Chapter 8
The Timeline for the Appearance of Homo Sapiens
What was Adam thinking? God had commanded him personally to not take a specific action, and here he was disobeying. How long did it take him to make the decision to eat the fruit? What process did he go through to make such a rebellious moral decision? Exploring these questions will allow us to construct the exact timeline of the sin.
To grasp these questions, we need to understand three concepts: the making of Adam in the image of God, the creative and moral decision process, and how long this process takes.
In the Image of God
And God said, “Let us make man in Our Image, after Our likeness.”1
Wait a minute—what is the “image” and “likeness” of God? In Chapter 5 we saw that a fundamental tenet of belief is that God does not have a shape: physical or spiritual. So what is this image/likeness? There are many dimensions to the answer.
Rashi explains after our likeness as meaning with the power of understanding and intellect.2 Ramban interprets the phrase as with moral freedom and free will.3 Thus, the classic commentaries explain that man alone—in his spiritual resemblance to his Creator—is endowed with reason, a sense of morality, and free will. It is in this vein that man is described as having been created in God’s image. The Arizal’s interpretation of image/likeness is different, and profoundly deep. He interprets “Let us make man in Our Image, after Our likeness.” in this manner:
…the Godly Tzelem [image] refers to the soul of Man. The soul, in other words, is what the Torah calls [the real] Man.4
Other writings explain that “in the image of” means that man is made with the same creative process as God.5
Thus, if we can understand God’s creative process, we will understand man’s creative and moral decision-making process.
God’s Creative Process
We have already seen a detailed description of how God created his most important work, man:
In the first hour, his [Adam’s] dust was gathered; in the second, it was kneaded into a shapeless mass. In the third, his limbs were shaped; in the fourth, a soul was infused into him; in the fifth, he arose and stood on his feet.6
God’s creative process follows five steps, all equal in duration. In the case of Adam, a most complex creation, each step took one hour. We saw in Chapter 5 and Annex B (The “Birth” of Adam in Divine Time) that the actual physical shape of what is being made appears 34.6 minutes into the second hour, or 58% through the second step (see Annex B footnote 18).
The process of creating Adam is an illustration of the general process employed by God. To understand this process we first explore God’s essential name.
God’s Names
God is referred to throughout the scriptures by many specific names. What are they? What do they mean? And for that matter, isn’t God’s essence beyond any name? Yes, it certainly is.
As for His various names, these refer to the different ways in which He reveals Himself in Creation. There are many names for God in the Bible.
In general, there are four categories of names ascribed to God.7 We need only look at the two highest levels for the purpose of studying the creation narrative, and only the highest level to understand the creative process.
The first category is the essential name YHWH (pronounced “Havayah”), also called the Tetragrammaton, meaning the four-letter name. Havayah is the most sacred of God’s names and comes closest to expressing His essence in certain contexts. Because of the special sanctity of the four-letter name YHWH, it is not pronounced today and was actually only pronounced within the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
The second category contains those names that are sacred under Jewish law: Ekyeh (I will be), Kah, Kel, Elokah, Elokim, Tzevakot (Hosts), Shakai (Almighty), Adni (my Master), Akvah, and Ehevi. Each of these names has a specific meaning. The particular name being used reveals to us the role that God is assuming during a particular event in scriptures.
The Creative Steps
To understand the creative process, we need to focus on God’s essential name.8 In Hebrew this name is spelled (as mentioned from right to left) with the letters 
, 
, 
, ,. As we saw in Chapter 4, the letters are pictographs. Yud is shaped in the form of a dot, and is the smallest letter from which all other letters are conceived. It is the quintessential point from which all further existence may develop. It represents the beginning of the creation process, or flash of inspiration.9 In the human reproductive process this stage corresponds to the sperm. Hei symbolizes the process of broadening the initial flash, both in length and depth. It represents the next step in the creative process where the initial concept is worked out and further developed. Within the mind, whatever is being done has taken on some form.10 In the human reproductive process this stage corresponds to the pregnancy. Vav represents the connection between the spiritual and physical, or in the human, the mind and body. Thus the Vav connects the intellectual process of the mind with the body’s capabilities to make physical things. With the Vav, finite physical shape is completed for what is being created.11 In the Human reproductive process this stage and the next correspond to the further development the offspring. With the final Hei, the creation is actualized into its final form.
The letter Hei provides further clues to this creative process.12 The letter can be seen as graphical representation of the human being’s process of making something happen: top horizontal line-thought (steps 1 and 2), vertical line-vocalization (i.e., saying it, step 3) and unattached stub-action (i.e., doing it, step 4). Why is action a stub and not a full line? Because action is not perfectly attached to thought and speech and there can be a gap between thought/speech and deeds. Hei’s numerical value is five, and five is also the number of independent vigor. Adam stood up after five hours spent in the Garden of Eden, revealing his physical autonomy. Hei also hints at the five creative steps (including the last one of independent existence).
Table 8.1 illustrates the letters, and their relation to the creative process and to Adam’s specific creation.
Table 8.1 Creative Process
This creative process is also applicable to Adam since he was made in God’s image and likeness. Thus, when Adam sins or creates it is the process described above that is in effect.
In summary, the creative process utilized by Adam (and God) is as follows:
2. The creation attains its initial physical shape (its body in the case of Homo sapiens) 58% through step 2.
3. The creation is actualized (receives its human soul in the case of Homo sapiens) in step 4 and is ready to go or complete by the end of step 4.
4. It becomes an independent entity during step 5 and beyond.
A Moment
How long does this entire process take?
We’ve seen that the making of man requires five hours. Surely, making an ostensibly simple decision like whether to eat of the forbidden fruit takes less time. From Chapter 6 we know that the whole process of sinning took one hour, and that Adam came into the act right at the end. So how long does it take to make a decision to disobey an order—seconds, right?
Ever wonder why there are so many important 40-day periods in the Bible? Here are some examples:
1. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights when God wanted to cleanse the world and start over. (Genesis 7:12).
2. Noah waited another 40 days after the rain stopped before he opened a window in the Ark. (Genesis 8:6).
3. Embalming required 40 days. (Genesis 50:3).
4. Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days (twice). (Exodus 24:18, Deuteronomy 10:10).
5. It took the spies 40 days to search out the Promised Land. (Numbers 13:25).
6. Jonah warned the City of Nineveh that they had 40 days until God would overthrow the city. The people repented in those 40 days, and God spared the city. (Jonah 3:4 and 10).
Elsewhere in the Bible we are told that “God’s anger never lasts more than a moment” (Psalm 30:5): “His anger lasts but a moment” (Isaiah 26:20). But wasn’t God angry when he brought on the Flood? As we saw in Chapter 5 our experience of anger can be used to understand what the Bible means by God’s anger—a temporary separation and withdrawal. What does His anger lasting a moment have to do with 40 days?
It turns out that Moses knew that man13 could do something in no less than 9.6 seconds or 864/90 seconds. This minimal period of time is the definition of a moment. There are 9,000 such moments in a day. But humans’ creative process is derived from God, so a moment for God must also be 9.6 seconds. A divine day is 1,000 Human Time years. What is 9.6 divine seconds, or a moment, for God? A God moment is equivalent to 40 days and 14 hours of Human Time.14 When the Bible states that God’s anger lasts for a moment, it means that it lasts for 40 days of Human Time—like the rain in the Flood narrative. When God has to teach the whole Torah to Moses—how long does it take Him? A moment—40 days in Moses time (Human Time).
What about the little discrepancy of 14 hours? Is it 40 days, or 40 days and 14 hours? Let’s look at one of the best documented examples of a God moment—Moses receiving the Torah. Here is the chronology:
1. God said to Moses, “Ascend to me to the mountain and remain there, that I shall give you the stone tablets…” (Exodus 24:12).
2. Moses arrived in the midst of the cloud and ascended the mountain… (Exodus 24:18).
3. And I remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights… (Deuteronomy 9:9).
4. It was at the end of forty days and forty nights that God gave me the two stone Tablets, the Tablets of the Covenant.… Then God said to me, “Arise, descend quickly from here…” (Deuteronomy 9:11−12).
Moses ascends and must arrive prior to sundown; he stays 40 nights and days until sunset on Day 40; he arises the next morning and descends. His total time on the mountain is 40 days and nights, one more night (since he leaves the next morning), and some short extra time of arrival prior to night and departure early in the morning after sunrise. How much extra time? Two hours, according to the calculation of a moment.
Thus, a moment is a very good fit to 40 days and 14 hours. A similar analysis of the Genesis Flood yields the same 40 days and 14 hours for the duration of the rainfall.
For God—a moment, the time it takes for him to teach Torah, or to be angry—is 9.6 seconds; which corresponds to 40 days and 14 hours in Human Time.
Now, how long is a moment for Adam prior to the completion of the sin when he is still keeping Creation Time? A moment for him is 9.6 seconds of Creation Time. What does that correspond to in Human Time? In Chapter 5 we calculated that one day of Creation Time is 2.56 BY of Human Time. The same conversion calculation shows that a moment, or 9.6 seconds of Creation Time, is 284,083 years of Human Time. In other words, it took Adam no less than 284,083 years of human Time to sin.
The Timeline for the Sin
Adam sins in 9.6 seconds. He goes through a process of five equal steps. Approximately 58% of the way into Step 2 the action begins to take form. Since Homo sapiens exist because of the sin, it is at this point that we expect to see the first anatomically modern humans. However, it is not until Step 4 that that which is happening is actualized and completed. During this step, therefore, Adam’s soul shatters and his soul sparks become available to be incarnated into the Homo sapiens (this parallels Adam receiving his soul during the fourth step of his creation). It is during this fourth step that Homo sapiens receive human souls and thus become behaviorally modern humans who use speech, plan ahead, etc.
Figure 8.1 shows the timeline of the sin.
Figure 8.1 Timelines of the Sin
The first timeline starts 9.6 seconds, or one moment, before the completion of the sin. After this moment, time switches to the Biblical calendar, and 5,773 years have elapsed. We approximate these 5,773 years as 6,000 to keep things simple, keeping in mind that the science dates have uncertainties larger than this approximation. The second timeline shows the equivalent Divine Time, and the third, the equivalent Human Time. Finally, the fourth timeline is just Human Time measured from today backwards, in thousands of years ago. We ascertain from the figure that Homo sapiens experienced the following events:
1. Began to form from whatever preceded them 290,000 years ago
2. Appeared as anatomically modern humans 200,000 years ago (corresponding to 0.58 through step 2)
3. Had become behaviorally modern by 63,000 years ago (although the full process spanned from 120,000 to 63,000 years ago)
Now the soul sparks that had started to incarnate into Homo sapiens during the fourth step, and certainly by the end of the fourth step 63,000 years ago, had a burning desire! Every soul was to fulfill the command given to Adam prior to his sin:
God blessed them and God said to them [Adam and Eve] ‘be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, the bird of the sky, and every living thing that moves on the earth’15
The commentaries interpret these words for us:16
1. Fill the earth, meaning do not congregate in one location but disperse throughout the globe. Humankind’s mission is not associated with one location; the whole world is meant to be the human kingdom. Humans are thus one of the few species that can acclimatize and thrive in any part of the globe.
2. Subdue the earth, meaning conquer and master the land.
3. Rule over, meaning utilize ingenuity to rule over the animals, both to prevent some from entering the human domain, and to ensnare others and catch them to serve humankind.
In summary, behaviorally modern Homo sapiens received a soul spark that had a burning desire to leave where it was and go on to conquer every part of the globe. And the fossil record has shown that this is exactly what they did—they left Africa, and over tens of thousands of years they reached every corner of the world. Furthermore, they developed agriculture and domesticated animals.
There was another need that these soul sparks experienced when they began to be incarnated into anatomically modern humans. Each soul’s spark incarnated into a body brought with it the need for that body to be clothed.
According to Genesis, Adam was naked until he sinned.17 It was only when he and Eve realized they had sinned that “the eyes of them both were opened, and they realized that they were naked; and they sewed together a fig leaf and made themselves aprons.”18 The soul sparks that shattered from Adam’s soul and began to be incarnated into anatomically modern humans had experienced the awareness of nakedness and need for clothing while part of Adam. From this analysis we expect humans to begin to clothe themselves coincident with the appearance of behavioral modernity.
Use of clothing is an important modern behavior that contributed to the successful expansion of humans into higher latitudes and cold climates. There is little direct archaeological, fossil, or genetic evidence to estimate the appearance of clothing, since it is made of soft materials that are not preserved in the fossil record. However, clothing lice evolved from head louse ancestors once humans adopted clothing, thus dating the emergence of clothing lice provides an estimate of the time of origin of clothing use. It has been estimated, with a significant margin of error, that clothing lice diverged from head louse ancestors by about 83,000 year ago.19 A more definitive estimate of the latest time for the emergence of clothing has been obtained by archaeologists identifying very early sewing needles of bone and ivory from about 32,000 years ago. These were found near Kostenki, Russia, in 1988.20 Yet another estimate comes from awls and perforators made of bone, which are believed to have been used to pierce holes in clothing. These were dated to be about 77,000 years ago,21 and were found in Blombos Cave, Republic of South Africa.
Finally, there is another seemingly inexplicable change coincident with the appearance of human behavioral modernity. We saw earlier that Adam’s direct descendants lived to almost 1,000 years of age owing to the large rectifications they had to accomplish. What about us, the normal people? We also saw earlier that on average we need 70 years to accomplish our relatively smaller rectification task. However, this time span is variable. The Lubavitcher Rebbe22 explains this idea as follows:
…if a person is blessed with long life, it is because the Almighty wants him or her to focus on the main aspects of their life, those aspects connected to their soul, to spiritual things. Through their developing this side of their lives [i.e., carrying out the rectification of the soul], there will automatically be an increase in activity in their physical life as well.
Shouldn’t Homo sapiens with incarnated soul sparks live longer than earlier ones without human souls? They must—right?
Recent research shows that Grandparent-aged individuals became common relatively recently in human prehistory, and that this change came at about the same time as cultural shifts toward distinctly modern behaviors—including a dependence on sophisticated symbol-based communication of the kind that underpins art and language…. We do not know exactly what … allowed so many more of them to live to older age.23
Or do we?
We’ve now come right to the point after the fifth step of the sin, 5,773 years ago (as of 2013). We will complete the story in future chapters by tracking Adam’s direct descendants from this point on through the events of the Flood and Tower of Babel. In the next chapter, we will pause to summarize all the Biblical information on Homo sapiens explored thus far, and compare what we glean with the scientific record.
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