Re: Kline in PSCF

jeffery lynn mullins (jmullins@wam.umd.edu)
Sun, 31 Mar 1996 12:41:14 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 28 Mar 1996, Garry DeWeese wrote:

>
>
> On 28 Mar 1996, Robert L. Miller wrote:
>
> > Thank you Glenn for working on my questions. In response to my question about
> > the relationship between hominids and the historical first couple you replied
> > that we need to define what a human is and that some have postulated that God
> > intervened at some point along the way of hominid development and called the
> > suitably advanced model Adam and Eve. (Sorry about the paraphrase |: ) I have a
> > couple of problems with that theory. First, its only reason for existence seems
> > to be to hook the hominids to scripture. I have never heard any scriptural or
> > extrabiblical support for this idea.
>
> I would say the reason is not simpply to link the hominids to Scripture,
> but to fit them into a theological framework inescapable in the NT (a
> literal, spate-time Fall, original sin, the "first Adam/last Adam"
> analogy used by Paul, etc.)
>
> >Secondly, it doesn't get around the problem
> > of a first couple. If God had waited until the hominids had evolved to
> > Cro-Magnon, then breathed into some couple the breath of life to make them the
> > first couple, what happened to the rest of the Cro-Magnon population? It doesn't
> > seem to fit God's character to just wipe them out.
> >
> But it may well be that wihout the special act of God described as
> breathing the breath (Hebrew ruah = "spirit, breath") of life, and
> thereby creating the creatures in God's image (whateer else that might
> mean), the creatures were not subject to redemption, and "wiping them
> out" would have no more significance than other extinctions.
>
> Garry DeWeese
>
Doesn't the Hebrew say that this breath of *life* made the man a *living
being*? (People get confused by relating the King James version's "soul"
with our immaterial nature thinking that God took some animal and
breathed a "soul" or spirit into him to make him into the image of God.)
Why would God breath the breath of life into a living being to make him a
living being? It doesn't make sense.

Jeff