Notice too -- she says RACE (singular) she's not taking about mixing different races of people.

In that particular quote, it is reasonably clear that the word "race" is used to refer specifically to that group of people we would call the "antediluvians." However, in other places, Mrs. White has referred to subsets of that group using the same word "race." The word can be used to denote larger groups, or subsets of those groups, and Mrs. White's use of the word "race" to speak of the entire population does not tell us anything in particular about the characteristics of that population. How could they not be mixed?

The people could only have not been mixed if they had maintained their peculiar family lines pure. That this was not the case is clear from Genesis 6. The race of Shem, called the "sons of God," intermarried with the race of Cain, referred to as the "daughters of men."

In an interesting statement, Mrs. White speaks of both the "human race" and of plural "races" in reference to Noah's three sons after the flood.



More references to races...



Clearly, Ellen White recognized "races" of mankind in more than one sense. In the broad sense, she certainly does lump us all together in one big family and human race. Yet she was not blind to the reality of a grand variety of "races" among us, and recognized them in her writings. To use any single instance of her usage of the word to define all other instances in her writings would be an error.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

In light of Mrs. White's perspective on the white versus the black races, it seems probable to me that the intermarriage of "white" and "black" people constitutes amalgamation.



Notice that Mrs. White always upheld equality among the races. But equality in value, love, talents, etc. does not always mean sameness. Similarly, men and women may speak of equality between them, but they are certainly not the same!

For purpose wise which God must see, He has asked blacks and whites not to intermarry. To disobey would be a sin. In Noah's era it may be, however, that the predominant issue was that of spiritual lineage and not merely racial lineage. Exactly what Mrs. White meant by "amalgamation" may always be a debatable question.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Well that may be your opinion on the matter.
For me it just doesn't hold up.

First of all --
I don't think there were black and white races immediately after creation. There was ONE couple, Adam and Eve, who had children. They naturally passed on the genetic codes God placed within them -- these descendents of Adam and Eve were all one race.



The different races came about because of amalgation.
They didn't come about because one of Adam's sons or grandsons suddenly had a black baby that had to be kept separate from the fairer skinned cousins to be sure he didn't intermarry.

Amalgation produced different races, they toyed with the skin color genetic codes adding some DNA making some whiter and some darker.
They toyed with the eye shape genetic codes.
They did other things that aren't evident today because it was erased in the flood.

After the flood they tried it again.
Some of the minor results are probably the things we see in the different races of people.


So how many races were there immediately after the flood?
How could "amalgamation" be carried out with only ONE family preserved if it really meant intermarriage between different races?

"Since the flood, there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men. {1SP 78.2}

Luckily that knowledge died out quickly. I don't think they got too far with it after after the flood. My own guess would be it died out during the dispersal at the tower of Babel. The reason the Babel rebellion was stopped is because they were rebuilding the pre-flood culture as well as defying God with their tower.

Another thought:
WHY does EGW council against black and white marriages? It's not because it's a great sin so terrible that God has to send a flood.

No -- it's because of attitudes of people that it is not wise, especially during her time when the blacks were slaves or just liberated from slavery, The culture imposed segregation laws. The mixed couple couldn't even go into public places together. But mostly it was for the sake of the children who are not accepted by the white community or the black.

However, these children are NOT an example of God's image being defaced!
They are just as beautiful and intellegent as any other children.

But the amalgamation that EGW refered to DEFACED the image of God in mankind.

It didn't just cause confusion in spirituality, or confusion in people's attitudes, it caused confusion in species and defaced the very image of God in which mankind was created.

I'm convinced that amalgation refered to GENETIC ENGINEERING.
Something EGW didn't even understand at the time of writing, but we understand quite well!

The world is now standing on that same brink where they are messing with God's creation in ways that will demand the destruction of creation.

I have not found any contradiction to what I believe in scripture.


I agree. That is, until God "marked" Cain so that anyone finding him would remember the curse pronounced upon the one who should kill him. Up until that time, they were all one race. Following that, however, there were two very distinct races--both in appearance and in spirituality.


Amalgamation can only create different races if there is a difference to be had in the genetic source. So, if you believe that humans were all one race up until amalgamation happened, where is the new material that they would have mixed in with that race to create a new one? Animals? Of course, Ellen White's quote certainly leaves that option open. But then, I think we already mentioned bestiality earlier in this thread.

No, Cain was not a baby when he was marked.

Or rather, God made the adjustment, just like He did with the languages at Babel.

I heard one person not long ago who tried to persuade me that all of our present languages had come from one original language as well. Trouble is, if you learn more than about two languages, you'll quickly see why this is simply an impossibility. I could disprove such a theory on phonics alone, without even making vocabulary comparisons and illustrating the futility of having all such words in a single language. There is simply no need of me having 8000+ words that all say "tree!"


This sounds a bit odd. Are you referring to the Asian eyes? If so, such was not "erased in the flood." And if it actually were "erased in the flood," please show me your scripture that tells the story of this--for we would obviously not have it in evidence today, right?

How did Noah's three sons get to be of different races? Did Noah "amalgamate" his own progeny? Or did they marry wives of different races that had been impacted by the pre-flood amalgamation? I believe that the latter option cannot be easily dismissed. Thus, I believe, the race of Cain survived, to be continued in the line of Ham.



I think I've suggested how this would be possible above.


I think after the flood they would have had sufficient difficulty just making a pencil. It would take time and much human resources to get back into doing highly technical things. Perhaps at Babel itself they were doing such, who knows, but I don't think Noah's sons themselves had much part in it.


It should be noted that this condition still exists today, not just in Mrs. White's day.


God's image was already defaced. Not one of us is born in the image of God. After man fell, that image was lost. When Adam had children, the Bible makes a careful point to say they were born "in his own likeness." That, by the way, was even said for his son Seth, the one who was most faithful to God and in the lineage of Christ.

So, black or white doesn't matter--neither of them would be in "God's image."

That's a good opinion to hold.


I'm sure it did. And God's image is increasingly defaced with each new generation. And there is no hope of us reviving it, in physical form, this side of Heaven. Praise the Lord for the hope we have of being changed in the twinkling of an eye.


I think you might be right here in part. However, I think we have to be careful about making assumptions as to the manner of "amalgamation" back then. They may have been quite far from test tubes and microscopes in a laboratory. They may well have had a superior understanding of human and animal physiology and have worked in more "natural" ways of which we are ignorant today.


Agreed. We are seeing prophecy fulfilled in this area.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I haven't found anything in scripture concerning amalgamation being the crossing of black and white races prior to flood.
So, yes it is an OPINION, not a scriptural fact.



Again the idea of the "mark" being a genetically transferrable feature that changed the physical appearance of all his descendants is an opinion.

Yes, there was a division between those who served God and those Who did not. But the term "amalgamation" has connotations that mean more than "marrying an unbeliever".

EGW has lots to say about not marrying unbelievers and she never calls it "amalgamation".



I don't think it was bestiality.
I don't think it was any kind of interbreeding.
They had knowledge of genetic manipulation.
And genetic engineering changes the genetic source.






Again you seem to be think I'm talking about some kind of natural breeding. No, I'm talking about genetic engineering.
The sons of Noah probably carried the knowledge of how to do genetic engineering. Someone, possibly someone like Nimrod (Gilgamesh?) decided to experiment with it.






I think the ark itself was far more sophisticated than the pictures show. They brought sophisticated stuff with them. They KNEW they had to bring with them everything they needed to start a new civilization. They had 120 years to accumulate everything they thought they might need. If the Egyptians were able to build the greatest pyrimids ever built shortly after the flood, I'm sure people had skills we don't even know about.




If what you wrote is how EGW was thinking when she wrote the paragraph, then why would she even mention it? If the image of God was alreadly defaced (lost), then intermarriage defacing something that wasn't there, won't matter.

Yet it was a problem.

EGW uses the term "image of God" in different ways.
You have shared one way -- the perfect moral part of the image of God that was lost at the fall.

But she also uses it more generally, like:

" Every human being, created in the image of God, is endowed with a power akin to that of the Creator-- individuality, power to think and to do." Ed 18
She also says intemprance destroys the image of God in mankind by benumbing the nobler faculties.

So it leaves the option open that the pre-flood tampering rendered human beings whose individulity and power to think was greatly modified. It was the pre-flood amalgamation that was destroying the image of God in mankind.

The post flood attempts were short lived and seem to have been minor changes. Probably affecting appearance somewhat, but not the ability to reason and think.





I can fully agree that we don't know HOW they did it. It seems they had technology in a number of areas that is quite different from what we have today. For example, they harnessed energy from the magnetic lines of the earth that scientists today still can't understand how they did it.
Another example is the great pyramid said to have been erected in 2560 BC. That must have been almost immediately after the flood!!! Yet they precision cut 2.3 million huge stones each weighing an average of 25 tonnes, transported them 500 miles from Aswan, hoisted them into perfectly placed position to build a pyramid 480 feet tall.
I don't think they did that by hand as often depicted, they had some technology we don't understand.
So, just how they did it we don't know.

How they did their genetic engineering we don't know either -- they may have known something scientists still don't know today.

Noah was given precise instructions in how to build the ark--exact dimensions. And he followed them. Do you think God would have asked Noah to build a special room into the ark for a genetic engineering laboratory? Do you think God would have allowed that, much less designed space for it?

Do you realize that the animals which came to the ark were seven days in entering it? That's a lot of animals. Noah and his family were so busy fitting the animals into the ark at that time that I'm sure they had time for little else. And they would not have known how much room the animals would occupy until after they had all entered.

Furthermore, Mrs. White tells us something else rather interesting about babies before the flood, and these don't sound like the test-tube variety.



Modern genetic engineering involves obtaining stem cells, generally from a fetus. The fetus is destroyed in the process. It seems this would have been a notable event, and Moses would have recorded something about it.

Genetic engineering is not something that simply requires knowledge. It is something that requires a high amount of civilization and development.

If a disaster destroyed our world today, and a few top scientists were all that remained (with their wives), do you suppose they could do genetic engineering? Remember, the internet is gone. The laboratories are gone. Everything is gone, and one must be agrarian just to survive. There is no store in which to buy one's food. No money, in fact. Inventions and genetic engineering?! Last thing on one's mind at that point. Remember, no plastic factory, no oil industry, no glass shop, no oxyacetylene tanks and hoses with which to weld or smelt metal, no large machines or expensive robotic tools for precision work....

Of course, we really don't know what level of invention the antediluvians had, but I tend to think that a God who would be so particular as to forbid the mixing of wool and linen in one's clothing and who forbad the people to sow their fields with diverse kinds of seed (lest they cross pollinate), would be particular enough to call a "base crime" that which we might take rather lightly. I don't think they needed to do "genetic engineering" such as we do today to have committed such a crime as "amalgamation." I think simple cross-breeding between different kinds would have qualified.

In other words, I truly think we are worse today than they were back then.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

It is not only man that is doing genetic manipulation.

Christ never planted the seeds of death in the system. Satan planted these seeds when he tempted Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge, which meant disobedience to God. Not one noxious plant was placed in the Lord's great garden, but after Adam and Eve sinned, poisonous herbs sprang up. In the parable of the sower the question was asked the master, "Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tares?" The master answered, "An enemy hath done this." [Matthew 13:27, 28.] All tares are sown by the evil one. Every noxious herb is of his sowing, and by his ingenious methods of amalgamation he has corrupted the earth with tares. {16MR 247.2}

If a person lived a perfect life, no stress, ate right, exercised, etc. They still would die. Why? DNA. There are just so many cell divisions that are possible and the system fails. If the "seeds" of death are in the system, Satan put them there. I would argue it was at the Tree of Knowledge because of the warning given about that tree. As I have argued earlier in this thread, mobile genetic elements, which evolutionist often call "selfish DNA" I think is the finger print of sin.

Every species of animals which God had created was preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood, there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men. {1SP 78.2}

Today, we can do genetic manipulations to do strange things, such as making an eye grow on a leg of a fruit fly. That does not mean it is functional, but it can be done. We have statuary of half human, half animal. Was this just a figment of the sculptor's mind, or was this pointing back to the confused species that God did not create?

But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere. God purposed to destroy by a flood that powerful, long-lived race that had corrupted their ways before him. {3SG 64.1}

Sin is transgression of the law. Amalgamation was a sin. All organisms are controlled by their genetic code. The genetic code contains the law of how a organism operates. Romans 5:12 AKJV Why, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed on all men, for that all have sinned:

Since the flood, there have been more amalgamations. Did man do this in the laboratory? I think a lot of that was lost in the flood. However, meat eating came into being. And there is a huge amount of lateral transfer of DNA going on. If you check the genes that code for protein in marsupials compared with placental animals, we find that the genes are the same. However, the transposable genetic elements are different, and these affect gene expression. The different in the various dog breeds is do to the transposable elements. Viruses are one type of transposable genetic element. Viruses are clearly selfish. They exists to only make more of themselves. Who is now pushing forward transposable elements? The devil is still at work. Read the parable of the sower.

What does a man pass to his offspring? 23 chromosomes in a protein cap. That's it, physically. Death is coded in the genes. What wages of sin is death, Romans 6:23. Sin is in the DNA. Ellen White was just ahead of her time when she spoke about amalgamations.

People look at the ark as simple a floating barn like structure, with just one little window near the top, with Noah and his family busily trying to feed, clean, and keep peacable the thousands of animals who were cramped into little cages for a year? The very concept causes any realistic person to doubt the authenticity of the Bible story. The problems, if this is limited to a primitive understanding are simply astronomical.

BUT -- what if there was a sophisticated scientific labatory on board? What if they were able to put all those animals into a state of semi-hibernation, a very carefully controlled scientific process of lowering their metabolic rates.
What if they had a light source that wasn't a flame of fire (which would have been extremely dangerous in a pitching wooden boat filled with straw and other flamibles)

What if they had sophisticated equipement to feed, and clean the animals.

What if they had equipment to turn salt water into drinking water? All those thousands of animals would have needed an awful large amount of water during their year on board.

So yes, they could have had a scientific lab on board, as well as a whole roomful of stuff to keep technology alive in "the new world".




EGW is describing the great health of those first generations. They were not suffering from 6000 years of degeneration.

However, she also says there was amalgamation.
And that's what we are dealing with here.

With the continual violence the Bible says was taking place, there is no question that there was a lot of death even at young ages. It just wasn't from natural causes.

Moses account of the preflood era was very brief and I'm sure left out enough details to fill volumes of books.



You are comparing a sudden devasting disaster that wipes out everything, with the situation of Noah and His family who had 120 years to carefully gather and preserve in the ark a lot more things than just the animals that arrived a week before the flood came.
The two situations are not really the same.

Of course understanding about this amalgamation isn't a salvation issue. It's a point of interest.

But I do believe God is allowing "knowledge to increase" once again to show what would have happened had He not stepped in back then to put a stop to it.
Right now the amalgation of food is bringing the world into the powerful control of a few men who claim a monopoly on their genetically modified foods and are busily getting rid of organic seeds.

I think you are being sidetracked. One had said that amalgamation must and can only mean a certain unfavored race (of their choosing) since how else could that race possibly come about from 2 people. I was only showing that that indeed was possible as we see a mixture of races today, plant and animal breeding programs show how different phenotypes segregate out, and therefore, there is nothing which would preclude all races being combined within Adam and Eve. Races, bestiality, or what not has nothing to do with what she was talking about.