The Genesis Code (11 page)

10 March—

As I continue my journey through the mind of my father, reflected and preserved in the treasured volumes of his private library, I am struck now by the vivid recollection of words he often spoke to me when I was a boy, words of simple yet enduring wisdom that, perhaps as a consequence of my limited perspective, failed to make a proper impact on the world of my youth.

My father often said: “A written word is the choicest of relics, something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.”

I find these words of my father to be of particular importance as I contemplate the writings of the
Book of Enoch,
an ancient, fragile copy of which was preserved in a thin folio in the heart of my father’s library.

The
Book of Enoch
is a ancient Hebrew religious text, banned from inclusion in the Christian Bible by those early leaders of the Christian church who took control of Christianity’s doctrinal reins at the Council of Nicea. Why, you may wonder, was it banned? Enoch is a biblical figure, mentioned more than once in the Book of Genesis, one of two men taken up bodily into the presence of God, ascending into Heaven without dying. Because Enoch was enraptured, or translated bodily, into Heaven, he became the center of an apocalyptic tradition among Hebrew cabalists and early Christians.

As I have written before, I believe that there are, hidden in the ancient writings and myths of man, many cryptic references to scientific concepts far beyond the understanding of their authors, references repeated without comprehension, preserved from their original source now lost in the mists of antiquity. The
Book of Enoch
contains such references.

According to the
Book of Enoch,
the Archangel Gabriel imparted to Enoch knowledge of the secrets of creation and the cycles of events on the earth. Enoch was instructed by God to inscribe this knowledge and give the inscriptions, written in the handwriting of God, to his children so that they would be handed down from generation to generation.

I can only conclude that the “handwriting of God, inscribed for Enoch’s children to be handed down from generation to generation” is a cryptic reference to the inscription of a message in the human genome, to be passed down through successive generations.

The
Book of Enoch
also describes a “chart” that God put on earth and ordered that “it be preserved, and that the handwriting of thy fathers be preserved, and that it not perish in the Deluge which I shall bring upon thy race.”

If I accept that the term “handwriting of God” is a primitive reference to the human genetic code, then the “handwriting of thy fathers” must refer to the genes of our ancestors.

12 March—

There are other considerations. The human genome is packaged in twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. The number twenty-three does not appear to have any special significance. It is actually a bit surprising that humans don’t have twenty-four chromosomes. Chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas all have twenty-four.

Geneticists have determined that the reason humans only have twenty-three chromosomes is that two ape chromosomes are fused together in humans. The second biggest human chromosome, chromosome two, is actually a fusion of two medium-sized ape chromosomes.

Pope John Paul II has argued that between ancestral apes and modern humans, there was an ontological discontinuity, a point at which God injected a human soul into animal evolution. Maybe this divine jump forward was manifested by the fusion of two ape chromosomes.

Can we see a reflection of the human soul in our DNA?

If we look with fresh eyes, will we find a gene for the human soul hidden in our genome, perhaps hiding in the winding proteins of chromosome two?

<< SECURITY ALERT >>

<< Priority: Alpha >>

<< All security personnel are directed to immediately >>

<< conduct a level-one search of all facilities. >>

<< Lockdown in effect until further notice. >>

25 March—

A man much smarter than I once said that God does not play dice with the universe. After considerable reflection, I cannot accept the idea that a Supreme Being placed a hidden code within our DNA to convey a message to humanity. Appealing as the notion may be to those seeking solace or comfort in evidence of direct communication from our Creator, my rational mind must ultimately reject such a theory.

But there is no doubt that the Genesis Code does exist. I have as of yet been unsuccessful in my attempts to decipher the encrypted text built into the chemical structure of our genome. The question remains, who put it there and for what purpose?

The cryptic references to DNA and genetics in ancient Hebrew texts remain. I believe that Hebrew scholars of old were simply reciting fragments of advanced scientific knowledge that were beyond their ability to understand during the age in which they lived. I am expanding my review of ancient literature to include studies of writings of other ancient cultures. I have already found references in Mayan mythology and Egyptian texts similar to those in the
Sefer Yetzirah
.

I predict that the encoding of advanced scientific concepts in primitive ancient narratives will be a common theme among many of our oldest civilizations.

But if God was not responsible for the Genesis Code, who was? There is another hypothesis that warrants consideration.

Several decades ago, mathematician Johann von Neumann proposed the idea of a self-reproducing machine that would scour the universe for the existence of life.

What did von Neumann mean when he said self-reproducing? Imagine an apparatus that takes off from earth and heads for the nearest sun, Proxima Centauri. The apparatus has computers and sensors to detect the existence of planets orbiting around any stars it encounters. It finds a planet and lands, looking for signs of life. Finding none, robotic devices on board the apparatus scavenge metals and chemicals from the planet’s surface.

It may take centuries, but the von Neumann apparatus builds a complete copy of itself and repairs or replaces any parts damaged during its landing on the planet. Now there are two von Neumann machines. They both take off and search for other planets. Over tens of thousands of years, the machines multiply and spread across the galaxy, searching for life.

Von Neumann was well ahead of his time, but his ideas are not inconceivable. In the future, nanotechnology could produce a machine capable of performing the functions von Neumann proposed. But why send machines into space when there is a much simpler way of accomplishing the same goal?

DNA is an organic, self-reproducing apparatus that already exists in nature. There is no need to build a von Neumann machine. The mechanism necessary to accomplish his goal already exists in the form of DNA.

Each cell in an organism contains the complete DNA necessary for reproducing the entire organism. So why use complex machine technology when microscopic DNA can do the same thing? Strands of engineered DNA could spread throughout the universe in the same fashion as a von Neumann machine. We could sow the galaxy with DNA in the same way a farmer sows his fields with seeds. Some of the DNA would find planets with chemical compounds suitable to allow the DNA to replicate itself.

Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick proposed that an alien civilization might have launched microorganisms into space hundreds of millions of years ago, spreading them throughout the universe and sowing the cosmos with life. Within the engineered DNA of these organisms, our hypothetical alien civilization could have encoded messages, or even an entire universal language, to pass on their knowledge to other civilizations.

When these genetic messengers encountered life, they could insert the Genesis Code into its DNA, much in the same way that gene therapy inserts new sequences of genes into the DNA of living patients. The messages hidden in the Genesis Code would be preserved and passed on from generation to generation, awaiting discovery by intelligent life.

Is this the origin of the Genesis Code? A truly ancient message delivered to us across time and space? A communication from a distant civilization?