ARE WE PURE OR IMPURE ANIMALS?

When God asked Noah to take some of the animals with him on the ark, so that also they would survive the flood, He made a distinction between those that are pure and those that are impure. Of every pure animal Noah had to take seven pairs, a male and its female, and of every impure animal one pair, a male and its female. Therefore, Genesis encourages us to ask what are pure and what are impure animals.

Leviticus, one of the books of the Old Testament, offers lists of animals that the Jews can and can not eat. Basing themselves on this information, religious authorities have come to the conclusion that pure animals are those that people are allowed to eat and impure animals those that they are forbidden to eat. This explanation satisfies those who have a simple mind, but not those who have a questioning mind. The latter realize that the story itself explains what pure and impure are about. If one couple of each species of impure animals was enough to repopulate the earth, impure of course refers to incest and endogamy.

Since earlier on God referred to Noah and his family as animals*, Genesis encourages us to ask whether God considered them pure or impure. To find the answer we only have to count the couples that were on the Ark. There were four: Noah, his wife and his three sons with their wives. This number is right between one and seven. God considered them between pure and impure animals.

Genesis says, “God created man in His image, male and female He created them” Since we must assume that God is pure, and therefore that also Adam and Eve were pure – Adam and Eve are not the first people on earth, but only the first generation that put an end to harmony –, incest and endogamy must be considered a consequence of eating the forbidden fruit.

When we reflect upon how the seven pairs of each species of pure animals repopulated the earth, while avoiding incest and endogamy, we eventually become aware of the importance of the male (always from father to son) and female (always from mother to daughter) lineages. The best way to do avoid incest and endogamy would be if, with each new generation, each male (or female) lineage successively crosbreeds with all seven female (or male) lineages, so that seven generations later it is again the turn of the first female (or male) lineage. This explains why Enoch, a descendant of Adam, the great grandfather of Noah, is special. There are seven generations between God (the generation before Adam and Eve) and Enoch. It is therefore not a coincidence that it is Enoch of whom is said, “In all, Enoch lived three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God, then was no more, because God took him.”

*(this will be explained in a following article)