L.U.C.A. LIVES

The silent film project L.U.C.A. LIVES takes place in a microscopic scene in the "Primordial soup" a term introduced by the Soviet biologist Alexander Oparin. In 1924, he proposed a theory of the origin of life on Earth through the gradual chemical evolution of molecules that contain carbon. Early Earth had a chemically reducing atmosphere. This atmosphere, exposed to energy in various forms, produced simple organic compounds. These compounds accumulated in a "soup", and through further transformation, more complex organic polymers – and ultimately life – developed. The last universal common ancestor [L.U.C.A.] is the most recent organism from which all organisms now living on Earth descend. Thus it is the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. The L.U.C.A. is estimated to have lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. Charles Darwin proposed the theory of universal common descent through an evolutionary process in his book On the Origin of Species, saying, "Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed." The title, “L.U.C.A LIVES” plays on the phrase “God Lives” and in so doing elicits a conversation about the compatibility of Evolution and Creationism by pairing the terms together. The First Day. - What is said in Genesis 1:2 of the chaotic condition of the earth, "And the earth was waste and void." The alliterative nouns tohu vabohu, the etymology of which is lost, signify waste and empty (barren). Tohu alone is frequently employed as synonymous with איך, non-existence, and הבל, nothingness. The coming earth was at first waste and desolate, a formless, lifeless mass, rudis indigestaque moles, ὕληἄμορφος. "And darkness was upon the face of the deep." תּהום, from הוּם, to roar, to rage, denotes the raging waters, the roaring waves; and hence the depths of the sea, and even the abyss of the earth. The chaotic mass in which the earth and the firmament were still undistinguished, unformed, and as it were unborn, was a heaving deep, an abyss of waters (ἄβυσσος, lxx), and this deep was wrapped in darkness. But it was in process of formation, for the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, רוּח (breath) denotes wind and spirit. Ruach Elohim is the creative Spirit of God, the principle of all life, which worked upon the formless, lifeless mass, separating, quickening, and preparing the living forms, which were called into being by the creative words that followed. רחף in the Piel is applied to the hovering and brooding of a bird over its young, to warm them, and develop their vital powers. In such a way as this the Spirit of God moved upon the deep, which had received at its creation the germs of all life, to fill them with vital energy by His breath of life. [Paraphrased from Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament]