Editing Wikipedia

Last night I spent over an hour editing a Wikipedia entry.

I have officially acquired the status of a Nerd Extraordinaire.

The hour was not writing the text. The hour was figuring out how to make the footnotes appear properly at the bottom of the page.

I know, I know – Wikipedia is unreliable because just anyone can edit it. Those of us who are true nerds take Wikipedia seriously, though. We go to Wikipedia as our first source of information, but there is no way that we use it as our only source. The footnotes are there in those articles for a reason. Many of them point to sources available online, either in professional journals, scholarly books in the public domain, or news stories. Wikipedia is the place where we index the facts in a relatively organized way and have the sources listed for easy referral. Nerds like me use Wikipedia as our starting point.

Well… here’s the story. I was on the Google Books site, reading Harvard’s copy of The Book of Jasher, which is supposed to be an English translation of an ancient Hebrew text that gives additional facts about the first four books of the European Bible. I say “European” Bible because I’m referring to the editions of authorized text normally used in the Roman Catholic and Protestant religions. No, Virginia, not all Bibles are the same. I like to read these alternate texts because I think the choices at the Council of Nicaea and the resulting book burnings were a bit unconscionable. Call it my civil disobedience. Actually, call it my canonical disobedience. Better yet, call it my ecumenical public service.

So I was reading along in the Book of Jasher, comparing the text to the Book of Genesis in several English translations, and comparing it also with a different version of Genesis in another book I own. Those of you who know me well know that I am somewhat knowledgeable about religious texts. It’s because I read them. When I say I am a student of religion, it’s true. I study.

Well, I hadn’t gotten very far when I got to Enoch. There are a couple of Enochs early in Genesis. One is Cain’s son, and another is a great-great-whatever grandson of the first Enoch, who also claims Seth as his great-great-whatever grandfather, and was the father of Methuselah, that guy who lived for nearly a millennium. As I am sure you are aware, these early Hebrew texts are big on genealogy, so it’s fairly easy to map out the two Enochs and their relationship to one another.

The first Enoch, Cain’s son, got a city named after him.

The Book of Jasher goes into much more detail about the argument between Cain and Abel and why Cain killed his brother. According to Jasher, Cain’s offering wasn’t as good as Abel’s because Cain brought bruised fruit or something to the sacrificial table, whereas Abel, that brown-noser, offered his best lamb. Afterward, Abel got all sanctimonious and stuff, basically thinking his shit didn’t stink and he could get away with anything because God liked his offering best. He started grazing his sheep on Cain’s crops. (Jasher 1:17)

Naturally, Cain told him to bugger off. Instead of leaving his brother in peace to plow and hoe and weed and harvest, Abel got in his face. Cain was already smarting from the religious offering thing, and as many angry siblings might under such circumstances, Cain lost his temper.

“I ought to just kill you for being such a jerk.”

“Oh yeah? God’ll get you if you do. He likes me best!” Abel taunted him.

Well, that flew all over Cain, who happened at that moment to have a rather sharp gardening implement made of iron in his hand. So, without really thinking about it, Cain smote Abel. (Jasher 1:18-25)

Now, something occurred to me as I read this story last night. There’s a lot of smiting in the Bible, but this smiting was the first. Cain smites Abel, and suddenly people are smiting each other all over the place. I guess whenever we get into a fight with our siblings we can now say, “But, Mom, Cain started it!” It may not stop us from having to march to the privet hedge to pick our switches, but as the hot tears stream down our angry cheeks it will feel better to blame someone.

Naturally, God had to punish Cain for smiting his brother in such a permanent fashion. Cain and his wife were banished from the family, essentially, and were told they had to wander forever and never have a home. (The Book of Jasher says nothing about a mark of a beast.) God eventually relents and allows Cain and Mrs. Cain to settle down. They build a city, which they name after the son they had while they were wandering. His name was Enoch. (Jasher 1:30-35)

Meanwhile, Adam and Eve get another son, Seth, since now they are deprived of sons. (Jasher 2:1)

Cain’s son Enoch had a great-great-grandson, Lamech, who married two of Seth’s great-granddaughters, Adah and Zillah. Adah and Lamech were the parents of Noah, the guy who built that really big boat, so a story of Lamech really caught my attention. It isn’t in Genesis. Lamech was an old man when his wife Zillah gave birth to her only son, who was called Tubal Cain. (Jasher 2:17-24)

One day Tubal Cain and his father, Lamech, took a walk. Lamech was old and didn’t see very well, and when they saw something approaching them, Tubal Cain, who was just a little boy, got scared. He told his dad it was a beast about to attack them, so Lamech smote the creature. When the pair of them got close to the smitten creature, they realized it was really great-great-grandfather Cain, the son of Adam. Lamech was pissed off and yanked up Tubal Cain, who had said Cain was a beast. (Jasher 2:26-29)

Now, remember, at this point Cain was a very, very old man – several hundred years old, in fact – and a child, seeing him walking, might not realize that he was a man. He’d have been all bent over and using a cane and stuff, and probably wearing fur, and the poor kid probably just made a mistake. Nevertheless, Lamech was all pissed off because he had killed Cain, and in his anger he smote little Tubal Cain, killing him. (Jasher 2:31)

Needless to say, Lamech’s wives were not pleased. He killed Zillah’s only son as well as his own great-great-grandfather, who happened to be the women’s uncle, and all this smiting was getting out of control. Adah and Zillah, Lamech’s wives, were sisters, remember, so that makes them pretty close. They decided to cut Lamech off. That’s right, their legs were closed and he was not welcome in their tents. He begged a lot, and eventually they let him back in, but they wouldn’t give him any more children. (Jasher 2:32-33)

Now, Adah and Zillah had a brother, Mahlallel. Mahlallel had a son, Jared, whose son was the second Enoch. (Jasher 2:37)

I tell you these stories so you can put into context what I was searching Wikipedia for. There is a lot of smiting and cousins marrying and complicated generations in these books. To keep things straight I was looking at several texts. When I got to the second Enoch, I was so impressed with his feats that I looked him up on Wikipedia.

The second Enoch was so wise that a whole bunch of kings and princes, over a hundred of them, got together and elected him the supreme king of them all. Enoch, being the humble and godly man that he was, accepted the position immediately. He set about ruling everyone with his great wisdom and godliness. in fact, it might be said that Enoch was the first proselyte. According to the Book of Jasher, he was the first person called by an angel to preach and teach the word of God. (Jasher 3:4-12)

Enoch was a contemporary of Lamech, the Cain-smiter. Of course, people lived for hundreds of years in these early Biblical stories, so Lamech and both Enochs were also contemporaries of Adam, who died at the ripe old age of 930 when Lamech was 56. In fact, the second Enoch is the man who, along with Lamech, Methuselah, and a couple of others, buried great-great-great-great-grandfather Adam in the Cave of Kings. Imagine what a beast Adam looked like at 930! (Jasher 3:14)

Now, Enoch was the High King for over 200 years. He’d been on the high throne for 47 years when he felt the need to commune with God more. He really wanted to withdraw from other people completely and become a hermit, but High Kings really have a hard time doing that. They have to hold Court and all. (Jasher 3:17)

Enoch decided that he’d spend three days in his chamber talking with God, then spend one day being High King and tending to the needs of the masses. My guess is that Enoch was getting burned out on the whole High King gig and was looking for something else to do. Well, the three days became six days, and on the seventh he’d come out and do kingly things. Then the six days became a month, and the month became a year, and the people started to revere Enoch with incredible awe. They only saw him one day a year and the rest of the time he was communing with God. The Book of Jasher says, “all the kings, princes, and sons of men sought for him, and desired to see the face of Enoch, and to hear his word; but they could not, as the sons of men were greatly afraid of Enoch, and they feared to approach him on account of the Godlike awe that was seated upon his countenance.” (Jasher 3:18-20)

God noticed that Enoch ruled all the people by this point, and decided that Enoch was such a good king that he could tutor God’s own people. “Behold, an angel of the Lord then called unto Enoch from heaven, and wished to bring him up to heaven to make him reign there over the sons of God, as he had reigned over the sons of men upon earth.” (3 Jasher 23)

God sent a great horse down from heaven. Enoch rode the horse, and 800,000 men followed him in awe. Enoch rode for six days, and on the seventh day a whirlwind of horses and chariots of fire sucked him up to heaven. (Jasher 3:27-38) He was 365 years old.

The phrase “chariots of fire” caught my attention, especially in the context of a whirlwind. I thought the whirlwind was Elijah or Elisha, who were a couple of generations down the line! I checked the alternate tests.

Genesis 5:24 simply says, “And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him.” It says nothing about his wisdom, his reclusiveness, his rule as high king over all the sons of man – nothing.

So I went to Wikipedia. I wanted to see what other sources were out there.

The Wikipedia entry was very brief and not very helpful. I am a little OCD when it comes to finding information, and I noticed that The Book of Jasher wasn’t mentioned at all in the article. I decided to remedy that and began adding information and footnotes. I even started a new section.

This morning I logged on and saw that everyone wondered what I was doing on Wikipedia, so I linked to the page intending to show you. Lo and behold, someone else has been at the page, and added even more information! And footnotes ABOUND! This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Wikipedia is all about.

Here’s the entry as I saw it: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Enoch&oldid=266905986
Here’s my addition:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Enoch&oldid=270598986
And here’s what it looks like now, because someone else saw the activity and added to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch

And that’s why an atheist spent an hour revising Wikipedia on a religious topic.

Last Updated on February 14, 2009 by Anne