Forgotten Ages Research

The Atlantis-Genesis Connection—Parallels of Cultural Development

Report Topics:

• A detailed analysis of the Book of Genesis’ description of the Antediluvian world and its history, based on an indepth study of the Hebrew text and the hidden meanings of the names of the pre-Flood patriarchs

Full Report:

In the opening chapters of Genesis, we are given a glimpse of a man and woman, Adam and Eve, living in a totally right-brained existence, being One with an Eden world, in total harmony and balance, yet they themselves being fully submerged within the natural order without the exercise of freedom of will—”the knowledge of good and evil.” This exercise, and the corresponding opening up of the left-brain perceptions, came only with the “Fall.” In Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Paradise, they emerged as more rationalizing, left-brained beings, suddenly faced with the problem of coping with their environment from a new self-centered perspective.

With an instilled intellect and physical prowess, however, Adam and Eve and their immediate offspring, the Antediluvian people, experimented in the task of reshaping their environment to suit their needs. And it was this reshaping process that constituted the development of a great yet forgotten civilization. This was their quest, to search for a return to balance, to exercise will through the left-brain, yet strive to return to perfect holistic harmony in the natural order of the Earth through the right-brain reactivation.

It is a challenge which we in our own civilization must meet head-on once again—to take the responsibility of exercising our will but only as we can work in cooperation and open communications with the Planetary and Divine Wills, the source of Harmony and Oneness.

The Antediluvian civilization as a whole failed in this aspect, and herein lies a lesson be learned by our own world today. As we have noted before, the story of Antediluvia is really the story of Atlantis, the two being the same. Its message, as to the decisions and choices that were made, is vital for our own survival today--for we are also being given the same choices, and must make similar decisions, concerning our relationship and destiny in association with our planetary environment.

In the perfect world of Eden, Adam and Eve are portrayed as gardeners. On a more esoteric level, they were the irrigators and energizers of the Earth Crystal grid and earth energy currents of the world. Even after their expulsion from the Garden, Adam and Eve attempted to seek a return to the perfect world by instituting a system of worship and learning, and we see n their ten generations of offspring through Seth, ten levels of Initiation in search for Inner balance.

This system of worship and learning would later have its expression in the Hebrew Sinaic sanctuary system, and we find striking parallels between the geography of Eden and the layout of the Sinaic sanctuary, as depicted in the Old Testament, in the Books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Reconstructing the Eden geography as given in the Genesis texts, we remember the four rivers flowing into one that created the Eden river, flowing from east to west. We remember also that Eden has the connotation of “a place hedged about,” and that the Garden likewise appears to have had a similar natural barrier surrounding it. In Genesis 3:24, we are told that God put a gate at the eastern edge of the Garden. A gate implies a means of entrance at a specific point, with entrance denied at every other point.

At the very center of the Garden, according to Genesis 2:9, God placed the “tree of life,” the symbol of immortality. It is interesting that in the Book or Revelations, chapter 22, we are given a description of the New Earth. There, as given in verse 2, will be the “tree of life” also, and associated with it a river. As it shall be, so very probably that is the way it was—the Eden river passed through the center of the Garden, by the “tree of life.” Since the purpose of the river to begin with was to “water the garden” according to Genesis 2:10, the center of the Garden would be the logical place to find it.

Beyond the Garden, to the east, were the four rivers—the Pison, the Gihon, the Hiddekel and the Euphrates—that came together to form the one river Eden. Now it is significant to note, as we studied earlier, that the first two, the Pison and Gihon, are associated with the names Havilah and Ethiopia, which in later geographies are the names of southern nations. The latter two rivers,the Hiddekel and Euphrates, are linked with more modern northern nation appellations. Thus the rivers were paired, coming from opposite directions.

In Genesis 3:24 we are told that when Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden, the direction of their flight was eastward, for on the east edge of the Garden were placed the Cherubim to drive away all those who sought to re-enter. Now it is noteworthy that the text mentions that the Eden pair were driven from the Garden, but they did not leave Eden. This would indicated that, while the Garden was planted in the western portion of Eden, it was not here that Adam and Eve dwelt after their expulsion. When Cain was later driven out from the area of his family according to Genesis 4:16, he fled farther eastward, beyond the eastern border of Eden, to a land called Nod, which means “exile, banishment.” From what we are given of the rest of Antediluvian geography, we know that rivers flowed north and south of Eden, and through Eden itself, but nothing is mentioned of rivers in Nod to the east. Genesis 4:12 indicates, from the curse placed upon Cain, that the land of Nod was not fertile at all, for the ground would not “yield her strength.”

Looking further now, in Genesis 3:24, the word “placed” has the more proper meaning “to dwell,” as used in eighty-three other instances in the Old Testament. Thus the verse should read, “And he (God) dwelled at the east of the Garden;” that is, the Presence of God was located at the Edenic eastern gate, just as His Presence shown from the Holy of Holies in the Sinaic tabernacle (Exodus 25:8). After Cain murdered Abel, Genesis 4:16 records: “Cain went out from the Presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod.”

The entrances to the Hebrew tabernacle grounds, and the Holy of Holies, faced eastward. The gate of the Garden faced east, and Cain escaped through an opening in the east of Eden to arrive in Nod. Genesis 4:3-6 describes sacrifices made by Cain and Abel at an altar. This altar would have been placed before the Presence of God at the gate, toward which offerings would have been directed, just as they were in the Hebrew sanctuary.

The laver, or washing bowl of the tabernacle, corresponds to the confluence of the four rivers near the eastern gate, where they flowed together into the Garden. Cherubim guarded the gate; in the tabernacle they were associated with the Mercy Seat, above which the Presence of God shown, and they were decorated on the curtain which separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the sanctuary, before which was the incense burner, the place where the prayers of the people and their sacrifices were accepted. The table of bread and wine in the tabernacle may have symbolized special offerings made directly before the Garden gate, and the candlestick represented the flaming sword of the Cherubim. In the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies were three items: the budding rod of Moses, a piece of manna, and the tablets of the Ten Commandments. These were memories of the Edenic “tree of life,” its fruits, and the laws of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil,” all within the Garden.

As a further parallel, it is noteworthy that Plato described the Temple of Poseidon in Atlantis as measuring 300 by 600 feet, and was designed as a double cube in its sacred geometry. The Holy of Holies in the Hebrew sanctuary was also a double cube. The King’s Chamber inside the Great Pyramid at Giza—said to have been originally designed by master masons from Atlantis—is likewise a mystical double cube in its dimensions. And most Masonic temples even today are constructed as double cubes. Here we have evidence of a secret architectural tradition which spans several ancient civilizations and over twelve thousand years, all the way back to the Age of Atlantis and Antediluvia.

This secret architecture and its inherent sacred geometry creates a spiritual link between the Edenic sanctuary and the Hebrew Sinaic tabernacle. In truth, the Edenic sanctuary, like its later Hebrew counterpart, was an Earth Energy Temple, and the confluence of the four rivers were the crossing of four major Crystal grid energy lines, meeting at a sacred node point or chakra energy center for the planet. The presence of angelic beings, and the Glory of the Divine, indicates this Temple also served as an inter-dimensional gateway, through which the descendants of Adam and Eve, through Seth, sought to learn the Path of Inner balance.

However, while they remained faithful to this effort and as Initiates eventually transcended, the world of that time as a whole, the Antediluvian civilization, failed in its planetary Initiations, with the result that it was destroyed in a global catastrophe, remembered as the Flood or Deluge. The civilization was swept away, the Seed was planted again through the survivors, so that the same souls could return again in a new cycle of civilization to face the same challenges once more.

The historical link between the Edenic sanctuary and the Sinaic Hebrew tabernacle was made through Moses. Plato tells us that in the Nile Delta Temple of Neith at Sais were recorded the entire histories of Atlantis, engraved upon its columns, which the Temple priests read to Solon, Plato’s ancestor, from whom he gained his knowledge about Atlantis. From the Biblical record we know that Moses was a high priest of On or Heliopolis, another Nile Delta sacred precinct, and no doubt had access to all the wisdom preserved by the Egyptians regarding Atlantis, at Sais and elsewhere—very likely also contained within the hidden Hall of Records at Giza. Moses, from studying the ancient wisdom, recognized that the Hebrew people were the true spiritual heirs to the Sons and Daughters of Light of Atlantis, as well as being the physical descendants of the Antediluvian patriarchs through Seth, Noah, Shem and their offspring. Moses was the architect for the Sinaic tabernacle, and by means of its design he symbolically attempted to bring back to his people something of the original Edenic worship—and thus revive the prehistoric Initiation system lost for so many millennia.

Let us now look in more detail at the growth of the Antediluvian civilization from a cultural perspective.

The Genesis account of the Antediluvian era takes the form of a genealogical history, tracing the family line from Adam through his sons down to Noah, the patriarch of the Flood. It is the story of the descent of these generations in which we find interesting descriptions of the development of a civilization from simplicity to complexity.

After the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, Genesis 3:18 records that thenceforth he was “to eat the herbs of the field,” but in order to do so he would first have to separate the edible plants from the “thorns and thistles” that were to grow among them. This suggests the rudiments of agriculture. Later, we find evidence of the first use of tools for agricultural purposes. In Genesis 4:2, Adam’s son, Cain, is characterized as a “tiller of the soil.” The instrument that Cain used may not have been anything more than a stick, but the manipulation of even so simple a tool is significant, for use of one tool easily makes way for refinement and the creation of many more sophisticated tools.

The first Antediluvians not only had the means of growing foodstuffs, but also the means of preparing it. In Genesis 3:19, Adam at bread from the grain he was learning to produce. The making of bread presupposes a knowledge of fire. Adam’s survival as a being separated from Nature, as an entity whose environment had become alien to him, would have become quickly dependent on the development of fire, not only for cooking, but also for protecting from animals which, unlike the peaceful coexisting creatures of Eden, now included carnivores that could have threatened Adam’s existence. Fire is of course also an important element for later technological developments. As many historians of the physical sciences have noted, the flickering flame was the first primary method by which one form of matter could be transformed into another, whether in terms of purifying or hardening metals, or the more important exploration of the inner secrets of Nature through chemical processes.

Another important element of civilization possessed by the first Antediluvians was the domestication of certain animals. In Genesis 3:21, we are told the particulars of a religious observance, the bringing of an offering by Cain and Abel to a place of worship. There are several interesting points that can be deduced from the description given in the text.

First, verse 3 states that, “in the process of time” the offerings were presented. This would suggest that there was an appointed time for when the sacrifices were to be made. Appointed times presuppose some form of time-keeping and the beginnings of a calendar system. These appointed times must have been over a much longer period of time than either days or weeks, for we find that Abel presented as his offerings the “firstlings of his flock” (the spring births), and Cain came with his seasonal agricultural products. This indicates that the sacrifices could only have occurred at certain times of the year, and the length of the year had to have been calculated. This presupposes the early use of mathematics and astronomical observation. From a cultural standpoint, the discovery of the cycles of the heavens and the ability to mathematically compute them in advance, as any calendral system attempts to do, is a significant development of civilization. As fire is the potential probe for analyzing the makeup of the physical universe, mathematics is the important tool for defining the laws governing the same physical universe.

Computation of any sort also points to the use of symbols for numbers and writing, leading to the keeping of books and records. In Genesis 5:1, where it speaks concerning the “generations of Adam,” the word “generation” in the Hebrew is toledoth, having the meaning, “to write down, to record, to preserve.” Thus Adam was the first among the Antediluvians to keep written books, to be passed down to later generations.

As a third point, we may note from the Genesis account of Cain and Abel’s sacrifices that only a certain type of offering was accepted. Cain brought the fruits of his agricultural work, but they were rejected. Abel on the other hand brought an offering of lambs, which were probably slain on the altar before the Presence of God, in the same manner as was done by the priests in the Hebrew tabernacle. This sacrifice was accepted, because it involved the spilling of blood. This type of sacrifice, especially as later typified by the blood atonements in the Hebrew sanctuary system, was symbolic of a future salvation.

The act of sacrifice presupposes a consciousness that grasped the idea of the future as an unfulfilled destiny. Such a consciousness of future-time gives rise to a sense of purposefulness, important psychological factors in the development of any civilization.

To summarize, we find that by the early period of the second generation, Adam and his offspring possessed the first rudiments of civilization: agriculture, simple tools, fire, animal husbandry, mathematics, a calendar system, writing, and a sophisticated religious system. These are the fundamentals upon which the next steps would be built.

It is important to mention here that when we refer to the term “generation,” we are referring to the genealogical sequence of offspring as given in the Genesis account. However, this does not necessarily refer to specific time durations. Genesis does list numbers of years for the life-spans of each Sethite patriarch named, and even gives the years of each patriarch before they “begat” the next descendant listed. But because such Biblical sources as the Masoretic, Septuagint and Samaritan Texts give different numbers for each generations’ years, plus other Biblical evidence in both Testaments showing that genealogical listings were often not complete, with many names left out, it is impossible to construct any kind of time-based chronology using the Genesis data.

As was the practice in many ancient cultures, a patriarch’s name preserved indicated that the person was in fact the head of an entire family dynasty which contained several members succeeding each other through many descendants lasting perhaps hundreds of years.

Therefore, we shall continue to utilize the term “generation” as used in the Genesis account, but only to distinguish the sequential order of names given. Because we are dealing with a total of eleven “generations” listed, each one a family dynasty unto themselves, we need to be aware that the history described may have in fact covered several millennia of time, with an upper limit of perhaps ten to twenty thousand years or more.

At the murder of Abel by Cain, and the birth of a third son to Adam, Seth, the development of the Antediluvian civilization took an important turn. Two lines of descendants emerge, and in the story of their separate generations, civilization continues to progress, but with two diverse pathways.

While Plato in his account of Atlantis did not mention this split in its early history, it is very interesting to note that the psychic visionary Edgar Cayce, in his many past life readings for his patients, repeatedly made mention of Atlantean society from its very beginnings having had two spiritual groups predominating--those who he called “The Children of the Law of One” or the “Sons of Light,” and the “Sons of Belial” or the “Sons of Darkness.” According to Cayce, during the early days of Atlantis the Children of the Law of One held pre-eminence, but gradually they were overtaken in power by the Sons of Belial, who at the very end gained absolute control and caused the final destruction of their civilization. This follows the same story line as presented in the Genesis texts, regarding the descent lines of Seth and Cain.

After the slaying of his brother, Genesis records that Cain fled toward the east of Eden, to a land called Nod. After arriving, “Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bare Enoch: and he builded a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.”

In other words, some time in the period between Enoch’s birth and Cain’s death, Cain gathered his descendants together and constructed an urban center and named it Enoch City, after his first son.

One of the objections that critics have of the Genesis account is that nothing is said as to where Cain’s “wife” came from and, for that matter, where did the people come from who built and lived in Cain’s city? Even if we accept that the names of Cain and Enoch were really heads of family dynasties, this still does not offer enough offspring numbers to create a population large enough in the early “generations” to construct and maintain an urban center.

The only answer is the one that Plato offers in his narrative, which is that an indigenous population was already present before the descendants of Adam arrived. Plato relates that when Poseidon first came to Atlantis, he was met by people who “sprang from the earth” and lived in caves—most likely an early species of modern humanity. This is also hinted at in Genesis 6:2,4, where it is recorded that the “sons of God” (i.e., the Adamic race) “came unto the daughters of men and they bare children unto them.” The implications are that two races or species of humanity inter-married and produced offspring.

In a strict translation from the Hebrew, the Adamic race appears to have been “created” and maintained by not one God but by a group of “gods” called the Elohim (given in the texts as plural). The Elohim very likely represented an elder advanced race who came from elsewhere in the world, perhaps from a much older yet dying civilization. In setting up the strictly controlled Edenic environment, they wished to preserve what was left of their own species. When the Edenic experiment failed, however, there were not sufficient numbers for the very few inhabitants of Eden to have survived for very long on their own. But with the existence of an indigenous population, the Adamic descendants through both Cain and Seth would have had ample choices for mates, as well as a base number from which to establish a new civilization.

According to Plato, Poseidon married a local woman named Cleito, and from her produced ten sons. She later became a Mother Goddess figure, worshipped in her own Temple alongside that of Poseidon on the central citadel island of Atlantis City.

Poseidon, in Greek legend, represented a god-like race of humans who came from elsewhere to claim the then known world of Europe, Africa and the Americas as their own. Esoteric sources suggest that in the First Age of Atlantis, in the period between 80,000 and 50,000 B.C.E., Atlantis had been colonized from Lemuria-Mw when the Pacific continent and the Atlantic continent were co-existent.

The prehistoric “gods” thus represented the last remnants of Mw before it was destroyed circa 50,000 B.C.E., who migrated to Atlantis to establish the next World Age. In terms of human species-type, Poseidon and his contemporaries very likely were of an advanced form of homo erectus.

There is also evidence, however, that Poseidon may have inherited wisdom from an even older World Age. According to Plato, after Poseidon fell in love with Cleito, and produced ten sons who were to be the rulers over the early Atlantean population, he is supposed to have changed the hill where they lived into the basic shape that would later become the capital of Atlantis: “He enclosed the hill in which she dwelled with spiral streams of water, the sea and land alternately forming about each other lesser and larger zones. And these zones, as if made by a turner’s wheel, were in all parts equidistant from the middle island.” There is a suggestion here that these land and sea circles were intentionally designed, with hidden meanings inherent in their configuration and dimensions.

Poseidon was also by very old tradition the god of engineering. In Greek thought, “zones of water” not only referred to terrestrial waters, but to the “heavenly ocean,” the sky. And just as the sky revolves around the north celestial pole, so at the very center of Poseidon’s circle zones was a post or orichalcum in the middle island, upon which were written the laws of Poseidon and his ten sons.

Moreover, if we represent the stars on a great circular map with the celestial pole toward the center, then the planets would appear moving swiftly around the outer edge, on the zodiacal belt. In Poseidon’s design of Atlantis’ captial, the third and outermost land ring contained a race-course, where swift horsemen vied with one another in their passage around the circumference of the city. Did they symbolize the movement of the planets?

The fact that Poseidon placed his own Temple on the middle island close to the central post suggests that the god was identifying himself with a specific location. The sky was considered by the ancients to be but a reflection of the Earth, and thus Poseidon’s link with the pole center of the sky would indicate his close relationship with the terrestrial North Pole.

There are many legends and esoteric traditions which tell of a World Age before both Atlantis and Lemuria-Mw that once flourished in the northern polar regions, remembered as Hyperborea. Did Poseidon once have access to lost wisdom from this primordial boreal civilization, and incorporated it into the foundation of Atlantean culture and society?

It is not without significance that in Atlantis’ later history the god Poseidon also instituted the practice among his people of sacrificing a bull at the sacred central post. The bull, in astrological terms, is Taurus, and its sacrifice may have been in commemoration of an Age of Taurus which had special association with the god. The last Age of Taurus took place between 4500 and 2300 B.C.E., or five millennia after Atlantis sank, so it cannot have been the Age indicated. The Taurus Age previous to that occurred from circa 28,200 to 26,000 B.C.E. Most importantly, according to esoteric sources, 28,000 B.C.E. marked the time of another earlier global Cataclysm that reduced Atlantis from three large islands to one small island—the isle that Plato described in its last phase or Third Age—as well as the beginnings of the glacial advance of the last Ice Age in northern latitudes. Did this former Age of Taurus honor Poseidon’s retrieval of hidden wisdom from an old Hyperborean source before its final destruction from advancing ice sheets in Arctic latitudes?

Whatever its source was, the new civilization of Atlantis must have inherited advanced knowledge from a far older civilization. The first Atlantean generations, Plato tells us, utilized the wisdom of engineering skills and geometry to undertake vast construction projects: They built a canal through the land and water rings of Atlantis City, carved two docks for 1,200 ships out of solid rock, raised the first Temples and palace on the middle island, and dug a “trench” about the Atlantean plain, one acre deep, 100 feet wide, and 1,250 miles long, interconnected to a large-scale and well-planned irrigation system.

As for Cleito and her peoples’ background, they very likely came from southern Africa, which during this period was a major genetic gene pool area that saw the appearance of several forms of early humanity. Diodorus Siculus, in the first century B.C.E., preserved a legend about Atlantis very similar to that of Plato, only his source was not the same, and described the lost island in a far more remote period of time. According to Diodorus, Africa was once inhabited by a race of Amazons, a warrior matriarchal society, led by a leader named Merina. At a time when Atlantis was a single landmass connected to the African mainland by a land bridge—which would have been before 80,000 B.C.E.—the Amazons invaded Atlantis and subdued its prehistoric inhabitants and occupied the land for themselves. This would have been in a period long before the arrival of Poseidon. The Amazons successfully repelled another invasion, this one by Gorgons across a European land bridge—very likely early members of the Neanderthalers. Subsequently, during the Cataclysm of 50,000 B.C.E., the land bridges sank, Atlantis was reduced to three large islands, and the Second Age of Atlantis began. This was also the time frame during which Poseidon arrived from destroyed Lemuria-Mw, and found Cleito as head of a matriarchal indigenous population—the descendants of the original Amazon invaders now cut off from the African continent.

Very significantly, we know from paleo-anthropology that between 100,000 and 80,000 years ago is when the first archaic homo sapiens made their initial appearance, in Africa.

Genetic evidence from mutation rates in mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (mt DNA), which is only inherited through the female, shows that all modern humans are related to one another through a single common ancestral mother—an “Eve” in the truest sense. The prehistoric Amazons who inhabited Africa in this same time period very likely carried the gene pool for the first archaic humans, and it was a representative of this primordial race, Cleito, with whom Poseidon mated and had children. According to Genesis 6:4, when the “sons of God came unto the daughters of men, and they bare children unto them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” The same verse describes these offspring as “giants in the earth.”

Poseidon, who was of an advanced homo erectus species, combined his genetic material with that of an archaic homo sapiens, and together they produced a hybrid human form that was to develop into the Cro-Magnons—a true Atlantean race which later migrated to Europe and supplanted the Neanderthalers during the Upper Paleolithic period, just prior to the final destruction of Atlantis circa 10,000 B.C.E. The Cro-Magnons, we know from their skeletal remains, were taller, larger in size, with a larger cranium, than either the Neanderthalers or modern humans. To all others who came in contact with them, they were “giants” by comparison.

Returning now to the Genesis description of the construction of Enoch City, several observations can be made here. The building of a city, first of all, has the connotation of permanence (the Hebrew bears this out), and we are certainly not dealing with a simple village of perishable reed huts, but with a pre-planned urban center which would have been erected in stone.

Stone construction is a special creative accomplishment, for unlike the molding processes of clay or reed, stone must be split in specific, pre-arranged, pre-envisioned patterns. And with those patterns must come an understanding of architecture that, in turn, has a foundation in higher mathematics and geometry.

If we regard Enoch City as having been, in fact, Atlantis City, then Plato’s account bears this out in a remarkable manner. The earth and water circles of Atlantis City had a specific design that contained dimensions with hidden meanings. The numbers, as revealed by Plato, for the most part are expressions of 2 and 3, their sum, 5, and product, 6. There were six areas: a middle island of 5 (2 + 3) stadia; 5 concentric rings, 3 of water and 2 of land, together comprising 6 (2 x 3) stadia, with the land rings adding up to a width of 5 (2 + 3) stadia, and the outermost land ring having a total area of 216 stadia (2 to the 3rd power x 3 to the 3rd power). There was also a definite relationship among the various stadia of the island and the land and water rings, each being closely equal to the previous expressed radii multiplied by a factor of the square root of 2; in formula this would be r(n +1) = square root 2 x r(n).

Looking at these numbers geometrically, it can be seen that each radius turns out to be the side of a square whose diagonal is the next largest radius. Whatever the secret meaning Poseidon had in mind when he incorporated these numbers into the Atlantis City design, it appears to have been lost to the last Atlantean generations. When they later added a seventh ring to the City, for the general populous, they made it with a radius of 63.5 stadia, more than three times too large the 19 stadia which should have been the next highest value if the scheme established by the god-builder had been followed.

Besides the physical implications, a city also presupposes the beginning of some form of social and political organization, not only for the coordination of the city’s construction, but also for its subsequent maintenance and expansion. Certainly, some form of highly organized agricultural irrigation and production complex must have been dependent on a strongly centralized authority to function.

With such authority would come political power, and by gathering his descendants into one dwelling place, Cain set himself up as the first ruler over them. During the period of Enoch’s City’s organization, a second line of offspring was developing through Adam’s third son, Seth, whose name means “one provided,” a replacement for the death of Abel. It was the ancient practice to give names to men to commemorate their status, character or major events in their lives, and at times also offer important glimpses as to the historical or technological advances that took place. Since Cain is described as organizing an urban existence, it would appear that Seth and his children established a different type of society. Since Abel had been involved in animal husbandry, Seth probably inherited his knowledge and practice, and the resultant Sethian culture was organized as a loosely connected community, more mobile and widespread, even nomadic, to compensate for animal grazing.

It is the characteristic of most civilizations that in its earliest stages there is a preoccupation with religious thought, and we sense this from the two representatives of the third Antediluvian generation, in Cain’s offspring, Enoch, and Seth’s descendant, Enos.

The name Enoch means, “devoted, the initiated into secret learning, a teacher.” The implications are that Enoch was a man of knowledge, particularly secret or mystic knowledge of a religious nature. The fact that Cain himself named his city after his mystic son suggests that the city’s purpose was to become not just a political center but also a religious one. Enoch City, with Enoch as its High Priest, thus probably possessed its own sanctuary and sacrificial system. What form did the Cainite religion take? Being only three generations removed from an age when humanity was in perfect harmony with Nature, one can surmise that Enoch’s mystic knowledge was either an attempt to regain the lost attunement through symbolic or ceremonial representation, or at least to reinterpret humanity’s new relation to the Cosmos. Such developments we see re-echoed in the religious thoughts of the later ancient classical civilizations.

Such developments are also mirrored in Plato’s account of Atlantis, where we see that, as part of the massive construction projects inaugurated by Poseidon, included were two Temples built on the central citadel island.

The focal points of worship were Poseidon, god of earth and sea, and Cleito, Mother Goddess and creative Matrix, who would have acted as spiritual guides in revealing the Mysteries of Nature. As in Antediluvia, a form of animal sacrifice was also practiced, in the slaughtering of bulls.

In Seth’s son, Enos, there is also found a realization of humanity’s continued separation from Nature, and the change which such separation was beginning to manifest in the physical and mental frame. Enos’ name means, “mortal, weakened, mankind.” According to the Hebrew Aggadah, it is said that during Enos’ lifetime, human faces became more ape-like. This was a reflection that the Sethite approach to the changing nature of humanity was not to re-interpret but to preserve and perpetuate the religion of the first father, Adam.

If, in the context of early Atlantean history, an intermixing of homo erectus and archaic homo sapiens was taking place, then recessive gene traits of both races may have periodically risen to the surface, causing evolutionary setbacks among certain offspring, just as they had been occurring on the African continent among early human forms over the last several hundred thousands of years.

The fourth generation saw further expansion of the Antediluvian civilization into new dimensions. Enoch’s son was named Irad, which means, “a townsman, a prince of a city.” The city of which Irad was ruler was of course Enoch City, and his throne was his inheritance from Cain, the City’s founder. The kingship of Irad indicates that a political hierarchy by this time had been firmly established, and that political power was separated from religious power, still held in the hands of a line of High Priests after Enoch.

This we see mirrored in Poseidon’s making his oldest son, Atlas, the ruler of the island and capital city of Atlantis, and the setting up of the orichalcum post in the central citadel island, upon which the codes and laws for its citizens was engraved.

Irad’s contemporary was Enos’ offspring, Cainan. His name means, “an industrious man, a craftsman.” Simple tools first produced in the post-Edenic period by Cain and Abel have now given way to more complex tools, tools that were perhaps used in the creation of such ancient crafts as carpentry, pottery-making, weaving, masonry, etc. The Sethite population was certainly large enough by this time that its working force could have begun to diversify, and Cainan, as a craftsman, probably typified the growing specialization of labor that has always accompanied an expanding culture.

Such a development was very likely not exclusive of the Sethites, but was also an integral part of Cainite culture by this time as well, perhaps even more so. If crafts were extant in a loosely organized society of Seth’s descendants, one would expect similar crafts to have played an even greater role in the in the highly organized structure of Enoch City. The construction of a City would have necessitated an early division of labor, and after the major task was completed the specialized skills would have continued to have been in demand to maintain the upkeep of the growing metropolis. Specialization increased not only in proportion to a multiplying of population, but also prospers within the framework of an established hierarchical system: Irad, the ruler of Enoch City, represents a political hierarchy dominating over a social hierarchy (the Enoch City population), who in turn because of their dependence within an urban existence would have supported an economic hierarchy with specialists and craftspeople. Such a system has been typical of the early expansions of any culture.

Perhaps of greatest importance, the name Cainan also has the connotation, “possessor, artificer, smith.” Here we have the earliest indications of metallurgy, a development which historians call the backbone of civilized life. Metal-working presupposes, first, that humanity’s early environment had already been scrutinized and studied in detail, resulting in the discovery of the existence of metallic ores; second, an active intelligence predetermined that such ores might be used toward a specific purpose; and third, by building and controlling a fire to hotter degrees than for cooking or kindling, which would have been a technical innovation in itself, the same active intelligence experimented and produced the end-product envisioned.

In other words, a natural form had been observed, its properties defined and its potentials noted, a hypothesis was made predicting a change of form by applied energy, experimentation was carried out, and results were obtained. We have here not only the origins of metallurgy, but the beginning of the scientific method.

To what extent Cainan himself explored further into the diverse realms of metallurgy we do not know. What we do know is that four generations later the Cainite Tubalcain was applying sophisticated advanced techniques of heat control and experimentation, being an “instructor and artificer of brass and iron.” This demonstrates that the knowledge of metallurgy was being passed down from one generation to another, and by the time of the fourth generation was very likely being shared between the Sethites and Cainites.

Once again, we see a wide variety of crafts and craft creations mentioned by Plato as existing in Atlantis, including the mining and production of metals.

The fifth generation was represented by the Cainite Mehujael and the Sethite Mahalaleel. Mehujael means, “smitten of God,” referring to a suffering from disease or deformity. However, it is interesting that some translators find Mehujael to also mean, “purified.” It is possible that both connotations are intended. If Mehujael was stricken and then cured, this would suggest the first successful application of medical knowledge.

In the name Mahalaleel we find the meaning, “renown, judge, the praise of God.” There is an interesting parallel here with the sixth generation Cainite’s name, Methusael, which means, “a great man before God.” The terms “renown” and “great man” are echoed in Genesis 6:4, where we read that, in the Antediluvian era, “there were giants in the earth in those days, mighty men where were of old, men of renown.” These descriptive terms are most significant from a cultural perspective, for they indicate a growing population possessing strength, agility and performance. Genesis 6:4 also alludes to the fact that the mighty and renown men were the offspring of a mixing between the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men.”

This may mean not only a hybridization of human species-types, but in the more mundane sense there was intercommunications begun in the fifth generations and into the sixth between the two cultures, the Sethites and the Cainites. The two cultures were thus becoming a single entity.

Of particular importance, Mahalaleel is also called a “judge,” pointing directly to the development of a complex judicial system. This presupposes the creation and documentation of political, social and economic laws and regulations, and an executive body to litigate and enforce them. The same existed in Atlantis, according to Plato, in the form engraved codes and laws, which also presupposes the presence of some form of legal system and its enforcement.

On the Sethite side, the sixth generation from Adam was Jared, whose name means “descent, to descend into.” There are a number of ways this curious appellation can be interpreted. Jared’s ancestor, Cainan, was the first metallurgist, and as the science of metal production expanded in both quality and demand, the search for ore would have soon exhausted resources found on the surface, necessitating the development of mining techniques. Was Jared, then, the first to “descend” into the interior of the earth, in search of subterranean ore veins?

To “descend” may have had a much broader application, however. Jared, as a scientist, may have “descended” into the secrets of Nature, in the attempt to further define what had been scrutinized by the scientific method of Cainan’s time, in the fourth generation. It may be that by this period inquiry was no longer a means to an end, but was becoming a pure science, laying the foundations for the first serious studies in establishing the laws of physics, biology, etc.

This matches what is known from esoteric literature, that the Atlanteans were recognized, by all the ancient civilizations who came after them, for their tremendous scientific and spiritual wisdom. Eventually of course, like the Antediluvians, they abused such wisdom which led to their downfall.

The next generation after Jared was the Sethite Enoch, and we learn from New Testament sources, the Book of Hebrews 11:5 and the Book of Jude 14-15, that Enoch was both a preacher and a prophet, and his name bears this out, meaning, “the devoted, the initiated into secret learning, a teacher.” Like Enoch who was Cain’s descendant, and who delved into mystic knowledge, Enoch the Sethite also inherited spiritual wisdom, but of the original religion of Adam. Enoch very likely had access to the Toledoth or Books of Adam and added to them his own experiences. The patriarch, as a visionary, was the first to predict the coming of the Flood, and his guiding purpose was to preach his message not only to the Sethites but to the Cainites as well.

The major implications of Enoch’s preaching is that there appears to have been some form of mass communications organized through which Enoch accomplished his work. Communication, we know, had bee initiated with the mixing of the Cainites and Sethites in the fifth and sixth generations, and by the lifetime of the second Enoch this now resulted in a total fusion. During the time of the preaching patriarch, communication may have simply involved nothing more than travel by road. But the fact that such travel was possible, that all peoples would have been reached with a message, indicates that channels for the exchange of ideas was extant, a crucial element for the progressive development of scientific thought and experimentation.

Enoch’s Cainite contemporary was Lamech, and with him, his two wives and three sons, we witness a sudden burst in the development of the arts and technology, as well as an influx of new social ideas.

The name Lamech means, “a strong, young man, a hero,” and the Genesis account gives the particulars of Lamech’s killing of an opponent. Like Lamech, the opponent is also a “young man,” so the two were probably evenly matched. Lamech claimed that this opponent first struck and wounded him, so it appears that a battle or contest took place between the two. The combatant struck first, then Lamech retaliated by taking his life. And Lamech, by his name, is proclaimed victor or “hero.”

Immediately following this act, Lamech boasts that he has killed another man in sport, and if his ancestor Cain was punished for killing Abel, then he should be punished for murder many times more.

We sense in this story that, by this time, there developed a marked turning away from the concept of religious providence over humanity, seen earlier in both the mystic teachings of the Cainite Enoch and in the Sethite Enos, and there now emerges a man-made ego-centered ethics of behavior. In Lamech’s story, there is an obvious note of self-glorification, of a hero worship whereby the best man may win a contest over his fellow man, by his own skills, rather than by spiritual or natural forces. The philosophical outlook in the Antediluvian civilization by the seventh generation had thus become more self-oriented.

There is exhibited in another act of Lamech an open contempt with past traditions. He is the first recorded polygamist, according to Genesis 4:19, in violation of a previous commandment for monogamy given in an earlier period, in Genesis 2:21-24. It appears that basic concepts of social organization, long-established, were being abandoned, and new forms experimented with. It is no small wonder that, in such a period of iconoclasm, a man such as Enoch, Lamech’s contemporary, preached a conservative view so widely, urging a naturalistic simplicity and orderliness of earlier days be returned to, in opposition to a growing casting off of traditional values.

It is also in this period of change and transition that we find a flourishing of artistic and scientific expression. Lamech’s boasting of battle, recorded in Genesis 4:23-24, is lyric in form, and is in fact the earliest example of poetry found in the Bible.

Lamech’s first wife, Adah, was an artist, her name meaning, “ornament, decoration, elegant.” This indicates not only self-adornment as in jewelry, make-up and clothing fashion, but to artistry in general, whereby sophistication of style became more important as a standard of excellence and a social status.

Her first son by Lamech, Jabal, is described as, “the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.” Here is the first recorded use of cattle as a domesticated animal, which presumes a higher order of animal husbandry by this time, which would have included the science of breeding and perhaps even genetics.

Jabal’s name means, “a wander, an adventurer;” also, “one who is productive, a stream.” The connotation is that Jabal was an explorer after economic gain. His “wanderings” were thus not aimless, but directed toward finding certain sources of material wealth. The land of Havilah, described in Genesis 2:11 and which probably existed just south of Eden and Nod, possessed gold, bdellium and onyx stone, highly prized forms of wealth and beauty. Jabal’s half-brother, Tubalcain, was a worker in “brass and iron,” and this technological development would have certainly created demands for the raw ores involved in these metallurgical productions. Jabal’s thrust into new lands for resources is also a suggestion that the Antediluvians were becoming more mobile, for by now their numbers must have increased to the point where expansions beyond the region of Enoch City and the land of Nod would have been necessary. The connotation of “stream” in Jabal’s name suggests that the routes the Cainites utilized in their expansions was along the four rivers of Eden—the Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates. Such movement very likely spurred the development of new areas of knowledge: in transportation, the invention of new modes of locomotion—on land, vehicles employing the use of the wheel for carrying loads over distances, especially for economic purposes; by water, the utilization of oar and sail. Perhaps other power sources were experimented with. The exploration and settlement of new territories would have also necessitated the development of the geographical sciences, map-making, and navigation, which presupposes an advanced order of mathematics and astronomical observations.

In Plato’s Atlantis, the early generations of Poseidon’s offspring would have moved beyond the confines of Atlantis City, to inhabit all of the Atlantis island. Plato mentions that when the City was first built, it occurred at a time before there was navigation and ships. But the eventual construction of huge docks enough to be filled with 1,200 ships indicates that sea-going craft were soon after invented and utilized on a grand scale.

And by such means the Atlanteans began to expand their influences well beyond the confines of Atlantis, to include all neighboring lands on either side of the Atlantic. At first the expansion would have been for economic gain—even as the name Jabal suggests for the Antediluvians. But eventually the mercantile ships made way for war ships, and whole coastlines were subjugated and added to the growing Atlantean empire.

By studying the legends and mythologies of various nations and peoples, we discover that the dynasty lines of the ten sons of Poseidon reached outward and claimed rulership of various surrounding territories:

The sons of Atlas continued to hold sway over Atlantis itself, and continued to be pre-eminent over his brothers‘ descendants.

Eumelus, also remembered as Gadeirus, became connected with Gades, the modern Cadiz in Spain, the Guadalquivir river, and Agidir in Morocco—ancient outposts of Tartessos which ruled over all Iberia and North Africa.

Ampheres, whose name has the connotation, “one who encompasses,” indicates his domains were along the coasts of the Americas, which Plato called the “opposite continent,” a “true continent that encompasses the true ocean.”

Euaemon was associated with the mythic kings of Wales, and thus ruled over what is now Britain.

Mneseus was recognized as the first father of the Celtic Druids in ancient Brittany, on the French coast.

Autochthon has been identified with the Pelasgians, a pre-Hellenic peoples who sailed the western Mediterranean and were the ancestors of the Etruscans in Italy. They also had affinities with the Basques of northern Spain and the Gaels of Ireland.

Elasippos was remembered as a horse-driver, and is thought to have inhabited Scandinavia, where the horse was revered for thousands of years in feasts and sacrifices.

Mestor was regarded in some legends as the King of Poseidia, or what is now the Caribbean islands, which also extended its influence over the regions of Florida and the American Southeast.

Diaprepes and his descendants were said to have settled in Brazil and were the first Atlanteans to explore the Amazon region, which at the time of the last Ice Age was an inland sea.

And Azaes has been associated with either Chichen Itza in the Yucatan, or the Aztec peoples. Esoteric sources point to Iltar, the Atlantean who constructed the Central American Hall of Records at Uxmal, as having been a member of the Azaes family line.

Another group, not mentioned by Plato, but referred to by the second century B.C.E. writer Apollodorus, were probably also rulers by their own right over certain Atlantean colonies. These were the daughters of Atlas, the Atlantides, better known by their deification among the stars as the Pleiades. They included Alkyone, Merope, Kelaino, Electra, Sterope, Taygete and Maia. Here the names are not very revealing, but there are interesting possibilities nevertheless. Maia, for example, may have been the Greek derivation of Maya—the ancient civilized peoples of Central America. Merope is directly linked with the Merops, a gigantic race which, according to Theopompus, a student of Plato, once inhabited the “outer continent” of the Americas.

Returning now to the Genesis narrative, Adah’s second son, Jubal, a “harper,” seems to have been influenced by the artistic talents of his parents. He is portrayed as being, “the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.” Here is the beginning of the fine arts of instrumental music, both stringed and wind. More than this, Jubal’s discovery of musical harmonics by lengths of string and pipe may have led to the realization of higher principles concerning mathematics and nature. It was the Greek Pythagoras who learned from both the Egyptians and Druids that sound-pleasing chords are created by lengths of string having definite mathematical relations to one another. And it was this “harmony of numbers” which led in turn to the concept of the “harmony of the spheres,” that the universe itself is bounded by complex but definable mathematical laws.

Lamech’s second wife, Zillah, also possessed artistic merit, for her name means, “a shadow figure, a maker of sound, a player.” She was a dramatist and actress.

Her son by Lamech, Tubalcain, was perhaps the most important member of the family in technological knowledge, for he was, according to Genesis 4:22, “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.” The production of specialized metals is of course a very significant step in the development of civilization, for it opens the way to higher forms of technology and more sophisticated tools, such as machinery. The text tells us that Tubalcain worked in “brass and iron.” Brass here can also be translated as bronze. Iron presupposes knowledge and techniques of ore extraction and purification at high temperatures; brass and bronze presumes knowledge of copper, zinc and tin, and their combinations in the production of metallurgical alloys. We are also told that Tubalcain was an “instructor of every artificer.” An artificer, as it is used here, is one who cuts, hammers and polishes, so the shaping of metal instruments is implied.

One thing that should be noted is that, unlike his two brothers, Tubalcain is not called the “father” of his art; he is simply called an instructor. As we saw earlier, Cainan in a previous generation was the first to experiment in metal production.

What makes Tubalcain noteworthy here is that he has gone beyond the stage of innovation. Rather, he specializes in a certain area of metallurgical production. This we can derive from the meaning of his name, “the brass of kain, brass weapons, a weapons’ smith.” Tubalcain was thus skilled in the manufacture of metal weapons. The production of arms implies war or the threat of war, and we see this indicated in Genesis 6:11, “The earth also was corrupt, and the earth was filled with violence.” It would appear that by the end of the eighth generation, growth and expansion experienced in the early portion of the period eventually led to aggression, warfare and conquest.

The same was true, according to Plato’s history, of the last phase of the Atlantean civilization, wherein greed and power led to invasion and enslavement of neighboring peoples.

Tubalcain and his brothers, Jabal and Jubal, constituted the eighth generation from Adam through Cain. However, we know from Genesis chapter 5 that there were altogether eleven generations of Antediluvians who existed before the Deluge catastrophe. Why the generation line of Cain ends with only the eighth descendants is not known—perhaps after Tubalcain the history of this line of descent to its conclusion in the Flood was not significant enough to warrant more space in the narrative. What we do know is that Caintie brothers of the eighth generation recorded were the “fathers” of those who followed in their footsteps, so the lines of descent must have continued.

On the Sethite side the contemporary of Jabal, Jubal and Tubalcain was the patriarch Methuselah. His name means, “man of the flying dart, man of the arrow, man of war.”

With his name, we now find that the entire Antediluvian civilization was on a constant war-footing, including both Cainites and Sethites. As already indicated, his contemporary, Tubalcain, was a weapons’ smith. Methuselah himself was a master of several weapons, both in construction and use, including the arrow and the “flying dart,” which may reflect on a knowledge of rocketry. With the merging between the two lines of descent during the fifth and sixth generations, and now with expansions into new territories in the eighth generation, the Antediluvians had entered a stage of colonialism and militarism.

This matches again with Plato’s chronicle of Atlantean history. Not satisfied with the extensive empire they controlled which encompassed almost the entire Atlantic coastal lands, the restless military powers of Atlantis chose to invade deeper into the Mediterranean region, threatening prehistoric Athens and its confederacy in the north and predynastic Egypt in the south. Such a massive military operation would have used up all of Atlatnis’ resources, and led to the conscription of most of its population into the war effort.

Methuselah’s son was named Lamech, and his name means, “a strong man, a hero.” Just as the Cainite Lamech did battle and was called a hero, so the Sethite Lamech may have done the same. It is probable that Lamech followed in the footsteps of his ancestor, Methuselah, becoming a “man of war.” However, Lamech died at a relatively young age when compared with the ages of other Sethites listed—the youngest age of death of any of the patriarchs. Is it possible that he died prematurely of wounds inflicted in battle?

Whatever the reason, it is clear that warfare, military escalation and heroism predominated Antediluvian civilization during its final period. No wonder, then, that this was the reason Lamech named his son Noah, meaning, “rest, the rest-bringer.” Evidently, Lamech saw in his son the hope through whom the tension of his war-weary world would be relieved. He was to be the fulfillment of the prophecy first given by the Sethite Enoch in an earlier generation.

Since Noah was given his special name at birth, he was more than likely keenly aware during his maturing years that he was chosen for a special task. In his later years, the God of Adam revealed to him that, “My spirit shall not always strive with man;” that is, the Divine Presence even then was being withdrawn from the Edenic Earth Temple, even as in Hebrew history it was withdrawn from the Hebrew sanctuary in Jerusalem. “His (humanity’s) days shall be (limited to) an hundred and twenty years” more. During this time, Noah was instructed to preach the prophecy of imminent destruction, and prepare a means of escape, by building the Ark.

This he was to accomplish with members of the eleventh and last generation of Antediluvians, epitomized by his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Most of what we know concerning the greatest Antediluvian technological advances are related to the building of Noah’s Ark. The structure and its contents was representative of the final level of attainment just before the Great Cataclysm overwhelmed the world.

First, let us consider the Ark’s design and specifications. The Hebrew word used for the Ark in Genesis is tebah, from the Egyptian tebet (db’t) meaning, “chest, box, coffin.” The Septuagint Greek word used is kibitos, which also has the connotation, “box, chest, coffer.” The Ark was thus box-shaped, designed for floating, not for sailing. Its squared shape increased its carrying capacity over that of a boat by one-third. In other words, it was made to hold a maximum of volume and weight, which is what its purpose was, to carry as many life-forms through the disaster of the Deluge. In a sense the Ark craft was very much like a spaceship, for it had to be designed as a self-contained, self-supporting unit that for thirteen months traveled through an environment hostile to all life, the chaotic destructive powers of water, wind and earth convulsions.

From a further study of the work ark in the Greek and Egyptian, we find interesting derivations that reflect upon the Ark craft’s careful construction, the period of Antediluvian history for which the Ark was made, and even an allusion to its builder: Greek arkeo, “to be strong enough;” Egyptian arq, arqi, “complete, finished, the end of a period, the last day;” arqu, “to bind around, to enclose, a measurement;” also, “an educated man, a wise man.”

While it is true that Genesis records that the Ark’s design and measurements were given to Noah by God, this does not imply any ignorance of such matters on the part of the patriarch or the Antediluvians. On the contrary, the revealed specifications would have meant nothing to Noah if the patriarch had not already possessed the wisdom to understand them fully, and the skill to utilize them in the construction project.

The Genesis text describes the Ark’s dimensions as 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. The “cubit” is generally accepted to have been the length of a person’s arm from the elbow to the end of the index finger, or about 1.5 feet. Thus, in modern measurements, the Ark would have been 450 x 75 x 45 feet.

To gain an appreciation of these measurements and what was involved in its construction, it is significant to note that no ship comparable in size was ever built by any of the known ancient civilizations, and even in our own civilization, nothing approached it until the building of the first ocean liners at the end of the nineteenth century.

[Copyright 2009. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved.]