From Human to Human: An Idea of Creation

ProChecked - Christian Knöfel
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The oldest stories of humankind, retold and laid side by side with what we know today. From Human to Human takes the great narratives of the Bible, first and foremost but not only, and sets them next to cosmology, archaeology, behavioural science and history. Not to lecture, and not to decide who is right, but to marvel at how close the two often come, and to ask what that tells us about ourselves. Carefully researched, with sources in every episode's notes. Conceived by a human, narrated with the support of AI. Old stories. New knowledge.

Episodes

  1. Jul 16

    005: The Tower

    Why do we find it so hard to understand one another? And is the multitude of languages a curse or a gift? The Tower of Babel, nine verses long, written in all likelihood by captives who sat in the shadow of the real tower of Babylon. Plus the discovery of the language families, deaf children who invented a language out of nothing, and a counter-image that turns everything around. Topics: Genesis 11, Etemenanki (the real ziggurat of Babylon), language counts and language death, William Jones and the Indo-European family, Nicaraguan Sign Language, how language shapes perception, Dunbar's number, machine translation, and Pentecost as the counter-image to Babel. Sources and notes: Genesis 11:1-9 (one language, the plain of Shinar, brick and tar, "let us make ourselves a name", "nothing will be impossible for them", the confusion, the scattering), retold freely; short quotations follow the public-domain World English Bible. Word play: Hebrew balal = to confuse; Akkadian Bab-ili = "gate of God". Brick and bitumen as building materials in Mesopotamia: archaeologically established. Etemenanki, ziggurat in Babylon ("House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth"): foundation roughly 91 metres per side, excavated by Robert Koldewey from 1913; the height of 91 metres from a cuneiform tablet is widely doubted, estimates 60 to 90 metres; rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II, the same king who deported the Judeans; Etemenanki as the model for the Babel story is a well-founded hypothesis, not proof. Language counts: around 7,000 living languages (Ethnologue lists a good 7,100); about 44 percent endangered; the rate of loss is disputed. William Jones, lecture of 1786 in Calcutta: kinship of Sanskrit, Greek and Latin; the Indo-European proto-language is a reconstruction. Origin of language: unresolved; FOXP2 is one involved gene, not "the language gene"; the Linguistic Society of Paris banned papers on the subject in 1866. Nicaraguan Sign Language: children independently developed a fully-fledged sign language after the first deaf schools opened (late 1970s onward). Language shapes perception (weak Sapir-Whorf thesis): Guugu Yimithirr uses compass directions instead of left and right. Dunbar's number (about 150 stable relationships): disputed, marked as such. Encyclical side note: Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical (spring 2026) on artificial intelligence uses the image of the Tower of Babel; the public objection from parts of the tech industry is rendered without names. Pentecost (Acts 2): everyone hears in his own language, as the counter-image to Babel. Conceived by a human, narrated with the support of AI. Old stories. New knowledge.

  2. Jul 16

    004: The Great Water

    What does it really mean to start over? And who carries the responsibility that life goes on? The flood, the ark as a floating archive of all life, and a promise in the sky. Plus the discovery story of a clay tablet that changed everything, and the question of whether we are not building arks again ourselves today. Topics: Genesis 6 to 9, the ark's measurements and the limits of wooden ships, George Smith and the Babylonian flood tablet, the Epic of Gilgamesh, two interwoven text strands, Doggerland and the Storegga Slide, the physics of the rainbow, and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Sources and notes: Genesis 6 to 9 (the flood, the ark, 300 by 50 by 30 cubits, the pairs of animals, raven and dove, the olive leaf, the Noahic covenant, the rainbow, the covenant with "all flesh"), retold freely; short quotations follow the public-domain World English Bible; a cubit is roughly 45 to 52 cm, so about 135 to 155 metres of ship. The contradictions in the text (one pair or seven pairs; 40 days or 150 days; changing divine names) go back, by today's scholarly consensus, to two interwoven older narrative strands. George Smith deciphered the Babylonian flood tablet (Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI) at the British Museum in November 1872; his lecture on 3 December 1872 was attended by Prime Minister Gladstone; the anecdote about his excitement is reported by colleagues and marked as such in the episode. Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim: roughly a thousand years older than the biblical version. Post-glacial sea level rise; Doggerland, the drowned landscape beneath the North Sea; the Storegga Slide about 8,150 years ago (tsunami run-up heights up to about 20 metres on the Shetlands); its role in Doggerland's final flooding is disputed and marked as such. Black Sea flood hypothesis (Ryan and Pitman): expressly disputed, marked as a hypothesis. Genetic bottlenecks: population-genetics consensus, no evidence for a literal Noah story, stated clearly. Species counts (around 2 million described, far more estimated) and the size limits of wooden ships. Rainbow: refraction and internal reflection in raindrops, about 42 degrees; Descartes and Newton. Svalbard Global Seed Vault: opened February 2008, more than 1.4 million seed samples as of June 2026 (Crop Trust / NordGen). Conceived by a human, narrated with the support of AI. Old stories. New knowledge.

  3. Jul 16

    003: Two Brothers

    "Am I my brother's keeper?" What drives a human being to raise his hand against another, and what holds us back? The story of Cain and Abel, told slowly, and beside it what behavioural science knows about envy, injury and the double nature of the human being. With a surprising ending: the murderer receives protection. Topics: Genesis 4, envy and comparison, injury as a trigger of violence, in-group and out-group, the Neolithic Revolution, empathy and reconciliation in primates, and the mark of Cain as a mark of protection. Sources and notes: Genesis 4 (the offerings, the warning "sin crouches at the door, but you can rule over it", the murder, "Am I my brother's keeper?", the mark of Cain), retold freely; short quotations follow the public-domain World English Bible; in the text itself the mark of Cain is explicitly a mark of protection, not a curse. The human being as at once an extraordinarily cooperative and a very violent species; status and injury as strong triggers of violence; in-group and out-group thinking: broad consensus in behavioural science. The Neolithic Revolution (settling down, agriculture, stores, property) roughly 10,000 to 12,000 years ago; earliest traces of organized violence in early settlements (walls, weapons, skeletal injuries). Empathy, fairness, consolation and reconciliation in primates: the work of Frans de Waal. Why one person pulls the brake in the decisive moment and another does not is scientifically not conclusively explained; named as an open question in the episode. Cultural echo: Romulus and Remus (Roman founding legend, public domain), mentioned neutrally as a parallel. Conceived by a human, narrated with the support of AI. Old stories. New knowledge.

  4. Jul 16

    002: The Garden

    What does it cost, and what does it give, to become knowing? A garden, a tree, a fruit, and the moment a living being's eyes are opened. We tell the scene slowly, with all its psychology, and lay beside it what research knows about the awakening of self-awareness. And we run into a question science is still biting on today. Topics: Genesis 2 and 3, the mirror test, theory of mind, cave art and the first graves, the hard problem of consciousness, and the question: fall or birth? Sources and notes: Genesis 2 and 3 (the garden of Eden, two trees, the serpent, "their eyes were opened", the expulsion), retold freely; short quotations follow the public-domain World English Bible. Mirror test: developed by Gordon G. Gallup Jr. (1970); passed by great apes, dolphins, elephants and magpies, among others; human children from about 18 months. Theory of mind (understanding false beliefs from about age four): developmental-psychology consensus. Early symbolic behaviour: engraved ochre pieces from Blombos Cave (on the order of 70,000 to 100,000 years); cave paintings of Chauvet Cave (on the order of 36,000 years); early burials with grave goods; dates rounded, research in flux. "The hard problem of consciousness": coined by David Chalmers (1995), unsolved to this day. Cultural echo: Prometheus brings fire, and with it hardship (ancient Greek tradition), as a parallel to the motif that knowledge has its price. Conceived by a human, narrated with the support of AI. Old stories. New knowledge.

  5. Jul 16

    001: In the Beginning

    Where does it all come from, and where does this urge inside us come from, this need to know? We lay the Big Bang next to the first sentence of Genesis. We hear who actually wrote this text: a defeated, deported people in Babylonian exile who, in the middle of their catastrophe, composed not a lament but a celebration of the beginning. We learn what the "dust" we are said to be made of really consists of. And we hear how two physicists found the echo of the beginning while looking for a fault in their antenna. Topics: The Big Bang, Genesis 1 and 2, the Babylonian exile, Enuma Elish, stellar nucleosynthesis, cosmic background radiation, Georges Lemaitre, and the myth of the eternal war between faith and science. Sources and notes: Genesis 1 and 2 (creation in seven days; the human formed from dust), retold freely; short quotations follow the public-domain World English Bible. The Priestly source written in the Babylonian exile (conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II, 587/586 BC): broad historical-critical consensus, detailed dating debated. Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation epic (public domain). Formation of the elements in stars and supernovae: B2FH paper by Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, William Fowler and Fred Hoyle (1957); Fowler received the Nobel Prize in Physics 1983. Cosmic microwave background: discovered 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson (Holmdel horn antenna; the pigeon anecdote is documented); Nobel Prize 1978; measured in detail by the Planck satellite. Georges Lemaitre: 1931 hypothesis of the "primeval atom"; Catholic priest and astrophysicist. Einstein's verdict ("your physics is abominable") and his later change of mind are documented, rendered here in essence. The Galileo trial of 1633; the Catholic Church publicly acknowledged the error in 1992 (John Paul II). Gregor Mendel, Augustinian friar, founder of genetics. The limit of physics near the beginning (Planck era): consensus in physics. "Continuing creation" (creatio continua): a theological concept going back to Augustine. Conceived by a human, narrated with the support of AI. Old stories. New knowledge.

  • 5 Episodes

About

The oldest stories of humankind, retold and laid side by side with what we know today. From Human to Human takes the great narratives of the Bible, first and foremost but not only, and sets them next to cosmology, archaeology, behavioural science and history. Not to lecture, and not to decide who is right, but to marvel at how close the two often come, and to ask what that tells us about ourselves. Carefully researched, with sources in every episode's notes. Conceived by a human, narrated with the support of AI. Old stories. New knowledge.

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