Adam and Eve’s In-laws
A Guest Post by James Hatch
I respectfully point out that God creates Adam and
Eve in the biblical story presented in Genesis 2. Soon afterwards, in Genesis
4, they lay together to produce Cain and Able. To my way of thinking, these
would be the first four people on earth, right? And then, soon after Cain and
Able are united in brotherly love, Cain slays his brother and is cast out into
the land of Nod east of Eden. It’s true, siblings don’t always get along, but
this is where things get curiously interesting because, by verse 17, Cain lays
with his wife to produce a son, Enoch. What’s wrong with this picture?
The sequence above troubled me
for years because, at risk of blasphemy, if Adam and Eve were the first two,
and Cain and Able were the third and fourth, where did Cain’s wife come from?
Apparent inconsistencies like this give me pause; therefore, it seemed an
appropriate question to address as part of the basis for Aftermath Horizon.
Now, I realize if God created two
people, he could equally well have created more, but I tend to view the Genesis
story more metaphorically than in terms of actual events. In that sense, it
doesn’t trouble me that it only took six days to create the world and
everything in it, a day being simply a period of time, and perhaps a very long
time at that. Who’s to say day one wasn’t a few billion years in current time?
But the creation of people was singled out and, if many people were created
originally, I assume that might have been mentioned. Instead, the biblical
account implies that many women existed as it traces the lineage of Enoch, in
fact, so many that four generations later, Lamech took two wives. So where did
the women come from?
Yes, it’s all speculation, but
it’s fun speculation. I will attempt to answer the question, but before I do,
let me introduce the concept of a “horizon.” In evolutionary terms, a horizon
is where it all ends, where one species dies and is probably replaced by something
more prone to survive. Like the event horizon of a black hole, the evolutionary
horizon is a point a species should avoid at all cost. Yet, evolutionary
horizons happen all the time. If they didn’t, we’d still have dinosaurs.
And now back to Cain’s wife. I
could speculate that there was a lot of inbreeding. After all, Adam lived 930
years and had many sons and daughters. Some of those might have liked each
other (a lot), and it’s quite possible that Cain wandered around for quite some
time before bumping into one of his sisters in the land of Nod. I can’t really
say because no timeline is given. OR, maybe Genesis is actually just a
story of a new beginning—perhaps even of a new horizon? And if that’s the case,
then Genesis might be the story of the survivors of a species that came…before.
As I consider the horror facing
the world today, it’s not difficult to think of a future time when people as
they are today will not exist. Some might survive a bio-warfare atrocity, but
those survivors would be different in fundamental ways, if only in their immune
systems. The threat of bio-weapons, combined with the potential horizon I read
into Genesis, led me to write
Kill Zone,
“The Final Experiment” and
Aftermath Horizon. All three are G-rated, all
are reviewed at
http://cookinwithmisshavana.blogspot.com/
and all are available at
http://www.amazon.com/James-L.-Hatch/e/B005CQB6E6.
Kill Zone: Dr. Marcy Whites overcomes enormous genetic
engineering obstacles to resurrect a prehistoric bacterium, V5, capable of
creating renewable oil, and reclaims the love of her life in the process. V5 is
designated a national resource and Marcy’s team is sequestered in Cheyenne
Mountain, but bio-terrorism quickly overshadows her successes. People die
by the millions when genetically-engineered
beta-hemolytic streptococcus (BHS) is inadvertently released, a pathogen
specifically developed for bio-terrorism. Carried by fanatical Ambulatory Infectious Agents seeking
martyrdom, the flesh-eating disease spreads like wildfire with a 100%
kill rate, while Predictive Antiviral Project (PAP) scientists in Cheyenne
Mountain race to develop a cure. Out of desperation, countries agree to
sanitize the infectious outer perimeter of the Kill Zone with nuclear weapons,
even as Dr. Whites joins the PAP team to adapt V5 as a BHS antidote. Their
deadline passes, and Operation Sanitize releases mankind’s most powerful
weapons against its smallest enemy. Nuclear detonations temporarily halt
expansion of the Kill Zone, but Dr. Whites continues antidote refinement,
knowing BHS-laden dust will eventually settle. Kill Zones soon crop up
worldwide, the entire world is inoculated with V5, and energy independence is
achieved; however, one year later, birth rates begin declining. Marcy and other
scientists locked inside Cheyenne Mountain gird for an extended stay – until
the anomaly can be explained.
“The Final Experiment”*: Following worldwide biological warfare, a
small number of people survive inside Cheyenne Mountain. Sixty-two years later,
genetically modified experimental human E12-B is released to see if he can
exist among the toxins outside. He barely survives, but returns to a face a
nightmare of medical testing…where only love can save him. *This short story is
abridged from the first five chapters of Aftermath Horizon.
Aftermath Horizon: In a world struggling to recover from
biological warfare, Cultural Anthropologists, Beth Gooding and Professor James,
work to resurrect the technology of the past without the brutality of the past.
They lead austere lives typical of the early 1800’s frontier, until they become
explorers in Old World Syria – where they investigate further back in time than
anyone ever dreamed, and discover they can move their society further forward
than anyone ever imagined. David and Beth endure many brushes with death, but
with each experience their love grows stronger. They come to realize life
without the other wouldn’t be living at all.
------------------------------------
Aftermath Horizon
Excerpt (told from the POV of the 16-year-old heroine):
As I step
from the bus with my backpack slung over my shoulder, a man holding a sign that
reads “Miss Gooding” in one hand and a dark green plastic bag slung over his
shoulder with the other catches my attention. It must be Professor James. At
six foot with ruddy complexion and sandy brown hair, he’s not what I pictured
in my mind. In fact, if he weren’t twice my age, he’d be really cute.
I size him up
as I walk toward him. He has a slight build, piercing blue eyes, and muscular
arms, probably from digging up trash. As I get closer, I note the rough hands
characteristic of all settlers. Life is not easy on the frontier. He’s dressed
in blue jeans, a red plaid flannel shirt, and calf-high black rubber boots. Mud
squishes beneath my feet with each step I take. I’ll probably need boots like
that, too. I boldly step in front of him and extend my hand, “Hello, Sir, I’m
Beth Gooding.”
He smiles
broadly, revealing off-white, straight teeth, sets his sign down in the mud,
and shakes my hand firmly. “Good to meet you, Miss Gooding, ready to get to
work?”
Wait a minute; I HAVE been working! I
ignore my thought and smile sweetly. I’m here to learn, not to quibble. “You
bet! More reading assignments?”
He hands the
bag to me and points to a nearby public toilet, a small building that looks
like an outhouse. “Not now. We’ve got a little field work to do.” He hasn’t
said so, but I think I’m about to be tested to see if I can stand the grime of
hands-on garbage retrieval. Butterflies fill my stomach. I didn’t expect this
“opportunity” so soon.
The bag
contains clothing similar to what everyone here wears, but the size two jeans,
small shirt and jacket, and size six boots probably means he has access to my
personnel records. The 34B bra confirms it. Privacy be damned, everything fits,
although the odor in the “changing room” is not suitable for human breathing!
When I emerge with my new duds, Professor James and a horse drawn buggy await.
I feel like I’ve stepped back in time to the Old World 1800’s.
The first
order of business is a familiarization trot around the colony. The highlights
are the communications center, the power generator, the infirmary, and the
general store, but we don’t stop at any of those places. Instead, we go to the
Energy Reclamation Center and proceed immediately to a large green dumpster
behind it. Professor James grins impishly. “This is your stop.”
My face turns
pale. It’s squalid. It stinks worse than the changing room, “The dumpster?”
Frankly, I’d rather see the generators, fourth generation motors that use a
mixture of reprocessed Strategic Reserve oil and man-made oil from re-cycled
organic materials. I’ve read about V5 and V6 for years, the microbes
responsible for oil production, but didn’t get to see any of that technology in
Salvation.
“Yeah, the
big green thing there. See if you can learn anything from what you find in it.”
He remains on the buggy seat. The horse doesn’t move. The dumpster remains
grimy.
I push back
lightly. “Why would there be anything of value in there. This is a colony. No
one in his right mind would throw anything of value away!”
He smiles and
bats his eyes almost comically. “One would think. Check it out.”
The mud is
four inches thick as I step off the buggy. Even with rubber boots I can feel
the cool muck slither around my foot and over the top of my toes. Professor
James watches with interest as I pull up a nearby wooden crate and push it
against the side of the dumpster. I suppress the urge to vomit; it smells like
dead animals inside.
I’m not deft
at this sort of thing. Even from the crate it’s all I can do to lift my foot to
the edge, slip my leg over, and pull my body up and over the side. I might as
well kiss my new, clean jeans goodbye because they’ll never be the same. As I
drop down into the gaping cavern, I hear Professor James and the buggy pull
away, but that immediate concern is quickly overcome by the stench inside. I
gag involuntarily and begin breathing through the sleeve of my shirt. It makes
a lousy air filter but it’s better than nothing. I hope he moved the buggy because he was in a “no parking zone” and
that he’s not actually leaving me here.
I’m not sure
what I’m looking for, but find a sturdy stick and begin pushing stuff around
with it, hoping to find anything that will buy my way out of this nightmare.
After about five minutes, I absolutely must have fresh air and poke my head out
of the bin at exactly the same moment an elderly lady is trying to put more
trash in. She’s startled but quick witted. “Why, who would throw a pretty young
thing like you away, dear? You look like you’ve got lots of kilometers left on
you.”
Not knowing
how she can possibly know what I look like with half my face covered by my arm,
I grin sheepishly, motion to the edge of the dumpster with a sideways flick of
my head, and choke out a muffled greeting through my sleeve, “Just set your box
there by the side, Ma’am. I’ll go through it later.”
The old woman
winks. “My, you are a feisty one; looks like ‘Mule’ got a winner this time.”
She sets her box where I indicated and ambles off, leaving me to ponder what
she really meant by “this time”.
After a few
priceless gasps of relatively pure air, I dip back inside but still can’t come
up with much. Mostly the bin contains organic recyclables, inputs for fuel
pre-processing at the energy center. The foul odor isn’t from the contents in
the bin but from the bin itself. Apparently it was used recently for holding
carcasses, another energy recyclable.
Professor
James returns an hour later, helps me out of the bin, and with a cheery
attitude asks, “I can hardly wait, what did you learn?”
I pick up the
box left by the old woman. “Hold that thought a minute, Sir, I’m not quite
finished.”
The contents
of the old woman’s box are quite typical of what I found in the remainder of
the dumpster: small wood chips and plant trimmings, a few crumpled pieces of
paper, a few strips of tattered muslin, some spoiled berries, and several wads
of horse hair. After inspection, I empty the box into the bin and climb onto
the buggy with the re-cycle box in tow. I’ll leave it at the front of the
center with all the others.
Professor
James waits patiently for me to get comfortable, but I can tell from his flinch
I’ve brought the dumpster’s aroma with me. I can’t let the moment pass. “What?
You don’t like my perfume?”
He chuckles
under his breath, moves the horse a small distance from the bin, and stops
again, being careful to position me downwind. “Now that you’ve begun dumpster
diving 101, what’ve you learned?”
I assume
there’s more to this “test” than a passing fancy, more than determining if I
can get filthy with the best of them and still come out swinging. “I’ve learned
people here still don’t know how to segregate garbage correctly. Hair is an
animal byproduct; it shouldn’t be in that bin. There were also a few shards of
broken glass, a recycling no-no and a clear indication more recycling education
is needed. There were only a few edible organics, indicating most of that
material is buried in gardens locally. It’s also pretty clear they don’t wash
the dumpsters out after using them to collect animal by-products.”
Professor
James looks disappointed. “That’s it, after an entire hour?”
I shrug.
“There’s more, but it’s personal.” He nods while rotating his hand toward
himself in a “give me more” motion, a clear indication I should continue. “Okay
then, from a scrawled note that was probably passed between two teenagers; I
think Dianne McCarthy is pregnant. She probably hasn’t told her parents, or
Central Population Control, or she would’ve passed that information to her
friend electronically instead of on paper.”
Professor
James smiles thinly, looking up from the stalled horse directly into my eyes.
It gives me goose bumps to be looked at so intently…so personally. “That’s
better. Now, if you had to guess, what would you think some future Cultural
Anthropologist might glean from that trash?”
Think, Beth, think! A long silence
follows. I didn’t expect such a question. The horse waits; Professor James
waits. I finally come up with something that seems reasonable. “Ah, probably
nothing. None of that trash would last very long. It’ll all be converted to
energy or re-used in some way, even the plastics and toxics. A future
anthropologist wouldn’t know we existed at all, at least not from that trash.”
“Good Beth,
excellent! Now, do you consider our current civilization more advanced or less
advanced than the one we replaced?”
Where is he going with this? Why should that
matter? I sigh; the question seems inane. “I guess more. The previous
civilization might have had more fun, but they choked on the party.”
He smiles
broadly, like he really liked my answer. “So a truly advanced civilization
might not leave clues to their existence at all, like the one we replaced did,
right? And without a remnant of trash, they’d be pretty hard to detect after
they vanished into the annals of history!”
My eyebrows
dip and I look at him with as much curiosity as I can muster. “I suppose so,
unless they left things for future generations to find, either intentionally or
accidentally. I’d consider the pyramids an accident, because they weren’t left
specifically for future generations, but time capsules full of relics were
intentional, because they were.”
He taps the
horse’s butt with his long crop and commands, “Giddyup!” The reluctant horse
moves forward without the slightest hint of enthusiasm, and Professor James
asks, while continuing to stare at the horse, “What was the most significant
thing you learned in there?”
It’s good to
be moving again. The light breeze seems to strip away the outer layer of
stench. “If my interpretation from that single scrap of paper is correct,
probably the pregnancy, but that required some inference. Our language isn’t
all that clear when people want to disguise their true meaning. I mean, it’s
pretty easy to talk around something so completely that the true meaning is
lost and only inference remains.”
We stop at
the front of the center and I place the old woman’s recycle box on the stack
with all the others. “You’re very astute, Beth, but what if you weren’t
familiar with our language or didn’t know it at all, what conclusions could you
draw about us then?”
Considering I only had an hour in the
dumpster, he’s asking some pretty deep questions. “I suppose, because
there was so little paper, one might conclude we aren’t a paper-based society.
Also, because the paper WAS there, with writing on it, that we are driven to
communicate, as a people. That alone might spur me to look further…for
something we might have left on purpose, something like a time capsule.”
His
eyes twinkle as his smile broadens, “My thinking exactly, Beth! Now let’s get
you to the office and cleaned up. When you’ve learned Old Persian more
completely than anyone in history, then I’ll show you something beyond your
imagination. Something left behind intentionally that’ll blow you away,
something that might re-write history as we know it forever.”
------------------------------
Thank you, Sara Jane Drum, for
allowing me to bring this blog to your site, and a big thank you to all you
readers who slogged your way to the end. Please feel free to comment on this
blog, or write to me at
jhatch6@hot.rr.com.
Sincerely,
James L. Hatch
Author for xoxopublishing.com, Solstice Publishing and
Eternal Press
