I will start by causing you to understand one thing. I don't believe in names. Names are labels that some people mistake for identities. What your name is has a thousand times less to do with this life than what you do with it. If a man has a dishonored name he may not be a dishonorable person. He simply has been given the name that a dishonorable person before him had.

Secondly, I am much older than you realize. If I told you my actual age, you would disbelieve all that I have to say. It is enough to know what happened to me during the most important point in my life, if not all of history.

I was born to a beautiful, spiritual mother and a strong, righteous father. Again, names are not important. I had many brothers and sisters of which I was the oldest, but no grandparents, aunts uncles, cousins, or extended family of any kind. Me an my family were hard workers, and my parents told us of days gone by when they were close enough to God that they talked with and even saw him!

Each of us had a different chore. Our father kept the stories of old alive as the prophet of God and my mother was almost always having another young brother or sister. I was to raise grain. My younger brother had hers of cattle, sheep and many other creatures. We always had plenty to eat, and many playmates from our family. We were all happy.

One day, my father called all his children and his wife around him. He said that a dream from God had told hi that we were each to offer up an offering to the Most High God. I found out later that this was to signify the coming of the Lamb of God. None questioned this dream or had a second thought as to why. We simply went and gathered one tenth to offer up. I gathered one tenth of what was my life, the fruit of the ground that the sweat of my brow did bring forth. I offered up my offering to the Most High and went to see how my brother was doing.

My brother had offered up the first born of all his flocks and offered them to the Most High as my fathers dream required. Then, we finished the day.

Later, we found out that God had smiled upon my brother. His offering had gained respect for him, but mine had not. What was wrong with my offering? Had I not offered up the best I had also? Had I not given up my offering? I was enraged beyond control. My younger brother had taken honor that was rightfully mine! I asked him to come to a field to talk.

We went there at the appointed hour and discussed it. He said that I must have done something wrong, sinned like our parents had years earlier. This enraged me further. I could no longer contain myself. I lunged at my brother and beat him with my fists. He... he began to scream. He said I was hurting him. He called for my mercy, then the mercy of our Lord, but I could not be stopped. I... I killed him.

When I saw what I had done, I ran. I ran for a longer distance than I ever had before. I ran until I collapsed, then I was forced to stop. I sat, struggling for breath, and thought. I could hide it. No one would find out. I would hide his body his blood, and say that he went looking for a stray lamb and did not come back. I did not want to suffer for my sin.

When I caught my breath, I stood. Then I heard a voice. It said, "Where is... your brother?"

I panicked. Only the Lord could talk without being seen. I forced myself to calm down. And think. I said, "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?" It was not true, but I thought he would believe me. Little did I know that the lord knows all.

He said, "What have you done!?" He told me I was never to be able to grow fruit of any kind from the ground that I would never be allowed to enter his land of Endless Life, and that I was to be taken from this area and left far away in a wasteland.

"My punishment is more than I can bare," I pleaded. "I will be hunted by my brethren for my crime. Will you allow them to torment me for the eternities?"

"No," came His great voice. "None shall hunt you, for if any destroy you, I will deliver it upon their heads sevenfold."

And thus I was forced to be trapped on Earth forever I was left by the Most High in a land called in those days Nod. I wondered in this way, searching for others to live beside, talk to, who would give me food. I had no idea how to get food without my skills as a farmer so I wandered from place to place, always famished for want of food, searching for others.

In this way the many years passed.

It was more years than I could then count later that a great rain came. I saw the seas coming up day by drenched day, until it was nearly over the banks. I knew that I was to be flooded away if I did nothing, so I began work on a small raft to keep me afloat during the great flood that approached.

I finished my raft in time, and stayed afloat for forty-eight days and nights. Finally, I saw land and, using my arms as oars paddled to shore. I passed many more years on this shore.

One day, a man I knew not came. He said he was sent by a "King David" to build a town in the King's name on this spot. I offered my help.

It was many years since I had talked to any man, so I had to learn speech again but I did learn. The years passed more quickly. The town as finished and people began to move here. I built an inn to house visitors to our great town. The man who was called King had a son and later died.

Then the beginning of the new law. A war-loving army captured the area round about my town. A man called Caesar became our leader instead of King. Then the prophets began to predict a "King of the Jews" would be born soon. I believed them not, and went about my business. Rumors of a barren woman bearing a child came into my doors. I dismissed them as just stories.

Then came an order from Caesar requiring all to be taxed in their own cities. This was just the boost my business needed! I bought a new stable behind my Inn for the livestock of my visitors. The people did not concern me, only their money.

Prophets began preaching of the coming of the King of the Jews. I continued to ignore them but I listened anyway. I stopped when customers began arriving. Soon I had sold out my place, plus some. I had three or four families to a room. I would have been blessing my money, but I was busy keeping up with my customers.

It surprised me, how few of them had livestock. Many had walked, or sold their livestock upon arriving in our town to ay my dues. My new stable was full to the limit, but my old stable was empty. The hay was still fresh, the food had not been placed into the mangers, the entire stable was still clean and empty.

During the busiest time that night, a knock came to my door. The man standing there was of the line of the King, and would have been King if not for the war-loving men who had taken the land round about. He said, "Ho, there, innkeeper! My wife is great with child and needs room to have it! It comes tonight! It..."

I would not let him finish. "We are full to the very top. Go sleep in a stable, but not in my Inn. I am plenty busy already!" I meant to get rid of him, but he must have taken me literally for he thanked me and went to my old stable! It was the strangest site, a strong carpenter a sickly woman very great with child, but still very beautiful, both sitting in a stable on a pile of hay that he had geared for a bed. But I let them stay. If it were that important for them to sleep there, it was all right with me.

Later in the afternoon after the taxes had been colleted, the sun started to set. My customers had all turned in early except a drunken man who could not stand up, so I was left to stare into the sunset. The sky turned from blue to yellow to bright orange to red and finally to black. Thee was not a cloud in the sky for as far as I could see. Then the strangest occurrence that ever happened, happened. The sky, just minutes after the sunset, began to become light again as day! I was astonished to the point that I ran out of my Inn and stared into the sky. In the midst of the stars was a star half the size of the sun but nearly thrice as bright. I heard singing of a thousand breath-taking voices coming from the air around me.

I stood there for about twenty minutes before I noticed that the singing was not the only thing I was hearing. I also heard a babe crying . I knew where it had come from. I ran behind my Inn and looked into my stable from afar. I was the carpenter stroking the woman's head as she held a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes. She then laid the babe into the manger. "Shhh" whispered the new mother to her babe. He stopped crying and looked out strait to me.

What follows, I never told anyone or wrote anywhere. I saw a spirit descend from the star, settle itself onto the ground by the stable, and bless the babe. Then it floated off toward a hill covered with sheep. The two in the stable seemed to not see the spirit. Then a warmth came over me. I felt the shame I had felt a thousand times for killing my brother come to me. It doubled itself, and then I heard in my mind, "Be not troubled, for I forgive thee as much as thou canst be forgiven."

I sold my Inn the next day and used the money to buy a piece of land in town. I used the next six days to build the grandest house I could for the small family I had turned away. On the seventh day, with the house built, I went to the family and said that a man had told me to tell them he had bought the house for them to stay in. They told me to thank the man who bought it, and entered.

I worshiped the Most High for the rest of the day the first time I had done so since I was removed from man's presence all those centuries ago. Then I sent out to write this story on these plates of stone so that for a thousand centuries people will remember the birth of that child, that I never found out the name of. May you all live in worthiness for the rest of your days. Amen.