Crows, memories, and sin

“… visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” (Exo. 34:7b KJV)

Crows pass on memories to future generations

I recently watched a documentary about crows and learned that they had the ability to pass down memories from generation to generation. An experiment was conducted where a man put on a unique mask and threw rocks at a bunch of crows. Afterwards, whenever anyone put on the mask, the crows the man had thrown rocks at sounded an alarm. The interesting thing is that future generations of those same crows reacted exactly the same way whenever someone wore the same mask. Even when their crow eggs were hatched in a faraway city, when the hatchlings turned into full-grown crows and were then exposed to the mask, they “remembered” and sounded the alarm. Somehow, the memories had been passed on to the next generations through DNA.

Human memories are also passed on to future generations

I saw another interesting item in the news recently that was similar in many ways to the documentary about the crows. Apparently, scientists have discovered recently that human memories are also passed down to future generations in DNA. The thing I found so fascinating about this is that the Bible states, in Exodus 34:7, that the sins of the fathers are passed down to future generations, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” This could be a discouraging bit of information if it weren’t for other Bible promises that remedy this. Check out the following promises:

In Christ, the old has passed away

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation..” (2 Cor. 5:17-19 ESV)

You are free indeed

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36 ESV)

Therefore

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2 ESV)