A STRANGELY DISCORDANT CITATION

When reviewing Monograph No. 4 of the 4^th Degree in the Initiate, I was initially baffled by the incongruity of Burke’s discourse on the transition of the human soul and the basic precepts of mysticism. But, when I passed onto the core content of the monograph, I became further baffled.

In the beginning of the Monograph, AMORC talks about how the Nodin manuscript does not limit itself to a discussion of the laws of Nous, but contains a statement of the utmost importance, a sentence which reads:

God created man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul

Why, I imagine that such a statement could be of importance- but, of course, it is directly derived from the Biblical Book, Genesis. Yet, although, later on, AMORC does mention this similarity of phrasing, but not after it discusses the sentence at great length, basically attributing the sentence to the Nodin manuscript.

It says towards the last part of the Monograph,

In the Book of Genesis, we find a statement which is very similar to the sentence from the Nodin Manuscript which we quoted in the first paragraph of this monograph. It reads as follows: “The Lord Yahweh formed man from the clay of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”

Honestly, in looking briefly over different Biblical translations of Genesis 2:7, I couldn’t find that specific translation. But here’s what I did find.

Let me place here again the quote from the Nodin manuscript, which is at the beginning of Monograph No. 4.

God created man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul

… and now here is the King James version, the most common historically-used English translation:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. GENEIS 2:7

The difference between the Nodin translation and the KJV is miniscule- the substitution of the word “formed” for “created” and the use of “LORD God” instead of “God.”

In other words, the sentence in the Nodin manuscript isn’t just similar. It is a virtual clone from the King James version, the most common translation, disguised somewhat by AMORC using a more obscure translation to quote the Scripture.

Kind of a strange subterfuge, isn’t it?