Wayne Dawson wrote:
>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?
It is not the first record of God-consciousness. The Accadians and Sumerians
had some sort of God or god awareness. We can speculate how they got it. The
Accadian flood account records communication with one of the three most
important gods to them. And the legend of Adapa I posted a few weeks ago
describes communication between him and the father god (God?).
But a covenant relationship between God and man is only spoken about in
Genesis. I presume that God's first endeavor to make man accountable and
therefore redeemable started with Adam the first of the chosen race. Just as
society holds its citizens accountable based upon their age, competence,
sanity, and so forth. The six-year old boy who shot a classmate just recently
will not be prosecuted due to his inability to understand the consequences or
the gravity of his action. I think God used a similar standard. It would
make
no sense to me to hold Homo erectus responsible - to send the bad ones to hell
and the good ones to heaven. But of course, that's God's matter, and I don't
speak for Him.
>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.
That would be entirely consistent with my interpretation. I honestly don't
think it was the intent of the writer, Moses I presume, to provide a treatise
on human origins. The Sumerians tried with enuma elish and made a mess of
it.
I do think it was his intent to give the children of Israel enough detail that
they would know where and when the events took place. For example, if the
Tigris and Euphrates initially was somewhere else other than where they
knew it
to be, it certainly would have thrown them way off track. Scripture can be
confusing enough as it is.
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago."
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