Herpes on the Ark? (Adult Stuff, Sorry)

This is usually a family friendly blog.

While many posts are more easily understood by young adults or adults than by normal children, the latter are not discouraged from reading them, on my part. This is an exception. Adults sometimes are very studpid about one or two particular things and one of them is likely to land you with sth called herpes. If you are a boy under 14 or a girl under 12 in normal circumstances you should not be reading about this.

Newer post. | Older post.

Children out of this post?

Fine.

As you know, I believe Neanderthals were pre-Flood. I also believe most post-Flood diseases arose after the Flood, by mutating viruses and bacteria. In other words, post-Flood diseases are usually not pre-Flood diseases. The problem for me is, herpes is a disease existing post-Flood. And Neanderthals are, on my view, pre-Flood.

There are some ways to go around this.

• 1) Neanderthals diagnoses with herpes are misdiagnosed, the disease is similar, but not identic.
• 2) Neanderthals are post-Flood.
• 3) Noah had a person infected with herpes on the Ark.
• 4) Herpes some way by passed humans on the Ark.

Now, each has a few problems.

1) Neanderthals diagnoses with herpes are misdiagnosed, the disease is similar, but not identic.

Not likely. I trust the palaeo-anthropologists a bit too much for this one.

After a glance at Melissa Hogenboom, I wonder whether I overdid the confidence ... it reads a bit like, no herpes mark or virus was ever analysed on a Neanderthal skeleton or skull, it is a matter of back-tracing genes related to diseases.

2) Neanderthals are post-Flood.

CMI or IRC would consider this the case. I think it poses problems for carbon dating. If carbon date of Babel, beginning and ending, is 9600 and 8600 BC (Göbekli Tepe), how come carbon levels sank so drastically to supposedly post-Babel Neanderthals, of which the most recent ones are as far as I have gathered, 40 000 - 35 000 BP (38 - 33 000 BC)?

"Babel begins 2602 BC"

"42.89 pmc, 9600 BC"

"Babel ends 2562 BC"

"48.171 pmc, 8600 BC"

"Flood"

"2957 BC"

"low estim."

"c. 1 percent modern carbon (pmc), 38 000 BC (40 000 BP)"

From

Refining table Flood to Abraham - and a doubt

So

no, I don't think Neanderthals are really post-Babel, even if it would solve the problem. Obviously, CMI and IRC consider Babel far older than Göbekli Tepe - and they underestimate relative reliability of C14.

3) Noah had a person infected with herpes on the Ark.

If so - why?

• Some son chose a wife unwisely?
• Most people had herpes (all flesh was corrupted - could mean that) and those who hadn't had avoided it by being part of a very evil élite.
• Someone's wife was raped - but this does not dissolve marriage.
• Someone with a tragic past was nevertheless worthy to be on the Ark (say, Noema as Ham's wife could have been widow of "Pandavas" as Mahabharata calls them, and therefore also exposed to a very evil "Kaurava" - who could have been infected : supposing she was for instance the historic model for Draupadi).

Each is possible, none is totally convincing.

4) Herpes some way by passed humans on the Ark.

It bypassed the humans on the Ark via animals:

Nine herpesvirus types are known to infect humans: herpes simplex viruses 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2, also known as HHV1 and HHV2), varicella-zoster virus (VZV, which may also be called by its ICTV name, HHV-3), Epstein–Barr virus (EBV or HHV-4), human cytomegalovirus (HCMV or HHV-5), human herpesvirus 6A and 6B (HHV-6A and HHV-6B), human herpesvirus 7 (HHV-7), and Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV, also known as HHV-8).[7] In total, more than 130 herpesviruses are known,[8] some of them from mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mollusks.

Or via corpses.

Both animals and corpses pose the question what post-Flood person was uncautious enough to catch it ... I consider Nimrod a candidate. "He began to be a giant" could refer to some kind of initiation, with very unsound, like necrophiliac or zoophiliac rites.

Or, the news that Neanderthals had herpes is hyped, the research is as bad as my glance at Melissa Hogenboom's article seemed to suggest to me.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Cergy
St. Dominic of Guzmán
4.VIII.2018