The Revelation of Adam

May 04, 2025

Tags: Apocrypha, Apocalypse, Apocalyptic Books, Bible Snark

When I reviewed Testament of Adam, I said I had mistaken it for The Revelation of Adam; well, I have now read The Revelation of Adam, which is another one of the Nag Hammadi scriptures, and here is my snarky commentary on it. Once again, the source is The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts, edited by Marvin Meyer, and like the previous apocrypha, this one was also translated by Meyer.

This is a Sethian text, written between the end of the first century and the beginning of the second century, though some parts may have been added later. It features some apocalyptic mentions and a couple of instances of a pissed off God, whom the Sethians call Sakla, smiting those who challenge him. However, contrary to those other apocalypses, here the one raining destruction on the humans and their world is the bad guy, which frankly makes a lot more sense.

Adam, arise from the sleep of death, and hear about the eternal realm and the seed of that human to whom life has come from your partner Eve and you.

Adam starts by telling his son Seth how he and Eve used to be just a single being, floating around, aware of the greater powers beyond the one who created them. He doesn’t go into more detail about how all the parts were arranged - 2 heads and twice the limbs? An amorphous blob? Not that it matters because like a Sci-Fi character who realizes that maybe making that super smart AI wasn’t such a good idea after all, Sakla split them, thus taking away their greater knowledge of themselves and the universe. That doesn’t mean it was all lost, though; instead, it jumped to a future generation, the great and incorruptible generation of Seth, who will be out of Sakla’s control, and whose souls are immortal. This means that they aren’t beholden to any god, and their faith is borne of enlightenment rather than fear. Unlike the real God, who knows if you love something you should set it free, Sakla’s souls are merely a loan that will go back to him once their bearers die because in addition to being controlling and insecure, he’s a cheap bastard. He probably regifts them, too. After the divinely induced lobotomy, Adam and Eve lived as humans and become good little Sakla worshippers. Then one day, Adam was visited in his sleep by 3 messengers from the real God who told him the truth about everything. However, Sakla noticed the change in him and Eve and was very much not pleased. Naturally, this was followed by another mind wipe. Not content with constantly brainwashing his creations, Sakla decided to make things even ickier by knocking up Eve with Cain. And after that:

I felt a sweet desire for your mother. The power of our eternal knowledge was gone and weakness overtook us, and the days of our life became few. I realized I had come under the authority of death.

So, because they became lesser beings and also really, really dumb, Adam got horny for Eve and realized they were mortal? But hey, at least that change gave them their children and that compensated for it, right? Right? I’m sure their son Seth just loved hearing how he was the result of his parents’ devolution. Clearly those Sethians weren’t very sex positive. Or if they were, that’s not what I’m getting from this and later mentions of “unclean desires”. Ordinary Christians at least approve of reproduction-only nookie. After this intro in which Adam recounts his and Eve’s fall from divine grace (and possibly wrecks his son’s self-esteem), he reveals the knowledge imparted by those 3 visitors. Get ready for mass murder and wanton destruction as Sakla seeks to rid his world of the enlightened seed infestation. This is an impossible task that is destined to fail, but that won’t stop him from trying. First, he’ll drown all the “population of fleshy beings” except his servant Noah and his family, who will split the earth among them. There is only one condition:

You and your sons will rule over it as kings, and you will refrain from producing offspring of people who will stand in some other glory instead of in my presence.

It’s easy to understand why Sakla chose Noah and his family when you see just how grovelling they are. Shem in particular is a major ass-kisser. The text is arranged in a weird way in this section. After God tells Noah he’s going to give him and his sons the earth (see quote above), it jumps to Noah defending himself from the accusation that he and his sons were in any way responsible for the pure, enlightened kingdom that sprouted in the middle of poor Sakla’s new, cleansed world. There’s a paragraph that sounds a lot like the promised new world typical of apocalypses and starts with “Those people will be brought into the land they deserve, and a holy dwelling place will be built for them”, but refers to that pre-Jesus’s first coming kingdom. According to the notes, there are 5 lines missing before this, so things are a bit murky. From here, the text goes back to Noah splitting the Earth among his sons, and Shem promising God that his offspring will serve him humbly and fearfully, and remain appropriately ignorant. His brothers Ham and Japheth will be less lucky, as 4 hundred thousand of them will go hang out with those enlightened people who came from the “great eternal realms”. Look, 1 is tragic, but 4 hundred thousand? That’s some careless parenting. As long as they’re with their new friends, the traitorous offspring will be protected “from all evil and all unclean desires”. I guess this means there will be no hanky-panky because, as mentioned before, horniness = dumb. The presence of the enlightened beings who came directly from the greater powers and realms above Sakla will prove a little embarrassing for him, as his followers will start to notice that while they’re doing their best to follow the rules, those others are getting away with ignoring the supposedly omnipotent, omnipresent creator of all life. After suffering this indignity for 6 whole centuries, God will respond with “fire, sulfur, and asphalt”, and smoke will cover everything. The people will be whisked away to the safety of the eternal realms, but clearly Sakla won this round. It doesn’t mean the great angels and luminaries and all the beings and powers basking in the eternal God’s enlightenment will stop trying, though.

Next up is the Illuminator of Knowledge, who will dazzle the ignorant humans with wonders and spread the real God’s message. This is of course the Living Jesus, whose works will ironically serve to strengthen the faith in Sakla and lead to the persecution of the few who did get the message. I already mocked this cunning plan in the posts on The Gospel of Judas and The Revelation of Peter, so I won’t go over that again, but I believe the previous sentence sums up its flaws pretty well. This time, God won’t wait centuries to get rid of this meddling envoy, and will turn people against him to the point where his fleshy vessel ends up being killed. There’s no need to worry about the Illuminator, though, as he will immediately ditch his meat suit and, per those other Gnostic scriptures, will even laugh at his killers’ ignorance during the crucifixion. Thankfully, The Revelation of Adam doesn’t subject readers to the steaming pile of obnoxiousness that is the Living Jesus, and instead focuses on his origins. No one knows where he came from, so we get 13 hypothesis followed by the truth, which was likely added later. I think the best origin stories are the versions from the fourth, fifth, and seventh (dragons!) kingdoms. The generation of Seth, aka the generation without a king, of course says he was sent by the real God from the eternal realms (yawn). The people he enlightens will be persecuted until the ignorant masses with mortal souls finally realize they were the bad guys all along and are basically screwed now that their God turned out to be a fraud. Micheus, Michar, and Mnesinous don’t care about their tears, though.

Why were you crying out against the living God with lawless voices and unlawful tongues and souls full of blood and foulness? You are filled with deeds far from truth, yet your ways are full of fun and laughter. You have defiled the water of life and have drawn it to the will of the powers, into whose hands you have been given, to serve them.

It makes sense the Gnostics wouldn’t be big fans of ignorance is bliss. According to the notes, the defiling water bit is likely about the fake baptism rites for their fake God and not that they pooped in it. However, since the M trio is associated with baptism in Sethian tradition, they might as well have. And I’m sure that the fact that the lesser souls were happy religious persecutors doesn’t help. It’s a bit difficult to convince others that you’ve reevaluated your life choices when you were laughing about it not so long ago. There are no concrete punishments for them, but in The Revelation of Peter, it was said that the persecuted would rule over those who had tormented them, which sounds a little ominous.

If you are interested in reading the words of the God of the eternal realms, look for the rock of truth on a high mountain because books and scrolls aren’t good enough for him. That’s not very practical, God of the eternal realms. No wonder Sakla’s truth reached more people. He’s out there talking to his creations, rewarding his chosen ones, and smiting those who defy him. Meanwhile, the real God is setting up secluded kingdoms, sending messengers who end up helping his opponent get more followers, and asking Angelic beings to put his words on an inaccessible place.

THOUGHTS

This was certainly more eventful than Testament of Adam. Adam also has more going on than Peter or Judas. The bit about Cain being Sakla’s son, which per the notes is mentioned in The Secret Book of John and The Nature of the Rulers (which are also Nag Hammadi scriptures and in the book I’m using, so maybe I should read at least 1 of them?) was interesting, but I wish there had been more about Adam and Eve’s fall; it was just so simple and brief when compared to the traditional story. I am very grateful to whomever wrote this for keeping the Living Jesus out of it, though.

By Danforth