According to the chronology given in the Scriptures, roughly 2000 years elapsed between the creation and the flood. With superior intellect and the assumption that Adam received at least some instruction directly from Creator, it is well within the realm of possibility and probability that scientists–and society in general–of that era were at least as advanced in their knowledge of genetics and genetic manipulation as we are today. If the antediluvian people were intellectually superior, then they may have been leaps and bounds ahead of us in their knowledge of genetics. So, theoretically, anything is possible.

My assumption of superior intelligence and mental capacity is based on the difference in the average life span of the people compared to that of humans today. An average life span of six times our life span today is a fair assumption based on the life span of those antediluvians mentioned in the Scriptures.

Even if the mental capacity was roughly the same as ours today, a life span of six times that of today would mean that the discoverers, researchers, and scientists of that era would be able to live to develop their theories and continue their research and projects rather than pass them on to someone else who might drop the ball or fail to develop them fully.

Logic would suggest that the antediluvian people were more advanced than we are in most areas. On the other hand, anything we say about the people or science of that era is pure conjecture. I don’t personally know of any antediluvian evidence of the people, technology, or scientific knowledge.

The closest thing I think we may have found to antediluvian technology was what appeared to be a glow plug similar to the ones used in today’s jet engines that was found by a couple of young rock collectors. They found what appeared to be a geode, but when they tried to saw it in half, it ruined several of their saw blades. Curious as to what was doing the damage, they had the geode x-rayed. What did the damage was a kind of ceramic material. The ceramic material surrounded a steel alloy rod that was attached to a larger base. In the x-ray, the object appeared to be a spark plug or glow plug. No one ever gave a logical hypothesis as to how the glow plug got embedded inside the stone. At the very least, it indicated an ancient civilization whose technological development was based on logic similar to our own. If it was an ancient race of humans, then that would make sense. It makes even more sense when one considers the thought process that would be involved in the fields of transportation and propulsion.

Genetics was an unknown concept in Ellen White’s day, and the terminology used in that field of research did not exist. Therefore, her ability to describe such experimentation and technology was inadequate. She had to describe it in the best way she knew how based on medical knowledge and terminology common to her era.

On the other hand, Genesis 6:1-4 does say, “And it came to pass,…that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose…. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renoun.”

If the legends of gods; giants; and heroes with fantastic powers, some of which were part man and part beast, were based on the creatures that resulted from the unions described in Genesis 6:1-4, then perhaps man had developed, through genetic engineering, creatures that were part human and part beast.

By the same token, that scripture could have been written simply as a means of lending credibility to the pantheons and creatures of non-Jewish legends by reconciling their existence with the existence of the Creator of the Universe that the Hebrew people worshiped.

Genetic engineering and experimentation were certainly possibilities in the antediluvian world.

They sure do!

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