Bene Elohim
Identifying Archaic Hominins Contribution to the Human Genome
Recall what the Torah says in Genesis 6:1-4 “And it came to pass when man commenced to multiply upon the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them. That the sons of the elohim saw the daughters of man when they were beautifying themselves, and they took for themselves wives from whomever they chose. And the Lord said, "Let My spirit not quarrel forever concerning man, because he is also flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of the elohim would come to the daughters of man, and they would bear for them; they are the mighty men, who were of old, the men of renown.”
We will unravel all of the various groups in these lines from Genesis in the coming sections, but most importantly these “Sons of the Elohim” “took for themselves wives” among the “daughters of man”. Meaning human women had children by the men, or these “Sons of the Elohim”, and going with our previous evidence would mean if these ‘sons’ were Neanderthal men, they would not have been able to interbreed with the daughters of man. Their generations would have failed, which is the opposite of what we see, implying a difference provenance for the ‘Bene Elohim’ than with the Neaderthals, or probably neither with the Denisovans.
Let's double back to the text and break down the groups. Mighty Men, or ‘Gibborim’ in Hebrew, descend from the offspring of Nephilim - otherwise known as Giants in much of Rabbinic literature - and the offspring of the Sons of the Elohim and Daughters of Men. This makes the Gibborim both Giants through their descent from Nephilim and descended separately from the Elohim, or variously sometimes called ‘angels’. The Nephilim are not angels, but are giants, whose descendants were the Gibborim - such as the famous Nimrod - who interbreed with the Elohim giving rise to a semi-divine status similar to the figures of Gilgamesh, or Hercules, and thus other Nephilim offspring.
We have four groups: Nephilim (Giants), Gibborim (Mighty Men), Bene Elohim (Sons of the Elohim), Daughters of Men crossed with Bene Elohim - who we have no name for, but would be explicitly different from their fathers, the Bene Elohim purely. Given all three of the primary groups end in ‘im’ which is the suffix often given to ethnic, or racial groups, we can be certain that lacking a specifically named founder a group would be identified in its plural group form. Since there is no name for this fourth group, I would presume these ‘daughters of men’ would have to descend from an individual named somewhere, likely making them the daughters of either Seth, or Cain, or variously both of these groups together. These two groups combined with the three former Nephilim, Gibborim, Bene Elohim, make a total of five antediluvian races. One could variously claim Abel as another prior to his brother's murder, but it’s up for debate if he ever would have had children - or even if they would interbreed with the other sons - as we aren’t given much from his narrative.
Evidence suggests that even prior to the Neanderthal and Denisovan expansion there were Archaic Hominins in Eurasia that contributed ultimately to the human genome through the Neandersovans.1 Other studies have identified admixtures as recent as 350,000 years ago of an “erectus-like” creature that was injected into the Denisovan lineage. This distant erectus population found its way into the human genome through the Denisovans, but is not universally shared.2
Given the non-universality of the Denisovan DNA this would give rise to a theory they were the giants who survived the Flood, but did not fully interbreed - at least until the modern era of populations - unlike the Cainites who through the possible Neanderthal identification completely disappeared into human groups. Those “distant” populations of Archaic Hominins from Eurasia may have been the groups responsible for interbreeding into the Denisovan lineage creating the offspring of the Sons of the Elohim married with the Daughters of Men and bred with the Nephilim, to produce the Gibborim.
Under this framework, the Denisovans would be the Gibborim, descended from the giants and angels. Alternatively, the Denisovans could be the Nephilim themselves, having interbred into the human population through their descendants the Gibborim, who themselves merged with other two archaic hominin ghost populations that contributed to the human genome. Neanderthals, through the ‘daughters of man’ might have been the Cainite women who contributed to the Denisovan DNA.
This would mean the Denisovans we have discovered are not the principal population, but instead a Denisovan branch that merged with Neanderthals, contrasting what we know about the Denisovans as a ‘branch of Neanderthals that split off’. Even within academia it’s still unknown what the difference between Denisovans and Homo Erectus are, and it’s very possible we have a huge misclassification conspiracy on our hands with many Homo Erectus species. Even within the “Denisovan” lineage there were really two distinct groups of South East Asian Denisovans and Northern Denisovans around Northern China. More likely is that Denisovans and Cainites were related people, meaning the Denisovans were descended in some form from the Bene Elohim x Daughters of Man. Whether the direct offspring, or a further fusion with the Nephilim, it’s unlikely the Nephilim correspond to Denisovans at all, even if the Denisovans are their giant offspring.
There is one problem with Denisovans; we have only discovered: a finger bone, four teeth3, long bone fragments, a partial jawbone4 and a parietal bone skull fragment.5 The actual DNA evidence we have on the Denisovans is atrociously understood and very little is certain with the first evidence for them only emerging in 2010. The vast majority of the data only comes from within the last decade, and this emerging population's anatomy is poorly known. There are cursory studies suggesting they might be on the taller, ‘heftier’ side than humans, giving them a somewhat ‘giant’ appearance - especially between a well fed Denisovan versus insufficiently fed human. One sample has a brain volume of 1800, significantly larger than Neanderthals or Humans, possibly proving they had a much larger cranium.6 It will take some years to get better evidence for the Denisovans, before we can know much about their status as ‘giants’, for now.
However, there are actually two alternatives. The literal ‘giants’ are the Nephilim, and populations who descend from them, that would be taller than your average human. While the giants do interbreed with the resultant offspring of the Bene Elohim and man, they only do so separately, possibly giving rise to a non-giant-mixed group that could have still been giant albeit slightly shorter, but still descended from the Bene Elohim and man. This would be prior to the Nephilim - variously referred to as ‘giants’ - interbreeding, potentially explaining a situation where the future Denisovans we discover might simply be within modern human anatomy sizes; there could be two ‘Denisovans’ we just haven’t discovered as of yet.
An even more simple explanation is that Denisovans, like modern humans, have a whole range of sizes. Another alternative is that there could be a third group we haven’t seen yet, among the other two hidden ghost populations on the genome? What does this make of Abel? Would Abel therefore be the Denisovans? It’s juicey to jump to such a conclusion, but all the more likely would be the Denisovans as one of the group of giants. So who actually was Abel?
Baring a complete discussion of Abel, saved for a separate book on Adam, most likely is that Abel was one of the short lived Homo species, wiped out by the Neanderthals in their ascendancy. The entire story of Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens is one of rivalry, competition, and population displacement. Many sites that were Neanderthal became Homo Sapiens, only for Neanderthals to return once more before themselves being wiped out by the ascendant modern Homo Sapiens. Abel could very well have been the ‘4th’ archaic hominin which split off from the ancestors of modern humans.7
Further Antediluvian Dating
Helpful Dates in the Timeline
Middle Paleolithic
315 kya: Approximate date of appearance of Homo sapiens (Jebel Irhoud, Morocco).
270 kya: Age of Y-DNA haplogroup A00 ("Y-chromosomal Adam").
230 kya - 150 kya: Age of mt-DNA haplogroup L ("Mitochondrial Eve").
150 kya: Peopling of Africa: Khoisanid separation, age of mtDNA haplogroup L0.
130 kya: Oldest evidence of ancient seafaring, from Crete (an island isolated from land for millions of years prior to human arrival).
120 kya - 90 kya: Abbassia Pluvial in North Africa—the Sahara desert region is wet and fertile.
120 kya - 75 kya: Khoisanid back-migration from Southern Africa to East Africa.
80 kya - 70 kya: Recent African origin: separation of sub-Saharan Africans and non-Africans.
75 kya: Toba Volcano supereruption that may have contributed to human populations being lowered to about 15,000 people.
Upper Paleolithic
67 kya - 40 kya: Neanderthal admixture to Eurasians.
50 kya - 30 kya: Mousterian Pluvial in North Africa. The Sahara desert region is wet and fertile. Late Stone Age begins in Africa.
45 kya - 43 kya: The first waves of Homo sapiens arrive in Europe, comprising the Early European modern humans.
42 kya: Time frame of the Laschamps event, the first geomagnetic excursion studied and one of the few full global magnetic field reversals known.
40 kya: Extinction of Homo neanderthalensis.
31 kya - 16 kya: Last Glacial Maximum (peak at 26,500 years ago).
13 kya: A major water outbreak occurs on Lake Agassiz in central North America.
13 kya - 10 kya: End of the Last Glacial Period, climate warms, glaciers recede.
13 kya - 11 kya: Earliest dates suggested for the domestication of the sheep.
12.9 kya - 11.7 kya: The Younger Dryas, a period of sudden cooling and return to glacial conditions.
Southern Dispersal Theory
I am going to do something quite irresponsible, that I rarely do, but I will leave a link to this Wikipedia article which will do a better job at explaining how human populations might have spread than I ever could.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Dispersal
Last Glacial Maximum
Last Glacial Maximum populations relied on coasts for survival. Could a sudden Flood wipe out coastal populations? Was there evidence for a sudden flood around this period? Yes.
Either Last Glacial Maximum or Meltwater pulse 1B. There rapid changes in sea level correspond to various flood events, evidenced from this chart.
Holocene
9600 BC: An abrupt period of global warming accelerates the glacial retreat; taken as the beginning of the Holocene geological epoch.
9600 BC: Jericho has evidence of settlement dating back to 9,600 BC. Jericho was a popular camping ground for Natufian hunter-gatherer groups, who left a scattering of crescent microlith tools behind them.[93]
9400 BC: Earliest supposed date for the domestication of the pig.[94]
9200 BC - 9000 BC: Meltwater pulse 1B, a sudden rise of sea level by 7.5 m (25 ft) within about 160 years.
9000 BC: Earliest date recorded for construction of temenoi ceremonial structures at Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, as possibly the oldest surviving proto-religious site on Earth.[95]
9000 BC: Giant short-faced bears and giant ground sloths go extinct. Equidae goes extinct in North America.
8900 BC - 8300 BC: The Indigenous peoples of the southwestern Amazon basin domesticate cassava, the first domestic crop in the New World, followed by squash and dozens of tree species. They also begin intensively modifying the Amazonian landscape, foresting open savannahs and permanently increasing the biomass and biodiversity of the modern Amazon rainforest.[96][97][98]
8800 BC - 7000 BC: Byblos appears to have been settled during the PPNB period. Neolithic remains of some buildings can be observed at the site.[99][100]
8500 BC: Earliest supposed date for the domestication of cattle.[101]
8000 BC: Earliest dates suggested for the domestication of the goat.[102]
8000 BC: The Quaternary extinction event, which has been ongoing since the mid-Pleistocene, concludes. Many of the ice age megafauna go extinct, including the megatherium, woolly rhinoceros, Irish elk, cave bear, cave lion, and the last of the sabre-toothed cats. The mammoth goes extinct in Eurasia and North America, but is preserved in small island populations until ~1650 BC.
8000 BC - 7000 BC: In northern Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, cultivation of barley and wheat begins. At first they are used for beer, gruel, and soup, eventually for bread.[103] In early agriculture at this time, the planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive plow in subsequent centuries.[104] Around this time, a round stone tower, now preserved to about 8.5 metres (28 ft) high and 8.5 metres (28 ft) in diameter is built in Jericho.[105]
8000 BC - 6000 BC: The post-glacial sea level rise decelerates, slowing the submersion of landmasses that had taken place over the previous 10,000 years.
8000 BC - 3000 BC: Identical ancestors point: sometime in this period lived the latest subgroup of human population consisting of those that were all common ancestors of all present day humans, the rest having no present day descendants.[106]
7500 BC - 3500 BC: Neolithic Subpluvial in North Africa. The Sahara desert region supports a savanna-like environment. Lake Chad is larger than the current Caspian Sea. An African culture develops across the current Sahel region.
7500 BC: Çatalhöyük urban settlement founded in Anatolia.[107]
7500 BC: Earliest supposed date for the domestication of the cat.[108]
7200 BC: First human settlement in Amman, Jordan; ʿAin Ghazal Neolithic settlement was built spanning over an area of 15 hectares (37 acres).[109]
7176 BC: Earliest confirmed Miyake event, an extreme peak of solar activity which showers the solar system with cosmic rays and radiation.
7000 BC - 6000 BC: Early European Farmers arrive in Europe through Anatolia. They replace Western Hunter Gatherer populations in many areas, intermix in others, and introduce agriculture into Europe. [110][111][112]
7000 BC: Maize is domesticated in southern Mexico from the wild (and significantly different) teosinte and quickly becomes the dominant staple of Mesoamerica, heralding the beginning of agriculture and further domestications in the region.[113]
7000 BC: The Kuk Swamp in the highlands of Papua New Guinea becomes a cradle of agriculture. Early farmers dig canals that transform the swamp into arable land. They domesticate bananas, sugarcane, taro, lesser yam, and raise cassowaries from captured eggs (which had been done as early as 18,000 years ago).[114][115]
7000 BC: Jiahu culture begins in China.
7000 BC: First large-scale fish fermentation in southern Sweden.[116]
7000 BC: Human settlement of Mehrgarh, one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia. In April 2006, Nature note that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e. in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh.[117]
6200 BC - 6000 BC: The 8.2-kiloyear event, a sudden decrease of global temperatures, probably caused by the final collapse of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which leads to drier conditions in East Africa and Mesopotamia.
6200 BC - 5600 BC: Sudden rise in sea level (Meltwater pulse 1C) by 6.5 m (21 ft) in less than 140 years; this concludes the early Holocene sea level rise and sea level remains largely stable throughout the Neolithic.[118]
6000 BC - 3000 BC: Development of proto-writing in China,[119] Southeast Europe (Vinca symbols),[120] and West Asia (proto-literate cuneiform).
6000 BC: Evidence of habitation at the current site of Aleppo dates to about c. 8,000 years ago, although excavations at Tell Qaramel, 25 kilometres (16 mi) north of the city show the area was inhabited about 13,000 years ago,[121] Carbon-14 dating at Tell Ramad, on the outskirts of Damascus, suggests that the site may have been occupied since the second half of the seventh millennium BC, possibly around 6300 BC.[122] However, evidence of settlement in the wider Barada basin dating back to 9000 BC exists.[123]
6000 BC - 5000 BC: The earliest New World ceramics are created in the Amazon basin.[124]
5700 BC - 4500 BC: Vinča culture.
5500 BC: Copper smelting in evidence in Pločnik and Belovode.[125][126]
5259 BC: Confirmed Miyake event, with high amount of cosmic radiation from the Sun hitting the Earth.
4500 BC: The oldest known gold hoard deposited at Varna Necropolis, Bulgaria.
4300 BC: Akahoya eruption creates the Kikai Caldera and ends the earliest homogeneous Jomon culture in Japan. When the Jomon culture recovers, it shows regional differences.[127][verification needed]
4050 BC - 4000 BC: Trypillian build in Nebelivka (Ukraine) settlement which reached 15,000–18,000 inhabitants.[128][129]
4130 BC: Toggling harpoons are invented somewhere in eastern Siberia, spreading south into Japan and east into North America, where they are ancestral to the sophisticated designs of the Inuit and later European whalers.[130]
4000 BC: Civilizations develop in the Mesopotamia/Fertile Crescent region (around the location of modern-day Iraq).
4000 BC: Earliest supposed dates for the domestication of the horse, the domestication of the chicken, and the invention of the potter's wheel.
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Gibbons, Anne (2019). "First fossil jaw of Denisovans finally puts a face on elusive human relatives".
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Extremely interesting and well thought out.