The Bloodred Tree: Before the Flood

By John C. Stringer

The Flood, Noah, angels, demons, dinosaurs, monsters, archaeology, ancient history, epic fantasy, John Stringer brings us a fearsome, captivating, ultimately redemptive and realistic glimpse at the war in heaven and the pre-Flood earth, where terrible nephaliim stalk the ground. Mankind suffers, and Unos works to redeem all things against a backdrop of angelic rebellion and war.
Vitruvius Affluveum is a frustrated archaeologist who makes an incredible discovery near his exhausted excavation site at Nemrut Dag, Turkey, a discovery that captivates the world . . .
In the skies above, the melody of heaven sang beneath the wings of the giant pterosaurs and was heard deep in the veins of the earth where rock flowed like liquid gold nursing the world and warming her skin. But archangels clashed, the Watchers came, and nephaliim were spawned. The earth groans in a travesty of darkness, death, and dread. Lost in the tide, One, God's precious, created man is lured away and abandons his one true hope.
But the Throne has a plan . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Dec 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9781621892823

John C. Stringer

John Stringer is a historian and pastor living with his American wife Laurie and a British bulldog in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Book preview

The Bloodred Tree

Before the Flood

John C. Stringer

2008.Resource_logo.pdf

The Bloodred Tree

Before the Flood

Copyright © 2011 John C. Stringer. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

ISBN 13: 978-1-60899-874-6

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Epigraph, with acknowledgement to my friend Kay Rothman, Manhatten, N.Y.

Map of the Great Plain © John C. Stringer

The Orders of the Cherubim © John C. Stringer

West Light and East Light © John C. Stringer

Nemrut Dag excavation site map © John C. Stringer

Archaeological cross section map © John C. Stringer

All other illustrations of creatures and people © Kees Bruin, Sumner,

New Zealand.

To Asher, James and Alex,

my own Jahf, Hamaa and Sem;

still building our ship together . . .

What I am about to tell you is a lie,

But everything in it is absolutely true.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to my conceptual readers: my wife Laurie, in New Zealand; Rachel Hills in Perth, Australia; my copy editor Gerri Maynard (Maple) in Toronto, Canada (http://gerrimaynard.word

press.com) and the editorial and marketing teams at Wipf & Stock in Eugene, Oregon, who backed my proposal from the beginning without question.

Maps, Guides, and Illustrations

The Great Plain, first–tenth generations xii, 66–67

The Orders of the Cherubim xiii

War in the Gates of Heaven xiv

The Generations of Men xv

Some of the Hu-Man Tribes of the Earth xvi

The Nemrut Dag excavation site 1961–1988 xvii

Archaeological cross section, ‘Track Alley’ tunnel complex xviii

The Life of Vitruvius Affluveum xix

The Wall Glyph 24

‘The Hilltop Strangler’ Glyph 44

The Algaroi or Ceratopsia 70

A spiked Styracs 71

Raptormen 72

Alsoi and Ankylosoi 73

Fafnir-Amon 84

A marine crypto-clidfoi grabbing a flying pteradon 119

i. The Great Plain, first–tenth generations

Figure10.tif

ii. The Orders of the Cherubim

figure11.tif

iii. War in the Gates of Heaven

iv. The Generations of Men

v. Some of the Hu-Man Tribes of the Earth

Algaroi/Ceratopsia

Alsoi

Ankylosoi

Andraemonoi

Cerboroi

Eastmen

Hemenoi

Hadoi

Kainoi

Men of Oné

Men of Phirst

Nu-oi

Raptormen

Styracs

Zamzummin

vi. The Nemrut Dag excavation site 1961–1988

figure13.tif

vii. Archaeological cross section,‘Track Alley’ tunnel complex

figure14.tif

viii. The Life of Vitruvius Affluveum

0 Born 1938

17–20 (4 years) undergrad/masters 1955–58

20–22 Doctoral thesis 1958–60

22,23 Dig site research and post grad study 1960,61

23–50 (27 years) major dig, Nemrut Dag 1961–1988

50 Finds tracks/urns and Codex 1988

50–82 (32 years) team decoding Codex 1988–2020

82 All-Nations Vatican simulcast 2020

84 Dies in Adelaide, Australia 2022

Preface

We begin by telling children stories,

Which, taken as a whole are fiction,

Though they contain some truth.

—Socrates to Plato, The Republic

Art is a lie

That helps us understand

The truth

—Picasso

A word about poetry, imagination

and ‘the dark side.’

This story is a fiction, but the Bible is my source, which I believe is true. By true I mean that the Bible is divinely inspired and reliable, contains poetry, prose, metaphor, simile, hyperbole and stories. Jesus was great at stories. Maybe that is why the Bible is the best selling book of all time, way ahead of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh or The Republic of Plato.

J. R. R. Tolkien, another person who was good at stories, once said about imaginative story telling (what he called fairytales),

We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed, only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man [sic] aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true Harbour.

¹

In his book Epic, John Eldredge wrote,

When we were born, we were born into the midst of a great story begun before the dawn of time. A story of adventure, of risk and loss, heroism . . . and betrayal. A story where good is warring against evil, danger lurks around every corner, and glorious deeds wait to be done. Think of all those stories you’ve ever loved­—there’s a reason they stirred your heart. They’ve been trying to tell you about the true Epic ever since you were young.

As a pastor I have little time for religious Christians who struggle with Harry Potter simply because it has wizards in it. All I can say is, what then to do with: C.S. Lewis’ White Witch, his talking lion, and the satyrs of Narnia? Professor Tolkien’s resurrected wizard Gandalf the white? Or the demons, dragons, fire balls, lions, giants, and howling Doleful Creatures of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress? Lewis, Tolkien and Bunyan were all devoted Christians and great storytellers.² Then of course there’s the matter of the Witch of Endor (not the Star Wars Endor) in 1 Samuel 28 conjuring one of the Bible’s greatest prophets from the dead. Perplexing! (But only for those living in small worlds of their own constriction).

Put simply, the God I serve is imaginative beyond description and his creativity knows no bounds. His truth is expressed in the diversity of color, shape and form that make up the universe surrounding us, including things we cannot even imagine. My God made foxes that fly, spiders that fish, birds that swim under water, fish that live on land, bats that echo-locate, and beetles that shoot fire. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands, Psalm 19:1 exuberantly declares. Who could not enjoy a God, the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south? (Job 9:9). The Holy Bible and Shrek have one thing in common—a donkey that speaks (Numbers 22).

The point is, that art, creativity, and imagination are just as important as facts. How is love truly conveyed without poetry, or the wind or the desert without song? There are facets of our universe that can only be approached obliquely, with nuance ‘through a looking glass darkly,’ to quote Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) paraphrasing Paul (1 Corinthians 13:12). Perhaps Picasso put it best, Art is a lie that helps us understand the truth.

Oscar Wilde said that Art, like Nature, has its monsters, indicating the need humanity has to create monsters (vampires, dragons, bogy men) parallel to nature’s creative reality (vampire bats, komodo dragons, silver back gorillas). The Bible speaks of monsters figuratively (Revelation) as well as literally (Job 40). Monsters clearly serve a mythological purpose, but actually also exist.

³

As I wrote this story, I wrestled with the dark side. Much of its darkness, however, pales into insignificance compared to the psychopathic depravity of real history: the Spanish Inquisition; the Brazen Bull; the Iron Maiden; the sadism of Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum; or Vlad Dracul Tepes III of Wallencia following in the spirit of Assyrian cruelty. I drew many of the details of this fiction from the pages of ancient history. If you find this tale dark, read about the real world in which some people have lived. Into that wretched darkness comes a gracious and loving God with a lighted torch. And that is a central premise for this work. If you believe there was a real flood, as I do, we have to understand why God destroyed everything he had made. It must have been terrible. No one really talks about that, so I do. I believe a malevolent spiritual force entered creation and sought to steal or ruin man’s created destiny. The violence spoken of in Genesis six was seen and unseen, as concerned with microscopic truths as much as whole populations. Without intervention, the earth and everything in it was doomed to a slow and destructive hell-on-earth; and so God acted, to redeem and ultimately glorify. I seek not only to portray how things might have been, but to discuss how God could have been working a perfect redemptive purpose through human and angelic freewill, without violating either, before both of us ruinously polluted everything ‘that was good.’

The idea of the nephaliim (nephilim) is not mine; it actually comes from the Bible. Three theories exist among scholars about the nature of the beings described in the sixth chapter of Genesis: royalty or aristocrats distinguished from mere peasants; the descendants of Seth in contrast to the descendants of Cain; or thirdly, actual fallen angels ‘marrying’ human women to generate a hybrid race. As bizarre and ‘sci-fi fantastic’ as the latter seems–easily the most peculiar of the three explanations–among the serious theologians I have read, it is the third explanation (fallen angel) that attracts the most solid position.⁴ The Hebrew etymology of nephilim alone is revealing and the start point. Fallen angels and women were the view of the early church fathers as well as the translators of the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament from ancient Hebrew) as well as the ancient rabbis. So, the actual existence of Nephilim has theological pedigree. Marry that to parallel themes (demi-gods, god-men, gods coming down) in the religious mythology of other cultures from the earliest of times, and an interesting hypothesis emerges underpinning the ‘fiction’ you hold in your hand.

We can only begin to imagine what the world of angels is like. There are hints in the Bible. Like us, angels are created beings, but they exist in a different dimension. We’re not sure when they were made. They have the ability to cross between their world and ours, can eat food, fight, talk, and fly.⁵ They belong to the created order as we do, but are quite different, and can see into our created dimension. They don’t understand some things, such as God’s intentions and interactions with mankind. In time, humans too, will be like angels physically (if that is the right word). Our promised transformation (something denied angels) coalesces both the physical and spiritual dimensions without diminishing either. In this sense we are blessed, as humans will experience both worlds. This has interesting implications for God’s statement that he will create both a new earth as well as a new heaven. Heaven is never a diminishment of physicality or the earth. I understand it this way, God loves trees and they will always be (just read Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22 side-by-side, separated by over 600 years).

Jesus is uniquely the ultimate man, the first born from the dead (the One the nephaliim fear so much in this story). He was the first human to have been birthed, to have died, and then come alive again using the same body to walk through walls, yet eat, be invisible, and yet retain the scars inflicted on his physical flesh. He is both man and God and promises that we too will one day be ‘gods,’ that is, humans who have angelic reality in the footsteps and likeness of Jesus himself (Psalm 82:6 as well as John 10 and Luke 20).

I said, ‘You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High, Psalm 82:6.

Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your Law, I have said you are gods’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? John 10.

. . . and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. Luke 20.

In this novel, I have arranged heavenly angels into hierarchical orders.

Around the throne of God are Four Great Creatures, Four Great Princes (archangels who are also cherubim) and twenty-four Elders.

The Four Great Princes preside over four Lights: The North, South, West and East Lights that are also the great Gates of heaven. They are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Apollyon, in-keeping (in part) with hints from Christian tradition.

Michael certainly is an archangel (Jude 9) and a great prince (Daniel 12:1). Gabriel, as God’s principal mouthpiece, ‘stands in the presence of God’ (Luke 1:19). Satan was a guardian cherub (Ezekiel 28:14), but I have demoted him here to seraphim status, and raise up another who is mentioned in Revelation 9:11 as the angel of destruction. The differing nature, or function, of angels is probably no more than the differing nature of people, with varying gifts, weaknesses and strengths. At best it is complex and an expression of God’s infinite creativity.

Around the four cherubim—the four archangels in their respective gates—are a host of lessor angels: seraphim followed by teraphim.

Each of the great Gates, or Lights, governed by an archangel, has a distinctive ethos. Michael is of Warriors. Gabriel is of Words, Raphael Watching, and Apollyon Song. It is the Light of Song that comes unstuck in our story, that is, the music of heaven.

Around each separate archangel within each Gate is a second order of angels, great seraphim. They are also grouped in the four ethoi. Around Raphael for example, in the North Light of Watching, are also seraphim of Warriors, Song, Words and Watching. This means that each of the archangels is supported within their Gate by aspects of each of the other Gates. Each distinctive ethos (Song, Words) is made up of complementary aspects of heaven in perfect unity and enhancement. Each Light is made up of smaller additional portions of all the others. Michael for example, when he comes against Song, gathers not only all the Warrior orders from his West Gate (of Warriors) but also calls on all the Warrior seraphim and teraphim from the other Gates, the Warriors of Watching, and the Warriors of Words, and so on. Similarly, Raphael (Watching) might be able to call on the Watching seraphim or teraphim from Gabriel’s Gate (Words) or Michael’s Gate (Warriors). It is essentially Apollyon’s disorder in usurping Raphael’s function, seeking to Watch Unos and interact with creation, when he is the archangel of Song given a heavenly function around the Throne that begins the unravelling of his Gate.

Around the seraphim of each Gate is a third order of angels, attending teraphim. They too are arranged in the four ethoi: as Warriors, Song, Watching and Words, a quarter of each around each gate.

Four archangels at the gates of heaven;

Four Great Creatures around the Throne;

Twenty-four Elders (six amounts of four) also around the Throne, representing the three orders of creation: angel, humankind, and animals.

Seraphim around them in four orders made up of four parts each.

Teraphim around them in four orders made up of four parts each.

Three orders of angels, in descending divisions, billions of beings.

When Apollyon falls, he deceives the Watching seraphim of his Gate who have shared the knowledge of man and Unos’ ministry on the earth. Their special duty was Watching. The other East Gate seraphim of Song, Warriors and Words fight against Michael too, subservient to their Lord Apollyon, but are subdued. The four orders of teraphim of the East Gate all submit, but are murdered by Apollyon and the East Gate seraphim, particularly the Watcher seraphim of Song.

Shemgazi (an ancient name of Lucifer) is one of these murdering seraphim of Watching of the East Gate (a murderer from the beginning as Jesus said) under his overlord Apollyon, the archangel of Song.

After the East Gate archangel Apollyon and the rebellious seraphim are bound in the Yawning Abyss, Shemgazi, by direct appeal to the Throne, is freed with a small remnant (just twelve seraphim, representing the months of the year and the later tribes of Israel).

Michael hurls the twelve seraphim, direct participants in the mass murder, to the earth in great carnage. There is a common tradition of this among the ancient peoples of the world and I find it fascinating that Genesis represents this as well. Always the gods came down, usually after war in the heavens; and things got bad on earth. They went by various names: Igigi, Anunnaki, Watchers, Titans, gods of Olympus, Quatzequatl, Ea, Enki.

In this story, six of the seraphim Watchers gain an ability to interact with the physical world (six is the number of man). They are the Watchers of Flesh. Without authority, they father the nephaliim with female humanity (Genesis six). The other six seraphim Watchers are spiritual