LV223 verse choice and its implications

"Here is Leviticus 22:1-3 from the Easy-to-Read Version (ERV). 22:1 The LORD God said to Moses, 2 “Tell Aaron and his sons: The gifts that the Israelites bring to me become holy. They belong to me, so you priests must show respect for these things. If you don’t, you will show that you don’t respect my holy name. I am the LORD. [i]3 If any one of your descendants touches these things, that person will become unclean. That person must be separated from me. The Israelites gave these things to me. I am the LORD.[/i] Aaron was Moses' right hand man and he and his son's were God's first priests ministering to the Israelites, God's chosen people. I think that Engineers were Gods priest's to mankind. Mankind was created in God's image not the image of the Engineers........the Engineers were to minister and serve mankind however over time a faction of Engineers became resentful and developed a hatred of mankind and as verse 3 says "they became unclean and were separated" on LV223. The analogy is that they are the fallen angels".

This is an extract from a 2012 thread which deals with the LV223 potential applicability.

I do not agree that the Engineers are serving mankind I think they are serving their hierarchy in nurturing mankind. Their hierarchy gave instructions as to how they should fulfil that nurture. However the Engineers on LV 223 having broken their bondage and stolen the fire began their own experiments which included mankind and which were considered unclean and they were punished in three ways.

1) They suffered individually by subjugating themselves to the Life cycle to sub create. Not in a swift sacrifice but an appalling hosting and subsequent destruction.

2) They suffered from the effects of the mutagen which they had created and turned upon them. This is at a philosophic level is the heirarchy's punishment.

3) They suffered extinction on their home world. They were judged to be unclean how their fall spread from LV223 to Paradise will emerge in Covenant.

So I agree with you LV 223 is not a coincidental choice of name it is a signpost. The urns we know contain the mutagen/biological warfare. It is both the original catalyser and something which has been introduced in an act of uncleanliness.

Nice thoughtful post overlapping with some of my own enquires thank you.   

However the Engineers on LV 223 having broken their bondage and stolen the fire began their own experiments which included mankind and which were considered unclean and they were punished in three ways.

This was my view on things until I did some reading in forums and in articles yesterday. I then began to wonder if the Engineers we see at the beginning of Prometheus were rule-breakers, and 'unclean' who were trying to get back into the graces of their maker by making sacrifices. Or that we are witnessing them using  'fire' they stole from the 'clean'? A serious act of rule-breaking that resulted in the making of us? And I began to wonder if the temple contains items from both races (which would explain the two who are given respect there...the Engineers and the Aliens). One of which was not allowed in because they were "unclean". To put this into perspective, perhaps the suited-up Engineers we see running to the temple (via the hologram) were the 'unclean' race. The sound we hear at the beginning of this hologram is an alarm sounding off. An alert to intruders. We watch these intruders race to the temple to steal the 'fire'. They used this stolen 'fire' to seed planets. Perhaps they felt compelled to do this because their planet died. The planet Shaw and David arrive on.

***

Going OT yet again...lol. I have also considered that the alien on the huge tablet we see inside the temple is the superior race to the Engineers...their 'diety', so to speak. This tablet not only shows the 'diety', but the purpose of the Engineers. The Engineers were created by the Alien race through cloning. So that they have an endless supply. It explains why all of the Engineers look alike. As shown in the tablet, the sole purpose of the Engineer is to help the Alien race procreate. They are simply a step in the process. A very necessary step.

Like David speaks of freedom, a group of the Engineers begin to wish to be free of this bondage and secretly perform experiments as a way of breaking free. Perhaps they begin the experiments to come up with a way to 'kill their parents'. To create a being in the Alien likeness which is superior to the Alien race...and ferocious, too.The temple we see is a temple of the Alien race which contains the 'head' statue of an Engineer. Designating which species is inside the urns. It could be quite possible that other life forms are used by the Alien race for the same purpose as the Engineer. A step in their procreation.

Perhaps this rogue race of Engineer created us. These are the Engineers we see at the beginning of the film. And perhaps the Engineers we see near the end of the film, hellbent on destroying us, are the Engineers who are still loyal to their 'diety'.

Anyway, fun stuff to think about. A year is too long to wait for this film...lol. I cannot wait to get some answers!

On the OT side, doesn't the clear slimy material inside the urns, which covers the vials, look like the same slimy material which falls from an alien's mouth?

One more thing...perhaps the mural inside the temple changes because the rogue Engineers had painted over the original. It appears to have a painting of a face hugger beneath. The intended step in the procreation process of the Alien, ruler, race. The rogue Engineers painted a depiction of the Engineer race ruling over the Alien one. In other words, the current painting is falling away to reveal the older painting beneath it.

The idea that the Zenomorph strain is the deified race to which the Engineers are subjugate is a deduction that follows from the fall of the Engineers on LV223 both in terms of their creative drive and worship of the zeno strain and that they were overcome.

I think there are some over arching elements of the developing mythos which run counter intuitive to such an idea and it is much easier to see their fall in the context of the received wisdom.

In neither Prometheus/A L I EN or A L I E N S is the zeno strain proactive it reacts to incomers. That suggests latent dormant trouble not the all powerful deity. An experiment that was hidden away in all four films which we stumble on. That theme runs through all the films from Prom to A's.

The sacrifice of the acolyte suggests benign sponsored intervention on a lifeless world. We then move to Earth where the Engineers have visited repeatedly and there is no sense of the all powerful zeno deity who would have intervened millions of years before to subjugate mankind intervening into their clones experiments.  

Whilst the Engineers have suffered a fall both on LV223 and on Paradise it has not lead to an ascendent Zeno culture which stands in its stead. The Zeno strain is there hidden unused and functions in a limited capacity and represents when it is activated, punishment, retribution for Paradise Lost. How that manifests itself will be precisely laid out in Covenant by visiting the Engineers Home world where the "evolving creature' will once again be stumbled on. That punishment is defined and driven philosophically to be appropriate by the creators, who remain hidden, not the gardeners who have erred. The opening scene suggests catalysing and re organising the basic building blocks of life quite different from the sub created experiments represented by the murals. The Zenomorph which had evolved by the time of Ripley was a perfect example of amoral reproduction with no moral purpose, devoid of creativity, other than punishment and the why that specific life cycle and type of punishment will be explored in Covenant. 

Put simply if the Zenomorph represented the apex of this mythos there would be no story they would have  conquered LV223 and Paradise and established themselves across the galaxy. They are an accident created out of the desire of the Engineers to break free from their bondage as they see it as gardeners of the creators.        

It is alway good to challenge assumptions but I find my view hardening as I think about it not because of what the narrative has spoken of but what it has not spoken of. The zeno in the end is a reactive strain a parasite not an instigator or controller of events in this universe.    

Wow, deep stuff, both former threads and new.  Very interesting tie-in with "Paradise Lost".  Hadn't considered the possibility of each of those urns being an engineer, of some stripe.  I totally missed the religious connotations of this room.  I was thinking in terms of Janek's comment of this place being a laboratory of WMD's.  So a military-industrial R&D site vs anything sacred.  Although it could technically be viewed as both.  When you add in the religious ramifications, then yeah, I see what you guys are theorizing about.  I just saw the head as socialist/fascist monument to "fearless leader" whoever.

But I totally get your religious angle here.  The connotations are so strong, along with Ridley's comments about Paradise Lost, and the term Covenant being used in the new title. 

I also see the point about the duality of their nature, much like our own.  The "Fallen Angels" are off on their own selfish tangent, just as PW was off on his.

On the murals, yeah that was very vague to me.  DB had a lot of fascinating insight on this, along with MJ and others.  It wasn't clear to me that they were actually "changing" as much as the atmosphere around them may have been obscuring them? Was this a result of the drop in atmospheric pressure from the approaching storm (i.e. external) of from the presence of the human lifeforms (internal)?  Or both!

Good theories here.  You might be bang on to what A:C goes into!   

MJ:  Yeah I agree with you about the zenos place in all of this.  It is a pure, engineered killing machine with no remorse.  An abomination in the sight of the higher being here.  Evidently made by unauthorized manipulation of DNA and ultimately a retribution against the engineers who created it.  And an opportunistic retribution against anyone else who accidently(?) stumbles upon it.   

@Diz Janek would be a natural for you because he is the closest thing to the nobility of a protective benign military presence. As BD has said, and myself more recently, the characters crunch out the exposition through powerful one liners rather than more detailed storytelling exposition which Lindelof avoids.

The mutagen has been weaponised it is stock piled in huge quantities in the Juggernaut as a WMD you are bang on. But samples are left in the headroom as symbols of achievement by the LV223 Engineers. The head room is also a controlled environment which kept the "nuclear material" stable so it has a sense of being a laboratory. When the Engineers run in their it is clearly because it is secure and stable. What happened once they escaped is of course conjecture but if its a stable environment which neutralises the Zeno strain then the event of the mural probably took place within. Given we will see more heads and probably more headrooms expect this to be explained in C O  V E N A N T. Why because dramatically we need to go further another mysterious room with no narrative solutions makes no sense.      

Yeah I totally get it now, about how the storage area of WMD's is different from the urns on display in the "head room".  That one went totally over my head.  Same as with murals.  I'm seeing things as a "grunt", looking for threats, and cover, and angles of fire, not necessarily contemplating the meaning of rooms and artifacts.

You're so right, I do identify with Janek.  When he says who cares they think, we just need to get out of here, yeah, he's being very pragmatic.  Like someone needed to. 

And yeah, getting the "ultimate answers" is nice, but bringing that crap back cannot happen.  So he steps in once it's clear what's going on.  And takes the ultimate one for the team.       

Yes.

Unclean = Sinner.

The goo seems to react to us sinners.

@Diz and MJ: I sometimes have trouble conveying thoughts, so I want to clarify the alien we see in the film 'Alien' and the 'diety' representing the alien race that we see inside the temple. Just as I see 'clean' and 'unclean' versions of the Engineers, I also see 'clean' and 'unclean' versions of the alien race.

The rogue Engineers created an alien species, in the likeness of the alien 'diety', to "kill their parents". It is these killer aliens that we are familiar with. They are mutated, 'unclean'. And they're very different than the 'diety' alien species.

Their error was that not only does this creation have the ability to kill their parents, it has the ability to kill anything it comes across. However, the intense desire to procreate whenever and wherever possible was not lost in the mutation. That desire still reigns high.

Yeah I'm seeing this LV223 tie-in now.  The clean and unclean.  The reaction to sin.  Makes more sense now than when I first read this in other threads.  Like DB, not sure I buy in yet, but definitely considering it as possibility.

"Juggernaut as a WMD you are bang on. But samples are left in the headroom as symbols of achievement by the LV223 Engineers. The head room is also a controlled environment which kept the "nuclear material" stable "

If we look at this... then it could be twisted to fit in with a TRAP!

A back up plan... like if we fail.. then clues for the unclean will lead the to the place and their deaths..

But ultimately we dont know 100% the purpose of those being stacked in the Head Room... there could be a number of reasons...

This is going to be interesting debate ;)

Was leviticus  used as a connection? or just coinsidence as the movie has some biblical references and themes but does that mean leviticus 2:23 was implied on purpose?

It can fit, if we loosely apply it yes... we have to ignore the broad context of leviticus or else it wont maybe connect as clear... also leviticus 4:26 could connect to the Franchise...

I guess its how you can make them connect like Nostradamus Quatrains

Here is leviticus 4:26

"He shall burn all the fat on the altar as he burned the fat of the fellowship offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for the leader's sin, and he will be forgiven"

New International version.... we have to remember each version can be taken out of context with regards to the Bible.. only real way is the Original so for example Greek/Roman

But back to Leviticus 4:26

We could maybe fit this in with the Space Jockey Sacrifice and Redemption... if his act was Benevolent

If i in a nutshell try and fit in Leviticus 2:23

Then it could fit in with the purpose of a Sacrificial Offering that is the Mural Room....  and that any who is unclean (Genetically altered and not clean DNA as Generations prior)  they would face death...

Yes something like this could fit for sure... but is that the case? who knows..

There have been theories that the Goo reacts with Sin... but i dont think so... i would assume that if Janek had his drink spiked and he paid Vickers that lets see if she is robot moment and had some Jiggy Jiggy.... would she not also fall pregnant like Shaw did?

If Shaw fell face first into the Black Goo in the Mural Room would she not mutated like Fifield?

So i dont really go with that idea... thats not to say i am wrong and its right though.

I can fit Leviticus loosely in that the Room is Sterile and Clean.. and that any lifeform who contaminates that room would activate those urns and in a sense be cut of from God... well face death/transformation.

The Space Jockey suits, maybe prevent them from contaminating the Room and those Urns. We have to remember the whole movie was not as well thought out with Lindeloffs draft and it has many contradictions..

Which Weyland File tried to fix but caused more but fixed a few.

"I'm thinking that we are descendants of this 'sinner' race. We are considered 'unclean' because our makers, whose DNA we share, are 'unclean"

Could be... the movie is very ambiguous... but we have to assume some how the Biblical Creation and Fall Fable and the Greek Prometheus have to fit in loosely.

So one theory you could throw out there is that Mankind was not a intended creation... this was a tinkering with a Worlds Creation to further evolve the DNA to produce Mankind... without the consent of the Hierarchy

But it could be that a Faction of Engineers had instead interfered with us by giving us knowledge we should not have had.. maybe odd tinker with DNA... so we ended up being something that was against the intentions or purposes.

Like a few tinkers with Davids Hardware and Software could turn him into a completely sentient being, who would then have there own Free Will and Agenda... which could bare Consequences ... like Terminator Movies Consequences for evolving AI

"The Engineers were created by the Alien race through cloning. So that they have an endless supply. It explains why all of the Engineers look alike. As shown in the tablet, the sole purpose of the Engineer is to help the Alien race procreate. They are simply a step in the process. A very necessary step"

The movie is very vague and open.. and anything can go really, this is the beauty of the movie but also its Hercules Heel

I am going to address your comment above, and see if you could be right... well i can find some things that could aid to what you suggest..

ALIEN is based of Star Beast... ignoring the Cycle of the Creatures etc... a bit..

Star Beast had a Temple/Pyramid with a Sacrificial Altar, a Mural of the Star Beast Life Cycle and the Spores of the Star Beast which are the Start/End Life Cycle..

The Star Beasts where a Ancient Alien Race who could build Temples and where Civilized to a degree.. They needed Sacrifices to Procreate.. Hosts.. they bred a Organism they would use as a Sacrificial Cow.

HR Giger designs for Alien a Mural... showed a Life Cycle but it also showed masked (and in a alternative more Space Jockey looking Mask) beings one was on a Altar/Table being Sacrificed to Procreate the Organism...  the Sacrificial Humanoid was being Sacrificed by his own kind...  these Humanoids would use their own to Procreate the eventual Xenomorph

HR Giger designs 3 kinds of Face Huger, two of these designs they was Face Hugging Bald Humanoids who had a suit that was the same as the Masked Humanoids in the Mural.

While we can not take Star Beast as Canon.. because it had a Alien Creature.. the early Xeno.. would use Hosts to Procreate..  

The Alien idea evolved that for some reason the Humanoids/Space Jockey used themselves to procreate these Aliens...

If we try and tie this to anything religious... well Ancient Cultures.... then yes it would seem the Engineers where created for a Purpose to Pro-Create something..

If we take this stance, they could have worshiped the Xenomorph or its Ancestor..  this does not mean the Xenomorph are above the Engineers.. we cant rule that out though..

But it shows they was maybe used to Procreate Something not related Genetically to themselves.. they could therefore have the purpose of Procreating these Organisms as acting as Hosts...  As well as Sacrifices like the opening scene maybe.

So Engineers could be created for a purpose...

If we throw in the Annunaki Tale it would fit more with your COMMENTS.... The Annunaki Gods, created a Lower Cast Race the Igigi they where lower cast, that was tasked with Labor Tasks such as Mining for Gold

These Igigi rebelled one day and no longer wanted the burden... and so the Annunaki created Mankind to be used for the same purpose to replace the Igigi and Mine for Gold for the Annunaki.

If we replace Mining for Gold with Procreation of the Xenomorph... then we could use that as a theory.

Thus... the higher beings, created Engineers, whos role is to Sacrifice themselves to seed Life, and then evolve this life maybe further seeding until we get Genetically close Humans?

What if the creation of Humans was not intended.... what if the Xenomorph is required for some purpose.. its used for Technology, its Blood/DNA used for some purpose? we have yet to know.

Maybe we have either

1) The Sacrificial Scenes aim was to create Mankind, so that Mankind is used as Hosts for the Xenomorph..... but  a faction of Engineers saw more use for them and evolved us to be more like them, and taught us knowledge and got us to Worship them.... 

This Act was something against the wishes of the Engineers Creators or Hierarchy?

2) The Sacrificial Scene was to create Life that would evolve into Mammals but not quite Humanoids... these Mammals and other Life is used as Hosts for Xenomorphs or similar.

But a faction of Engineers then evolved these to create Humans, who they then evolved and taught stuff and got us to worship them... again against the Hierarchy wishes.

3) The Engineers are the Hosts for the Xenomorph or related... but they like the Igigi got fed up of this and either created Mankind to replace them as Hosts thus allowing them freedom.... or they rebelled and their Hierarchy created Mankind to replace the Engineers (or rebellious Faction).

At some point, one of the factions decided that Mankind had more to offer and evolved and taught us forbidden knowledge and this upset the Hierarchy or Jealous rebellious Faction.

These could work as a theory but then i have many others that could fit.. but then dont fit together...

For the theory above to work... we have to wander what Role and Purpose does the Xenomorph have... are they Gods... or their Ancestors was.. but the Xeno was a accidental creation based on the DNA of beings above the Engineers?

Do they worship the Xeno or related Ancestor for some other purpose but why?

Or do they need the Xeno or related Ancestor for some purpose.. be that Bio-Technology or Blood for the Creation Goo?

But in order to have Xeno related Organisms... they can only be procreated by means of Sacrifice which is where Engineers or Humans came in..

Again my other theories conflict the above..

@BigDave: I love the Annunaki tale that you shared. It mirrors some of what I've said. At one point it crossed my mind that the (rogue) Engineers created us to take their place in the Alien life cycle, but in the end I don't think it was the reason. Their DNA became 'everything' and I think that they had no way of knowing we would evolve. 

The stuff I've posted in this topic, for me, makes the most sense given that it plugs more holes than anything I've thought or read previously. I am not 100% sold on it, though. I don't think anything will ring 100% for me.  Lol!  I will keep an open mind until the film opens.

@BD 

I read Leviticus 4 26 several days ago and concluded if LV223 is a recapitulation of the creators intent for the Engineers relationship with mankind then the act of the Space Jockey is one of a Atonement which in dramatic terms completes the cycle of protagonist/antagonist redemption which curiously enough is what I believe.

The tale of the Annunaki and its applicability to Ridleys Mythos does have some bearing on what is evolving (Note Charlie mentions the Sumarians in the briefing) just as the narrative of Paradise Lost informs the developing world view. However as Ridley has said, and its some thing that comes out of your "source" discussions, he is not merely replicating a defined existing narrative, he is taking them as inspiration and a s a result these mythos echo his own. He uses the term "thats as far as it goes" regarding P L so we are not going to see the poem played out on screen but we are going to see refractive echoes of those ideas as the fall of the Engineers and the notion of punishment and for why becomes clearer.

The same point applies to the Annunaki the idea of the resentful element of hierarchy which wishes to caste of its role will be, has already been echoed in the Engineers story.

This comes back to yours and mine central view that an awful lot of this story has already been told in P R O M E T H E U S.

The gardening Engineers who offer sacrifice is crucial.  

The shared DNA and the knowledge that the Jockey is linked to mankind is crucial.

That a sub created creature experiments on mankind (David/Holloway) and leads to the cat out of the bag in which a reluctant female and reluctant Engineer are crucial, hammers home the notion that unintended consequences (the promethean myth) lead to punishment.

The retribution meted out on the Engineer is appalling and the emergence of the Deacon something which has happened before. This plays straight into the Promethean myth, an act of punishment and dominance by Mr T, which could if any Engineers were left, repeat itself over and over again with the emergence of the Deacon.  

The only survivor of that episode is the one with grace and nobility, indeed right now David is relying on that to survive. This for me is the real fascination the curiosity of A C. How will Elizabeth and David react to their experiences to each other and how will the Covenant of their bond, established at the end of P, be played out. Will the sub created end with punishment in the same way as the sub created Engineers. David and the Engineers share the same relationship with their makers, will the story unfold in the same way.       

Did God make the Zenomorph in his own image from whom the fire has been stolen, could be, does the head represent a fallen deity with the Zenomorph the pure expression of creation could be, those coming for new life and high ideals on the Covenant clearly will believe something else, or are those types of theories matrix like and inversions of each persons take on reality an expression of self rather than a directors vision for a sequence of films. 

Put simply how much of each of our speculations are informed by our own personal convictions rather than an interpretation of a 77 years old developing vision. 

A deeply christian person may wish to project a benign view of what is happening whereas an atheist may be counter intuitive and an agnostic say its all a mess !

When I read another persons speculation I wonder how much it tells us of their own preferences for belief systems rather than what Ridley is doing. This maybe why Lindelof preferred an a la carte approach. That is not a criticism of anything I have read just an observation of quite complex analysis. 

MJ: Very penetrating analysis!  Do we let our own thoughts, prejudices, beliefs color what we see here, or do we strive for the truth, whatever that may be.  Yes, key consideration.  In my discussions with TC I have attempted to lay out the conservative Christian viewpoint- not that I still subscribe to it, but to be aware of how they view these kinds of (extra-Biblical)theories.  Does it still color my views, sure.  Do I also try and balance them with alternate views, yes again.  That is my whole purpose in examining Ridley's vision here.  But it begs the question: what are Ridley's own beliefs, prejudices, etc?  He seems to take a more atheistic approach, or at least agnostic, versus the fundamentalist who views the scriptures as a literal translation of events.  This is the point I have been trying to make.    

"Their DNA became 'everything' and I think that they had no way of knowing we would evolve. "

The Star Maps and Ridleys comments suggest they had came to evolve us over and over, both Genetically and Technologically.

So they evolved us... but yes at some point we was Forsaken and Abandoned....  Maybe these Gods/Engineers thought  that at the level we was hundreds or thousands of years ago... in their arrogance they maybe never thought without them we would Evolve beyond Ancient Man...

But without them, we evolved.. we created means to apply Energy, Invented many things from the Light Bulb to Space Ships...

These Engineers who abandoned us, maybe never thought on our own we would achieve this....

This explains the Engineers Reaction... in the full scene... and also his wander at the Violin Girl and the Books on the Floor of Vickers Lifeboat..... he was intrigued to see how far Man had evolved without their help.

Be similar to the New Planet of Apes Franchise... and mankind then rounds up the Apes before they get to the level of the last movie...

And we put them on a island far away and forget about them..... only to one day see them evolve more to the old Movies or even the 2000 one... and be able to construct buildings and ships... then sail to our waters and hijack our technology and posses Guns etc

Mankind would then have to fend them off and then go and Nuke that Island so they never come back and threaten or replace us..

This i feel is the stance of the Last Engineer.