Topic: Social and Cultural Issues
Modern Light upon a Mystery from an Ancient Text...

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"...and the sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order therewith to provoke the Lord; and God saw the whole earth and it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth, all men and all animals..."The Book of Jasher 4:18

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by Michael
(libertarian)
Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The above passage is quite remarkable and amazing in many respects, given the period of time to which it refers (before the Flood of Noah's time) and the very antiquity of The Book of Jasher itself.

The text of The Book of Jasher concerns itself with the period of time from the Creation to shortly after the death of Joshua. Even though it is not canonical, it is undoubtedly a very ancient text. The translation from the ancient Hebrew text from which the above passage is quoted was done in 1840. For many, many thousands of years I am sure that what this passage described was considered to be too fantastic to be true, perhaps lending to a certain degree of incredulity to the entire work itself--after all, canonical scripture must speak true, consistently--but now, given recent developments and advances in biotechnology, it is certain that "...the mixture of animals of one species with the other..." is indeed possible!

Prior to the last few decades as far as men knew it was IMPOSSIBLE to cross one species of animal with another. Even natural crosses between closely related species like a horse and a donkey or a pigeon and a dove resulted in sterile, "mule" offspring.

For thousands of years men knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you penned a rooster up with a cow, no matter for how long, that you absolutely could not end up with a mixture of poultry/cattle as a result--but with the recent advent of genetic engineering this impossible thing is becoming possible as men use biotechnology in the laboratory to mix the DNA of species as differing as goats and spiders; jellyfish and rabbits; toads, silkworms and potatoes; humans and pigs; etc., etc. the list goes on appalling and seemingly endless as to what has ALREADY been done utilizing genetic engineering technology!

That this is reported to have been occurring before the time of the Great Deluge is perhaps equally unbelievable since we tend to look upon all past and ancient civilizations as technologically backwards--but are we correct in this assumption?

Indeed, if mankind had become technologically advanced before the Flood it could quite well have been for this same reason that God chose to erase the slate and start over, as it were.

The alarming thing is that in achieving through genetic engineering "...the mixture of animals..." the biotechnology of today uses potentially infectious agents like bacteria and viruses to accomplish the introduction of foreign DNA into an organism--and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that if released into the environment outside of the laboratory that these bio-integrating agents could begin to infect all life and thereby would all living things become "corrupted" or, as it is referred to in another ancient, extra-canonical work, The Song of Jubilees, "defiled"--this ancient manuscript concurs with The Book of Jasher that all things, men and animals, became "defiled" before the Deluge.

As we are told in Ecclesiastes, there is indeed "...no new thing under the sun..."

And too, such things lend new meaning to our Lord's prophetic statement that the End of the Age would be "...as in the days of Noah..."

What is interesting to note is that Noah and his sons, in particular Shem, lived for quite some time after the Flood. Long enough for Abraham to know both Noah and Shem; and Shem lived long enough to see both Abraham's son, Isaac and Isaac's son, Jacob. Perhaps many of the old legends and mythologies of fantastic creatures like the gryphon, a fabulous creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion; the Minotaur, a man with the head of bull; or the chimera, a composite of lion, goat and serpent stem from this pre-Flood "...mixture of animals one species with the other..." about which Noah and his sons informed their immediate descendants and down through the ages such things became the stuff of myths and legends. Genetically engineered organisms which contain the DNA of more than one species are even today referred to by the scientific community as "chimeric" organisms based on the myth of the chimera. There is also an old legend that dragons would not have came into being except by the undertakings of "wizards."

Apparently immediately after the Flood mankind quickly resumed their pre-Flood course of error for God Himself said of men at that time, "...and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." And so He confounded their language at this time of the tower of Babel--now this apparently held mankind back for more than 4,000 years but now this is evidently finally overcome so that mankind can again unite and conspire against their Almighty Creator in the wicked imagination of their hearts.

Perhaps that Noah was "...perfect in his generations..." is a reference to the fact that he and his lineage had not been corrupted/defiled by genetic engineering contamination. Likewise, those creatures which God led to the ark to be saved and preserved from destruction in the Flood were perhaps only those which remained yet uncontaminated.

Anyone with the Unction of the Holy Spirit in their heart has to be offended, appalled and sickened by the unnatural things being accomplished by today's biotechnology.

Pride comes before a fall, indeed, for many prominent people feel that the year 2000 will be noted in history as the year that mankind completed the mapping of the human genome--one even said it would be regarded as the advent of "man-made man"!

And these things too are a part of those great, swelling and blasphemous words which will be spoken against the Most High by the antichrist at the End of the Age--arrogantly boasting that we can improve upon life over and above as it was created; perhaps that we can even create Life itself in the laboratory; that we can make a "man-made man" which is superior and which can be immortal.

Indeed, immortality is also something which they hope to accomplish by means of biotechnology--but it all boils down to just one thing, and that is an attempt to escape the curse WITHOUT repentance!!!

There are certain ancient "out of place" artifacts which hint at the possibility of a technologically advanced past. Indeed, so strong and intriguing is the evidence that some have erroneously supposed that the Earth was visited long ago by "ancient astronauts" from elsewhere in the universe and that evidence of ancient technology has an extra-terrestrial source--but is it any more far fetched to speculate instead that before the Flood mankind had achieved a high degree of technological advancement? And if in part due to this that God decided to destroy it all then could not Almighty God indeed do just that; destroy it and erase all conclusive evidence of it?

During the period of time from Adam to Noah all mankind had the same language which was explained as being the key to their being able to accomplish anything which they imagined. The pre-Flood life span was enormous--900 years+--imagine the amount of learning and knowledge one could acquire over the course of nine centuries!

Men of this time had only two things to contend with, these being the curse of the ground and the curse of death. Other than this it was a very different Earth than what we now know. It was just one notch down from the original perfect Creation and was still exceedingly fruitful and abundant. Still, men had to contend with the curse of the ground and the thorns and thistles which competed with their food crops and with the advent of the administration of Death upon the fallen Creation.

Yes, I'm afraid we've come full circle again--perhaps the most alarming thing about the genetic engineering/biotechnology being currently undertaken is that things are being done by men which cannot likewise be "undone" by men; for once a hereditary trait has been artificially introduced into a living organism it has the ability to reproduce itself indefinitely and exponentially--only Almighty God Himself is capable of undoing these things once foolish men have done them. I'm certain that if Mark Twain were alive and well in this day and age he would say something like, "At long last we have achieved a sufficient degree of technology to really screw things up!"--but the good news is that this time around it portends the returning again soon of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus and with it the advent of the Kingdom of God on Earth!

In His Love,

©2008 Michael, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, March 11, 2008

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