This update discusses how God’s plan sought to reduce DNA mutations. This is based on some observations of the lineages presented in the Bible. This is more of a proposal than support for the day-8 man but it does contribute to the range of topics discussed in “S1. Genetics supports day-8 man”.
Now-a-days we can actually see the mutations in our DNA increasing from generation to generation. The DNA is not evolving into something better with environmental pressure culling out the mistakes as evolutionists would suggest. The reverse is happening. This is a measureable fact. The question is, “When did our DNA become vulnerable to genetic decay?” (See Dr John Sanford and his book “Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome”.)
I believe that Adam had perfect DNA and along with that came that ability to perfectly reproduce that DNA into his descendants. The loss of the tree of life constrained his lifespan to its natural 1,000 years, but there was no curse on Adam and no corruption to his DNA. It remained perfect. During the 10 generations from Adam to Noah the lifespan actually increased slightly on average. I think that the vulnerability to defects came through the intermarriage with day-6 women.
So, are you still with me? It seems like a reasonable proposition. The great thing is that we see the goodness of God. He did not design in genetic degradation in Adam, neither before nor after the fall. In fact, recent discoveries have revealed built-in repair mechanisms for the DNA. (Search for “DNA Repair” in your search engine or at the CMI website).
But so far this is just a proposition. You can spin the story other ways. You can claim that loss of the tree of life also brought on susceptibility to genetic decay. Not bad, but you have to wonder why their lifespan did not drop before Noah and then suddenly and rapidly dropped. Also blaming the loss of access to the tree of life means that we blame God for giving Adam DNA that was not up to the job of faithfully reproducing itself. You can’t read genetic degradation into the curses either, because God was very specific in what He said to Adam and Eve.
So, after establishing the theology, let’s look at the technical details:
Birth defects are generally more likely when the parents are older. Now birth defects are a very broad topic and involve issues throughout the male and female reproductive system. This is way broader than the specific issue of a defect appearing in the DNA at conception. But you have the idea - age is a significant factor. Now let’s turn that around to be a little clearer. I suggest that the loss of age, that is, the reduction in lifespan created the vulnerability to genetic decay.
The next technical point is that the reduced telomeres on the ends of the DNA (described earlier in this supplement), is what reduces lifespan and is also seen to be responsible for a loss of defence against cancer.
So we have two issues, and perhaps more known to others, that imply a loss of lifespan may contribute to increased susceptibility to genetic degradation. Not only does this support the Day-8 view but it reveals the goodness of God in the initial creation. But I want to take it a little further. I want to propose something that needs to be tested and that is more based on my presumption of the goodness of God than on any technical support.
We know that Adam and Eve’s descendant would have had to marry close relatives. Similarly, after the flood and again after the scattering at Babel we imagine small groups of individuals scattered all over the world forming new nations. Inbreeding within these small groups, cut off from each other, explains the different traits within each national group. Finally, there was the creation of the nation of Israel. This actually started with Abraham whose wife Sarah, was also his half-sister. (Genesis 20:12)
All this meant intermarriage with close relatives. Actually there was one other important instance. When the Israelites rebelled against God in the desert, God told Moses that He would wipe them out and start a new nation through Moses. However, Moses interceded for Israel, and God relented. I think that God raised up Moses so that there would be someone suitable to mediate at this time. Now the point to note is that God subsequently gave the Israelites laws through Moses, one of which banned intermarriage with close relatives.
Some people criticise this as God being inconsistent since He allowed, even required, intermarriage with close relatives before this. Some commentators point out that it was not inconsistent but it was because the number of mutations were now significantly increased from the days of Adam’s perfect DNA, and so this rule was introduced to stop birth defects. The idea was that by avoiding a close relative, with very similar mutations to your own, you reduce the risk of these mutations being passed on to your offspring. This is a commonly understood explanation but I would like to extend it a little.
All the preceding incidents when intermarriage with close relatives was required, involved people who were living to over 120 years of age – that upper limit declared in Genesis 6 but not really observed. I propose that, as long as man’s lifespan was above 120 years he was still relatively immune to these mutations. In all the earlier noted population groups from Adam down through Noah; the scattering; and through Abraham, even down to Jacob; and finally with Moses, that was the case. It means that when God allowed all these population groups to begin, they were not subject to the birth defects we now see. I unashamedly propose this because I see the goodness of God’s plan.
I take note that God decreed the lifespan would reduce to 120 years in Genesis 6. Moses lived 120 years and no-one live longer than that after him. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the last time God talked about raising up a new nation was to Moses (Exodus 32:10). And then it was through Moses that God stepped in to ban intermarriage with close relatives.
There are some options here:
Option 1 has some support. In the 500 years, but just 10 generations, from Noah’s first son Shem to Abraham there was little degradation from the near perfect DNA that Noah still had. But in the next 500 years to Moses, and many more generations, the mutations could have become an issue. And because God stepped in at the time of Moses, I suspect there were already significant defects in the general population at that time. So I will explore option 2. I cannot prove there was a tipping point in vulnerability to defects as life spans dropped under 120 years. It’s just a proposal but maybe it will give us a direction in our research.
Let me spin some very simple maths to exemplify a problem. Suppose that the number of mutations in a male and female is 100, just to use round numbers. At conception, some merge machine takes a random combination of the male and female genes to form the child. If the 100 mutations are all in different places then the result has from 0 to 200 mutations with an average of 100. But if the male and female have say 80 common mutations because they are close relatives, the result would have from 80 to 120 mutations, also with an average of 100.
Do you see my problem? The worst case scenario is when the male and female are not close relatives and over 120 mutations may result. OK, the conclusion is that the total number of mutations is not the issue, but that something must be going wrong with the merge machine when it encounters mutations in the same place in both the male and female DNA. I found it helpful to liken the process of merging the DNA to doing up a zip. The male and female DNA forms the two sides of the zip and this merge machine is the zipper. If a single tooth is missing on just one side, the zip handles it. But if the tooth is missing on both sides in the same place, the zipper gets out of step and something jams - there is a significantly worse defect.
Again, you could reason that if there is only a low probability of a significant defect arising, then it only becomes likely to cause a problem if there are lots of common defects. I agree, but hang in there for a moment and suppose that this probability is quite high and see where I want to take this. Today we observe a high probability of genetic defects in the first generation children in marriages between close relatives. In particular, problems not present in either parent appear in the offspring straight away. This is not about accumulation of defects or passing on existing combinations. It’s about something going wrong. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding for the types of problems.
Nothing like this is recorded in the Bible. That is a reason why I think the vulnerability must have appeared as the lifespan dropped below 120 years. And that can best be explained under the Day-8 view. It seems like God could see this coming and ensured that all national groups were established before inbreeding had the negative side-effects we see today.
If the probability was high then Noah’s descendants and Abraham’s descendants would have been vulnerable, even though they had relatively few defects. But what I am proposing is that as the length of the telomeres degraded in the DNA and resulted in a shorter lifespan, so to this merge machine suffered degradation. While life spans were above 120 years the merge machine worked so well that common mutations in the male and female DNA never caused a hiccup.
Imagine my analogy with a zip. Suppose the zipper (the merge machine), is long and holds lots of teeth at any one time inside the zipper. This keeps it in step and synchronised if it encounters gaps in the zip on both sides (common defects). But if the length of the zipper was reduced, (the same as the length of the telomeres), then it becomes vulnerable to getting out of step when handling common defects.
I believe that God is good and that He would not have caused the above-mentioned situations where intermarriage with close relatives had to occur without ensuring that birth defects would not result. Based on my observations of the lifespans that existed when instances of intermarriage with close relatives was forced or allowed by God, I have proposed that the DNA merge machine operating at conception, degraded along with the lifespan. It is my hope that this might provide a hint that researchers in genetics might be able to use.