crucifix.

 

In more elaborate versions of the same myth these seeds

are planted in his throat after his death by his son Seth.

They belong to the tree of life, not to the tree of knowledge

of good and evil, and they have been brought from Eden

with the oil of mercy to console the last hours of Adam. A

sapling from this root became the staff or the rod of Moses.

King David found it, used it for various wonders, and

planted it in his garden. Cut down for Solomons temple, it

would not fit into the building. Rejected and flung into a

ditch, it rose to the surface and became a bridge. The Queen

of Sheba was about to cross it when she recognised its

nature and destiny, and took off her shoes to ford the

stream below. By her advice Solomon put it in the Temple

after all, as a lintel over a door, overlaid with gold and

silver. But his wicked grandson Abijah stripped off the

precious metals and buried it on the spot where the pool of

Bethesda was afterwards dug. There the virtue of the wood,

as well as the ministry of the angel, gave power to the

waters to cure all who were afflicted, until as the time of the

passion drew near the beam came to float on the surface,

from whence it was taken to become the wood of the

cross.

 


[1]   The author named the wrong structure, the Adams apple is the thyroid, and is the organ suhject to enlarging, and is then called a goiter.  A much smaller parathyroid is situated as small clusters on top of the thyroid. The Epiglottis is the mass of tissue shaped like a babys finger that hangs down from the roof of the mouth on the entrance to the throat.  Hanlyn Books, New York. P. 60, 1972.

 

The story of Adam's Apple is a good example of the type of religious stories that were widely circulated in a world where story invention was free of commercial interests.  There were tens of thousands of religious stories in wide circulations:  stories about the hundred of saints, about kings and warriors, about thieves and people who practiced black magic such as Faust.  The tradition goes back to the time of caves.  Religious story telling was just as old.  Thus on this site is a sampling of some of the early tales, the non-canonical gospels, and elsewhere I convincingly argue the 4 Gospels are of the same metal.