Cloning Adam and Eve
Zecharia Sitchin (1920-2010) was a different breed of scholar – very different.
Born in Soviet Azerbaijan and raised in Mandatory Palestine (now Israel), Sitchin came to the United States in 1952 and taught himself Sumerian cuneiform. Claiming to be well-versed in ancient Sumerian texts, he authored several books citing those texts and linking human origins to ancient astronauts.
In the world according to Sitchin, the ancient Sumerians – the first known advanced civilization – inherited their culture from a race of extraterrestrials known as the Annunaki, who came from Nibiru, a distant planet in the solar system. The Annunaki arrived on Earth nearly half a million years ago in search of gold, and established mining operations in southern Africa. Mining was a grueling undertaking. The beleaguered Annunaki workers appealed to their leaders for assistance, and the leaders found a way to provide it. The Annunaki combined their own DNA with that of apelike Earth creatures and created human slaves to work the mines. The recent purported discovery of a vast 200,000-year-old city in a southern African mining area may lend credence to this theory. (Well, maybe.)
So, are we now supposed to believe Adam and Eve were cloned by a team of extraterrestrial genetic scientists? According to Sitchin’s book Genesis Revisited, yes.
Sitchin says biblical scholars generally agree the Book of Genesis was compiled based on earlier and much more extensive Sumerian texts. And, ancient Sumerian scholar that he is, Sitchin explains that the Sumerian texts credit the Annunaki for creating Man and describe the genetic engineering process in exquisite detail. He points out that the Bible’s Hebrew verses refer to God the Creator as Elohim (a plural noun) and quotes from Genesis 1:26 – “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”
Critics say Sitchin is taking the text too literally. It is common to refer to God, and to monarchs, in the plural. This usage is known as the “royal we” or “majestic plural.” Perhaps you are familiar with the famous quote “We are not amused,” attributed to the UK’s Queen Victoria.
All of that said, the idea of alien/human hybrids is intriguing. Genesis 6 tells the story of higher beings ("the sons of God") interbreeding with human women ("the daughters of men"). Comparable legends exist in cultures around the world. And indeed, scientific analysis has shown there have been dramatic changes in human DNA within the past 5,000 years. Knowing what we now know, almost anything is possible.
Don’t you miss the days when Adam and Eve were just running around naked in the Garden of Eden eating apples?