The biblical story of Adam and Eve is literal truth for some people; for others it is mere myth. Both views are in error and represent opposite poles of opinion for a reality which lies buried deep in the past. Adam and Eve were real but our memory of them is obscured by long spans of time and the creation of numerous fanciful tales concerning their role, their transgression, and their fate.
 

If Adam and Eve were real why do we not have concrete evidence for their existence? If they truly were the father and mother of mankind they should have left a recognizable imprint other than the simple story in the Bible. They certainly played a unique, impressive and influential role in that brief account. According to biblical literal dates Adam lived about six thousand years ago. Through a span of less than 250 human generations he should have left conspicuous evidence of his life. If he were so outstanding, created special by God, would not people everywhere continue to remember him? Why would his memory be limited to Jews and Christians? If he were the progenitor of all mankind, entrusted with guardianship of the earth, would he not begin cultural practices that would carry far beyond his time? Would he not give instructions for religious devotions, marriage ceremonies, rights of inheritance, and government? Would people everywhere not continue to venerate his name by giving it to their children? Would they not name lands, oceans, hills, valleys and rivers after him? Would these traditions not be common all over the world?
 

Some might argue that all traces of Adam were lost with the Great Flood. It was God's purpose to punish mankind for their transgressions and to cleanse the earth. Therefore, we might not find evidence for Adam. Cultural practices and place names would be different across the globe because of severe geological disruptions. People became separate from one another. Therefore, it is not possible to trace common practical evidence back to Adam.
 

Other individuals are not content with the biblical story. The tale seems too artificial, as though fabricated by later generations to explain the dark past of mankind. It is natural to assume that Adam is a myth.
 

Perhaps a great flood resulted from Adam's fall, but such an event occurred so long ago that reliable human memory has long since disappeared. Although the folk tales and myths of people everywhere remember a great flood, a universal deluge certainly did not take place in the past six thousand years. The mounds and tells of ancient Anatolia, the cities of Mesopotamia, and numerous other cultural centers provide extensive archeological data. By means of lists of kings, evolution of writing, and stratified layers of settlements, we can trace civilized centers with confidence back more than eight thousand years. If a great cataclysm of nature took place it should be evident. Although large local floods did occur in Mesopotamia, no evidence exists for a flood of such magnitude that the entire earth was inundated. Evidence does exist for a world cataclysm, but remote in time, perhaps thirty thousand years ago.
 

Biblical literalists are faced with the irrefutable fact that no visible evidence exists for Adam outside the Bible. He is lost on the pages of time. On the other hand Abraham and Moses are figures with considerable historic support. Abraham left his mark on the Arab as well as upon the Jew; it would be foolish for us to deny his existence, although we might be skeptical of the simplistic stories of Isaac and Ishmael. Archeological evidence of written contracts, lists of rulers, ancient sites, and other evidence from four thousand years ago agree with biblical descriptions. Moses is a more vivid figure who determined three thousand years of Jewish faith. Lists of Hebrew slaves have been found in Egypt for the period when the Books of Moses say the Israelites were in captivity. We would be foolish to deny that evidence also, although we might question the miraculous events associated with the flight from Egypt. But if we go back another two thousand years to the literal date of Adam we find no discernible trace for his life. The father of mankind left no visible record. Even though he was earlier in time, subject to greater loss of memory, record of his unique status should be prominent.
 

Some persons, with a sensitivity to God, might answer that the influence of Adam is evident. Do we not live in a fallen state today, with evil on every side? If Eve had not eaten of the forbidden fruit might we not now enjoy the bliss of the original garden? Did Adam's sin not lead to the present state of disgrace? Do we not toil with the sweat of our brows because of his failure?
 

But these are arguments in absence of evidence and supposed loss of an idyllic state. The answer of the unbeliever is that our condition is merely the result of millions of years of biological evolution. Our problems derive from our material legacy; we inherited the base tendencies of our animal ancestry. We are attracted to the opposite sex; we get hungry; we like fancy apparel; we constantly seek greater material comfort. These material pursuits bring us into moral conflict to not impose our desires upon the well-being of others. This view of origins, with its many ties to biological prehistory, seems more reasonable than origin in a being of special creation who later fell.
 

However, we cannot ignore the myths of the ancient past. Strong parallels are found in the biblical account with the folk stories of other people. In the Near East the Sumerians, some 500 years or more before Abraham, had a god and goddess pair named Dumuzi and Inanna. In Babylonia a similar pair were named Thammuz and Ishtar. In Greece they later were known as Adonis and Aphrodite. The tales of these mythical beings share common elements with Adam and Eve: there is a pair, male and female; the female is tempted by an evil agent; she performs an act which brings catastrophe; the pair are banished from an idyllic state; the male must face death.
 

Secular godless minds assume the stories are tied to a common origin; the biblical version was borrowed from the Sumerians or Babylonians and given a unique slant. The Hebrew people lived in Babylonian captivity; it is natural to assume they borrowed the story.
 

But how did such stories arise in the first place? Why would a pagan people invent a god and goddess of love? Why would Hebrew scribes, devoted to One God and their own special relationship to him, take numerous pagan elements from surrounding people, deny the god and goddess status, and make the pair the father and mother of mankind? If they were senseless enough to borrow why not use the same myth elements as the Sumerians, Babylonians and Greeks? Is it possible the myths all derive from a common source now lost to reliable human memory, but which show up differently, and independently, in the Hebrew accounts?
 

Still other problems confront us in our attempts to penetrate the mystery of Adam. We must answer the question of the evolution of mankind, and the origin of the colored races. Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that man had been evolving as a tool-using, cultural creature for a million years. We would be foolish to deny or ignore that accumulated evidence. Somehow the evolution of man and the different races must be reconciled with the existence of a unique being called Adam. If Adam truly lived something is greatly amiss in our understanding. How could he be the first man, a mere six thousand years ago, while hard evidence shows that man has been around much longer? How could the colored races have developed so rapidly from a single individual in such a short period of time?
 

The evolution of man, the problem of race, the lack of recognized venerated names on the lands, no evident influence upon culture, no sure ties with historical times, a confusing and fragmentary record, strong admixture of myth and legend -- all lead to the conclusion that Adam was an invention of the human mind. An individual with that status, entrusted with the guardianship of the earth, surely should have left a recognizable and lasting imprint upon mankind.
 

To clarify this problem, to explain the mystery, to demonstrate that Adam and Eve were real persons, and to show the impact of their lives upon all of us, I shall examine practical evidence that has remained buried for thousands of years and that has been ignored throughout history. The evidence exists all about our world but we have been blind to it. I shall examine myth to show that Adam and Eve, Dumuzi and Inanna, Thammuz and Ishtar, Adonis and Aphrodite had origins in reality. They are separate memory of a common pair; they were far more than the mythical fabrication of religious devotees of ancient times. Furthermore, the descendants of Adam and Eve did, indeed, place their names upon the land. Even more, Adam lived far more than six thousand years ago. From available evidence we can show that he lived more than thirty thousand years ago. The folklore of many people from Ireland to China, geographical place names covering wide areas of the globe, social honorifics and titles, cultural practices, and other evidence demonstrate that Adam and Eve were far more than myth. In Europe they were remembered as the god and goddess progenitors of a long line of nobility extending down to modern times. In the Near East and around the shores of the Mediterranean they were remembered as the eponymous ancestors of the Greeks and the Phoenicians, as well as the Hebrews.
 

In the earliest written records available to us, dating back about five thousand years, the memory of them is already hazy and obscure, suggesting their actual existence is of far greater antiquity. The folk tales of widely separated people, from the Sumerians of the Persian Gulf to the Irish of northwest Europe, indicated they were of divine origin, hailing from celestial worlds. The Sumerian goddess Inanna traveled in a "Boat of Heaven" to appeal her case to the gods, a celestial vehicle which today we might call an interstellar transport. The Irish god and goddess Don and Dana arrived here on a heavenly chariot or, in another version of the story, on the clouds of the air. These vague memories were well evolved into mythical form by the time they were recorded. We find remaining only a slim core of solid evidence reflecting that ancient reality, surrounded by much literary embellishment and the psychological longings of those who attempted to preserve their memory.
 

The idea of Adam and Eve coming to this world from the heavenly realms is not recorded in the Bible. When the Hebrew scribes put the Genesis story together they included no elements of celestial origin. Adam and Eve were made of the dust of the earth; they were not created on some celestial sphere. The scribes clung to a monotheistic God with a host of anonymous angels, thus reducing Adam and Eve to purely human status. Their presentation thoroughly obscured important elements of the account and thus led to great confusion and speculation for later generations.
 

The Hebrew scribes were unique in their view. People everywhere, all over the face of this planet, believed the gods could descend to earth, and that man could ascend into the heavens. But the Hebrew scribes were unwilling to accept the old accounts in that form. While the idea of such intercommunication and exchange is preserved in the Bible it is buried under the guise of angelic visitations, or ascribed to Yahweh. Genesis 18 and 19 show celestial beings in contact with Abraham and Lot, while II Kings 2 shows the ascent of Elijah into the heavens. Other than those brief descriptions, a belief in exchange with the celestial realms was expunged from the record. Hence there is a universal disbelief among Jews and Christians today. Traditional views cannot accept, or are greatly frightened by, the possibility that superior beings might come down out of the sky to visit this earth on divine missions.
 

Modern godless studies, based on the guiding principle that the universe is an accident, interpreted the old folk stories and hazy memories as the expression of primitive societies giving voice to biological impulses originating deep within the human psyche. If man were an accident his myths had to be of biological origin; they certainly could not be of divine origin. However, this godless view was disturbed by detailed surveys of myth showing many common features across the planet. Some persons could not believe that ancient men were in communication across the face of the globe; therefore the common myth elements had to derive from common psychological impulses. Others could not accept that such common detailed expression would be of independent origin. They hypothesized a central source diffusing to all areas of the globe. Unfortunately, both views failed to credit what the old myths insisted upon -- that superior beings came down here out of the sky and that events flowed according to destiny, according to some master plan out of the mind of our Creator. Modern secular minds cannot accept that the past, present and future is structured into a master plan covering eons of time.

The godless views developed as part of the burgeoning intellectual milieu of the nineteenth century and reached their zenith in the middle of the twentieth century. But such apostate minds failed to pay attention to the analytical structure of the myths. While they were aware of the many parallels across the globe the informative content had been effectively blunted by theorizing on psychological origins. Meanwhile, more refined scientific tools were becoming available. Chemical and physical analyses of artifacts helped pin down time frames, while widening our intellectual horizons. Space travel opened the real possibility of "boats of heaven" and "heavenly chariots," although ideas of space conquest were hampered by Einstein's relativity theories. As godless minds increasingly denounced the possibility of direct contact, scientific discoveries increasingly opened our minds to such possibilities. Only in the latter part of the twentieth century did it become possible to constructively reexamine the old folk tales and myths. The disbelieving godless scientific community neglected this task, thus thrusting it onto inept and opportune minds. The latter concentrated on the sensational aspects of the old folk tales, with many wild theories, and speculative fancy. Thus both groups did a great disservice to honest use of the new analytical tools and consequent improvement in understanding.
 

The biological secret of Adam and Eve has been opened to us only within the past few decades. Through unraveling of the protein molecule, the detailed analyses of genetic codes, the manipulation of those codes, and through cloning, our biological conceptual horizons have greatly expanded. We now know the genetic structure of living organisms can be altered to modify life forms. Laboratories have been organized to explore and refine such techniques. The cloning of cells for full and faithful reproduction of complex biological organisms has opened vast possibilities in modified reproduction of organic structures.
 

These possibilities are now accepted by the scientific and industrial communities as controllable techniques. This ability is so close to powers traditionally reserved for God that adverse reaction has been raised in many social groups. Many fear man is playing God, that he can cause serious damage to the biological systems of this world, and that he may even interfere in the realm of creation itself.
 

Such fears are not to be lightly put aside. The two techniques, of genetic restructuring, and of reproduction from living protoplasm, enter the innermost secrets of life. If the two techniques were combined man might enter onto the stage of complete biological control of future generations, or, if the worst fears are realized, he may wreck irreversible havoc for the future of this planet. Only self control in our biological laboratories now stands between the paths of ultimate good and ultimate evil.
 

If superior beings came down to this planet, as old people believed, they would not only be superior to primitive man; they would be superior to us. They conquered space; we have not. If their biological skills equalled their space conquest they certainly would be able to modify biological structures with techniques superior to ours. They could use genetic manipulation to produce superior human stock. If we could credit them with such possibilities we might obtain insight into a purpose for uplifting the mortal races. God, through his celestial agencies, otherwise known as angels, might be able to improve the biological and spiritual evolution of man beyond inherent material limits. Perhaps Adam was one step, although a crucial one, in a long process of controlled evolution. Perhaps he was given responsibility to initiate programs, based on higher genetic and spiritual potentials. This was not accomplished through laboratory genetic manipulation, but through natural process of interbreeding higher genetic refinements into the human races, a carefully controlled method that was designed to prevent chaotic upheaval. Perhaps Adam was instructed in the awesome responsibilities of his position. Perhaps he needed careful restraint and superior wisdom to carry forward the plans of uplifting man. Perhaps his superior blood should not mingle with biological and moral defectives. Perhaps he was instructed to select more intelligent and morally superior individuals for such admixture, to thus build healthy, devout, and rigorous future generations.
 

At this point we depart from mythological views about God and begin to reconsider history from more solid realities. If we humans on this planet have reached the threshold of biological control, can we deny such power to God? If he is a real being, commanding the realms of space, does he not have power superior to his gross, frail, and handicapped children of time? If he made the material orders of which we are composed, and which we probe in our feeble scientific inquiries, does he not have ultimate power over genetic codes and biological life? Is he not the original designer of those mathematical combinations? Did he not devise the systems which carry instructions for continuity over the entire span of biological time? Does this not show how God works in the material realms, and on physical levels? If Adam was the father of mankind was he less protoplasmic than us? Could God and his celestial agents not devise a being superior to evolved mortal kind?
 

The biblical story says that God created Adam and Eve out of the dust of the earth. Because of our myths and superstitions we do not examine the implications of that remark.
 

We all know the human body ceases function when the spark of life departs. The chemical elements return to their origins, to the dust of the earth. The biblical phrase means the bodies of Adam and Eve were made of the chemical constituents of this world. Adam was not the original evolutionary father of mankind; he was intended as the biological uplifter of man.
 

This chain of thought is rooted in two major aspects of the Adamic problem: we must reconcile the evolutionary origins of man, and we must place Adam into a reasonable biological context. Evolutionary man and the colored races are scattered worldwide but the memory of Adam is not. While he is uniquely portrayed in Judeo-Christian tradition, and his memory is held in distorted form in the pagan myths of Occidental man, his existence is not clearly evident among people outside Europe and the Near East. The problem is complicated by the Hebrew memory of a being created special by God while European pagan memory is of a god and goddess. These features of the Adamic problem can be brought into sharp focus, but not within traditional religious frameworks. We must invoke other concepts of God and of his work in the universe.
 

Our problem with God, and with assorted assistant celestial host, both for the godless scientist and for the nonscientific religionist, is of two different aspects, one of degree and one of kind. If God were a material being, but greatly superior, the problem would be one of degree; he would differ only in material power and magnitude. But if God is more than material, if he is spiritual, the difference is one of kind; he operates on functional levels not available to us. If he created the realms of space and time he had to do so from outside space and time. He transcends space and is beyond time.
 

Our traditional science and religions have confused these two aspects of God. The one would make creation completely accidental, hence material, and therefore godless. The other would make God completely spiritual, hence ineffective on physical and material levels. Religionists might credit God with creation in a general and abstract sense but they shy away from thoughts of his manipulation of genes. If we are inclined to give a vastly superior being the power of structured thought we should be wiling to grant him the ability to plan over eons of time -- to organize destiny. We also should be willing to grant him the ability to control his creation, from the most elementary nuclear level to the grand organizations of the galaxies. He devised methods for controlling the energies of space, otherwise he could not have formed the galaxies or the stars: an ability we attempt to define in our theories of gravitational and electromagnetic forces. He has power to organize matter to bring about both crystalline and molecular structures: an ability we attempt to define through quantum mechanics and protein investigations. He has techniques for providing the spark of life and mathematical codes for regulating it: an ability we attempt to define in our genetic studies. He also has methods for organizing his creation and its administration: an ability we refuse to grant because we are afraid of a real celestial host. He may be truly omnipotent but he probably is not omnificent -- he probably does not personally do all that is done in the universe. He may use celestial host, and he may use an Adam and Eve, to foster a greater spiritual life on a material world of space.
 

Man was created in the image of God, but we, in our mythological and primitive attitudes, always regarded that remark to mean a physical image, the anthropomorphic view. It did not occur to us that the phrase might mean a functional image. Man was created in the image of God, with ability to conceive, with freedom to plan for future expectation, and with a mind to behold the beauty of creation. Man is a thinking, acting and purposeful being; he was created in the image of a being who also thinks, plans and has purpose.
 

But a vast gulf separates God from man. Adam and Eve were intended to help bridge that gulf, to bring the Creator closer to the created. God is merciful to his lowly created children, but they do not always adhere to his plans. They do not always understand his purpose and his ways, and they do not always have the courage and the patience to remain faithful to his unfolding scheme of time. As creatures of time they do not have the perspectives of God; hence they go astray. If Adam and Eve were not far removed from us, if they were protoplasmic like us, they might also go astray. They did not have the long patience needed to rectify the past mistakes of this world; they ended in default of their trust and of their holy obligations. As a consequence they were condemned to suffer mortal death for betrayal of that trust. The old myths reflect their unique status, their failure, and their fate.
 

If a pair of beautiful human beings with superior powers should suddenly appear out of the sky would not primitive man bow down to worship them? Would they not appear as gods? If the pure blood children of that pair should intermarry with primitive man of long ago might not the product be regarded with awe? As it was recorded in Genesis 6:  
 

We possess the poor records of those far-off days but our limited visions could see them only as myth. We could not reduce the records to practical reality; we did not possess the necessary technical insights. But now we do possess knowledge for greater understanding. We have reached the point where we can reexamine the old myths with instructive reward.
 

On this basis we shall find that Adam and Eve were the parents of a special race intended to uplift evolutionary man. Although their efforts were terminated by their default, they left biological imprint upon all of us, as well as cultural influence. Their children spread throughout Europe and into the Asiatic subcontinent of India to produce Caucasoid man. They also left some imprint on the Oriental races, and into Oceania. They did not directly modify the black or red men.