Table of Contents
The Hebrews are a branch of the great family of which that powerful commercial race, the Phœnicians, who were the merchants of the world fifteen hundred years before the time of Christ, were a part. The Hebrews carried out from the common storehouse of their race a mass of traditions, many of which have come down-to us in that oldest and most venerable of human compositions, the Book of Genesis.
I have shown that the story of the Deluge plainly refers to the destruction of Atlantis, and that it agrees in many important particulars with the account given by Plato. The people destroyed were, in both instances, the ancient race that had created civilization; they had formerly been in a happy and sinless condition; they had become great and wicked; they were destroyed for their sins–they were destroyed by water.
But we can go farther, and it can be asserted that there is scarcely a prominent fact in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis that cannot be duplicated from the legends of the American nations, and scarcely a custom known to the Jews that does not find its counterpart among the people of the New World.
Similarities between the Bible and The Quiche legend
Genesis I
Even in the history of the Creation we find these similarities:
The Bible tells us (Gen. i., 2) that in the beginning the earth was without form and void, and covered with water. In the Quiche legends we are told, “at first all was sea–no man, animal, bird, or green herb–there was nothing to be seen but the sea and the heavens.”
The Bible says (Gen. i., 2), “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The Quiche legend says, “The Creator–the Former, the Dominator–the feathered serpent–those that give life, moved upon the waters like a glowing light.”
The Bible says (Gen. i., 9), “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.” The Quiche legend says, “The creative spirits cried out ‘Earth!’ and in an instant it was formed, and rose like a vapor-cloud; immediately the plains and the mountains arose, and the cypress and pine appeared.”
The Bible tells us, “And God saw that it was good.” The Quiche legend says, “Then Gucumatz was filled with joy, and cried out, ‘Blessed be thy coming, O Heart of Heaven, Hurakan, thunder-bolt.'”
The order in which the vegetables, animals, and man were formed is the same in both records.
In Genesis (chap. ii., 7) we are told, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” The Quiche legend says. “The first man was made of clay; but he had no intelligence, and was consumed in the water.”
In Genesis the first man is represented as naked. The Aztec legend says, “The sun was much nearer the earth then than now, and his grateful warmth rendered clothing unnecessary.”
Even the temptation of Eve reappears in the American legends.
Lord Kingsborough says: “The Toltecs had paintings of a garden, with a single tree standing in the midst; round the root of the tree is entwined a serpent, whose head appearing above the foliage displays the face of a woman. Torquemada admits the existence of this tradition among them, and agrees with the Indian historians, who affirm that this was the first woman in the world, who bore children, and from whom all mankind are descended.” (“Mexican Antiquities,” vol. viii., p. 19.)
There is also a legend of Suchiquecal, who disobediently gathered roses from a tree, and thereby disgraced and injured herself and all her posterity. (“Mexican Antiquities,” vol. vi., p. 401.)
The legends of the Old World which underlie Genesis, and were used by Milton in the “Paradise Lost,” appear in the Mexican legends of a war of angels in heaven, and the fall of Zou-tem-que (Soutem, Satan–Arabic, Shatana?) and the other rebellious spirits.
We have seen that the Central Americans possessed striking parallels to the account of the Deluge in Genesis.
Tower of Babel -> Temple of Cholula -> Or the main temple of Atlantis
According to the story, a united human race (Atlanteans) speaking a single language and migrating eastward, comes to the land of Shinar (שִׁנְעָר). There they agree to build a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Yahweh, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world.
According to some stories of Atlantis. During the late Atlantean times, the main island wanted to control all colonies. The network (language/communication) was destroyed. All the energy of the network destroyed the main island – the pulses come back in one time.
There is also a clearly established legend which singularly resembles the Bible record of the Tower of Babel.
Father Duran, in his MS. “Historia Antiqua de la Nueva Espana” A.D. 1585, quotes from the lips of a native of Cholula, over one hundred years old, a version of the legend as to the building of the great pyramid of Cholula. It is as follows:
“In the beginning, before the light of the sun had been created, this land (Cholula) was in obscurity and darkness, and void of any created thing; all was a plain, without hill or elevation, encircled in every part by water, without tree or created thing; and immediately after the light and the sun arose in the east there appeared gigantic men of deformed stature and possessed the land, and desiring to see the nativity of the sun, as well as his occident, proposed to go and seek them.
Dividing themselves into two parties, some journeyed to the west and others toward the east; these travelled; until the sea cut off their road, whereupon they determined to return to the place from which they started, and arriving at this place (Cholula), not finding the means of reaching the sun, enamored of his light and beauty, they determined to build a tower so high that its summit should reach the sky.
Having collected materials for the purpose, they found a very adhesive clay and bitumen, with which they speedily commenced to build the tower; and having reared it to the greatest possible altitude, so that they say it reached to the sky, the Lord of the Heavens, enraged, said to the inhabitants of the sky, ‘Have you observed how they of the earth have built a high and haughty tower to mount hither, being enamored of the light of the sun and his beauty? Come and confound them, because it is not right that they of the earth, living in the flesh, should mingle with us.’ Immediately the inhabitants of the sky sallied forth like flashes of lightning; they destroyed the edifice, and divided and scattered its builders to all parts of the earth.”
RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF CHOLULA.
One can recognize in this legend the recollection, by a ruder race, of a highly civilized people; for only a highly civilized people would have attempted such a vast work. Their mental superiority and command of the arts gave them the character of giants who arrived from the East; who had divided into two great emigrations, one moving eastward (toward Europe), the other westward (toward America). They were sun-worshippers; for we are told “they were enamored of the light and beauty of the sun,” and they built a high place for his worship.
The pyramid of Cholula is one of the greatest constructions ever erected by human hands. It is even now, in its ruined condition, 160 feet (48.77 meters) high, 1400 feet (426.72 meters) square at the base, and covers forty-five acres; we have only to remember that the greatest pyramid of Egypt, Cheops, covers but twelve or thirteen acres, to form some conception of the magnitude of this American structure.
It must not be forgotten that this legend was taken down by a Catholic priest, shortly after the conquest of Mexico, from the lips of an old Indian who was born before Columbus sailed from Spain.
Observe the resemblances between this legend and the Bible account of the building of the Tower of Babel:
“All was a plain without hill or elevation,” says the Indian legend. “They found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there,” says the Bible
They built of brick in both cases. “Let us build us a tower whose top may reach unto heaven,” says the Bible.
“They determined to build a tower so high that its summit should reach the sky,” says the Indian legend.
“And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men had builded. And the Lord said, Behold . . . nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and confound them,” says the Bible record.
“The Lord of the Heavens, enraged, said to the inhabitants of the sky, ‘Have you observed,’ etc. Come and confound them,” says the Indian record.
“And the Lord scattered them abroad from thence on all the face of the earth,” says the Bible.
“They scattered its builders to all parts of the earth,” says the Mexican legend.
Can any one doubt that these two legends must have sprung in some way from one another, or from some common source?
There are enough points of difference to show that the American is not a servile copy of the Hebrew legend. In the former the story comes from a native of Cholula: it is told under the shadow of the mighty pyramid it commemorates; it is a local legend which he repeats. The men who built it, according to his account, were foreigners. They built it to reach the sun–that is to say, as a sun-temple; while in the Bible record Babel was built to perpetuate the glory of its architects. In the Indian legend the gods stop the work by a great storm, in the Bible account by confounding the speech of the people.
Both legends were probably derived from Atlantis, and referred to some gigantic structure of great height built by that people; and when the story emigrated to the east and west, it was in the one case affixed to the tower of the Chaldeans, and in the other to the pyramid of Cholula, precisely as we find the ark of the Deluge resting upon separate mountain-chains all the way from Greece to Armenia. In one form of the Tower of Babel legend, that of the Toltecs, we are told that the pyramid of Cholula was erected “as a means of escape from a second flood, should another occur.”
Book of Jubilees
The Book of Jubilees contains one of the most detailed accounts found anywhere of the Tower.
And they began to build, and in the fourth week they made brick with fire, and the bricks served them for stone, and the clay with which they cemented them together was asphalt which comes out of the sea, and out of the fountains of water in the land of Shinar. And they built it: forty and three years were they building it; its breadth was 203 bricks, and the height [of a brick] was the third of one; its height amounted to 5433 cubits and 2 palms, and [the extent of one wall was] thirteen stades [and of the other thirty stades].
Jubilees 10:20–21, Charles’ 1913 translation
To convert 5433 cubits and 2 palms to modern units of length:
- Total length in feet: 8150.5 feet (2484.27 meters)
Other resemblances
But the resemblances between Genesis and the American legends do not stop here.
We are told (Gen. ii., 21) that “the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam,” and while he slept God made Eve out of one of his ribs. According to the Quiche tradition, there were four men from whom the races of the world descended (probably a recollection of the red, black, yellow, and white races); and these men were without wives, and the Creator made wives for them “while they slept.”
Some wicked misanthrope referred to these traditions when he said, “And man’s first sleep became his last repose.”
In Genesis (chap. iii., 22), “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:” therefore God drove him out of the garden. In the Quiche legends we are told, “The gods feared that they had made men too perfect, and they breathed a cloud of mist over their vision.”
When the ancestors of the Quiches migrated to America the Divinity parted the sea for their passage, as the Red Sea was parted for the Israelites.
The story of Samson is paralleled in the history of a hero named Zipanca, told of in the “Popol Vuh,” who, being captured by his enemies and placed in a pit, pulled down the building in which his captors had assembled, and killed four hundred of them.
“There were giants in those days,” says the Bible. A great deal of the Central American history is taken up with the doings of an ancient race of giants called Quinames.
This parallelism runs through a hundred particulars:
- Both the Jews and Mexicans worshipped toward the east.
- Both called the south “the right hand of the world.”
- Both burnt incense toward the four corners of the earth.
- Confession of sin and sacrifice of atonement were common to both peoples.
- Both were punctilious about washings and ablutions.
- Both believed in devils, and both were afflicted with leprosy.
- Both considered women who died in childbirth as worthy of honor as soldiers who fell in battle.
- Both punished adultery with stoning to death.
- As David leaped and danced before the ark of the Lord, so did the Mexican monarchs before their idols.
- Both had an ark, the abiding-place of an invisible god.
- Both had a species of serpent-worship.
