A Non- Linear Social Imagination of the History of the Earth and Man

In the recent issue of National Geographic ~ Jan. 2015 ~ the cover has as an illustration that of  an aboriginal youth. This issue is titled - "the First American." Of course, as you read the articles and look at their maps of man's immigration from Africa to the Caucus Mountains and beyond, you wonder whether that was even possible. I mean, just because we have found bones and check the DNA of people who lived and died in the many areas/regions of the world, does not mean that they immigrated. It could mean that they were always in those places. It could be that their diaspora was over a lot longer time than we imagine.

In our social imagination, we think too linear. In the social imagination, we think that who we are today is a better form of man, a better or evolved form, and more evolved in terms of civilization (s) than were ever present before and or prior to anything in the past.

Just because we dig up bones here and there and see similarities does not mean that they represent a 'bone trail or even DNA trail in context of movement over vast landscapes. Not that people did not move, they did. They had to take with them women and children and seniors who did not move at a pace that would get them to a desired destination. We could imagine that it took generations to get from point A to point B. What I doubt though is the time allotted for this. As people moved north out of Africa, they had less and less exposure to harsh sun light and their diets changed along with their movement.

Their social hierarchies would also have to change with environmental conditions that required bigger and stronger men and women working in order to prepare for the winter. Hence, we often see more egalitarian societies in northern climates.

Let us imagine that though people moved about, it is not in the connect the dot movement we imagine today. Let us imagine that the people we find in certain geographies throughout the world today were actually in those places before the dinosaurs, before and after Noah built the Ark. We might imagine that before the Ark, they were very much the same at one time in a larger continent with a different but more even climate. In that place, they developed wonderful cities and technology and created fantastic creatures for their pleasure.  What happened to that ... Atlantis? Perhaps, a catastrophe.

And, there was one. After the Flood, they were separated from each other as in few an far between. Yet, they managed to reconnect, some groups retaining the technology they had before the Flood. And, that there was a natural leader who appeared and brought everyone back into a kind of 'noosphere' and in that place they built a tower into the sky.

The Bible talks of wonderful creatures that God created; such as dinosaurs; just read Job 40-42 ~ "Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of this thighs are close knit. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron... another - his back has rows of shields".

These creatures appear to be at the same time as Job. Or is the story of Job given to us in non-linear order. After all, it is squeezed between Esther and Psalms. And, it is even a more non-linear account of man in that the tower of Babel which was an incredible place with cities where people lived and understood each other speaking one language... this was after the Flood. Before the Flood, we read that daughter's of man were taken by Fallen angels and from them were born the Nephilim, corrupt in the genetic material. 

Does that mean that the Bible is wrong as a source of understanding the creation of the earth and man's presence? No. Just as linear mapping and supposing that everyone is related because of similar genetic material through one female and immigration caused man to be in many places is right.

The Bible is non-linear, the Social imagination is non-linear. It is so because it is representative of all man's imagination (s) which is ultimately God's.