17. Adam’s Diary – Catastrophe

Stone pictograph from
Adam's Diary.

Continuing with Adam’s Diary (translated from Adam’s original hieroglyphics by Mark Twain) …

WEDNESDAY — I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night, and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear of the Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but it was not to be. About an hour after sun-up, as I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I knew what it meant-Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world. . . . The tigers ate my horse, paying no attention when I ordered them to desist, and they would have eaten me if I had stayed-which I didn’t, but went away in much haste. . . . I found this place, outside the Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days, but she has found me out. Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda-says it LOOKS like that. In fact I was not sorry she came, for there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some of those apples. I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed. …

Commentary:
Twain’s Adam was correct that death would be the result of eating the forbidden fruit. In Adam’s Diary, death entered the world when Eve sinned and before Adam sinned. This is not Biblical. Scripture says that sin and death entered through Adam.

Adam’s Diary portrays the forbidden fruit as apples. This is not Scriptural. Scripture does not identify the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was most likely a fruit that no longer exists.

Twain depicted well the chaos sin introduced into creation. Scripture tells us the whole creation groans with the results of man’s sin (Romans 8:20-22).

But the real Adam did not leave Eden voluntarily as in the Diary. The Lord God drove him out of Eden to prevent Adam and Eve from eating from the Tree of Life and living forever in their sinful state. (Genesis 3:22-24)

Tonawanda is a New York town southeast of Niagara Falls and north of Buffalo.

Read the prequels in this series on Adam’s Diary:
1. Adam’s Diary – A New Creature
2. Adam’s Diary – Naming the Animals
3. Adam’s Diary – Garden of Eden
4. Adam’s Diary – “We”
5. Adam’s Diary – Sunday
6. Adam’s Diary – Eve
7. Adam’s Diary – Niagara Falls
8. Adam’s Diary – Escape
9. Adam’s Diary – Mark Twain I
10. Adam’s Diary – Mark Twain II
11. Adam’s Diary – Mark Twain III
12. Adam’s Diary – Mark Twain IV
13. Adam’s Diary – Mark Twain V
14. Adam’s Diary – Mark Twain VI
15. Adam’s Diary – Rib
16. Adam’s Diary – The Snake

Read the sequel:
18. Adam’s Diary – Clothing

©William T. Pelletier, Ph.D.
Friday June 4, 2010 A.D.

Read my June 2010 Bible-Science column
Noah’s Ark Found?.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
(Romans 8:20-22)