That the first representatives of Homo sapiens were incapable of reproduction should not be surprising. Whatever method the Nefilim had used to infuse some of their genetic material into the biological makeup of the hominids they selected for the purpose, the new being was a hybrid, a cross between two different, if related, species. Like a mule (a cross between a mare and a donkey), such mammal hybrids are sterile. Through artificial insemination and even more sophisticated methods of biological engineering, we can produce as many mules as we desire, even without actual intercourse between donkey and mare; but no mule can procreate and bring forth another mule. Were the Nefilim, at first, simply producing "human mules" to suit their requirements?
Our curiosity is aroused by a scene depicted on a rock carving found in the mountains of southern Elam. It depicts a seated deity holding a "laboratory" flask from which liquids are flowing - a familiar depiction of Enki. A Great Goddess is seated next to him, a pose that indicates that she was a co-worker rather than a spouse; she could be none other than Ninti, the Mother Goddess or Goddess of Birth. The two are flanked by lesser goddesses - reminiscent of the birth goddesses of the Creation tales. Facing these creators of Man are row upon row of human beings, whose outstanding feature is that they all look alike - like products from the same mold.
Our attention is also drawn again to the Sumerian tale of the imperfect males and females initially brought forth by Enki and the Mother Goddess, who were either sexless or sexually incomplete beings. Does this text recall the first phase of the existence of hybrid Man - a being in the likeness and image of the gods, but sexually incomplete: lacking in "knowing"? After Enki managed to produce a "perfect model" - Adapa/Adam, "mass-production" techniques are described in the Sumerian texts: the implanting of the genetically treated ova in a "production line" of birth goddesses, with the advance knowledge that half would produce males and half would produce females. Not only does this bespeak the technique by which hybrid Man was "manufactured"; it also implies that Man could not procreate on his own.
The inability of hybrids to procreate, it has been discovered recently, stems from a deficiency in the reproductive cells. While all cells contain only one set of hereditary chromosomes, Man and other mammals are able to reproduce because their sex cells (the male sperm, the female ovum) contain two sets each. But this unique feature is lacking in hybrids. Attempts are now being made through genetic engineering to provide hybrids with such a double set of chromosomes in their -reproductive cells, making them sexually "normal."
Was that what the god whose epithet was "The Serpent" accomplished for Mankind?
The biblical Serpent surely was not a lowly, literal snake - for he could converse with Eve, he knew the truth about the matter of "knowing," and he was of such high stature that he unhesitatingly exposed the deity as a liar. We recall that in all ancient traditions, the chief deity fought a Serpent adversary - a tale whose roots undoubtedly go back to the Sumerian gods. The biblical tale reveals many traces of its Sumerian origin, including the presence of other deities: "The Adam has become as one of us." The possibility that the biblical antagonists - the Deity and the Serpent - stood for Enlil and Enki seems to us entirely plausible.
Their antagonism, as we have discovered, originated in the transfer to Enlil of the command of Earth, although Enki had been the true pioneer. While Enlil stayed at the comfortable Mission Control Center at Nippur, Enki was sent to organize the mining operations in the Lower World. The mutiny of the Anunnaki was directed at Enlil and his son Ninurta; the god who spoke out for the mutineers was Enki. It was Enki who suggested, and undertook, the creation of Primitive Workers; Enlil had to use force to obtain some of these wonderful creatures. As the Sumerian texts recorded the course of human events, Enki as a rule emerges as Mankind's protagonist, Enlil as its strict discipliner if not outright antagonist. The role of a deity wishing to keep the new humans sexually suppressed, and of a deity willing and capable of bestowing on Mankind the fruit of "knowing," fit Enlil and Enki perfectly.
Once more, Sumerian and biblical plays on words come to our aid. The biblical term for "Serpent" is nahash, which does mean "snake." But the word comes from the root NHSH, which means "to decipher, to find out"; so that nahash could also mean "he who can decipher, he who finds things out," an epithet befitting Enki, the chief scientist, the God of Knowledge of the Nefilim. Drawing parallels between the Mesopotamian tale of Adapa (who obtained "knowing" but failed to obtain eternal life) and the fate of Adam, S. Langdon (Semitic Mythology) reproduced a depiction unearthed in Mesopotamia that strongly suggests the biblical tale: a serpent entwined on a tree, pointing at its fruit. The celestial symbols are significant: High above is the Planet of Crossing, which stood for Anu; near the serpent is the Moon's crescent, which stood for Enki.
Most pertinent to our findings is the fact that in the Mesopotamian texts, the god who eventually granted "knowledge" to Adapa was none other than Enki:
Wide understanding he perfected for him. . . . Wisdom [he had given him]. . . . To him he had given Knowledge; Eternal Life he had not given him.
A pictorial tale engraved on a cylinder seal found in Mari may well be an ancient illustration of the Mesopotamian version of the tale in Genesis. The engraving shows a great god seated on high ground rising from watery waves - an obvious depiction of
Enki. Water-spouting serpents protrude from each side of this "throne."
Flanking this central figure are two treelike gods. The one on the right, whose branches have penis-shaped ends, holds up a
bowl that presumably contains the Fruit of Life. The one on the left, whose branches have vagina-shaped ends, offers fruit-
bearing branches, representing the Tree of "Knowing" - the god-given gift of procreation.
Standing to the side is another Great God; we suggest that he was Enlil. His anger at Enki is obvious.
We shall never know what caused this "conflict in the Garden of Eden." But whatever Enki's motives were, he did succeed in
perfecting the Primitive Worker and in creating Homo sapiens, who could have his own offspring.
After Man's acquisition of "knowing," the Old Testament ceases to refer to him as "the Adam," and adopts as its subject Adam, a specific person, the first patriarch of the line of people with whom the Bible was concerned. But this coming of age of Mankind also marked a schism between God and Man.
The parting of the ways, with Man no longer a dumb serf of the gods but a person tending for himself, is ascribed in the Book of Genesis not to a decision by Man himself but to the imposition of a punishment by the Deity: lest the Earthling also acquire the ability to escape mortality, he shall be cast out of the Garden of Eden. According to these sources, Man's independent existence began not in southern Mesopotamia, where the Nefilim had established their cities and orchards, but to the east, in the Zagros Mountains: "And he drove out the Adam and made him reside east of the Garden of Eden."
Once more, then, biblical information conforms to scientific findings: Human culture began in the mountainous areas bordering the Mesopotamian plain. What a pity the biblical narrative is so brief, for it deals with what was Man's first civilized life on Earth. Cast out of the Abode of the Gods, doomed to a mortal's life, but able to procreate, Man proceeded to do just that. The first Adam with whose generations the Old Testament was concerned "knew" his wife Eve, and she bore him a son, Cain, who tilled the land. Then Eve bore Abel, who was a shepherd. Hinting at homosexuality as the cause, the Bible relates that "Cain rose up unto his brother Abel and killed him."
Fearing for his life, Cain was given a protective sign by the Deity and was ordered to move farther east. At first leading a nomad's life, he finally settled in "the Land of Migration, well east of Eden." There he had a son whom he named Enoch ("inauguration"), "and he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son." Enoch, in turn, had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In the sixth generation after Cain, Lamech was born; his three sons are credited by the Bible as the bearers of civilization: Jabal "was the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle"; Jubal "was the father of all that grasp lyre and harp"; Tubal-cain was the first smith.