'And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.' (Exodus xxv, 40.)
'God' also told Moses that he would speak to him from the mercy seat. No one, he told Moses, should come close to the Ark of the Covenant, and he gave precise instructions about the clothing to be worn and the footwear appropriate when transporting it. In spite of all this care there was a slip up (2 Samuel vi, 2). David had the Ark of the Covenant moved and Uzzah helped to drive the cart it was in. When passing cattle shook and threatened to overturn the Ark, Uzzah grabbed hold of it. He fell dead on the spot, as if struck by lightning.
Undoubtedly the Ark was electrically charged! If we reconstruct it today according to the instructions handed down by Moses, a voltage of several hundred volts is produced. The condenser is formed by the gold plates, one of which is positively, the other negatively, charged. If, in addition, one of the two cherubim on the mercy seat acted as a magnet, the loudspeaker—perhaps even a kind of set for communication between Moses and the space-ship—was perfect. The details of the construction of the Ark of the Covenant can be read in the Bible in their entirety. Without actually consulting Exodus, I seem to remember that the Ark was often surrounded by flashing sparks and that Moses made use of this 'transmitter' whenever he needed help and advice. Moses heard the voice of his Lord, but he never saw him face to face. When he asked him to show himself to him on one occasion, his 'God' answered:
'Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and 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!