A gradual process of domestication through generations of breeding and selection would not do. What was needed was a quick process, one that would permit "mass' production" of the new workers. So the problem was • posed to Ea, who saw the answer at once: to "imprint" the image of the gods on the being that already existed.
The process that Ea recommended in order to achieve a quick evolutionary advancement of Homo erectus was, we believe, genetic manipulation.
We now know that the complex biological process whereby a living organism reproduces itself, creating progeny that resemble their parents, is made possible by the genetic code. All living organisms - a threadworm, a fern tree, or Man - contain in their cells chromosomes, minute rodlike bodies within each cell that hold the complete hereditary instructions for that particular organism. } As the male cell (pollen, sperm) fertilizes the female cell, the two sets of chromosomes combine and then divide to form new cells that hold the complete hereditary characteristics of their parent cells.
Artificial insemination, even of a female human egg, is now possible. The real challenge lies in cross-fertilization between different families within the same species, and even between different species. Modern science has come a long way from the development of the first hybrid corns, or the mating of Alaskan dogs with wolves, or the "creation" of the mule (the artificial mating of a mare and a donkey), to the ability to manipulate Man's own reproduction.
A process called cloning (from the Greek word klon -"twig") applies to animals the same principle as that of I taking a cutting from a plant to reproduce hundreds of 'similar plants. The technique as applied to animals was first demonstrated in England, where Dr. John Gurdon replaced the nucleus of a fertilized frog's egg with the nuclear material from another cell of the same frog. The successful formation of normal tadpoles demonstrated that the egg proceeds to develop and subdivide and create progeny no matter where it obtains the correct set of matching chromosomes.
Experiments reported by the Institute of Society, Ethics land Life Sciences at Hastings-on-Hudson, show that techniques already exist for cloning human beings. It is now possible to take the nuclear material of any human cell not necessarily from the sex organs and, by introducing its twenty-three sets of complete chromosomes into the female ovum, lead to the conception and birth of a "pre-determined" individual. In normal conception, "father" and "mother" chromosome sets merge and then must split to remain at twenty-three chromosome pairs, leading to chance combinations. But in cloning the offspring is an exact replica of the source of the unsplit set of chromosomes. We already possess, wrote Dr. W. Gaylin in The New York Times, the "awful knowledge to make exact copies of human beings" - a limitless number of Hitlers or Mozarts or Einsteins (if we had preserved their cell nuclei).
But the art of genetic engineering is not limited to one [process. Researchers in many countries have perfected a process called "cell fusion," making it possible to fuse cells [rather than combine chromosomes within a single cell. As a result of such a process, cells from different sources can I be fused into one "supercell," holding within itself two [nuclei and a double set of the paired chromosomes. When [this cell splits, the mixture of nuclei and chromosomes j may split in a pattern different from that of each cell before [the fusion. The result can be two new cells, each genetically [ complete, but each with a brand-new set of genetic codes, [completely garbled as far as the ancestor cells were I concerned.
This means that cells from hitherto incompatible living I organisms - say, that of a chicken and that of a mouse can be fused to form new cells with brand-new genetic mixes that produce new animals that are neither chickens nor mice as we know them. Further refined, the process can also permit us to select which traits of one life form shall be imparted to the combined or "fused" cell.
This has led to the development of the wide field of "genetic transplant." It is now possible to pick up from certain bacteria a single specific gene and introduce that gene into an animal or human cell, giving the offspring an added characteristic. We should assume that the Nefilim - being capable of space travel 450,000 years ago - were also equally advanced, compared to us today, in the field of life sciences. We should also assume that they were aware of the various alternatives by which two preselected sets of chromosomes could be combined to obtain a predetermined genetic result; and that whether the process was akin to cloning, cell fusion, genetic transplant, or methods as yet unknown to us, they knew these processes and could carry them out, not only in the laboratory flask but also with living organisms.
We find a reference to such a mixing of two life-sources in the ancient texts. According to Berossus, the deity Belus ('lord") - also called Deus ("god") - brought forth various "hideous Beings, which were produced of a twofold principle": Men appeared with two wings, some with four and two faces. They had one body but two heads, the one of a man, the other of a woman. They were likewise in their several organs both male and female.
Other human figures were to be seen with the legs and-horns of goats. Some had horses' feet; others had the limbs of a horse behind, but in front were fashioned like men, resembling hippocentaurs. Bulls likewise bred there with the heads of men; and dogs with fourfold bodies, and the tails of fishes. Also horses with the heads of dogs; men too and other animals with the heads and bodies of horses and the tails of fishes. In short, there were creatures with the limbs of every species of animals. . . . Of all these were preserved delineations in the temple of Belus at Babylon.
The tale's baffling details may hold an important truth. It is quite conceivable that before resorting to the creation of a being in their own image, the Nefilim attempted to come up with a "manufactured servant" by experimenting with other alternatives: the creation of a hybrid ape-man-animal. Some of these artificial creatures may have survived for a while but were certainly unable to reproduce. The enigmatic bull-men and lion-men (sphinxes) that adorned temple sites in the ancient Near East may not have been just figments of an artist's imagination but actual creatures that came out of the biological laboratories of the Nefilim - unsuccessful experiments commemorated in art and by statues.
Sumerian texts, too, speak of deformed humans created by Enki and the Mother Goddess (Ninhursag) in the course of their
efforts to fashion a perfect Primitive Worker. One text reports that Ninhursag, whose task it was to "bind upon the mixture the
mold of the gods," got drunk and "called over to Enki,"
"How good or how bad is Man's body?
As my heart prompts me,
I can make its fate good or bad."
Mischievously, then, according to this text - but probably unavoidably, as part of a trial-and-error process - Ninhursag produced a Man who could not hold back his urine, a woman who could not bear children, a being who had neither male nor female organs. All in all, six deformed or deficient humans were brought forth by Ninhursag. Enki was held responsible for the imperfect creation of a man with diseased eyes, trembling hands, a sick liver, a failing heart; a second one with sicknesses attendant upon old age; and so on.
But finally the perfect Man was achieved - the one Enki named Adapa; the Bible, Adam; our scholars, Homo sapiens. This being was so much akin to the gods that one text even went so far as to point out that the Mother Goddess gave to her creature, Man, "a skin as the skin of a god" - a smooth, hairless body, quite different from that of the shaggy ape-man. With this final product, the Nefilim were genetically compatible with the daughters of Man and able to marry them and have children by them. But such compatibility could exist only if Man had developed from the same "seed of life" as the Nefilim. This, indeed, is what the ancient texts attest to.