thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.' (Exodus xxxiii, 20-23.)
There are some astonishing similarities in old texts. On the fifth tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is of Sumerian origin and much older than the Bible, we find virtually the same sentence:
'No mortal comes to the mountain where the gods dwell. He who looks the gods in the face must die.'
In other ancient books which hand down stages in the history of mankind, we find very similar statements. Why did the 'gods' not want to show themselves face to face? Why did they not let their masks fall? What were they afraid of? Or does the whole account in Exodus come from the Epic of Gilgamesh? Even that is possible. After all, Moses is supposed to have been brought up in the Egyptian royal household. Perhaps he had access to the library or acquired knowledge of ancient secrets during those years.
Perhaps we ought to query our Old Testament dating, too, because there is a good deal to support the fact that David, who lived much later, fought with a giant with six fingers and six toes in his day (2 Samuel xxi, 18-22). We must also consider the possibility that all the ancient histories, sagas and narratives were collected and compiled in one spot and later found their way to different countries in the form of copies and somewhat garbled versions.
The finds during recent years on the Dead Sea (the Qumran texts) provide a valuable and astonishing amplification of the biblical Book of Genesis. Once again several hitherto unknown texts mention heavenly chariots, sons of heaven, wheels and the smoke which the flying apparitions emitted. In the Moses Apocalypse (Chapter 33) Eve looked up to heaven and saw a chariot of light travelling there; it was drawn by four shining eagles. No terrestrial being could have described its magnificence, it says in Moses. Finally the chariot drove up to Adam and smoke came out from between the wheels. This story, incidentally, does not tell us much that is new. Nevertheless, chariots of light, wheels and smoke were spoken of as magnificent apparitions as early as and in connexion with Adam and Eve.
A fantastic event was deciphered in the Lamech scroll. As the scroll is only fragmentarily preserved, sentences and whole paragraphs of the text are missing. However, what remains is curious enough to be worth retelling.
This tradition says that one fine day Lamech, Noah's father, came home and was surprised to find a boy, who, judging by his appearance, was quite out of place in the family. Lamech reproached his wife Bat-Enosh and claimed that the child was not his. Then Bat-Enosh swore by all that was holy that the seed came from him, father Lamech, and not from a soldier or a stranger or one of the 'sons of heaven'. (In parenthesis we may ask what sort of 'sons of heaven' was Bat-Enosh talking about? At all events this family drama took place before the Flood.) Nevertheless, Lamech did not believe his wife's protestations and, feeling very upset, went to ask his father Methuselah for advice.
On his arrival, he related the family story that was so depressing to him. Methuselah listened to it, reflected and went off himself to consult the wise Enoch. The cuckoo in the family nest was causing so much trouble that the old man accepted the hardships of the long journey. The question of the little boy's origin had to be cleared up. So Methuselah described how a boy had appeared in his son's family who looked much more like a son of heaven than a man. His eyes, hair, skin and whole being were unlike those of the rest of the family.
Enoch listened to the story and sent old Methuselah on his way with the extremely worrying news that a great judgment would come upon the earth and mankind and that all 'flesh' would be destroyed because it was sordid and dissolute. But the strange boy whom the family were suspicious of had been chosen as the progenitor of those who should survive the great universal judgment. Therefore he should order his son Lamech to call the child Noah. Methuselah journeyed home and told his son Lamech what was in store for them all. What could Lamech do but recognise the unusual child as his own and give him the name of Noah!
The astonishing thing about this family story is the information that Noah's parents were told about the coming Flood and that even grandfather Methuselah was forewarned of the terrible event by the same Enoch who soon afterwards, according to tradition, disappeared for ever in a fiery heavenly chariot.
Does not this seriously pose the question whether the human race is not an act of deliberate 'breeding' by unknown beings from outer space? Otherwise what can be the sense of the constantly recurring fertilisation of human beings by giants and sons of heaven, with the consequent extermination of unsuccessful specimens. Seen in this light the Flood becomes a preconceived project by unknown beings with the intention of exterminating the human race except for a few noble exceptions. But if the Flood, the course of which is historically proved, was quite deliberately planned and prepared—and that several hundred years before Noah received orders to build the ark—then it can no longer be accepted as a divine judgment.
Today the possibility of breeding an intelligent human race is no longer such an absurd theory. Just as the sagas of Tiahuanaco and the inscription on the pediment of the Gate of the Sun talk about a space-ship which landed the Great Mother on earth so that she could bear children, the old religious scripts, too, never tire of saying that 'God' created men in his own image. There are texts which note that it needed several experiments before man finally turned out as successfully as 'God' wanted. With the theory of a visit to our earth by unknown intelligences from the cosmos, we could postulate that today we are similarly constituted to those fabulous unidentified beings.
In this chain of evidence, the offerings which the 'gods' asked our ancestors for raise curious problems. Their demands were by no means limited to incense and animal sacrifices. The lists of gifts required by the gods often include coins made of alloys which are specified in great detail. In fact, the biggest smelting installations in the ancient East were found at Ezeon Geber, consisting of a regular ultra-modern furnace with a system of air channels, chimney flues and openings for specific purposes. Smelting experts of our own day are confronted with the as yet unexplained phenomenon of how copper could have been refined in this prehistoric installation. That was undoubtedly the case for large deposits of copper sulphate were found in the caves and galleries around Ezeon Geber. All these finds are estimated to be at least 5,000 years old!
If our own space travellers happen to meet primitive peoples on a planet one day, they too will presumably seem like 'sons of heaven' or 'gods' to them. Perhaps our intelligences will be as far ahead of the inhabitants of these unknown and as yet unimagined regions as those fabulous apparitions from the universe were ahead of our primitive ancestors. But what a disappointment if time on this as yet unknown landing place had also been progressing and our astronauts were not greeted as 'gods', but laughed at as being living far behind the times!
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Chapter Five - Fiery Chariots From The Heavens
A sensational find was made in the Hill of Kuyundjik around the turn of the century. It was a heroic epic of great expressive power engraved on twelve clay tablets and it belonged to the library of the Assyrian King Assurbanipal. The epic was written in Akkadian; later a second copy was found that goes back to King
