Knowledgeable Bible Quotes

The need for intimacy with the Creator never left us; it was embedded in our very nature.

Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge the more grief.

A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

A God-given longing must have a God-given fulfillment

We may with confidence approach the throne. We may walk in the garden with Him once again.

Anything less than true companionship with God leaves us feeling on the fringes, close but not close enough.

Be willing to be a place where God can let His dreams for you grow.

When we are more aware of our sin than of the blood of Jesus Christ which removes our sin, relationship will remain superficial.

It was for the purpose of restoring intimate fellowship with mankind that Jesus came.

The Lord delights in you, He is blessed by you, and when you feel the joy of His presence, you are tasting a bit of the joy He has in you.

Being able to hear the voice of my Lord fosters trust that gives me the power to stand toe-to-toe against any opponent and speak God’s truth into reality, calling His Kingdom to come into my situation.

What is waiting for us if we would simply let go of the seemingly safe ledge to which we are and dive into all God is and all He has for us?

I feel his love most strongly when I am confident in his love.

Since the moment of the Fall, God has never stopped searching us out.

We all want reassurance that the love we crave is a love we can find, or that will find us.

When I hear that still, small Voice wooing me and asking me to drop everything and spend time with Him, I need to be willing to yield.

Being a hearer and a doer of the written Word (James 1:22) makes us able to handle more of the spoken word of God.

I wish I could say this journey is an easy one. It’s not. As easy as it is to fall in love, it takes effort to make a relationship grow, to continue making the effort to connect, to speak and to listen.

My deepest desire is to be so intimately acquainted with Him that when we finally meet one another face to face, He and I will not be strangers, no not us!

There is no greater power than the one others do not believe you possess.

Lady Wisdom will be your close friend; and Brother Knowledge will be your pleasant companion.

Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza’s? Was his brain equal to Kepler’s or Newton’s? Was he grander in death – a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race?

Jesus is telling us that redemption is more than having our sins forgiven; it is an intimate relationship He came to restore between us and God. If we are going to live out the first and greatest commandment of loving God completely (Matt. 22:36-37), this is the type of experiential intimacy which ought to be the objective of our lives.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.

Poor are those who have eyes but cannot see... ☥

Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

Judaea was not a forgotten backwater in the Roman world. Jews represented about ten percent of the population of the western empire and about twenty percent of the population of the eastern empire. By comparison, Jews represent only about two per cent of the population of the United States today. Never, since the fall of Judah to Babylon in the sixth century BC until the twentieth century had Jews comprised so large a part of any body politic.

Light and Darkness. One cannot exist without the other. There is no true Master, without the power of balance. ☥

The Bible does tell us who we are and what we should do, but it does so through the lens of who God is. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self always go hand in hand.

Before you pray these prayers, you must first be in right standing with Jesus Christ. In other words, you must truly be a born-again believer, sanctified and washed in the blood of Jesus Christ.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.

This is God's beauty! The Elegant nature of Esther, The Meek nature of Moses, The Pius nature of Paul, The Passionate nature of Peter, The Just nature of Jesus and then The wise nature of you!

One of the main reasons Jesus wanted Mari [Mary Magdalene] to start her own following of female disciples was because in those times, Jewish women had no probative value in society and were therefore not even given a basic education. Their intellect was considered decidedly inferior to men's and apart from this, women's far superior intuition was interpreted as a characteristic that associated them to the devil since the men could not quite understand this inner knowledge or find a plausible explanation for it...

The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions. Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known. The great gods, or the one almighty God, or the wise people of the past possessed all-encompassing wisdom, which they revealed to us in scriptures and oral traditions. Ordinary mortals gained knowledge by delving into these ancient texts and traditions and understanding them properly. It was inconceivable that the Bible, the Qur’an or the Vedas were missing out on a crucial secret of the universe – a secret that might yet be discovered by flesh-and-blood creatures.

Once Pastor Keith hit a crescendo, Sister Gertrude would rise and jump, scream, kick, dance, and pass the hell out. Obviously, she required physical restraints to minimize damage to other parishioners and a cleanup crew for the broken pews, discarded clothing,mangled jewelry, and loose items strewn about. Yes, it took an army of ushers to physically restrain her. She was twice as big as a man. No one smaller than Shaquille O’Neal could take her down. Well, I became her parasite and First Responder. Whenever I saw aglare in her eyes, twitch in her neck, or frown on her face, I knew to move into position. But for me, getting injured was a badge of honor. I just had to be a part of her fiascos. Yet, on one Easter Sunday, I got more than I bargained for. When our youth choir created a stir, Sister Gertrude went haywire. First, she reverse dunked her grandbaby into my breadbasket. Once again, she knew I would be there for the airborne toddler. Second, a whole orchard of mixed fruits flew over my head. Third, a scarf, blouse, wig, and shoe were diverted my way. Finally, a bevy of oversized Ushers and Deacons twisted, pulled, and sacrificed themselves before Sister Gertrude went lax. It was the most outrageous display Zion Gate Union had ever seen. Mind you, she was never a disappointment for a would-be reverend like me.

To face a real daemon, you must first look inwards and conquer your own darkness. ☥

The same Bible verse may say something entirely different to you from what it does to me, based on our individual contexts. In other words, scripture is not monolithic. When we approach it prayerfully, it is personal.

Many who read their Bibles make the great mistake of confining all their reading to certain portions of the Bible which they enjoy. In this way they get no knowledge of the Bible as a whole. They miss altogether many of the most important phases of Bible truth.

Words are more dangerous than swords and guns. They reach further and hurt deeper.

Life is a chance at Evolution. Overcome yourself and Become. ☥

Humans are naturally scared and confused beings. They not only fear the unknown, as they live fearing themselves... ☥

Predator and prey move in silent gestures, on the seductive dance of death, in the shadows cast by the vultures of the night. ☥

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

The deepest of powers are often the most subtle. Something that most fail to realize... ☥

As we grow in the knowledge of God's holiness, even though we are growing in the practice of holiness, it seems the gap between our knowledge and our practice always gets wider. This is the Holy Spirit's way of drawing us to more and more holiness.

It's a scary thing, a life-changing, paradigm-shifting thing, to honestly ask yourself this question: Am I moving with God to rescue, restore, and redeem humanity? Or am I clinging fast, eyeteeth clenched, to an imperfect world's habits and cultural customs, in full knowledge of injustice or imperfections, living at odds with God's dream for his daughters and sons?

For two centuries, Christians would be a persecuted minority. There was no worldly reward for being Christian. Being a follower of Christ took courage. The twelve apostles, and their first-century co-workers, suffered tribulation and sometimes death as they fulfilled the Great Commission Jesus had given them (Matt 28:19–20). They turned an iron empire upside down and changed our world forever.

The hidden mist of forgotten truth is not for the mundane eye to see... ☥

Did you ever face Death and let it stare back at you right in the Eyes? ☥

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instructions

Yes, we know you are a graduate with PhD. But when was the last time you chase after a book shop to buy and read a book at your own volition to obtain an information for your self-development? Knowledge doesn't chase people; people chase knowledge and information.

The special knowledge you are about to learn will reveal a “letter theory” that was set into motion from the very first verse in your Bible. It is as though the divine author is telling the reader to expect Hebrew letters and numbers to weave messages, in the sub-text, through the rest of the Bible—starting with verse one.

The Qur'an follows on from the two Revelations that preceded it and is not only free from contradictions in its narrations, the sign of the various human manipulations to be found in the Gospels, but provides a quality all of its own for those who examine it objectively and in the light of science i.e. its complete agreement with modern scientific data.

Faith works by the knowledge of the Word.

Sometimes the dim veil between sanity and insanity is perception.

It is safer to face a strong enemy in the field of battle, than to fight a war by the side of a weak friend.

Humans spend more time finding ways to fight and criticize who they consider a threat than actually learning how to overcome that threat.

The night is Ours. Rejoicing in the ethereal realms where We are kings. Blessed souls of forgotten immortality. They fear Us in every grasp.

We live in Secret. We live in Silence. And we live Forever...

Words are sigils that can hide the coded language of your Soul. ☥

In darkness lies a mystery that has the power to shine brighter than true light. ☥

An evolved and balanced Ego can be a valuable tool for the Self. But a blinding one is always among the first footsteps into Oblivion. ☥

He who does not cherish life, does not deserve to be among the living. ☥

The power of faith can be a strong force, but the power of knowing is even stronger. ☥

You may think you're not blind, but can you see in the dark? ☥

Do not judge others, without first judging yourself. There is no strength without knowing thyself. ☥

Beautiful sunrise in the far away mountains, painting the wide horizon with vibrant warm colors, among the chill from the morning breeze. ☥

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. . . . And now abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these is money. I Corinthians xiii (adapted)

We were in darkness when we were outside of the knowledge of Jesus and when we were not followers of Him. Yet now that we have this knowledge of Jesus Christ and this relationship with Him, we have become light and we are to live as light.

I view each world religion, including Judeo-Christianity and Islam, as a complex symbol system, a metaphysical lens through which we can see the vastness and sublimity of the universe. Knowledge of the Bible, one of the West's foundational texts, is a dangerously waning among aspiring young artists and writers. When a society becomes all-consumed in the provincial minutiae of partisan politics, all perspective is lost.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

Jesus’ ministry lasted 1,350 days, spanning five calendar years (AD 29–33), fifty calendar months, and 44.36 months (calculated as being of 30.5 days’ average duration). The gospels have gaps in their narratives in which Jesus disappears from the pages of history. The gaps total 770 days, which is about two years, representing fifty-seven percent of Jesus’ total ministry time. No wonder John wrote “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book” (John 20:30) and “There are many more things that Jesus did. If all of them were written down, I suppose that not even the world itself would have space for the books that would be written” (John 21:25).

As a rule, theologians know nothing of this world, and far less of the next; but they have the power of stating the most absurd propositions with faces solemn as stupidity touched by fear. It is a part of their business to malign and vilify the Voltaires, Humes, Paines, Humboldts, Tyndalls, Haeckels, Darwins, Spencers, and Drapers, and to bow with uncovered heads before the murderers, adulterers, and persecutors of the world. They are, for the most part, engaged in poisoning the minds of the young, prejudicing children against science, teaching the astronomy and geology of the bible, and inducing all to desert the sublime standard of reason.

We must admit that simply knowing the contents of the Bible is not a sure route to spiritual growth. There is an aweful assumption in evangelical churches that if we can just get the Word of God into people's heads, then the Spirit of God will apply it to their hearts. That assumption is aweful, not because the Spirit never does what the assumption supposes, but because it excused pastors and leaders from the responsibility to tangle with people's lives. Many remain safely hidden behind pulpits, hopelessly out of touch with the struggles of their congregations, proclaiming the Scriptures with a pompous accuracy that touches no one. Pulpits should provide bridges, not barriers, to life-changing relationships.

Interpreting the Bible without training is a bit like finding a specific address in a foreign city with neither map nor knowledge of the language. You might stumble upon the right answer, but in the meantime you've put yourself at the mercy of every ignoramus in town, with no way of telling the savant from the fool.

We know that there are many animals on this continent not found in the Old World. These must have been carried from here to the ark, and then brought back afterwards. Were the peccary, armadillo, ant-eater, sloth, agouti, vampire-bat, marmoset, howling and prehensile-tailed monkey, the raccoon and muskrat carried by the angels from America to Asia? How did they get there? Did the polar bear leave his field of ice and journey toward the tropics? How did he know where the ark was? Did the kangaroo swim or jump from Australia to Asia? Did the giraffe, hippopotamus, antelope and orang-outang journey from Africa in search of the ark? Can absurdities go farther than this?

If the people of Europe had known as much of astronomy and geology when the bible was introduced among them, as they do now, there never could have been one believer in the doctrine of inspiration. If the writers of the various parts of the bible had known as much about the sciences as is now known by every intelligent man, the book never could have been written. It was produced by ignorance, and has been believed and defended by its author. It has lost power in the proportion that man has gained knowledge. A few years ago, this book was appealed to in the settlement of all scientific questions; but now, even the clergy confess that in such matters, it has ceased to speak with the voice of authority. For the establishment of facts, the word of man is now considered far better than the word of God. In the world of science, Jehovah was superseded by Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. All that God told Moses, admitting the entire account to be true, is dust and ashes compared to the discoveries of Descartes, Laplace, and Humboldt. In matters of fact, the bible has ceased to be regarded as a standard. Science has succeeded in breaking the chains of theology. A few years ago, Science endeavored to show that it was not inconsistent with the bible. The tables have been turned, and now, Religion is endeavoring to prove that the bible is not inconsistent with Science. The standard has been changed.

what’s wrong with a person wanting to be more intelligent, to acquire knowledge, and understand himself and the world?” “If you’d read your Bible, Charlie, you’d know that it’s not meant for man to know more than was given to him to know by the Lord

The gospel is unintelligible to most people today, especially in the West, because their own particular stories are remote from the story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation that is narrated in the Bible. Our focus is introspective and narrow, confided to our own immediate knowledge, experience, and intuition. Trying desperately to get others, including God, to make us happy, we cannot seem to catch a glimpse of the real story that gives us a meaningful role.

The difference between Marilyn’s and Jayne’s approach to intellectual pursuits is that Marilyn carried big heavy books around and hung out with brainy people to absorb their intellect, while Jayne really had a thirst for knowledge. Jayne was very proud of the fact that if she like something enough she would commit it to memory. At that time, The Satanic Bible was still in monograph form, and Jayne had pored over those pages until she knew most of it by heart...Marilyn gave me a copy of Stendhal’s On Love, and I still have a copy of Walter Benton’s This is My Beloved, which we bought together on Sunset Boulevard. Marilyn turned me on to it—wanted me to read it and write something in it for her. I got as far as writing her name in it, but I ended up with the book. It meant a lot to me during a particularly dark period in my life after I left L.A. Jayne kept insisting I read The Story of O and I, Jan Cremer. She gave me a dog-eared copy of each. It seems a distinctly feminine trait to want to share books with people they care deeply about.

Let it be a settled principle in our minds, in reading the Bible, that Christ is the central sun of the whole book. So long as we keep Him in view, we shall never greatly err in our search for spiritual knowledge. Once losing sight of Christ, we shall find the whole Bible dark and full of difficulty.

Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life." "If God doesn't like the way I live, let him tell me, not you." "Out of convicted rapists, 57 percent admitted to reading pornography; 95 percent admitted to reading the Bible.

We might think that the deeper we dig into our own being, the further we travel from God; that’s one way Christianity has regarded the inner self, as a source of sin and separation from God. Quakers, however—and other holistic mystics through the ages—believe that at the deepest level of our beings lies Kelly’s Last Rock, the preexistent Word of John’s Gospel (John 1:1–5). Mental and emotional commotion obscure this bedrock, but someone practiced in disciplined silence spends more and more time absorbed in this Ground of Our Being.

That big glorious mountain. For one transitory moment, I think I may have actually seen it”. For one flash, the Mommy had seen the mountain without thinking of logging and ski resorts and avalanches, managed wildlife, plate tectonic geology, microclimates, rain shadow, or yin-yang locations. She’d seen the mountain without the framework of language. Without the cage of associations. She’d seen it without looking through the lens of everything she knew was true about mountains. What she’d seen in that flash wasn’t even a “mountain”. It wasn’t a natural resource. It had no name. “That’s the big goal”, she said. “To find a cure for knowledge”. For education. For living in our heads. Ever since the story of Adam and Eve in the bible, humanity had been a little too smart for its own good, the Mommy said. Ever since eating that apple. Her goal was to find, if not a cure, then at least a treatment that would give people back their innocence. “The cerebral cortex, the cerebellum”, she said, “that’s where your problem is”. If she could just get down to using only her brain stem, she’d be cured. This would be somewhere beyond happiness and sadness. You don’t see fish agonized by wild mood swings. Sponges never have a bad day.

The study of Scripture I find to be quite like mastering an instrument. No one is so good that they cannot get any better; no one knows so much that they can know no more. A professional can spot an amateur or a lack of practice or experience a mile away. His technicality, his spiritual ear is razor-sharp. He is familiar with the common mistakes, the counter-arguments; and insofar as this, he can clearly distinguish the difference between honest critics of the Faith and mere fools who criticize that which they know nothing.

I want a better Bible, Adam. I want a Bible in which the Fruit of Knowledge contains the Seeds of Wisdom, and makes life more pleasurable for mankind, not worse. I want a Bible in which Isaac leaps up from the sacrificial stone and chokes the life out of Abraham, to punish him for the abject and bloody sin of Obedience. I want a Bible in which Lazarus is dead and stubborn about it, rather than standing to attention at the beck and call of every passing Messiah.

Bitterness is not your friend. It's easy to become cynical, focusing your energies on them and endlessly wondering why they aren't more evolved and why they are still stuck back there, repeating the same slogans and going through the same motions. If you are filled with pride over how free and intelligent and enlightened you are in comparison to their backward, antiquated ways, your new knowledge has simply made you arrogant. Watch your heart carefully, because if you aren't more compassionate and more kind and more understanding, then you haven't grown at all.

The application of creative intelligence to a problem, the finding of a solution at once dogged, elegant, and wild, this had always seemed to him to be the essential business of human beings—the discovery of sense and causality amid the false leads, the noise, the trackless brambles of life. And yet he had always been haunted—had he not?—by the knowledge that there were men, lunatic cryptographers, mad detectives, who squandered their brilliance and sanity in decoding and interpreting the messages in cloud formations, in the letters of the Bible recombined, in the spots on butterflies’ wings. One might, perhaps, conclude from the existence of such men that meaning dwelled solely in the mind of the analyst. That it was the insoluble problems—the false leads and the cold cases—that reflected the true nature of things. That all the apparent significance and pattern had no more intrinsic sense than the chatter of an African gray parrot. One might so conclude; really, he thought, one might.

I will raise them up a prophet from among thy brethern like unto thee and will put my words in his mouth and shall speak unto them all that I command him.” This is an answer or a prophecy that compares with the prayer of Abraham—that God raised up a messenger from among them and taught him the wisdom and the book, because his people would not have knowledge of the book and were only guessing at its meaning. This book is referring to the Bible—that they were guessing at its meaning. This is true! Thousands of preachers here are preaching the Bible and do not understand the true meaning of it. They only guess at its meaning.

There are thousands, who, like good uncle Fred, are thirsting for the water of life; but the law forbids it, and the churches withhold it. They send the Bible to heathen abroad, and neglect the heathen at home. I am glad that missionaries go out to the dark corners of the earth; but I ask them not to overlook the dark corners at home. Talk to American slaveholders as you talk to savages in Africa. Tell them it was wrong to traffic in men. Tell them it is sinful to sell their own children, and atrocious to violate their own daughters. Tell them that all men are brethren, and that man has no right to shut out the light of knowledge from his brother. Tell them they are answerable to God for sealing up the Fountain of Life from souls that are thirsting for it.

It has always been a mystery to me how Adam, Eve, and the serpent were taught the same language. Where did they get it? We know now, that it requires a great number of years to form a language; that it is of exceedingly slow growth. We also know that by language, man conveys to his fellows the impressions made upon him by what he sees, hears, smells and touches. We know that the language of the savage consists of a few sounds, capable of expressing only a few ideas or states of the mind, such as love, desire, fear, hatred, aversion and contempt. Many centuries are required to produce a language capable of expressing complex ideas. It does not seem to me that ideas can be manufactured by a deity and put in the brain of man. These ideas must be the result of observation and experience.

A man may read the figure on the dial, but he cannot tell how the day goes, unless the sun shines upon the dial: we may read the Bible over, but we can not learn the purpose, till the Spirit of God shines into our hearts. O implore this blessed Spirit! It is God's prerogative-royal to teach: "I am the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit." Is. 48. 17. Ministers may tell us our lesson, God only can teach us; we have lost both our hearing and eye-sight, therefore are very unfit to learn. Ever since Eve listened to the serpent, we have been deaf; and since she looked on the tree of knowledge we have been blind; but when God comes to teach, he removes these impediments.

Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," not the Bible, save as leading to him. And why are we told that these treasures are hid in him who is the Revelation of God? Is it that we should despair of finding them and cease to seek them? Are they not hid in him that they may be revealed to us in due time—that is, when we are in need of them? Is not their hiding in him the mediatorial step towards their unfolding in us? Is he not the Truth?—the Truth to men? Is he not the High Priest of his brethren, to answer all the troubled questionings that arise in their dim humanity? For it is his heart which Contains of good, wise, just, the perfect shape.

There is a book of Revelation in every one’s life, as there is in the Bible. Anne read hers that bitter night, as she kept her agonized vigil through the hours of storm and darkness. She loved Gilbert – had always loved him! She knew that now. She knew that she could no more cast him out of her life without agony than she could have cut off her right hand and cast it from her. And the knowledge had come too late – too late even for the bitter solace of being with him at the last. If she had not been so blind – so foolish – she would have had the right to go to him now. But he would never know that she loved him – he would go away from this life thinking that she did not care. Oh, the black years of emptiness stretching before her! She could not live through them – she could not! She cowered down by her window and wished, for the first time in her gay young life, that she could die, too. If Gilbert went away from her, without one word or sign or message, she could not live. Nothing was of any value without him. She belonged to him and he to her. In her hour of supreme agony she had no doubt of that. He did not love Christine Stuart – never had loved Christine Stuart. Oh, what a fool she had been not to realize what the bond was that had held her to Gilbert – to think that the flattered fancy she had felt for Roy Gardner had been love. And now she must pay for her folly as for a crime.

1. Those who first set themselves to discover nature’s secrets and designs, fearlessly opposing mankind’s early ignorance, deserve our praise;   2. For they began the quest to measure what once was unmeasurable, to discern its laws, and conquer time itself by understanding.   3. New eyes were needed to see what lay hidden in ignorance, new language to express the unknown,   4. New hope that the world would reveal itself to inquiry and investigation.   5. They sought to unfold the world’s primordial sources, asking how nature yields its abundance and fosters it,   6. And where in its course everything goes when it ends, either to change or cease.   7. The first inquirers named nature’s elements atoms, matter, seeds, primal bodies, and understood that they are coeval with the world;   8. They saw that nothing comes from nothing, so that discovering the elements reveals how the things of nature exist and evolve.   9. Fear holds dominion over people when they understand little, and need simple stories and legends to comfort and explain; 10. But legends and the ignorance that give them birth are a house of limitations and darkness. 11. Knowledge is freedom, freedom from ignorance and its offspring fear; knowledge is light and liberation, 12. Knowledge that the world contains itself, and its origins, and the mind of man, 13. From which comes more know­ledge, and hope of knowledge again. 14. Dare to know: that is the motto of enlightenment.  

The essence of this knowledge was the ability to `see all' and to `know all'. Was this not precisely the ability Adam and Eve acquired after eating the forbidden fruit, which grew on the branches of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'? · Finally, just as Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden, so were the four First Men of the Popol Vuh deprived of their ability to `see far'. Thereafter `their eyes were covered and they could only see what was close ...' Both the Popol Vuh and Genesis therefore tell the story of mankind's fall from grace. In both cases, this state of grace was closely associated with knowledge, and the reader is left in no doubt that the knowledge in question was so remarkable that it conferred godlike powers on those who possessed it. The Bible, adopting a dark and muttering tone of voice, calls it `the knowledge of good and evil' and has nothing further to add. The Popol Vuh is much more informative. It tells us that the knowledge of the First Men consisted of the ability to see `things hidden in the distance', that they were astronomers who `examined the four corners, the four points of the arch of the sky', and that they were geographers who succeeded in measuring `the round face of the earth'. 7 Geography is about maps. In Part I we saw evidence suggesting that the cartographers of an as yet unidentified civilization might have mapped the planet with great thoroughness at an early date. Could the Popol Vuh be transmitting some garbled memory of that same civilization when it speaks nostalgically of the First Men and of the miraculous geographical knowledge they possessed? Geography is about maps, and astronomy is about stars. Very often the two disciplines go hand in hand because stars are essential for navigation on long sea-going voyages of discovery (and long sea-going voyages of discovery are essential for the production of accurate maps). Is it accidental that the First Men of the Popol Vuh were remembered not only for studying `the round face of the earth' but for their contemplation of `the arch of heaven'?

The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible--for she often read aloud when her husband was absent--soon awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Having no fear of my kind mistress before my eyes, (she had given me no reason to fear,) I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and without hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters...Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade the continuance of her [reading] instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief.... Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband. The effect of his words, on me, was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences--cold and harsh--sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought. It was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery, against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit: the white man's power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man. "Very well," thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be a slave." I instinctively assented to the proposition; and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. This was just what I needed; and got it at a time, and from a source, whence I least expected it.... Wise as Mr. Auld was, he evidently underrated my comprehension, and had little idea of the use to which I was capable of putting the impressive lesson he was giving to his wife.... That which he most loved I most hated; and the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence.