Dick Fisher wrote:
> If by "creation" we can say "through evolution" and if 'adam means
> "generic man" and not Adam the husband to Eve and father of Cain,
> Abel and Seth, then you could say that this verse pertains to the
> creation of mankind as they sprang from ape ancestry. If this works
> for you, then every hominid that ever walked the earth bears the
> iamage of God whatever that means.
> On the other hand, if bara means an act of special creation and if 'adam
> is Adam, then the image originates about 7,000 years ago and follows
> the line of descent of the Jews until Christ makes it available for
> all.
> Today, if you like the first choice, everyone is in the image of
> God. If you prefer the second choice (as I do), then it only accrues
> to followers of Christ.
Well, fair enough, you are being consistent. Eschatological and
soteriological questions cannot be discerned from the fossil record as
far as I know.
However, I would wager that *if* we suppose (for example) that a
Neanderthal man and his pals were on their way the other side of the
mountain to bust some heads, and along the way, the Lord spoke to one
of these men, and this man fell down an worship the living God, how
would we know about it? Is it reasonable to expect that the [Hebrew]
Adam was the very first human being to ever encounter the living God,
or would it be better to say that this is the first *record* of an
encounter with the living God?
Moreover, there is at least evidence that Glenn has pointed to (in his
[A^3]) on homo habilis of a 400,000 yr old alter. It is not clear
exactly what they were worshiping, but it does seem like a logical
*possibility* that homo habilis might also have had occasional
encounters with the living God.
Finally, I think it speaks more to the importance and significance of
religious feelings if we consider that 4 million years of human life
have included this phenomena. If religious feelings are a mere 7000
yrs of human history, the athiest could argue that it is merely
"aberrent behavior induce by historical charlatans seeking to fleece
the masses of their hard earned possessions". On the other hand, if 4
million years of seen this phenomena, most critics would have to agree
that it is at least "significant" in the "natural selection process".
Since language is also unlikely to be more than 4 million years old
(and most would argue that "language" at least has a selective
advantage), and religion is of similar order of time, it would suggest
that language and faith have grown together in our collective history.
Of course, it may also be that "Adam" to the Hebrews was the Adam
that they could describe with their geneology, and what was before,
they could not describe. That would be (somewhat) consistent with
your interpretation.
Wayne
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 02 2000 - 00:24:59 EST