Dating Adam

Paul Arveson (arveson@oasys.dt.navy.mil)
Wed, 22 May 96 09:44:47 EDT

I haven't followed all the details of the recent debate between Glenn Morton
and Dick Fischer, but my impression is that:

% Glenn advocates a date for Adam of about 1.5 million years, and that Adam
and Eve lived in the Mediterranean basin, which was then dry.

% Dick advocates a date of about 5000 BC, and that Adam and Eve lived in
Mesopotamia, and that there were contemporary proto-humans (Nephelim).

If this concise summary is roughly correct, then it seems that these options
by no means exclude others. A friend of mine who is familiar with this subject
suggests a date based on the beginning of anatomically modern humans, which is a
few hundreds of thousands of years, i.e. in between the extremes of Morton and
Fischer. This sounds more plausible to me.

The latest Issue of US News & World Report describes bone harpoons and
other discoveries that indicate advanced social organization in Africa at over
900,000 years ago. Notwithstanding the Nephilim problem, I think it is evident
that all the human characteristics were present long before 5000 BC. The
article emphasized that the real discovery implied by the African artifacts was
the presence of organized activities that probably required language.

Comments?

Paul Arveson, Research Physicist
73367.1236@compuserve.com arveson@oasys.dt.navy.mil
(301) 227-3831 (W) (301) 227-1914 (FAX) (301) 816-9459 (H)
Code 724, NSWC, Bethesda, MD 20084
"Practice thoughtful kindness, and helpful acts of beauty."