Memories encoded in legends
In the legends and myths of many peoples of the world, memories of strange people who lived on Earth before us, and no less strange relationships that people of a modern species entered with our predecessors, have been preserved. Do these legends really reflect some knowledge of real events that has come down to us today in this mythologized form?
So, what are the stable plots in the myths about the creation of mankind?
Firstly, this is a story about the birth “from nothing” - from the original egg, a stone, a surging wave. And this strikingly exactly corresponds to our current knowledge about the birth of modern humanity - we cannot find the direct ancestors of the Cro-Magnons, and all other types of people, for example, Neanderthals, were only our historical predecessors, sometimes parallel species, but not ancestors.
Secondly, this is a story about the death or change of the previous humanity, for example, in the waves of the flood.
Creation of Eve. Drawing by an unknown author 1530
Thirdly, this is a constantly encountered motive about the existence of a kind of "parallel humanity", with which they sometimes fight, but more often they live either without intersecting, or even come into contact with it. And this also corresponds, most likely, to the real state of affairs, when several species of Neanderthals, erectus, and a modern man lived simultaneously on the earth. And it is not excluded: what we mean by "people of the modern species", in fact, is represented by just several species - races.
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Parallel humanity in the Bible
There are many references to different types of people in various sources. And in this regard, the Bible can provide us with considerable material. And the Old Testament book of Genesis in many of its passages should be viewed as a strict historical document, written in a special language of early mythopoetics.
Let's pay attention at least to the fact that the description of the act of creation in the book of Genesis is absolutely logical, consistent and internally consistent, although it is natural and compressed in time, transmitting the entire act of creation in six days. But the sequence of events is absolutely accurate and strictly consistent with modern scientific data: first, heaven and earth were created, then plants and animals, and only then man.
“Being” thus conveys a certain reality that today is not available to us directly - it turned out to be hidden under later mythological layers and theological interpretations. But it still conveys the real sequence of events. So is it worth doubting the accuracy of the description of the creation of man and his life in paradise? You just need to read these passages correctly.
First, let's see how the Bible interprets the emergence of humanity. Here, almost the entire biblical plot boils down to the fact that it was from the union of Adam with Eve that all modern people went. Usually such an interpretation is found in canonical interpretations of the Bible. Nevertheless, already in the book of Genesis, indirect indications of the existence of a certain "parallel humanity" are scattered almost everywhere. For example, after Cain killed his half-brother Abel, he says to God in fear: "And everyone who meets me will kill me." But God works a sign, “so that no one who meets him should kill him” (Gen. 4, 14-15).
This dialogue itself may seem somewhat strange. Who can meet Cain - after all, at that moment there are only three representatives of humanity on earth: Adam, Eve and their son Cain himself? The parents obviously had no intention of killing Cain. So who are we talking about?
The further plot about the appearance of offspring from Cain himself confuses the picture even more: “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bore Enoch”(Genesis 4:17). What kind of wife can we talk about when at that time only Eve could be the only woman? Or did there really exist a certain parallel group of people, not "chosen by God", but, nevertheless, living not so far from the habitat of the clan of Adam?
Note that Cain did not have to wander the earth for a long time, and he found his wife in the lands of Nod to the east of Eden. It was from the east of Eden that the cherub stood, from which we can conclude that for some reason he covered the path to these tribes.
The plot with Cain generally develops in a somewhat strange way, if we proceed from the traditional assumption about the exclusiveness of Adam's family on earth. For example, Cain builds a city in the lands of Nod (Genesis 4:17), but a city built for only three people (Cain, his wife and son Enoch) seems meaningless. However, everything falls into place, if we assume that Cain took a girl from another clan as his wife, became one of the leaders of this clan or tribe and, naturally, erected a settlement for them, enclosed by a wall or rampart, which is usually understood as an ancient city. …
As you can see, in the Bible much indicates the existence of at least one more tribe that lived in parallel with the clan of Adam in the region of either Palestine or Mesopotamia.
Adam and Eve. Painter Hans Baldung, 1511
What's going on next? The Fall and Punishment. A strange fall and a strange punishment …
The Fall and the New Civilization
People break the covenant of God - they eat the fruit of the tree. And here a mystical rebirth takes place - they receive some kind of Knowledge. And that is exactly why this tree was "desired, because it gives knowledge." People "open their eyes", they get an understanding of the essence of the nature of things, they comprehend the meaning of good and evil. Is it bad? But the other thing is bad - God's covenant not to eat of the tree has been broken.
But the most important thing is that Adam receives a status close to the Gods as a result of his wrongdoing. First of all, through the mouth of the Lord himself it is confirmed that "Adam became like One of us, knowing good and evil." Now he has only one step left to equalize himself with the Gods - eternal life. And the way to the tree of life is closed to him, so that he "does not taste and live forever."
The sin of people is to gain knowledge that, apparently, was not intended for them.
The first thing Adam and Eve see is that they are naked. Instincts of shame awaken in them - a thing absolutely uncharacteristic for primitive people and occurring only at the moment of development of civilization. Here it is, a striking detail - losing the naturalness and "primitiveness" of paradise existence, people acquire Knowledge. For the first time they begin to create a modern human culture and civilization based on the awareness of gender differences, the concepts of sin and good. They begin to build cities and kill each other not even for food, but just like that - because they do not love each other.
All this is a falling away from the original integrity and naturalness of existence. And this is a change in the very essence of civilization. For the first time in millions of years, a new kind of people appears on earth, which begins to change the face of the world, brings technocracy, mechanisms and morality to the world. And they leave their original "paradise" habitat, going "where the thorns and thistles grow." They create a human economy and agriculture - "in the sweat of your brow you will eat bread", which has also never happened before. This new kind of people also has a feature of childbirth: "in pain" they give birth to children. And this is also not typical for other hominids, where childbirth in the vast majority of cases is painless.
Here we see a description of the emergence of a fundamentally new type of people, to which we also belong - people who have changed the face of their own existence.
Perhaps the essence of the sin is that Adam "knew" Eve. However, the interpretation of the original sin only as engaging in sexual relations is contrary to one of the commandments of God himself “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). Since natural human physiology does not include any other means of self-reproduction other than copulation of the two sexes, it is difficult to explain the ban on this kind of relationship, which is also correlated with sin.
Thus, the Book of Genesis describes the genesis of not all early humanity, but only a certain local group that lived in a place called Eden. The "expulsion from paradise" seems to be the beginning of the resettlement of this local group of people to other areas. Presumably, “driving out” people from Eden, God sends them to live with other groups of people who are at that moment at a much lower stage of development [Terrasse, 1999, 125]. The "Paradise" earth is dying as a result of another catastrophe on earth.
Fossil Adam
In 1999, Australian scholar and theologian Dr. David Gilliam made a truly sensational discovery. He announced that in Aleppo, Syria, he was able to find the "skeletons of Adam and Eve." The message turned out to be so scandalous that it was not scientific journals that first picked it up, but popular tabloids. Because of this, D. Gilliam's find seemed even more scandalous, moreover, the scientist himself argued that it was precisely about the biblical ancestors of the human race, and not just about ancient people.
Presumably Adam's skeleton, found in 1999 by David Gilliam in the Aleppo area. The skeleton is missing one rib, which Gillam found nearby, in a female skeleton (presumably Eve) - it was embedded in the spine …
The main idea of D. Gilliam, which prompted him to search, was to localize the biblical garden of Eden. For this he used, first of all, the Bible and some other sources, which he refused to name. The search took more than ten years and was initially conducted in the Damascus area - D. Gilliam was convinced that in any case the famous "earthly paradise" should be sought in the territory of modern Syria. Excavations in and around Damascus have yielded no results, but the picture changed markedly as the Gilliam group moved a little further north, to the Aleppo area. First of all, the researchers drew attention to the unusually fertile soil in the area, and, judging by the mineral deposits, this fertility totaled thousands of years.
Syria, especially its northern regions, is distinguished by a favorable climate and soil fertility, nevertheless, Gilliam, on the basis of analyzes, argued that such a fertile and balanced soil as in the Aleppo region was not found anywhere else on the globe. An unusually wide variety of various fruits and plants could grow here. This prompted Gilliam to make a more accurate comparison of the biblical description of Eden and the local landscape. He soon makes the bold conclusion that there are much more coincidences between the two areas, to be considered just an accident.
Now it was necessary to find confirmation that this area was really inhabited in ancient times. Gilliam's group discovers two well-preserved skeletons. It was probably a burial place, not a random place. The bodies were placed in a shallow grave in the fetal position (knees brought to the stomach) and lay on the right side in such a way that one body was with its back to the chest of the other.
But what exactly made it possible for D. Gilliam to say that we are talking about the biblical ancestors of man?
According to him, analyzes have shown that the remains are at least 300 thousand years old. At the same time, the bone structure and, therefore, the appearance of the inhabitants of ancient Aleppo leave no doubt that we are talking about people of the modern species, about sapiens sapiens. D. Gilliam solemnly declared that this is "the final confirmation that the Book of Genesis is right."
Moreover, approximately 20 meters from the site of the skeletons, the fossilized remains of a tree trunk were found, in which Gilliam identified the famous biblical apple tree, from the fruits of which Adam and Eve tasted.
A few reservations should be made here and separate the seeds from the chaff, the religious fantasies from the truly startling facts. The age of the skeletons seems to be extremely unusual: in accordance with modern concepts, modern humans (sapiens sapiens) appeared on earth no earlier than 40-35 thousand years ago, and thus the Aleppo finds should have been at best Neanderthals sapiens.
The descriptions and photographs published by Gilliam do not allow us to make an unambiguous conclusion about whether these people were Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons, but Gilliam himself claims that we are certainly talking about modern people. In addition, the dating of 300 thousand years has not yet been confirmed by independent experts.
The discovery of Neanderthals dating to this age is interesting, although not amazing, but the discovery of people of a modern species of this age is a real sensation that should turn all ideas about the formation of humanity.
Gilliam's find, on the one hand, struck a blow at the classical theory of the development of mankind, however, on the other hand, it hit no less hard on biblical studies, which asserted that mankind is no more than 5-6 thousand years old.
The conclusion about the "rotation" of the man's rib into the woman's spine is practically not supported by anything, probably Gilliam proceeded from the fact that some of the bones and breaks of the man are mixed with the bones of the woman. However, this is not surprising, since the skeletons lie side by side and even intertwined to some extent. The movements of the layers of soil, the pressure of the earth over thousands of years have moved many bones, stirred and shattered them.
Unfortunately, D. Gilliam's religious fanaticism, which can hardly be combined with cold-blooded scientific analysis, does not allow him to draw adequate conclusions from a really interesting find. For example, remember that in the original version of the book of Genesis we are not talking about an apple tree, but about a “tree” in general, so it hardly makes sense to talk about finding the famous apple tree next to the bodies. In addition, if we are consistent theologians on this issue, Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise, from Eden and, therefore, could not be found on the territory of the supposed Eden, next to the Tree of Knowledge.
Most scientists who, at least in general terms, managed to get acquainted with the Syrian finds, believe that at this stage of research it is too early to draw even preliminary conclusions, and in any case, one should not talk about "the discovery of the skeletons of Adam and Eve." Nevertheless, we still have the mystery of the unusually early age of modern humanity, as indicated by the finds in Aleppo, if, of course, we can trust the alleged dating.
The further fate of the finds turned out to be no less mysterious than the very fact of their discovery and in many respects resembled the story of the skull of the neoanthropus - the "man of the dawn", which turned out to be a very skillful craft. After the finds of "Adam and Eve" were carefully photographed and described, and Gilliam himself made a scientific report on this matter, they were transported to Melbourne in one of the private museums, where they were subjected, it was said, the most rigorous scientific tests. And all these tests confirmed the correctness of the preliminary dating of Gilliam (however, all this - according to the Gilliam group).
The "father" of the finds did not allow a large number of strangers to see them, although he was preparing to put them up for scientific review. The skeletons were guarded day and night by Gilliam's loyal men, but on the night of October 9, 2000 … they suddenly disappeared.
The disappearance was surrounded by many mystical events: the guards claimed that at some point they felt bad, were completely disoriented, they felt dizzy, and when they came to, there were no unique remains! In place, only the bones of the left leg of "Eve" remained, and strange traces, reminiscent of the "trail of a split hoof," as the theologians-detectives later established. Naturally, the conversation immediately turned about "devilish intrigues", about the abduction of the remains by the devil, the guards recalled that at the moment of disappearance in the air there was a smell of gray, in a word, there was the whole set, familiar to everyone today from mystical horror films.
The famous French archaeologist Marcel Deplein gave a more rational explanation: the Gilliam hoax went too far and could be revealed with an independent examination, so the hoaxer had no choice but to steal the skeletons himself, furnishing everything in a very mystical way. However, Gilliam himself did not say anything about Satan, hinting that the kidnappers could simply imitate a set of devilish signs. In any case, today these findings should be deleted from the arsenal of scientific research.
Where did the "daughters" disappear?
It is noteworthy that Adam and Eve appear in the biblical story either as adults or as old people. They completely lack the stage of childhood and adolescence. Thus, they are born as adults, truly repeating the "likeness and image" of their father.
The couple Adam and Eve had to give birth to a sufficient number of children, and children of both sexes, so that then their descendants could populate the earth. However, the Bible speaks only of the male line (Abel, Cain, Seth) and at first nowhere is it mentioned about the birth of daughters, although passages about marriages are constantly encountered. Could it be a tribal narrative tradition that only mentions male descendants?
This seems unlikely, for at least two reasons. First of all, the ancient Israelite family was matrilineal, i.e. was determined by the female, not the male line, and therefore the mention of women was extremely important. Secondly, we are talking about the birth of daughters, but only in the 5th chapter; for example, this chapter says that Seth had daughters, and also that Jared, a descendant of Seth, “begat sons and daughters” (Genesis 5:19). The same is said about the father of Jared - Maleleil, as well as about his son Enoch. Adam himself also "begat sons and daughters" (Genesis 5: 4). Thus, the birth of daughters is absent only in the early stages of the genesis of the genus of Adam, described in the 4th chapter, but it was this early stage that could not allow to continue to humanity.
So where did the "daughters" disappear from the narrative? Naturally, they should have existed - it is difficult to assume that only boys were born from the biblical forefathers. It seems that the reason here is different: daughters are not mentioned because they are not important for the presentation of the plot about the transmission of the clan. And here's why: members of the family of Adam took girls from another tribe to be their wives. Someone who lived in parallel with the Adamites.
In fact, there are two parallel accounts of the Adam story in the Bible. The first is set forth in the 3-4th chapters of Genesis, the second in the 5th chapter. This chapter, as it were, begins to describe the very moment of the creation of man again, but does not contain any mention of either Cain or Abel and, at first glance, is a kind of "short summary" of the two previous chapters, but without many key details. The fifth chapter is, in fact, a description of only the clan of Seth, and is possibly a later one. Chapter 4 contains a description of the family of Cain and partially of Seth, in particular, the family of Cain is built as follows: Adam - Cain - Enoch - Mechiael - Methuselah - Lamech. The clan of Seth continued only up to the second generation: Adam - Seth - Enos. The fifth chapter gives the clan of Seth almost completely: Adam - Seth - Enos - Cainan - Maleleil - Jared - Enoch - Methuselah - Lamech - Noah.
It is easy to see that the link Enoch - Methuselah - Lamech is present in both lines (i.e. both Cain and Seth) with only a slight variation. In chapter 4, where the line of Cain is described, Mechiael stands between Enoch and Methuselah, in the second case, in chapter 5, where the line of Seth is already discussed, they are directly related. All this allows us to assume that we are talking about the same people. However, these plots were included in the Holy Scriptures at different times, when the real relationship was already unclear.
The birth of daughters is mentioned only in the 5th chapter of Genesis and is completely absent in the 4th chapter, for example. In the 4th chapter, it is said that Seth had a son, Enos (Gen. 4:26), and in the 5th chapter it is already extensively stated that he "gave birth to sons and daughters" (Gen. 5, 7).
Thus, in the first chapters of Genesis, we find a description of certain parallel groups of people who lived close to each other, but were not relatives. Obviously, these were close individuals, since they could have common offspring. It is the theme of the common offspring between "the sons of God and the daughters of men" in essence that becomes the cause of the flood.
Read the end here.