I had recorded a whole voice note about creation and limitation. Poured my thoughts out. But then, I accidentally deleted it. Poof — gone. I was trying to copy the transcript. I just had to laugh. But maybe that was the point. Maybe not everything is meant to be repeated word for word. Maybe some things are just meant to be felt, and reshaped when remembered.
Anyway… here I go again — trying to remember what my original thoughts were. This is also the point of what this blog is trying to make. Please note, that I am not trying to “teach” anything, just sharing how I’ve been thinking lately. This blog post has been influenced by my rediscovery of reading the Bible independently. I am also teaching my child about science, which includes life cycles and the big bang.
Okay, hear me out and let me know your thoughts.
Could the timeline of the Bible be more layered than we think?
Boom! I am hitting you with the hard stuff straight away. No messing around today.
Anyway, we often imagine Bible events as happening in straight lines. Beginning, middle, end. But what if it’s more like woven threads? What if some of the early chapters — like Genesis — include stories? These stories might have been passed down orally for generations before they were ever written.
In many African, Indigenous, and Middle Eastern cultures, it is common for history to be shared through song and storytelling. Writing was not a preferred medium. When we tell stories or re-tell stories, we focus on the parts that affect us most. We remember emotionally, not linearly. It’s like trying to remember the sequences of a dream. Better still, when recounting an event that has happened to which we were a witness of. You will often find that parts of that account get lost. I guess it’s why, it’s a thing to always have at least one other witness to verify ‘your story’.
Maybe when the Bible refers to Adam and Eve as the first humans, it means they were the first to understand their actions? I think that they might have been the first to become conscious of choice. Like when we look at early humans — like Neanderthals, Homo sapiens or Cavemen etc — gradually becoming self-aware. Learning to speak. To think. To record the events happening around them. Think about the cave paintings.
Like I said, I am not trying to ‘teach’, just sharing an observation.
The Nephilim, Dinosaurs & Global Floods…?
Genesis 6 talks about the “sons of God” taking human wives and their children becoming giants, the Nephilim. Some believe these were divine or semi-divine beings — perhaps even angels in rebellion.
Is it really so wild to imagine? Many civilizations — from Mesopotamia to Mesoamerica — have legends of giant beings. They also have tales of floods and divine-human offspring.
Even the idea of a great flood has global echoes. The Epic of Gilgamesh (from ancient Mesopotamia) speaks of a flood long before the Hebrew Bible did. And scientists do confirm massive climate events that could’ve caused ancient tsunamis or floods, including the Younger Dryas period.
Now, am I saying the Bible is describing dinosaurs or meteor crashes? No. But maybe it’s all connected. Maybe ancient people witnessed things — or inherited memories of things — that shaped the stories passed down to us. We don’t seem bothered by the alleged fact that elephants pass down memories to their offspring.
Are you still here? Okay, let’s continue…
Are we really the most advanced humans to ever exist?
We love to believe we’ve come so far. But then you look at the pyramids in Egypt. You also see the ones in Mesoamerica. Consider the mind-blowing architecture of ancient Persia. You wonder: how did they build these without “modern” tools? Without digital calculators or cranes? Humans can’t seem to fathom at the fact that their predecessors could have built this.
We assume they were primitive based on the “evolution of our own technology”. If you are a millennial, you couldn’t believe how the boomers communicated via telegram. And then when you try to tell Gen-Zs or Gen-Xs about the dial up internet, their minds are blown. Actually, they don’t even know how to use a telephone. They don’t even know that that ‘save’ 💾 emoji’ is called a floppy disc. What is a floppy disc? What is a cassette player? I hope that you are trying to see my point here. Now imagine you lived in the “olden times”, like my daughter says… For her it’s like, just before she was born, and for me, it’s like over 200 years ago…
The truth for me is that our ancestors were more spiritually connected. They were more in tune with the rhythms of the earth than we are now. Some theories suggest ancient people might’ve used vibration, sound, or other forgotten knowledge to build. Not proven — but worth pondering.
What if the label primitive is just our way of dismissing what we can’t understand? Like Jane Foster (played by Natalie Portman) in the movie Thor says something along the lines of, ‘Magic is simply unexplained science…”
Again, I am remembering the quote the way I think I heard it.
Our brains, our children, and the Spirit of Wonder
I will start with the myth that humans use only about 10% of our brains. The science behind this myth is debatable. A great article to read about it is here – Do we only use 10 percent of our brain? by Rubina Veerakone, posted on January 26, 2024
It debunks the 10% myth and discusses that it’s not about actual percentages. We actually use 100% of our brain.
We’ll never fully understand the brain’s capacity due to the millions of neurons. That is my take away from this article, I think. And at the end of the article, it’s about the limitations on what we can do with our brains. Basically, our capabilities are limited. It goes on to say that people have achieved incredible things even with “limited” brain capacity. The brain creates neurons to make up for the ‘lost’ part of itself, especially when it’s a child.
Let’s think about this for a minute. What happens to us when we grow up?
Children believe. They see things we as adults stop seeing. Imaginary friends. Spirits or ghosts. Angels. Demons? Their sense of wonder hasn’t been numbed by logic or deadlines. I mean, even the emotion of ‘fear’ is something they don’t learn until we teach it. All their actions are based on ‘instinct’. But I question this as I type because my son certainly makes me think otherwise.
What I am trying to say is that we clip their wings with our own limitations. “Be realistic,” we say. “Grow up.” “Think before you act.” And in doing so, we shrink their worlds — and our own.
And now I feel sad… (Heavy sigh)
Anyway, that was a bit of a downer. Read the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I mentioned him in my last blog. In the Narnia series, he explains how the kids are not able to go to Narnia after a certain age… If you don’t want to read the books, watch the films. I believe a series is coming out soon too.
What if the truth is simple — but we can’t accept that?
But coming back to the Bible, Jesus often spoke in parables. Not because he wanted to confuse people – I think, but because he knew how humans are. Give us a plain truth, and we’ll say, “Surely it can’t be that simple.”
So we search and search — in books, in podcasts, in endless YouTube videos. All the while, the truth is right there, in front of us. In nature. In stillness. In the Spirit whispering, be still and listen. I threw that last one about the Spirit to make a point.
A Final Thought
We don’t need to understand everything right now. We just need to wonder again. To ask bold questions without fear. And to be okay with not always finding an answer.
Maybe we are not meant to recover all ancient knowledge if it was lost, burned, or buried. But what we can do is remember how to wonder. How to imagine. How to seek God not just in temples, churches, Bibles or textbooks and research, but in the way we live. In the way we breathe. The way we act towards each other and even to ourselves is important. But mostly, by learning what it means to be ‘this’ human.
And maybe that’s how we return to the beginning. Not through proof — but through awe.
“It is better – much better – to have wisdom and knowledge than gold and silver.” Proverbs 16:16 GNBUK