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94-635: Other members The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing , more commonly known as the Shakers , are a millenarian restorationist Christian sect founded c.  1747 in England and then organized in the United States in the 1780s. They were initially known as "Shaking Quakers " because of their ecstatic behavior during worship services. Espousing egalitarian ideals,

188-489: A deep sleep to fall upon Adam and forms a woman ( Genesis 2:21–22 ), and Adam awakes and greets her as his helpmate. Genesis 3 , the account of the Fall: A serpent persuades the woman to disobey God's command and eat of the tree of knowledge, which gives wisdom. Woman convinces Adam to do likewise, whereupon they become conscious of their nakedness, cover themselves, and hide from the sight of God. God questions Adam, who blames

282-616: A foundling was anonymously left on a Shaker doorstep. They welcomed all, often taking in orphans and the homeless. For children, Shaker life was structured, safe and predictable, with no shortage of adults who cared about their young charges. When Shaker youths, girls and boys, reached the age of 21, they were free to leave or to remain with the Shakers. Unwilling to remain celibate, many chose to leave; today there are thousands of descendants of Shaker-raised seceders. Shaker religion valued women and men equally in religious leadership. The church

376-555: A hard time competing in the industrialized economy that followed the Civil War. With prosperity falling, converts were hard to find. By the early 20th century, the once numerous Shaker communities were failing and closing. By mid-century, new federal laws were passed denying control of adoption to religious groups. Today, in the 21st century, the Shaker community that still exists—The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community—denies that Shakerism

470-693: A larger audience. He is also considered an important prophet of God in Druze faith, being among the seven prophets who appeared in different periods of history. Some Taoists in the Tang dynasty , inspired by Emperor Taizong 's syncretic beliefs and policies encouraging it, viewed the Christian version of Jesus as a redemptive manifestation of " the Way ", and respected his ancestors, including Adam, as well. Some Mongolian Christians and Muslims thought Adam

564-582: A long life. A similar warning can be found in The Zohar . The Sefer Raziel HaMalakh (רזיאל המלאך) ( Raziel the Angel ) is a collection of esoteric writings, probably compiled and edited by the same hand, but originally not the work of one author, which according to tradition was revealed to Adam by the angel Raziel. The book cannot be shown to predate the 13th century, but may in parts date back to Late Antiquity , and like other obscure ancient texts such as

658-626: A mention at the beginning of the Books of Chronicles where, as in Genesis, he heads the list of Israel's ancestors. The majority view among scholars is that the final text of Genesis dates from the Persian period (the 5th century BCE), but the absence of all the other characters and incidents mentioned in chapters 1–11 of Genesis from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority to

752-525: A woman from the dust, as he had created Adam, and named her Lilith ; but the two could not agree, for Adam wanted Lilith to lie under him, and Lilith insisted that Adam should lie under her, and so she fled from him, and Eve was created from Adam's rib. Her story was greatly developed, during the Middle Ages , in the tradition of Aggadic midrashim , the Zohar and Jewish mysticism . Other rabbis explained

846-461: A woman, Eve , as his companion. In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and God condemns Adam to labour on the earth for his food and to return to it on his death. Genesis 4 deals with the birth of Adam's sons, and Genesis 5 lists his descendants from Seth to Noah . In the entire Hebrew Bible, Adam appears only in chapters 1–5 of the Book of Genesis, with the exception of

940-591: A woman, the son of a Jewish carpenter, was the male manifestation of Christ and the first Christian Church ; and that Mother Ann, daughter of an English blacksmith, was the female manifestation of Christ and the second Christian Church (which the Shakers believed themselves to be). She was seen as the Bride made ready for the Bridegroom, and in her, the promises of the Second Coming were fulfilled. Because of

1034-583: Is God's deputy, the initiation of a new cycle of sentient life on earth, or both. Similar to the Biblical account, the Quran has Adam placed in a garden where he sins by taking from the Tree of Immortality , so loses his abode in the garden. When Adam repents from his sin, he is forgiven by God. This is seen as a guidance for human-life, who sin, become aware of their mistake, and repent. In Gnostic belief-systems,

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1128-713: Is Love and that our most solemn duty is to show forth that God who is love in the World. In 1992, Canterbury Shaker Village closed, leaving only Sabbathday Lake open. Eldress Bertha of the Canterbury Village closed their official membership book in 1957, not recognizing the younger people living in other Shaker Communities as members. On January 2, 2017, Sister Frances Carr died aged 89 at the Sabbathday community, leaving only two remaining Shakers: Brother Arnold Hadd, age 58, and Sister June Carpenter, 77. A profile of

1222-629: Is considered the founder of the religion and the first prophet. He heralds manda (knowledge) and the true path of enlightenment. He is viewed as the propagator of kushta or divine truth. According to the Mandaean calendar , 2021–2022 CE in the Gregorian calendar would correspond to the Mandaean year 445391 AA (AA = after the creation of Adam). In the ancient Gnostic text On the Origin of

1316-451: Is incorrect, stating: Millennium is from the Latin mille , "one thousand," and annus , "year"—hence the two n's. Millenarian is from the Latin millenarius , "containing a thousand (of anything)," hence no annus , and only one "n". The application of an apocalyptic timetable to the changing of the world has happened in many cultures and religions, continues to this day, and

1410-850: Is not found in Judaism nor in Islam, and was introduced into Christianity by the Apostle Paul , drawing on currents in Hellenistic Jewish thought which held that Adam's sin had introduced death and sin into the world. Sin, for Paul, was a power to which all humans are subject, but Christ's coming held out the means by which the righteous would be restored to the Paradise from which Adam's sin had banished mankind. He did not conceive of this original sin of Adam as being biologically transmitted or that later generations were to be punished for

1504-443: Is not relegated to the sects of major world religions , both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic. Increasingly in the study of apocalyptic new religious movements , millenarianism is used to refer to a more cataclysmic and destructive arrival of a utopian period as compared to millennialism which is often used to denote a more peaceful arrival and is more closely associated with a one thousand year utopia. Christian millennialism

1598-518: Is part of the broader form of apocalyptic expectation. A core doctrine in some variations of Christian eschatology is the expectation that the Second Coming is very near and that there will be an establishment of a Kingdom of God on Earth. According to an interpretation of biblical prophecies in the Book of Revelation , this Kingdom of God on Earth will last a thousand years (a millennium ) or more. Many if not most millenarian groups claim that

1692-533: The Apocalypse of Moses , which probably originates in first-century CE Jewish literature, the altar of the Temple of Solomon was the centre of the world and the gateway to God's Garden of Eden, and it was here that Adam was both created and buried. In the 17th-century book Kav ha-Yashar , the author warns not to talk negatively about Adam, and writes that those who talk positively about Adam will be blessed with

1786-503: The Aum Shinrikyo terrorist acts). It sometimes includes a belief in supernatural powers or predetermined victory. In some cases, millenarians withdraw from society to await the intervention of God. This is also known as world-rejection . Millenarian ideologies or religious sects sometimes appear in oppressed peoples , with examples such as the 19th-century Ghost Dance movement among Native Americans , early Mormons , and

1880-649: The Bahir and Sefer Yetzirah , it has been extant in a number of versions. Zunz ("G. V." 2d ed., p. 176) distinguishes three main parts: (1) the Book Ha-Malbush; (2) the Great Raziel; (3) the Book of Secrets, or the Book of Noah. These three parts are still distinguishable—2b–7a, 7b–33b, 34a and b. After these follow two shorter parts entitled "Creation" and "Shi'ur Ḳomah", and after 41a come formulas for amulets and incantations. The idea of original sin

1974-468: The Book of Jubilees , tells how Adam had a daughter, Awân, born after Cain and Abel, and another daughter, Azura , born after Seth, and they had nine other sons; Cain married Awân and Seth married Azûrâ, thus accounting for their descendants. The Life of Adam and Eve and its Greek version the Apocalypse of Moses recount how Adam repented his sin in exile and was rewarded by being transported to

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2068-657: The Cane Ridge, Kentucky revival of 1801–1803, which was an outgrowth of the Logan County, Kentucky, Revival of 1800 . From 1805 to 1807, they founded Shaker societies at Union Village, Ohio ; South Union, Logan County, Kentucky ; and Pleasant Hill, Kentucky (in Mercer County, Kentucky ). In 1806, a Shaker village, named Watervliet , after the New York town that was the site of the first Shaker settlement,

2162-519: The Garden of Eden by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . This action introduced death and sin into the world. This sinful nature infected all his descendants, and led humanity to be expelled from the Garden. Only through the crucifixion of Jesus , humanity can be redeemed. In Islam, Adam is considered Khalifa (خليفة) (successor) on earth. This is understood to mean either that he

2256-578: The Islamic creation myth , he was the first prophet of Islam and the first Muslim . The Qur'an states that all the prophets preached the same faith of submission to God . When God informed the angels that he would create a vicegerent ( Arabic : خليفة , romanized :  khalifa , lit.   'caliph') on Earth, the angels enquired, asking, "will You place therein that which will spread corruption and bloodshed?" God responded, "I know what you know not" ( Qur'an 2:30 ), and commanded

2350-467: The adoptionist view of Christ only becoming divine during his baptism and the dualist idea that God was to be expressed in male and female genders, Shakers are sometimes viewed as being nontrinitarian . However, modern-day Shakers profess the divinity of Christ and claim that Shaker dualism is because "God has no sex in our human understanding of the term; yet being pure spirit He may best be thought of by man with his limited power of comprehension as having

2444-571: The new Jerusalem descended from above, these are even now at the door. And when Christ appears again, and the true church rises in full and transcendent glory, then all anti-Christian denominations—the priests, the Church, the pope—will be swept away. Other meetings were then held in Manchester , Meretown (also spelled Mayortown), Chester and other places near Manchester. As their numbers grew, members began to be persecuted, mobbed, and stoned; Lee

2538-471: The talmudic hypothesis that Adam instituted the custom of fasting before the winter solstice and rejoicing afterwards – an observance that devolved into Saturnalia and the Calends . Adam withdrew from Eve for 130 years after their expulsion from Eden, and in this time both he and Eve had sex with demons, until at length they reunited and Eve gave birth to Seth. A 2nd-century BCE Jewish religious work ,

2632-524: The "second coming" of Christ, traveled throughout the eastern states, preaching her gospel views. After Ann Lee and James Whittaker died, Joseph Meacham (1742–1796) became the leader of the Shakers in 1787, establishing its New Lebanon headquarters . He had been a New Light Baptist minister in Enfield, Connecticut , and was reputed to have, second only to Mother Ann, the spiritual gift of revelation. Joseph Meacham brought Lucy Wright (1760–1821) into

2726-644: The 18th century in the northwest of England ; originating out of the Wardley Society . James and Jane Wardley and others broke off from the Quakers in 1747 at a time when the Quakers were weaning themselves away from frenetic spiritual expression. The Wardleys formed the Wardley Society, which was also known as the "Shaking Quakers". Future leader Ann Lee and her parents were early members of

2820-545: The 19th and 20th-century cargo cults among isolated Pacific Islanders . The Catechism [doctrine] of the Catholic Church rejects all forms of millenarianism and its variations: The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of

2914-657: The Christian tradition. Neither term strictly refers to "one thousand" in modern [1963] academic usage. Millennialism often refers to a specific type of Christian millenarianism, and is sometimes referred to as Chiliasm from the New Testament use of the Greek chilia ' thousand ' . The terms millennialism and millenarianism are sometimes used interchangeably, as in The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism . Stephen Jay Gould has argued that this usage

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3008-541: The Imamate, would also hold the position of enunciator and prophet ( Arabic : نبي , romanized :  nabi ). In the Islamic traditions ( ahadith ), Adam is given the name Adam-aI-Safi ( Arabic : آدم ألصافي , lit.   'Adam, The Chosen One') by Allah. The Druze regard Adam as the first spokesman ( natiq ), who helped to transmit the foundational teachings of monotheism ( tawhid ) intended for

3102-434: The Islamic religious tradition. He writes that Adam was the first enunciator of divine revelation ( Arabic : ناطق , romanized :  nāṭiq , lit.   'orator') and Seth was his legatee ( Arabic : وصي , romanized :  wasī , lit.   'inheritor, guardian'). He argues that the descendants of Seth are Aimmah , culminating in the seventh Imam, Nuh/Noah who, in addition to holding

3196-481: The Ministry to serve with him and together they developed the Shaker form of communal living ( religious communism ). By 1793 property had been made a "consecrated whole" in each Shaker community. Shakers developed written covenants in the 1790s. Those who signed the covenant had to confess their sins, consecrate their property and their labor to the society, and live as celibates. If they were married before joining

3290-534: The Ministry. The Shaker Ministry continued to build the society after Lucy Wright died in 1821: Subsequent members of the Shaker Ministry included: Shaker theology is based on the idea of the dualism of God as male and female: "So God created him; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). This passage was interpreted as showing the dual nature of the Creator. Shakers believed that Jesus, born of

3384-704: The New Lebanon, New York, Church Family of Shakers, preserved a great deal of information on the era of manifestations, which Shakers referred to as Mother Ann's Work, in his Domestic Journal, his diary, Sketches of Visions, and his history, A Concise View of the Church of God. In addition, Shakers preserved thousands of spirit communications still extant in collections now held by the Berkshire Athenaeum , Fruitlands Museums Library, Hamilton College Library, Hancock Shaker Village , Library of Congress , New York Public Library , New York State Library ,

3478-545: The Shaker Library at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village , Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon , Western Reserve Historical Society , Williams College Archives, Winterthur Museum Library, and other repositories. As pacifists, the Shakers did not believe that it was acceptable to kill or harm others, even in time of war. During the American Civil War , both Union and Confederate soldiers found their way to

3572-540: The Shaker communities. Shakers tended to sympathize with the Union but they did feed and care for both Union and Confederate soldiers. President Lincoln exempted Shaker males from military service, and they became some of the first conscientious objectors in American history. The end of the Civil War brought large changes to the Shaker communities. One of the most important changes was the postwar economy. The Shakers had

3666-469: The Shaker community as members left or died with few converts to the faith to replace them. By 1920, there were only 12 Shaker communities remaining in the United States. As of 2019, there is only one active Shaker village: Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village , in Maine . Consequently, many of the other Shaker settlements are now museums . The Shakers were one of a few religious groups which were formed during

3760-570: The Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, published in The New York Times in September 2024, described Brother Arnold, aged 67 and Sister June, aged 86, preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Ann Lee's arrival in New York. Brother Arnold said: “We’ve survived 250 years. We are looking forward as much as our ancestors did to the next — whatever that involves. All we have to do is be ready.” The Shakers at Sabbathday Lake "stressed

3854-578: The Shakers in America was represented in a vision: "I saw a large tree, every leaf of which shone with such brightness as made it appear like a burning torch, representing the Church of Christ, which will yet be established in this land." Unable to swear an Oath of Allegiance, as it was against their faith, the members were imprisoned for about six months. Since they were only imprisoned because of their faith, this raised sympathy of citizens and thus helped to spread their religious beliefs. Mother Ann, revealed as

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3948-707: The Shakers practice a celibate and communal utopian lifestyle, pacifism , uniform charismatic worship , and their model of equality of the sexes , which they institutionalized in their society in the 1780s. They are also known for their simple living , architecture , technological innovation, music, and furniture . Women took on spiritual leadership roles alongside men, including founding leaders such as Jane Wardley , Ann Lee , and Lucy Wright . The Shakers emigrated from England and settled in Revolutionary colonial America , with an initial settlement at Watervliet, New York (present-day Colonie ), in 1774. During

4042-400: The World , Adam originally appears as a primordial being born from light poured out by the aeon known as forethought. Accordingly, his primordial form is called Adam of Light. But when he desired to reach the eighth heaven , he was unable to because of the corruption mixed with his light. Thus he creates his own realm, containing six universes and their worlds which are seven times better than

4136-455: The angels to prostrate to Adam. Adam and Eve both ate from the Tree of Immortality ( Arabic : شَجَرَةُ الْخُلْد , romanized :  šajara al-ḫuld ) despite Allah's warnings against it, and both shared guilt equally, for Eve neither tempted Adam or ate before him; nor is Eve to blame for the pain of childbirth, for God never punishes one person for the sins of another. The Shia school of Islam does not even consider that their action

4230-466: The attributes of both maleness and femaleness". The Trinity is not viewed as being false. Instead, Shakers argue that the Trinity has been misinterpreted for being completely masculine. Ann Lee's embodiment of Christ thus completed the Trinity by fulfilling the female aspect of God. Adam's sin was understood to be sex, which was considered to be an act of impurity. Therefore, marriage was abolished within

4324-467: The autonomy of each local community" and therefore do accept new converts to Shakerism into their community. This Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community receives around two enquiries every week. Four Shakers led the society from 1772 until 1821. After 1821, there was no one single leader, but rather a small nucleus of Ministry elders and eldresses with authority over all the Shaker villages, each with their own teams of elders and eldresses who were subordinate to

4418-436: The birth of their first sons (except Adam himself, for whom his age at the birth of Seth, his third son, is given) and their ages at death (Adam lives 930 years, up to the 56th year of Lamech, father of Noah ). The chapter notes that Adam had other sons and daughters after Seth, but does not name them. Louis Ginzberg retells a midrash that God himself took dust from all four corners of the earth, and with each color (red for

4512-482: The blood, black for the bowels, white for the bones and veins, and green for the pale skin), created Adam. The soul of Adam is the image of God , and as God fills the world, so the soul fills the human body: "as God sees all things, and is seen by none, so the soul sees, but cannot be seen; as God guides the world, so the soul guides the body; as God in His holiness is pure, so is the soul; and as God dwells in secret, so doth

4606-429: The bodily creation of Adam is viewed in a negative light. Due to the underlying demonization of matter, Gnostic cosmologies depict the body as a form of prison of Adam's soul. This soul would have been transferred by Sophia (wisdom) onto the creator (Demiurge) of the material world , who in turn is tricked into blowing the soul into a body. In Genesis , the name "Adam" is given to the first human. Beyond its use as

4700-624: The body of the Believers in the Second Appearance, which was patterned after the Kingdom of God, in which there would be no marriage or giving in marriage. The four highest Shaker virtues were virgin purity, communalism , confession of sin – without which one could not become a Believer – and separation from the world. Ann Lee's doctrine was simple: confession of sins was the door to the spiritual regeneration, and absolute celibacy

4794-618: The centre of the world and the gateway to the Garden of Eden. The early Christian community adapted this to their own legend of Golgotha , replacing the altar with the place of Jesus's crucifixion. According to this Christian legend, current in the time of Origen (early 3rd century CE), the holy blood of Christ trickled down and restored to life the father of the human race, who then led the saints who appeared to many in Jerusalem on that day as described in Scripture. In Mandaeism , Adam

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4888-420: The conclusion that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in the 3rd century BCE. The Bible uses the word אָדָם ‎ ( 'adam ) in all of its senses: collectively ("mankind", Genesis 1:27 ), individually (a "man", Genesis 2:7 ), gender nonspecific ("man and woman", Genesis 5:1–2 ), and male ( Genesis 2:23–24 ). In Genesis 1:27 "adam" is used in the collective sense, and

4982-454: The context of sex is absent; the gender distinction of "adam" is then reiterated in Genesis 5:1–2 by defining "male and female". A recurring literary motif is the bond between Adam and the earth ( adamah ): God creates Adam by molding him out of clay in the final stages of the creation narrative . After the loss of innocence, God curses Adam and the earth as punishment for his disobedience. Adam and humanity are cursed to die and return to

5076-467: The continuation of church leadership when there was a shortage of men. In their labor, Shakers followed traditional gender work-related roles. Their homes were segregated by sex, as were women and men's work areas. Women worked indoors spinning, weaving, cooking, sewing, cleaning, washing, and making or packaging goods for sale. In good weather, groups of Shaker women were outdoors, gardening and gathering wild herbs for sale or home consumption. Men worked in

5170-437: The current society and its rulers are corrupt, unjust, or otherwise wrong, and that they will soon be destroyed by a powerful force. The harmful nature of the status quo is considered intractable without the anticipated dramatic change. Henri Desroche observed that millenarian movements often envisioned three periods in which change might occur. First, the elect members of the movement will be increasingly oppressed, leading to

5264-526: The death oracle given to Adam in Genesis 3:19 forms a link between man's creation from "dust" ( Genesis 2:7 ) to the "return" of his beginnings. Genesis 4 deals with the birth of Adam's sons Cain and Abel and the story of the first murder, followed by the birth of a third son, Seth. Genesis 5 , the Book of the Generations of Adam, lists the descendants of Adam from Seth to Noah with their ages at

5358-401: The deeds of a remote ancestor. It was Augustine who took this step, locating sin itself in male semen: when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit they were ashamed and covered their genitals, identifying the place from which the first sin was passed on to all succeeding generations. Only Jesus Christ, who was not conceived by human semen, was free of the stain passed down from Adam. (Augustine's idea

5452-484: The devout and dedicated. In most millenarian scenarios, the disaster or battle to come will be followed by a new, purified world in which the believers will be rewarded. While many millenarian groups are pacifistic , millenarian beliefs have been claimed as causes for people to ignore conventional rules of behaviour, which can result in violence directed inwards (such as the Jonestown mass murder) or outwards (such as

5546-560: The earth (or ground) from which he was formed. This "earthly" aspect is a component of Adam's identity, and Adam's curse of estrangement from the earth seems to describe humankind's divided nature of being earthly yet separated from nature. Genesis 1 tells of God's creation of the world and its creatures, with humankind as the last of his creatures: "Male and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam ..." ( Genesis 5:2 ). God blesses mankind, commands them to " be fruitful and multiply ", and gives them "dominion over

5640-518: The ecstatic nature of their worship services. They believed in the renunciation of sinful acts and that the end of the world was near. Meetings were first held in Bolton, England , where the articulate preacher, Jane Wardley, urged her followers to: Repent. For the kingdom of God is at hand. The new heaven and new earth prophesied of old is about to come. The marriage of the Lamb, the first resurrection,

5734-832: The faith. On April 12, of 1805 Benjamin Youngs, and two companions, held the first ceremony west of the Allegheny Mountains. It was held at the cabin of James Beedle , East of Lebanon, Ohio. In 2019, the cabin was relocated, by the Warren County Historical Society, to its current site next to Harmon Museum in Lebanon, Ohio. Mother Lucy Wright introduced new hymns and dances to make sermons more lively. She also helped write Benjamin S. Youngs' book The Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing (1808). Shaker missionaries entered Kentucky and Ohio after

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5828-483: The fall of Adam and Eve and its relationship to sexual intercourse . A powerful preacher, she called her followers to confess their sins, give up all their worldly goods, and take up the cross of celibacy and forsake marriage, as part of the renunciation of all "lustful gratifications". She said: I saw in vision the Lord Jesus in his kingdom and glory. He revealed to me the depth of man's loss, what it was, and

5922-573: The fields doing farm work and in their shops at crafts and trades. Shakers worshipped in meetinghouses painted white and unadorned; pulpits and decorations were eschewed as worldly things. In meeting, they marched, sang, danced, and sometimes turned, twitched, jerked, or shouted. The earliest Shaker worship services were unstructured, loud, chaotic and emotional. However, Shakers later developed precisely choreographed dances and orderly marches accompanied by symbolic gestures. Many outsiders disapproved of or mocked Shakers' mode of worship without understanding

6016-443: The fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" ( Genesis 1.26–27 ). In Genesis 2 , God forms "Adam", this time meaning a single male human, out of "the dust of the ground" and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" ( Genesis 2:7 ). God then places this first man in the Garden of Eden , telling him that "Of every tree of

6110-430: The garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil , thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" ( Genesis 2:16–17 ). God notes that "It is not good that the man should be alone" ( Genesis 2:18 ) and brings the animals to Adam, who gives them their names, but among all the animals there was not found a companion for him ( Genesis 2:20 ). God causes

6204-400: The heavenly paradise, foreshadowing the destiny of all the righteous at the end of time. The Archangel Michael attended Adam's death, together with Eve and his son Seth, still living at that time, and he was buried together with his murdered son Abel. Because they repented, God gave Adam and Eve garments of light, and similar garments will clothe the Messiah when he comes. According to

6298-430: The heavens of Chaos . All these realms exist within the region between the eighth heaven and the Chaos beneath it. But when the archons saw him, they realize the chief creator of the material world ( Yaldabaoth ) had lied to them by claiming he was the only god. However, they decide to create a physical version of Adam in the image of the spiritual Adam. But Sophia later sends her daughter Zoe (the spiritual Eve) to give

6392-408: The interplay between the individual "Adam" and the collective "humankind" is a main literary component to the events that occur in the Garden of Eden , the ambiguous meanings embedded throughout the moral, sexual, and spiritual terms of the narrative reflecting the complexity of the human condition. Genesis 2:7 is the first verse where "Adam" takes on the sense of an individual man (the first man), and

6486-418: The kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the 'intrinsically perverse' political form of a secular messianism. Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God , and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism , Christianity , Gnosticism and Islam ). According to Christianity, Adam sinned in

6580-407: The mid-19th century, an Era of Manifestations resulted in a period of dances, gift drawings, and gift songs inspired by spiritual revelations. At its peak in the mid-19th century, there were 2,000–4,000 Shaker believers living in 18 major communities and numerous smaller, often short-lived communities. External and internal societal changes in the mid- and late-19th century resulted in the thinning of

6674-430: The name of the first man, the Hebrew word adam is also used in the Bible as a pronoun , individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as "mankind". Genesis 1 tells of God's creation of the world and its creatures, including the Hebrew word adam , meaning humankind. In Genesis 2 God forms "Adam", this time meaning a single male human, out of "the dust of the ground", places him in the Garden of Eden , and forms

6768-531: The physical Adam life before leaving the physical Eve with Adam and entering the Tree of Knowledge . However, according to the Hypostasis of the Archons , a spirit descends on the physical Adam and gives him a living soul. In Islam, Allah created Adam ( Arabic : آدم ) from a handful of earth taken from the entire world, which explains why the peoples of the world are of different skin colors. According to

6862-563: The same canonical book, like the Genesis flood narrative , are also understood as having been influenced by older literature, with parallels in the older Epic of Gilgamesh . In biology, the most recent common ancestors of humans, when traced back using the Y-chromosome for the male lineage and mitochondrial DNA for the female lineage, are commonly called the Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve respectively as

6956-426: The same verse as meaning that Adam was created with two faces, male and female, or as a single hermaphrodite being, male and female joined back to back, but God saw that this made walking and conversing difficult, and so split them apart. The serpent approached Eve rather than Adam because Adam had heard the word of God with his own ears, whereas Eve had only his report; Eve tasted the fruit and knew at once that she

7050-407: The second period in which the movement resists the oppression. The third period brings about a new utopian age, liberating the members of the movement. In the modern world, economic rules, perceived immorality or vast conspiracies are seen as generating oppression . Only dramatic events are seen as able to change the world and the change is anticipated to be brought about, or survived, by a group of

7144-559: The sect. This group of "charismatic" Christians became the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (USBCSA). Their beliefs were based upon spiritualism and included the notion that they received messages from the Holy Spirit which were expressed during religious revivals. They also experienced what they interpreted as messages from God during silent meditations and became known as "Shaking Quakers" because of

7238-1417: The society, their marriages ended when they joined. A few less-committed Believers lived in "noncommunal orders" as Shaker sympathizers who preferred to remain with their families. The Shakers never forbade marriage for such individuals, but considered it less perfect than the celibate state. In the 5 years between 1787 and 1792, the Shakers gathered into eight more communities in addition to the Watervliet and New Lebanon villages: Hancock , Harvard , Shirley , and Tyringham Shaker Villages in Massachusetts; Enfield Shaker Village in Connecticut; Canterbury and Enfield in New Hampshire; and Sabbathday Lake and Alfred Shaker Village in Maine. After Joseph Meacham died, Lucy Wright continued Ann Lee's missionary tradition. Shaker missionaries proselytized at revivals , not only in New England and New York but also farther west. Missionaries such as Issachar Bates and Benjamin Seth Youngs (older brother of Isaac Newton Youngs ) gathered hundreds of proselytes into

7332-416: The soul." According to Jewish literature, Adam possessed a body of light, identical to the light created by God on the first day, and the original glory of Adam can be regained through mystical contemplation of God. The rabbis, puzzled by fact that Genesis 1 states that God created man and woman together while Genesis 2 describes them being created separately, told that when God created Adam he also created

7426-542: The symbolism of their movements or the content of their songs. Millenarianism These movements believe in radical changes to society after a major cataclysm or transformative event. Millenarianist movements can be secular (not espousing a particular religion) or religious in nature, and are therefore not necessarily linked to millennialist movements in Christianity . Both millennialism and millenarianism refer to "one thousand". They both derive from

7520-955: The way of redemption therefrom. Then I was able to bear an open testimony against the sin that is the root of all evil; and I felt the power of God flow into my soul like a fountain of living water. From that day I have been able to take up a full cross against all the doleful works of the flesh. Having supposedly received a revelation, on May 19, 1774, Ann Lee and eight of her followers sailed from Liverpool for colonial America. Ann and her husband Abraham Stanley, brother William Lee, niece Nancy Lee, James Whittaker , father and son John Hocknell and Richard Hocknell, James Shephard, and Mary Partington traveled to colonial America and landed in New York City . Abraham Stanley abandoned Ann Lee shortly thereafter and remarried. The remaining Shakers settled in Watervliet, New York , in 1776. Mother Ann's hope for

7614-411: The woman. God passes judgment, first upon the serpent, condemned to go on his belly, then the woman, condemned to pain in childbirth and subordination to her husband, and finally Adam, who is condemned to labour on the earth for his food and to return to it on his death. God then expels the man and woman from the garden, lest they eat of the Tree of Life and become immortal. The chiastic structure of

7708-560: The world and developed the ability to receive revelation, God sent Adam to each and every branch of civilization. This opinion has also been alluded to and accepted by Islamic scholars of different sects. According to a revelation received by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad , the founder of the community, the Adam mentioned in the Qur'an was born 4,598 years before Muhammad. The Muslim thinker Nasir Khusraw offers another interpretation of Adam's significance to

7802-411: Was a failed utopian experiment. Their message, surviving over two centuries in the United States, reads in part as follows: Shakerism is not, as many would claim, an anachronism; nor can it be dismissed as the final sad flowering of 19th century liberal utopian fervor. Shakerism has a message for this present age–a message as valid today as when it was first expressed. It teaches above all else that God

7896-469: Was a sin, for obedience and disobedience are possible only on Earth, and not in heaven where the paradise is located. According to Qisas al-Anbiya , Adam fell on Adam's Peak located in central Sri Lanka , the tallest mountain in the world and so the closest to Heaven, and from there God sent him to Mecca , where he repented and was forgiven. At Mecca he built the first Sanctuary (the Kaabah – which

7990-529: Was at its height between 1820 and 1860. It was at this time that the sect had the most members, and the period was considered its "golden age". It had expanded from New England to the Midwestern states of Indiana and Ohio and Southern state of Kentucky . It was during this period that it became known for its furniture design and craftsmanship. In the late 1830s a spiritual revivalism, the Era of Manifestations

8084-479: Was based on the ancient world's ideas on biology, according to which male sperm contained the entire unborn baby, the mother's womb being no more than a nurturing chamber in which it grew.) As mentioned above , the Apocalypse of Moses , a Jewish writing containing material probably originating from the first century CE, places both Adam's place of creation and his burial at the altar of the Temple of Solomon, seen as

8178-427: Was born. It was also known as the "period of Mother's work", for the spiritual revelations that were passed from the late Mother Ann Lee . The expression of "spirit gifts" or messages were realized in "gift drawings" made by Hannah Cohoon , Polly Reed, Polly Collins , and other Shaker sisters. A number of those drawings remain as important artifacts of Shaker folk art. Isaac N. Youngs , the scribe and historian for

8272-499: Was doomed to death, and said to herself that it was better she trick Adam into eating so that he too would die, and not take another woman in her place. Adam ate the fruit unaware of what he was doing, and was filled with grief. When Adam blamed Eve after eating the forbidden fruit, God rebuked him that Adam as a man should not have obeyed his wife, for he is the head, not her. An Aggadic legend found in tractate Avodah Zarah 8a has observations regarding Roman midwinter holidays, and

8366-713: Was established in what is today Kettering, Ohio , surviving until 1900 when its remaining adherents joined the Union Village Shaker settlement . In 1824, the Whitewater Shaker Settlement was established in southwestern Ohio . The westernmost Shaker community was located at West Union (called Busro because it was on Busseron Creek) on the Wabash River a few miles north of Vincennes in Knox County, Indiana . The Shaker movement

8460-467: Was hierarchical, and at each level women and men shared authority. This was reflective of the Shaker belief that God was both female and male. They believed men and women were equal in the sight of God, and should be treated equally on earth, too. Thus two Elders and two Eldresses formed the Ministry at the top of the administrative structure. Two lower-ranking Elders and two Eldresses led each family, women overseeing women and men overseeing men. This allowed

8554-500: Was imprisoned in Manchester. The members looked to women for leadership, believing that the second coming of Christ would be through a woman. In 1770, Ann Lee was revealed in "manifestation of Divine light" to be the second coming of Christ and was called Mother Ann. Ann Lee joined the Shakers by 1758, then became the leader of the small community. "Mother Ann", as her followers later called her, claimed numerous revelations regarding

8648-529: Was later rebuilt by Ibrahim ) and was taught the ritual of the Hajj, and wove the first cloak for himself and the first veil and shift for Eve, and after this returned to India where he died at the age of 930, having seen the sons of the sons of his children, 1400 in all. According to the Ahmadiyya sect, Adam was not the first human being on earth, but when the human race came into existence, and spread all over

8742-443: Was the rule of life. Shakers were so chaste that men and women could not shake hands or pass one another on the stairs. Enshrined in Shaker doctrine is a belief in racial equality and gender equality. Shakers were celibate; procreation was forbidden after they joined the society (except for women who were already pregnant at admission). Children were added to their communities through indenture, adoption, or conversion. Occasionally

8836-466: Was the same person as Gautama Buddha . While a traditional view was that the Book of Genesis was authored by Moses and has been considered historical and metaphorical, modern scholars consider the Genesis creation narrative as one of various ancient origin myths . Analysis like the documentary hypothesis also suggests that the text is a result of the compilation of multiple previous traditions, explaining apparent contradictions. Other stories of

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