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Sunday, June 14, 2020

How Judaism Tells Where Our DNA Comes From

Nadene Goldfoot                                               
                                                                 
This all happened in a garden in Eden 5,780 years ago, which was in the Eastern part of the world.  The area is identified by four rivers.  The first was Pishon that circled Havilah, the land where gold was found  The second river was Gihon that circled the land of Cush.  The third was Hideel which flowed toward the east of Assyria, and the 4th river was the Euphrates.  

The Torah starts off right away in the first chapter, Genesis (Bereishis)  with Adam's creation of a partner, Eve,  through his own rib, giving Cain and Abel, their sons,  DNA from an extremely close source.
                                                                           
They had been born in a different section of land, leaving the garden in Eden, so were receiving a different environment in which to grow up.  
                                                                                     
Cain and Abel received their DNA as normal brothers, but as different as could possibly be.  One had talent in hunting and the other didn't.  Abel became a shepherd and Cain became a tiller of the ground.   Cain eventually killed his brother, Abel.  That shows me that the first people carried a great variety of genes, just like today, from their mother and their  father.  Adam was the one with the extreme differences that he shared with Eve.  
                                                                               
The sons of the rulers saw that the daughters of man were good and they took themselves wives from whomever they chose.  .....his days shall be 120 years.  

Suddenly Cain finds a wife in the neighborhood, so Enoch was born.  This was a beginning evidently and a family had not been created as yet but is in the beginning stage.  Cain's genes will induce him to be a wanderer and will be exploring the land.  His descendant, Methushael had a son, Lamech, who started bigamy by taking two wives, Adah and Zilah.  
                                                  

The first,  Adah's descendant, Enoch,  became a city-builder, so that's where those genes came from.  A descendant, Jabal was the first to live in a tent and breed cattle.  His brother, Jubal became the first to have and play the harp and flute.  Lamech's second wife, Zilah's son Tubal-Cain sharpened all cutting implements of copper and iron.  
                                                           

Lamech was blind, so his son, Tubal-cain would lead him when walking.  Tubal-cain saw Cain but thought he was seeing an animal.  He told his father to shoot an arrow at this animal. (Tubal-cain's eyes were going like his father's, evidently.)  When Lamech understood that he had shot Cain instead,  he beat his hands together in grief  and accidently killed his son.  His wives were so angry that they refused to live with him.  He tried to appease them.  "If the punishment of Cain, an intentional murder of Abel was delayed until the 7th generation, surely my punishment will be deferred many times 7 because I killed accidently."  (Rashi).  
                                                   

Cain suffered vengeance for 7 generations.  Lamech suffered vengeance for 77 generations.  Then Seth was born to Adam and Eve to replace Abel.    The telling of the genealogy of mankind is beginning.  It starts with Seth and goes on from Adam to Noah.  From Seth onward, the human race survived.  Abel had died without leaving any children.  All of Cain's descendants perished in the Flood.
So did the continuance of mankind living as long as Methuselah, son of Enoch and father of Lamech of 969  years.     
We come from Seth and the genes he carried on his 23 chromosomes.  
                                                
Noah after 40 days tested for land with a raven.  When he sent out a dove, he also returned.  Another 7 days went by and this time after flying out, the dove returned with a twig.  He had found land.  

                                                 

Noah had 3 sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  THE FLOOD covers land in the 600th year of Noah's life, the year 1656 from the time of creation of the world.  After the Flood, we see that 70 people came from Shem, Ham and Japheth from whom humanity was derived.  The Babylonians also have a story about THE BEGINNING, The Gilgamesh epic which contains a parallel flood story.  Instead of a hero, Noah, their story contains Utnapishtim as their hero.  Many midrashic legends were woven around the story of Noah.  A Midrash is the finding of new meanings in addition to the literal one in the Scriptures.  It's the tradition of the Talmud to formulate certain rules to deduce hidden and new meanings.  Sometimes it is to find scriptural support for laws already accepted.  The entire talmudic literature is full of midrashic exposition of verses.  It's now applied mainly to legends and ethics.  

From Shem came the nations of Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, and Aaram.  Arpachshad was the father of Eber and ancestor Abraham.  That line should carry the J1 line of Cohen as Abraham was the ancestor of Moses and his brother, Aaron, the 1st high priest (Cohen).  These people's language were akin to Hebrew and are called a Semitic people and their languages are Semitic languages.   

From Ham came the nations of Cush (Nubia and Ethiopia), Put (Libya and Morocco), Mizraim (Egypt) and Canaan (Syria and what came to be called Palestine).  The languages of Africa south of Egypt which are related to Semitic languages are called Hamitic languages.  

From Japheth came the nations of  wide territories, 14 different peoples.  Mostly they came from the Indo-European language group, ranging from the Caucasus to the Aegean. 

It is my understanding that to be a member of the Sanhedrin, an assembly of 71 ordained scholars which functioned both as Supreme Court and as legislature, one had to present credentials showing their genealogy who in its later history was usually a descendant of Hillel, a man born in the 1st century BCE.  At the head of the Sanhedrin was the Nasi, meaning prince or president.   Hillel was born in Babylonia but settled in Eretz Yisrael and earned a slender living by manual labor while studying with the famous teachers, Shemaiah and Avtalyon.  He's the one that phrased, Do not do unto others that which you would not have them do unto you."  



Resource;
Tanakh, The Stone Edition, The Torah/Prophets/Writing, the 24 books of the Bible.
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia








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