Book V - Snyder Bible

104
frighten us. Yet, at all events, disclose to us the meaning of this
saying, how from Torah you have learned of an Elohim whom
Torah itself does not know, and of whom He who gave Torah
shall give over, that I may learn from you how you have
learned from Torah what neither Torah nor the Yahweh of
rtained
in a manner of which no account can be given, that
there is one Yahweh, who is better than all, from whom all
that is took its beginning; whence also of necessity, all things
that are after him are subject to him, as the chief and most excellent
of all. When, therefore, I had ascertained that the Yahweh
who created the world, according to what Torah teaches,
is in many respects weak, whereas weakness is utterly incompatible
with a perfect Elohim, and I saw that he is not perfect, I
necessarily concluded that there is another Elohim who is perfect.
For this Elohim, as I have said, according to what the
writing of Torah teaches, is shown to be weak in many things.
In the first place, because the man whom he formed was not
able to remain such as be had intended him to be; and because
he cannot be good who gave Torah to the first man, that he
should eat of all the trees of paradise, but that he should not
touch the tree of knowledge; and if he should eat of it, he
should die. For why should he forbid him to eat, and to know
what is good and what evil, that, knowing, he might shun the
evil and choose the good? But this he did not permit; and because
he did eat in violation of the commandment, and discovered
what is good, and learned for the sake of honor to cover
his nakedness (for he perceived it to be unseemly to stand
naked before his Creator), he condemns to death him who had
learned to do honor to Elohim, and curses the serpent who
had shown him these things. But truly, if man was to be injured
by this means, why did he place the cause of injury in