Fin de Ciel
Collection
Siete Hijas de Eva
“When you want to be clever,
it happens that you lie a little”.
The little Prince, Chapter 17
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Book of Genesis
The Creation
26 God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and that the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, the cattle, the beasts of the earth, and all the animals that creep on the ground be subject to him.
27 And God created man in his image; He created him in the image of God, he created them male and female.
28 And he blessed them, saying: “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; dominate the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky and all the living things that move on the earth”.
Here is the sacred historian's first account of the appearance of woman; a simultaneous creation of both sexes, in the image of God. It is evident from the language that there were consultations in the Deity, and that the male and female elements were equally represented. But instead of three male characters, as is usually depicted, a Heavenly Father, a Heavenly Mother, and a Son would seem more rational.
The first step in elevating woman to her proper position as an equal factor in human progress is the cultivation of religious sentiment regarding her dignity and equality, the recognition by the succeeding generation of an ideal Heavenly Mother, to which prayers should be directed, as well as to the Father.
If language means anything, we have in these texts a clear statement of the existence of a feminine element in the Godhead, equal in power and glory with the masculine. The Heavenly Mother and Father! "God created man in his own image, male and female." [...]
The text clearly shows the simultaneous creation of man and woman, and their equal importance in the development of the species. All theories based on the assumption that man is prior to creation have no foundation in Scripture. As to the subjection of woman, about which both civil and canon law delight to speak, it is important to note that dominion over every form of life is given equally to woman, but not a single word one is said that gives man dominion over woman. Here we have the first property title of this green land that is granted equally to the sons and daughters of God. No lesson of female subjection can honestly be drawn from the first chapter of the Old Testament
The most important thing for a woman to note when reading Genesis is that this part which is currently divided between the first three chapters (there was no such division until about five centuries ago) contains two completely separate and radically contradictory creation stories, written by two different authors, but equally anonymous. No current Christian theologian have an allegation to have academic studies claims that Genesis was written by Moses. It has long been pointed out, and the Bible itself declares, that all the books originally owned by the Jews were burned at the destruction of Jerusalem around 588 BC, when the Jews were taken to Babylon as slaves by the Assyrians (see II Ezra , XIV, V.21, Apocrypha). Until about 237 BC. (some theologians say 226, others 169) there is no record of any collection of documents in rebuilt Jerusalem, and so the anonymous writer of II Maccabees (here is the single part mention the Seven Daughters of Eve) and briefly mentions that a certain Nehemiah "gathered together the acts of the kings and the prophets and those of David" when he "founded a library" for Jerusalem. But the first mention in the Bible of a book that could correspond to Genesis is made by an apocryphal writer who says that Ezra wrote "everything that had happened in the world from the beginning", after the Jews returned from Babylon, under his leadership, circa 450 BC (see II Esdras, XIV, v 22, of the apocrypha).
When one considers that Jewish books were written on leather scrolls, without much attention to vowel punctuation and without division into verses or chapters, by uncritical copyists who frequently altered passages and did not always even pretend to understand what they copied, then the reader of Genesis begins to be in a position to understand how it can be contradictory. And if the liberties taken by the Jews with Genesis were great, those of the English translators far exceeded them.
For example, the first chapter of Genesis, in Hebrew, tells us, in verses 1 and 2, "In the beginning the gods (Elohim) created these heavens (or air, or clouds) and this earth...And a wind moved to the surface of the waters." Here we have the beginning of a polytheistic fable of creation, but, so convinced were the English translators that the ancient Hebrews must have originally been monotheists, that they translated the above as "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth...and the breath of God (!) hovered over the surface of the waters."
It is now generally accepted that someone (no one claims to know who) at a given time (no one claims to know exactly when) copied two creation myths onto the same roll of skin, one after the other. About a hundred years ago, In Genesis I v.1 to Genesis II v.4, a complete creation account is presented, by an author who always used the word "the gods" ( Elohim) in speaking of the formation of the universe, and uses it some 34 times, while in Genesis II v.4 to the end of chapter III, we have an entirely different narrative, by an author of undoubtedly different style, who uses the word " Yahweh of gods" 20 times, but "Elohim" only three times. The first author evidently attributes creation to a council of gods acting in concert, and does not seem to have heard of Yahweh. The second attributes creation to Yahweh, a tribal god of ancient Israel, but represents Yahweh as one of two or more gods who speak with him (in Genesis III v.22) about the danger of man acquiring immortality.
Modern theologians have conveniently called these two fables, respectively, the Elohisc story and the Yahwist story. They differ not only on the point I have just made, but also on the order of the acts of creation, on the mutual attitude of man and woman, and on human freedom from the prohibitions imposed by the deity. Here are the glaring contradictions,
Elohisc Yahwist
Order of creation:
First: Water.
Second: Earth.
Third: Vegetation.
Fourth: Animals.
Fifth: Humanity: male and female.
Order of creation
First: Earth,
Second: Water.
Third: male man, only.
Fourth: Vegetation.
Five: Animals.
Sixth: Woman."
A ) In the Elohisc story man and woman are created simultaneously, both equally in the image of the gods, after the animals have been brought into existence.
A) In the Yahwist story the male man is modeled in clay before the animals have been created and before the woman has been created.
B) In the Elohisc story, man and woman are given joint dominion over the land, without limits or prohibitions.
B) Again in the Yahwist story the woman is punished by being subject to the man for violating a prohibitory law.
C) At Elohisc everything without exception is judged "very good".
C) At the Yahvist story there is an evil tree, whose fruit Yahweh says causes sudden death, but this is not the case, because Adam lived 930 years after eating it.
D) Elohisc story told us that men and women are told that "every seed-bearing plant on the face of the earth and every tree... is for your enjoyment." Therefore, they are given perfect freedom.
D) Yahwist said man is told that there is a tree from which he must not eat "for the day you do, you will surely die.”
E) At the Elohisc tale man and woman are given dominion over all animals: "over everything that moves on the earth."
E) At Yahwist explain that an animal, "a thing that moves" receives dominion over man and woman, and proves to be more trustworthy than Yahweh Elohim (compare Genesis II v17 with III vv. 4 and 22).
Now, since it is evident that the two stories cannot be true at the same time, the intelligent woman, who understands that she must prefer one to the other, can decide according to her own judgment which is more worthy of being accepted by an intelligent woman. [...]
With all this research since the beginning of the essay balance must be given between science and religion, in a clear endeavour that the second story was probably manipulated by some Jew in an attempt to give heavenly authority to require a woman to obey the man she has married.
The man in the garden of Eden
21 Then the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and when he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up the empty place with meat.
22 Then the Lord God made a woman out of the rib that he had taken out of the man, and brought her to the man.
23 The man exclaimed, “This is indeed bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” She will be called Woman, because she has been taken from man.
24 Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and the two become one flesh.
25 Both the man and the woman were naked, but they were not ashamed.
Since the creation account in the first chapter is consistent with science, common sense, and mankind's experience of natural laws, it is natural to wonder why there are two conflicting accounts of the same event in the same book. It is easy to deduce that the second version, found in some way in the various religions of all nations, is a mere allegory symbolising some mysterious conception of a highly imaginative editor.
The first story dignifies women as an important factor in creation, equal in power and glory with men. The second turns it into a mere afterthought. The world functioned perfectly without her. The only reason to create it is the loneliness of man.
There is something sublime in bringing order out of chaos, light out of darkness, in giving each planet its place in the solar system, in giving limits to the oceans and the lands, something totally inconsistent with a light surgical operation to find the material with which create the mother of the species. It is on this allegory that all the enemies of women rest their battering rams to prove their inferiority […]
Adam and Eve disobey God
1 The serpent was the most cunning of all the animals of the field that the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, "So God commanded you not to eat from any tree in the garden?"
2 The woman replied, “We can eat the fruit of all the trees in the garden.
3 But regarding the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God has told us: "Do not eat from it or touch it, or you will die."
4 The serpent said to the woman, “No, they will not die.
5 God knows very well that when you eat from that tree, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the tree was appetising to eat, pleasing to the eye and desirable to gain insight, she took some of its fruit and ate; then she gave it to her husband, who was with her, and he also ate.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered that they were naked. That is why loincloths were made, interweaving fig leaves.
8 When they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden at the hour when the breeze was blowing, they hid from him among the trees of the garden.
9 But the Lord God called the man and said to him, "Where are you?"
10 “I heard your footsteps in the garden, he answered, and I was afraid because I was naked. That's why I hid."
11 He replied, “And who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I forbade you?».
12 The man replied, "The woman you placed by my side gave me the fruit, and I ate it."
13 The Lord God said to the woman, "How did you do such a thing?" The woman replied, "The snake seduced me and I ate."
14 And the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all domestic animals and above all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life”.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will stalk his heel."
16 And the Lord God said to the woman: “I will multiply the sufferings off your childbearing; you will give birth to your children in pain. You will be attracted to your husband, and he will dominate you."
17 And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree that I forbade you to eat, cursed be the ground because of you. With fatigue you will get your food from it all the days of your life.
18 He will bring forth thistles and thorns for you, and you will eat the grass of the field.
19 You will earn bread with the sweat of your face, until you return to the land, from where you were taken. Because you are dust and to dust you will return!”
20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
21 The Lord God made coats of skins for the man and his wife and clothed them.
22 Then the Lord God said, “The man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Lest it be that now he stretches out his hand, takes also from the tree of life, eats and lives forever».
23 Then he expelled the man from the Garden of Eden, to work the land from which he had been taken.
24 And after expelling the man, he placed the cherubim and the flame of the zigzagging sword to the east of the garden of Eden, to guard the access to the tree of life.
Once upon a time on earth…
in the oceans of the Eon Archean, 2.5 billion years ago, there was a primitive and simple cell called the archaea, unable to evolve in a changing atmosphere, provided with more and more oxygen, it lacked the machinery needed to process that gas. This cell swallowed a bacterium, which was also primitive and simple, and unlike the first, it was capable of processing oxygen because it had inside it a type of DNA designed for that function. But although that cell swallowed the bacteria, it never digested it and this bacteria continued to live inside it, giving rise to a symbiotic relationship between the host cell and the bacteria in which they became mutually necessary to survive.
That primitive cell had its own genetic material contained in a nucleus, its nuclear DNA, it was capable of producing little energy, enough to survive, but not to evolve. The bacterium that was ingested by the primitive cell, became the mitochondria of the cell, provided with its DNA, which once inside the cell constitutes the mitochondrial DNA, and gave the cell the ability to breathe. Aerobic respiration is the process by which the cell uses oxygen to transform sugars into large amounts of energy molecules. This new cell called eukaryote had the capacity and energy to multiply and differentiate, and thus give rise to multicellular organisms, to all the other kingdoms, and then complex life began on earth.
Our cells are provided with a nuclear DNA, which gives us the characteristics of each species, and a DNA from that bacterium, the mitochondrial DNA, responsible for cellular respiration.
The importance of mitochondrial DNA
The sperm has fertilised the ovum, but in order to enter it has had to shed its tail and the rest of the cell, including its mitochondria. The ovum only allows the sperm nucleus to penetrate inside, which carries the genetic information of the father contained in its nuclear DNA, while the ovum remains intact as a cell. For this reason, the nucleus of both parents are involved in the new being, but only the mitochondria of its mother, present in the ovum, exist. In this way, all individuals inherit our nuclear DNA from the father and the mother, but our mitochondrial DNA comes only from the mother.
So then, by means of mitochondrial DNA inherited intact, by maternal line, the ascending thread of our ancestral mother can be followed.
Since mitochondrial DNA is subject to mutations, like all other genetic material, the more differences there are between the mitochondrial DNA of two individuals, the further away their common female ancestor is. This DNA has been found to mutate in humanity approximately every 10,000 years.
In this way, by analysing the mitochondrial DNA of the current inhabitants of the planet, a female tree of genetic relationships can be established. Mitochondrial DNA analysis has allowed us to trace our lineage back into the remote past, far beyond the reach of written records or stone inscriptions.
There are about 36 female clans in the world. In the European case, there are seven major female clans whose founders lived from about 45,000 years ago to about 8,500 years ago. With all this researches proceeding at first line with the Bible and second one Skypes´ theory, Fred Friedrich has created in 1990 Fin de Ciel Collection Las Siete Hijas de Eva, which each artwork appropriating the name of Eva’s daughters given by Skypes and make us deliberate about the great stories token from the Bible and science :
1) Ursula, lived 45 thousand years ago in northern Greece. 11 percent of the European population belongs to his clan that spread throughout Europe hunting with stone weapons. As the ice age approached, their descendants migrated south, being abundant in western Britain and Scandinavia
2) Xenia, lived 25 thousand years ago in the Caucasus, a mountainous area near the Black Sea. Before the glaciation, they dispersed throughout Europe and emigrated to America. Six percent of Europeans descend from it, from Eastern Europe to Great Britain.
3) Helena, her descendants are the most numerous in Europe. It was established 20 thousand years ago. Coming from hunters who lived near the Pyrenees, on the border between France and Spain. 47 percent of Europeans descend from it.
4) Velda, lived 17 thousand years ago in Cantabria. At the end of the ice age, their descendants migrated north, reaching the northernmost part of Scandinavia. Later they mixed with nomads from Russia, Finland and Norway. Five percent of Europeans are their descendants.
5) Tara, lived in Italian Tuscany 17 thousand years ago. As the climate warmed, their offspring crossed Europe and the English Channel, and populated Ireland. Nine percent of Europeans belong to their clan, especially in the western Mediterranean, western Great Britain and Ireland.
6) Katrine, lived in the vicinity of Venice 15 thousand years ago. His diet was based on fish. His descendants were hunters. They are the current inhabitants of the Alps. Six percent of Europeans are their descendants.
7) Jasmine was born 8,500 years ago in Syria after the ice age. Given the abundance of small game, his clan was the first to engage in agriculture and have sedentary habits. 17 percent of Europeans descend from it, especially in the Iberian Peninsula, Wales and western Scotland.
These seven women must have done something amazing in their lives to have changed the genes they were born with and passed them on to their offspring. Almost all of them lived during the Great Ice Age, when the cold was extreme. Then the ice covered Europe in such a way that you could walk from the British Isles to Scandinavia and mainland Europe.
Also is a posits that if mitochondrial DNA mutates approximately every 10,000 years, and the last change occurred that long ago, are we at the gates of a new gene change? Could there be an exceptional woman today who is mutating her genes? Could a chain mutation for all of humanity have already begun?
The origin of our life, understood through the fusion of a primitive cell and a bacterium, and the survival of that cell through mitochondrial respiration, inherited from our mother, seems like a magical romance story, but… it is. , is the story of love between mother nature and her children, of the inheritance of the breath of life that each female gives to her offspring.
Personally, we believe that, for whoever is responsible in the universe for making life decisions, females are especially supreme beings, since they have entrusted us with the sublime task of being the messenger-carrier of the binary code of the life, in a little box called mitochondria, and the message is called mitochondrial DNA.
Fred Friedrich is the first artist that bases his work in molecular journey into our remote past. Guided by the intact genetic threads that connect us with our ancestors, writes Friedrich, in this Collection, we can travel back in time to a time before the dawn of history, to a world of ice and snow, of bare mountains and endless plains, to know to those remarkable women: the seven daughters of Eve.
Fin de Ciel Collection Las Siete Hijas de Eva, becomes, in fact, a recreation, in an abstract work, in the light of the powerful focus of genetics, of the imagined lives of these seven women, the mothers of the Europeans.
Friedrich has studied deeply all the first report on retrieving DNA from whom Professor Sykes has baptised with the names of Ursula , Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrina and Jasmine. Why this names? He uses the deductions to give biographies for each of the clan mothers, assigning then arbitrary names based on the scientific designation of the haplogroup ( for example, using the name Xenia for the founder of haplogroup X and so on )
Inspired with this, his abstract works envolved yellow, blue, orange atmosphere in which he flaunt how the dynamics of maternal mitocondrial DNA inheritance leave their mark on the human population in the form of genetic clans sharing common maternal descent. Ecstasy with all this phenomena he created these seven clan mothers as daughters of Eve, in an amazing artwork which forms, moves, lines of life are bystander of a great reference to the mitochondrial Eve to whom the DNA of all modern humans traces persist.
An attempt, to associate the whole Collection quiet lucid by the way, to personalise the different DNA codes Friedrich associate the study of the six thousand European women linked to the bases of his philosophy: Faith in Human-being, involved a sacred, holly women in Earth and Heaven.
[...] However, since our main interest is the part of the woman in the drama, we are equally pleased with her attitude whether she is a myth in an allegory or the heroine of a historical fact.
In this dialogue, the unprejudiced reader should be struck by the woman's courage, dignity, and noble ambition.
The tempter evidently had a deep understanding of human nature, and he saw at first glance the lofty character of the person he chanced to meet from his walks in the garden. And he did not try to tempt her away from her duty with brilliant jewels, rich dresses, worldly luxuries or pleasures, but with the promise of knowledge, of the wisdom of the Gods.
Like Socrates or Plato, her dialectical abilities to ask disconcerting questions were undoubtedly admirable, awakening in women that intense thirst for knowledge that the simple pleasures of picking flowers or conversing with Adam did not satisfy. Compared to Adam, she seems more advantaged throughout the entire drama.
Nely L. Friedrich
6 April 2022
