Qumran manuscripts Daniel translation into Russian. Dead Sea Scrolls

In the spring of 1947, an unusual discovery was made in the Dead Sea area, in the Ras Feshkha mountains. Two Bedouin boys, who went in search of a goat that had strayed from the herd, noticed a narrow cleft in the rock. The crevice led to a small grotto, or rather a winding corridor, the dimensions of which were approximately 8 m in length, 2 m in width and 2.5–3 m in height.

What the Arabs saw in the cave was completely unexpected: here, among the scattered shards and debris, stood eight tightly closed clay jugs. All of them turned out to be empty, except for one: it contained three leather scrolls wrapped in old linen. Inner side the scrolls were covered with some letters.

Both Bedouins were illiterate, but they immediately realized that in front of them were antiques that could be sold at a profit. They took leather scrolls and several jars with them to show them to antiquities dealers in Bethlehem.

So it began long haul mysterious scrolls, which two years later were destined to become a real world sensation. Some of them went to the head of the Jacobite Christians, Mar Athanasios Joshua Samuel, Archbishop of Jerusalem. Realizing that in front of him were fragments of Old Testament texts written in Hebrew, he attempted to determine the age of these manuscripts. At his request, specialists from the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, J. Trever and W. Brownlie, conducted an examination of the scrolls. Photocopies of the manuscripts were sent to one of the leading experts in the field of Palestine studies, Professor William F. Albright. Albright expressed no doubt about the authenticity of the manuscripts and determined that the texts were written approximately one hundred years BC.

World science has never known anything like this before. The oldest Hebrew manuscript of the Old Testament known at that time, the so-called Cairo Codex, dates back to the 9th century AD. e. So the discovery of Old Testament texts dating back a thousand years became a genuine scientific sensation of enormous significance.

Scientists from the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem have undertaken a new search for ancient manuscripts. In particular, they managed to find those scrolls that the Bedouins sold to various antiquities dealers. A special archaeological expedition was sent to the place where the manuscripts were found, which included specialists from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, the French Biblical Archaeological School in Palestine and the Palestinian archaeological museum. Having carefully examined the grotto, scientists collected fragments of clay vessels and about 500 fragments of leather scrolls with ancient writings. According to archaeologists, in total this cave once contained about 50 vessels and about 150 scrolls. Some of them were probably stolen by robbers in ancient times.

Near the first cave, over the next few years, 11 more grottoes were discovered, from which about 15 thousand fragments of Old Testament texts and several hundred manuscripts of secular content were extracted.

Of course, everyone was interested in the question: what kind of people left these mysterious scrolls in the caves? Who could have thought of living in this dead desert, among bare rocks devoid of any vegetation? Were there really any settlements here in ancient times? In the early 1950s, an archaeological expedition led by R. de Vaux, director of the Bible School of the Dominican Order in Jerusalem, and D. L. Harding, director of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, began exploring the Khirbet Qumran hill located near the mysterious grottoes. Arabic for "hill of rubble". Since the end of 1951, archaeologists have carried out systematic excavations here, which lasted six seasons. The remains of a whole complex of premises were excavated here with great care, dating back to 125 BC, judging by numerous finds of Syrian, Jewish and Roman coins. e. - 75 AD e. ( close date- from 167 BC e. before 233 AD e. - also gave radiocarbon analysis of the scrolls). Of the 153 coins found during excavations, 72 belonged to the time preceding the reign of King Herod the Great (35-4 BC), one - to the era of his reign and 80 - to the 70-year period of time after his reign. This distribution of coins indicates that the settlement on the Khirbet Qumran hill was abandoned at the beginning of the reign of Herod the Great and repopulated after him. From written sources it is known that in the 7th year of the reign of Herod in Palestine there was strong earthquake. Most likely, it was the reason for the end of life in the settlement. Among the ruins of Khirbet Qumran, archaeologists discovered a large crack in the ground, stretching 15 m and damaging part of the buildings - this is probably a trace of that long-ago disaster. At the same time, the ground settled by almost half a meter and traces of this collapse are clearly visible today. It is also easy to notice that the walls were subsequently corrected and restored. Many other traces - collapsed buildings, sometimes blackened by fire, "three-winged" Roman arrowheads - indicate that around 67–70, during the first Jewish uprising against Rome, the settlement on the Khirbet Qumran hill was taken and destroyed by Roman warriors. Probably exactly this Time of Troubles the inhabitants of Qumran hid the sacred texts in a cave, carefully wrapping them in linen and placing them in clay vessels. They probably hoped to return for them someday, but none of them succeeded - they were killed, captured or scattered by the Romans.

But who exactly lived in this secluded settlement? Scientists are divided on this matter. Some researchers sided with the hypothesis that Qumran was the habitat of the Essenes, about whom Pliny the Elder wrote in his time:

“To the west of the Dead Sea, at some distance from the harmful coastal zone and beyond it, live the Essenes - a solitary and most amazing people of all, without women, without love, without money, living in a society of palm trees. However, they are renewed all the time, and new recruits come to them in large numbers - people tired of life or prompted by the vicissitudes of fate to choose their way of life. Thus, for thousands of centuries, no matter how incredible it is, this eternal people has existed, into which no one is born. Thus, thanks to them, the repentance that their life arouses in others bears fruit.”

It is impossible to understand who the Essenes were from Pliny’s message. Therefore, a heated debate developed around the hypothesis about the Essene origin of Qumran and the Qumran scrolls. According to some scientists, the Essenes were members of a certain religious sect who led a hermitic lifestyle. Other researchers suggest that this is simply some special community of Jews. The third group of researchers generally denies the existence of the Essenes.

First of all, the scrolls themselves could shed light on the mystery of the Qumran scrolls. To study the collected material - and its quantity turned out to be enormous - a special research group, which included experts from different countries. The condition of the documents that fell into their hands was appalling: apparently, in ancient times there was a tradition not to destroy old, worn-out manuscripts sacred texts, and hide them in secluded places. And over the past two thousand years, time has thoroughly “worked” on them. And now before the scientists lay worn, partially torn, half-decayed leather scrolls, eaten away by insects and rodents. Before they could be read, they had to be strengthened and restored. One can imagine what colossal work is required in order to straighten each fragment, after moistening it with water vapor, then photograph it in infrared rays, then classify it according to the nature of the writing and the quality of the skin, and finally, try to match it with other fragments in order to obtain, if possible, connected text...

Meanwhile, when scientists were just beginning to unravel the Qumran scrolls, two “independent” researchers, a Frenchman and an Englishman, had already rushed to publish their own “ sensational discovery": They said that the results of the study of the scrolls "represent a radical revolution in the history of Christianity." As if from the Qumran texts it follows that the Essenes knew that a certain “teacher of righteousness” was crucified on the cross, his body was then taken down and buried, and the apostles expected the resurrection and return to earth of their “teacher”, that is, the image, and more precisely, the prototype of Jesus Christ supposedly already existed among the Essenes.

"The Dead Sea Scrolls are the biggest challenge yet" Christian teaching since the advent of Darwinism! - the authors of the hypothesis pompously claim. This unfounded assertion, despite the heated protests and refutations of major scientists, was immediately picked up and disseminated by the world press. This topic was “covered” especially widely in the atheistic Soviet Union, where any stupidity was welcomed, as long as it was directed against Christianity.

There is no doubt that Jewish sects existed even before the advent of Christianity. But champions of the “greatest challenge to Christian teaching” may in this case rest. The Qumran texts contain absolutely nothing that could call into question the basic tenets of Christianity. The Essene community, as is clear from the documents found at Qumran, was deeply committed to traditional Judaism. Some parallels with Christianity in Esseneism, however, are present, but they are explained by the common roots of both teachings, which originate in the Old Testament. “Thus, if Esseneism contains a number of elements that fertilized the soil on which Christianity was subsequently born, then it is no less obvious that Christianity represents something completely new, something ultimately explainable only by the person of Jesus Christ,” - writes about this about one of the largest researchers of the Qumran problem, J. T. Milik, an employee of the Paris National Center scientific research.

The discoveries at Qumran are, of course, interesting not because of the nonsense that “anti-religious” propagandists piled up around them. The Qumran manuscripts are valuable primarily because they enriched with invaluable information not only general history and the history of religion, but also linguistics (along with the main Hebrew dialects, seven other languages ​​are represented in them), paleography - the science of ancient manuscripts, literary history, legal history (some texts from Qumran are sales contracts). This circumstance ensured world fame for the Qumran scrolls, far beyond the limits of purely scientific interest. Today it is known that the bulk of the Qumran finds are predominantly biblical texts and apocrypha, that is, anonymous works of religious content that are not considered divinely inspired and therefore not included in the Bible. Created during the 3rd–1st centuries. BC e., they are the most valuable documents of the era.

In early 1949, archaeologists discovered cave No. 1, which marked the beginning of the archaeological study of Qumran and the surrounding area. As a result of a careful study of the cave, located a kilometer north of the Qumran gorge, fragments of at least seventy manuscripts were found, including pieces of seven scrolls previously acquired from the Bedouins. Thus, it became clear where exactly the Arabs got the manuscripts from. In addition, artifacts discovered in the cave confirmed the dating of the scrolls, previously established using paleographic analysis. At the same time, the Bedouins continued to independently search for manuscripts, as they quickly realized that these scraps of skin were an excellent source of income. New finds discovered by the Bedouins in other places proved that cave No. 1 was not the only one - it became clear that there were other caves with manuscripts.

Period from 1951 to 1956 was marked by the special activity of the search caves with scrolls, and archaeological excavations in the Qumran area. Archaeologists explored an eight-kilometer stretch of cliffs north and south of the ruins. Manuscripts were found in eleven Qumran caves discovered during these searches. Five of them were discovered by Bedouins, and six by archaeological scientists.

Jeremy D. Lyon

Scientists are amazed by new data about the preservation and correct understanding of God's infallible Word from the very moment they were discovered.

Did you know that one of the greatest archaeological finds was it very close? In 1947, a Bedouin accidentally stumbled upon ancient Qumran scrolls, hidden among stones in clay jars. From 1947 to 1956, approximately nine hundred ancient manuscripts were discovered in eleven Qumran caves along the northeastern shore of the Dead Sea. More than two hundred Dead Sea Scrolls were passages from the Bible dating back to 250 BC. to 68 AD Surprisingly, these Qumran scrolls included all the books of the Old Testament except the book of Esther.

Why are these ancient Dead Sea Scrolls so important to us today? At a time when modern scholars are questioning the veracity of the Bible, God has given us these incredible Qumran scrolls to study, confirming our confidence in the formation, preservation, translation, and interpretation of His Word. As research into these timeless treasures progresses, we are learning more and more.

Qumran cave

The Qumran Manuscripts and the Formation of the Old Testament

Christians and Jews traditionally believe that the Old Testament was written around 1400 BC. to 400 BC and at the time of writing was considered to be the inspired Word of God. However, many modern scientists argue that these are words ordinary people, recorded much later, and that these records were collected only by the 90s AD. Can the Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on this question?

After long delays in publication, the Qumran manuscripts were finally made public. In the ancient manuscript 4QMMT (also known as " Some works of the law") said: “These things were written to you so that you might understand the books of Moses, the books of the prophets and David.”. This text, dating from around 150 BC, is possibly the oldest document in existence to contain we're talking about about the canon of the Old Testament, consisting of three parts. He confirms the words of Jesus Christ spoken in Luke 24:44, where He calls the Old Testament "the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms."

This text confirms the words of Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, that no new books have been added to the Scriptures since the time of Ezra (425 BC). Thus, the Qumran manuscript 4QMMT is a remarkable piece of evidence that once again proves that the Old Testament was most likely finalized during the time of Ezra, and not at the Jewish Council of Jamnia around 90 AD, as is often claimed. declared.

The Qumran Manuscripts and the Preservation of the Old Testament

Has today's Bible retained everything that was originally written in it? Before the discoveries made from 1947 to 1956, the earliest surviving Old Testament manuscripts dated back to around 900 AD. The Qumran manuscripts of the Bible date from about 250 BC - 68 AD, that is they are a thousand years older.

Some scholars have questioned the ancient dates of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were established through paleography, the science of studying changes in the spelling of ancient letters over time. However, doubts disappeared when several Qumran scrolls were tested using radiocarbon dating in the 1990s. And the results of this study confirmed the ancient dates established through paleographic research. Of particular interest is the Great Qumran Scroll of the Prophet Isaiah - the only complete book Bibles discovered in the caves of Qumran, dating back to 125 BC. (which is confirmed by the results of two independent studies). Thus, the ancient age of the Dead Sea Scrolls appears to be a reliable fact.

Remarkably, the writing of many of these ancient Dead Sea Scrolls is consistent with the Masoretic tradition on which modern Hebrew Bible translations are based, as well as English language. And this once again confirms the fact that the text of the Old Testament was faithfully preserved throughout all these centuries. Moreover, these Qumran manuscripts shed light on the techniques used by scribes during the Second Temple period, demonstrating how they prepared, wrote, copied, and revised to preserve these ancient Dead Sea texts. Thus, the Qumran manuscripts fill a huge gap in the history of the biblical text and help us see God's care in ensuring the preservation of the Old Testament.

Qumran manuscripts and translation of the Old Testament

The Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on another issue regarding the reliability of the Bible. The New Testament often quotes Greek translation The Old Testament, called the Septuagint, not the Hebrew text. Some scholars have questioned whether the Septuagint is an authentic translation original text in Hebrew. Some biblical Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran provide evidence of another Hebrew textual tradition underlying the Greek translation. And this proves that the Septuagint is an authentic translation of the Hebrew text existing at that time. These findings open the door to new possibilities for exploring the history and significance of existing translations.

Qumran Manuscripts and Interpretation of the Old Testament

Can the light of ancient times illuminate and contemporary issues interpretation of texts? The Qumran manuscripts contain the oldest extant interpretations of the Flood described in the book of Genesis. In the Dead Sea Scrolls of the 1st century B.C. speaks of a flood and confirms that modern understanding The global catastrophic flood that occurred in the days of Noah is a reliable historical interpretation of chapters 6-9 of the book of Genesis. These Qumran manuscripts also demonstrate how the ancient Jews tried to understand complex issues interpretations, such as interpreting the chronology of the events of the flood day by day.

The Qumran Scrolls contain commentaries on the books of the Old Testament, as well as paraphrases. Thus, these Dead Sea Scrolls are of particular value to us as we try to better understand the details of the Bible. They provide us with unique insights into ancient interpretations and shed ancient light on modern issues to help us correctly interpret God's Word.

These timeless treasures prove that the Bedouin's stone smashed not only clay jars, but also many false attacks on Scripture. The Qumran manuscripts confirm that we can trust God's Word. As we study these Dead Sea Scrolls further, we will learn more about the place of the Bible and its interpretation in general history, and we can expect that many new, incredible discoveries await us ahead.

A Look at the Jewish Community of New Testament Times in the Qumran Manuscripts

Not a single book of the New Testament was found in the Qumran caves, and no mention of Christianity, despite the fact that Jews lived in these places during the time of the New Testament (until the fall of the Roman Empire in 68 AD). However, among the Qumran scrolls there are also hitherto unknown Jewish religious writings, which help us better understand the features of Judaism of the New Testament period. For example, the Qumran manuscripts reveal to us the diversity of Jewish religious groups, beliefs, traditions and politics that form the context for the reception of the New Testament. Thus, these Dead Sea Scrolls give us the most valuable basic information, opening up modern readers veil ancient world in which the New Testament was written. Moreover, comparing the teachings of the Qumran scrolls with the teachings of the New Testament deepens our understanding of the New Testament Scriptures in the context of the history of the first century AD. Numerous analogies between the teachings of the New Testament and the Qumran texts are more early period also strengthen our confidence in the Jewish foundations of Christianity.

Jeremy D. Lyon is a professor of Old Testament studies at Southern California Seminary. He has developed a program in apologetics and teaches courses on Old Testament history and creation/evolution. While writing his doctoral dissertation, he spent several months in Israel studying the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A long work table with scissors, needles and snow-white sheets of rice paper laid out on it; a few more tables with regular computers; cabinets with black cardboard boxes and materials for work...

That's all the furnishings of a small room in the Israel Antiquities Authority, where the great mystery of conservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls is performed. Their detection is rightfully considered the main archaeological discovery XX century. And the scrolls themselves still contain secrets that remain to be unraveled.

“Golden hands are urgently needed...”

The story of the discovery of the first unique Dead Sea Scrolls, their acquisition by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the subsequent search for more and more new manuscripts is well known. Unfortunately, since the discovery of these unique artifacts in the Judean Desert, many of them have suffered serious damage.

The first blow to the relics was dealt by the Bedouins who discovered them - they cut the scrolls into pieces in the hope that in this way they would be able to rescue more money for their sale. But, as it turned out, the restorers who worked with the scrolls also made many mistakes at first.

It took a while to realize that the scrolls had been preserved for thousands of years because they had lain sealed in jars in the absolute darkness and unique microclimate of the Dead Sea caves. Normal humidity, straight sunlight- all this led to their destruction. On top of this, the first scroll restorers glued the fragments together with ordinary adhesive tape and placed them between simple window panes. The pressure of the glass, the aging of the glue and sunlight caused the parchments to darken before our eyes.

It is difficult to say what the fate of these historical treasures would have been if, in the early 1990s, in the wake of the mass exodus of Jews from the USSR, restorers who had gained experience working with ancient manuscripts in Israel had not arrived in Israel. best museums Moscow and Leningrad. Their expertise was used to ensure the safety of priceless artifacts.

Only women work in the scroll conservation department. It turns out that only female hands can touch the scrolls without causing damage to them. Only they can, with minimal loss, clean them from the glue left by the tape, place them between two sheets of special transparent paper, frame them and then sew the space around the scroll with the finest thread.

Sometimes all the work has to be done under a microscope. Such a frame is then exhibited at the Israel Museum in a storage facility that maintains a microclimate corresponding to the caves of the Judean Desert.

Thanks to the experience and truly golden hands of these women, within two last decades The process of documenting and conserving the scrolls was completed. And now they are actively involved in the process of photographing the scrolls based on the method of spectral photography, using technology purchased by the Hebrew University from NASA.

From the darkness of millennia

According to historians, most of the Dead Sea Scrolls known today belonged to Jews who fled after the Roman defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt (131-135) into the Judean Desert - into the very caves in which they once future king David was hiding from his father-in-law, King Saul.

The Jews who took refuge here were not members of the Essenes sect, considered the forerunner of Christianity. But just like the Essenes, they lived in hope of the coming of the Messiah, who would return their state to them, and lived in a commune, which they called “Yachad” (“Together”). The charter of this commune was discovered among other Qumran scrolls.

At some point, the Romans discovered the “communards” and decided to destroy them.

Anticipating inevitable death, the “Yakhadites” decided to preserve the most valuable thing they had - the holy books. Wrapping parchment and papyrus scrolls in linen, they placed them in jars, sealed them tightly and hid them in caves. There they lay until 1947, when some of them were accidentally discovered by a Bedouin shepherd.

Today, the Department of Antiquities houses over 900 such manuscripts, consisting of several tens of thousands of fragments. Several hundred more such artifacts were at the disposal of Jordanian historians. Most of these scrolls are written in Hebrew, the same alphabet that Jews use today, and therefore can be easily read and understood by any Israeli schoolchild. But there are also scrolls written in Greek and Aramaic, as well as the form of the Hebrew alphabet that the Jews used even before the Babylonian exile (before 598 BC), and dated to the 8th century BC.

The found scrolls contain all the books of the Old Testament (Tanakh, as the Jews call it), with the exception of the Book of Esther, and their texts practically coincide with the biblical ones known today. Which, in turn, proves that the Bible has reached our days almost without any changes. At the same time, sometimes in the scrolls there are slight differences from the current canon, and scientists today argue whether we are talking about scribe errors or whether we have evidence that over the centuries biblical text still subject to editing.

At the same time, texts were also discovered among the manuscripts that, for one reason or another, were not included in the Old Testament. This is an apocrypha to the Book of Daniel, and the Book of the War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness, and the previously unknown psalms of David, stunning with their poetic power. But, perhaps, one of the most interesting among the Qumran finds is the manuscript of the Book of Enoch - one of the most mysterious and mystical works antiquity, not included in the biblical canon.

"The Bible of Ufology"

This is exactly what the Book of Enoch (Sefer Hanoch) is sometimes called the “Bible of Ufology” by supporters of the theory according to which decisive role Contacts between humanity and alien intelligence played a role in the development of civilization.
The basis of the Book of Enoch is the story of how angels descended from heaven to earth and began to cohabit with earthly women and passed on secret knowledge to people.

There is a mention of this in Genesis, but the Book of Enoch is a detailed and detailed story about how a detachment of two hundred celestials who rebelled against God, led by an angel named Shamkhazai, descended onto Mount Hermon, the main peak of the current Golan Heights.

These aliens not only made love to women, but also taught people various crafts, as well as magic and witchcraft. For example, an angel named Azazel taught people how to forge iron weapons; angels Kochaviel, Tamliel and Barkiel - to the sciences of the movement of the stars and the Moon and the calendar; Shamkhazai himself gave them knowledge about the magic and healing properties of plants. But at the same time, the righteous Enoch (Hanokh) refused to communicate with the rebel angels.

Therefore, the Archangel Gabriel himself began to descend to him and teach him other secret knowledge - much more true and deeper than those that Shamkhazai and his associates communicated to humanity. So Hanoch became a guardian secret knowledge on astronomy, cosmology and ways of serving the Creator, which he passed on to his son Methuselah, who passed on to his grandson Noah, and Noah after the flood - to Seth, etc., and so this knowledge has been preserved to this day.

Other biblical sources say that Enoch did not die an ordinary death, but was taken alive into heaven, for which a certain luminous object, “like a large fiery horse,” descended from above. However, even before this, Enoch managed to visit heaven. Ufologists see in the description of his flight confirmation that Noah’s great-grandfather visited an alien ship.

In fact, the book first talks about a “large round body” made as if from pearls and surrounded by lights and flames. Nevertheless, Enoch calmly walked through this flame and found himself inside a round room with many windows through which the surrounding landscape was clearly visible. Then he heard a certain voice, fell into another, even larger luminous body and found many rooms inside it, including a round hall, and in the middle of it - a high throne.

“Before us,” ufologists believe, -classical description flight on a reconnaissance boat to one in orbit spaceship and the control panel of this ship." Mystics, of course, interpret this text completely differently. As, indeed, are the words of another biblical source - the Book of Uprightness, which claims that, having been taken alive to heaven, Enoch received a new body and became a ruling angel higher worlds named Metatron.

Biblical tradition dates the “ascension of Enoch” to 2773 BC, and this is exactly the period of the end of the Neolithic and the beginning Bronze Age, when the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Babylon and Egypt make giant spiritual and technological leaps forward. The Harappan civilization arose in India, and in Britain, by the way, it was at this time that Stonehenge was being built.

So the Book of Enoch actually gives a lot of reasons for thought and various kinds of hypotheses. Meanwhile, the Qumran scrolls are fraught with many other, no less attractive and exciting mysteries, to which we will definitely return more than once.

Peter LYUKIMSON

» Dead Sea Scrolls

Qumran texts (scrolls)- ancient manuscripts, mainly from the intertestamental period, found in caves near the Dead Sea. The Qumran texts got their name from the first discoveries made at the “wadi” (dry riverbed) of Qumran. Qumran leather scrolls were first discovered by the Bedouin shepherd Muhammad ed-Dib in 1947, and according to some sources even earlier. Some of the scrolls were bought by E. Sukenik, a professor at the University of Jerusalem, and some by the Syrian Metropolitan Samuel Athanasius, who resold them in the USA. Albright confirmed their extreme antiquity, and since then an intensive search for new manuscripts began. Over the course of 30 years, approximately. 200 caves and more than 600 manuscripts, whole and fragmentary, were brought to light. They were found not only in the Qumran area, but also in others. points along the Dead Sea coast: Ain Feshkha, Masada, Wadi Murabbaat, Khirbet Mird, Nahal Hever, Wadi Daliyeh, etc. In 1948, work began on the Qumran manuscripts and their publication, which continues to this day. Specialists take part in the research various countries and confessions.

Qumran texts (manuscripts)

Dead Sea Scrolls

1. Messianic Collection or Anthology of Messianic Prophecies

Dictionary of rare terms found in manuscripts

1. Pleroma- translated from ancient Greek means completeness, harmony of the world, where there is no death and darkness. Term Christian mysticism, meaning a multiple unity of spiritual entities that together form some ordered “wholeness.” In the doctrines of Gnosticism within the Pleroma, the aeons are grouped into “syzygies,” i.e. as if married couples, taking turns giving birth to each other.
2. Eon is a period that serves as a depiction of a stage or type of evolution. This is a sacred decade, i.e. certain time cycles into which the history of existence is divided. Also eons- these are worlds (spaces, spheres of existence).
3. Logos- An ancient Greek term meaning both “word” (or “sentence”, “statement”, “speech”) and “meaning” (or “concept”, “judgment”, “ground”). Also - God, Cosmic Being, World Law and Reason.
4. Archon- a Greek word meaning “chief, ruler, head”) - the highest being with the highest power.
5. Autogen- self-born, self-existent, independent of anything (on the website Your Yoga you can expand this concept more widely from the section “From the depths of centuries”, otherwise - Christ or an analogy with Brahma).
6. Epinoia- this is the first emanation of the Absolute - the feminine principle of all that exists (the original Yin).
7. Pronoia- the original Light, the fundamental principle. This is primary masculine beginning(original Yang).
8. Barbelo- among the Gnostics, namely the Nicolaitans and Barborians, one of their main female eons, the mother of all living things, dwells with the Father of the universe and with Christ, who came from himself, in the eighth heaven.
9. Metropator- God the Father or unity (mother and father).