Peter Ruest wrote:
>
>Dick Fischer wrote
> > I heartily disagree. Adam was created in God's image as an ambassador
> > to the indigenous populations who were unaccountable at the time, and
> > not in God's image. Who is the "man" in Genesis 1:27?
>
>In Gen.1:26 "man" is used without an article, as a generic designation
>indicating mankind.
First of all, I think you, Armin Held, and I are the only ones in the
entire 20th century to have written of Adam as an insertion into the human
race, not at the apex of it. That's a bold step, however, I believe that
reality will eventually become mainstream - only not in our lifetimes. So
even though we have a difference in interpretation as to whether Genesis
1:26 refers to generic man or to Adam, first in the lineage leading to
Christ, I believe it to be a small matter on which I am opinionated if not
totally committed.
There is a generic designation for "man, mortal man, person, mankind," -
'ish in Hebrew, 'enowsh in Aramaic, and neither is present in these
verses. The word 'adam is Adam, and that is the Hebrew word in Genesis
1:26. I don't think for one minute the Hebrew's thought generic men, of
whom they were aware, were created in God's image. We may think so, but I
don't think they thought so.
This is testable to some degree. Skip to Gen.6:4 where Nephilim or
"giants" are mentioned. This is the first mention of men who don't appear
to have descended from Adam.
"The giants "became mighty men which were of old, men of renown" (Gen.
6:4). In the first instance, the word "men" is ghib-bore' meaning "strong
man, brave man, mighty man." In the second instance "men" is 'enowsh. No
relationship to Adam.
> In v.27 the article is added, referring back to the
>one mentioned in v.26. And at the end of v.27 a more detailed
>specification of this "man" is given: "male and female he created them",
>indicating that "man" consisted of an unspecified number (greater than
>one) of individuals of the two sexes.
Or Adam plus Eve equals two people - which is greater than one.
> > It has been argued that this verse applies to generic man, all Homo
> sapiens, and
> > not exclusively to Adam and his following generations. But most Bible
> > scholars believe this passage applies solely to Adam and Eve, and
> > their descendants who came under the Adamic covenant. This is the
> > preferred view,
>
>They probably never read any genetics, anthropology, or archeology. ;-)
Yes, but I have. Adam was created in the "image," and was surrounded at
the time by Ubaidans and maybe Sumerians. Were they created in the "image"
too? Then how did Adam differ from them? I believe Adam was introduced to
bring generic men into accountability. Thus the "image."
>Seriously: Some of them may have written before the extensive human
>fossil record was discovered. And most of them probably wrote before the
>shared location of mobile genetic elements and the shared mutations in
>pseudogenes were published, which clinched the argument for common
>ancestry with chimps. For those who wrote recently: there are very few
>Bible scholars who take the time (or who can take the time) to study the
>natural science part of these questions in sufficient detail to be able
>to deal with them. And often they take the easy
>"Bible-no-textbook-of-science" way out.
>
> > and implied in Genesis 5:1-3: "This is the book of the generations of
> Adam."
>
>"Generations" is the Hebrew "toledoth". It is the colophon (a title
>appended to, rather than preceding, the text to which it refers, as in
>clay tablets of those times) appended to what went before, i.e. the part
>of the story as it was told by Adam.
>
> > "In the day that God
> > created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female
> > created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the
> > day when they were created."
>
>A literal word-by-word translation of the Hebrew from "The NIV(TM)
>Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament", ed. J.R. Kohlenberger III
>(Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1987) (- links English words translated
>from a single Hebrew word; *** stands for Hebrew 'et, the definite
>direct object indicator, which is never translated):
>
>Gen.1:27-28: Gen.5:1-2:
> in-day (opening parenthesis)
>so-he-created God to-create God (beginning of quote)
>*** the-man man
>in-image-of-him
>in-image-of God in-likeness-of God
>he-created him he-made him
>male and-female male and-female
>he-created them he-created-them
>and-he-blessed them and-he-blessed them (end of quote)
> and-he-called (this was a quote about
> *** name-of-them ... generic man)
> man
> in-day (closing parenthesis)
> to-be-created-them
>
>Gen.5:1-2 obviously refers back to Gen.1:27-28, basically repeating it
>with similar expressions.
I think that was my point.
> Therefore, I would consider it as just as generic.
Generic? Let's read it and see.
Genesis 5:1-6: "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day
that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female
created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day
when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and
begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name
Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred
years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived
were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. And Seth lived an hundred
and five years, and begat Enos" and so on.
The generations of Adam start with Seth, then Enos, etc. These are
specific people with specific names, and a specific number of years they
lived, and a specific number of years when they died. There is no listing
of generations of someone other than Adam.
>That God called "their" (not "his") name Adam confirms the generic use.
And I thought this was where the custom of wives taking the name of their
husbands got started :>).
>If I remember correctly, you date Adam somewhere between 6,000 and
>10,000 years ago (as I do). Like you, I don't agree with Glenn Morton's
>placing the first humans before the Mediterranean flood. Nor do I
>automatically equate all fossils termed "Homo sapiens" with being
>"created in the image of God". But I am puzzled that you seem to
>consider "modern H.sapiens" who used very sophisticated tools, amazing
>cave art, burials with flowers and beads, and cave bear offerings (the
>preadamites, whose descendants you call "the indigenous populations") to
>be less than genuinely human.
Fully human, just as you and I are fully human. Had the indigenous
populations not been capable of realizing God's kingdom there would have
been no reason to introduce Adam at all. Adam was the ambassador, the
representative, being in "God's image."
> I equate genuine humanness with being created "in God's image".
Homo erectus may have been a genuine human, but I don't think the Bible
writer had him in mind. Since you want the "image" to start before Adam,
you must say where that begins. Any date you pick would be arbitrary - 4
miliion years ago, 100,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. You can guess, but
you don't know. I think the "image" began with Adam, meaning only that
Adam was the chosen representative of God. An image is a reflection of God
as Christ was a reflection of God. I believe it says nothing about
humanness at all.
>And I think those people should be accepted as genuine humans, as they
>appear to show some indications of spirituality.
Osama bin Laden may have some indication of spirituality, it doesn't make
him in God's image, in my estimation.
>Many large-sample gene trees of today's humans coalesce at more than
>100,000 years ago, which indicates that some human lines of descent
>surviving today may have diverged at that time already, yet remained in
>the same species.
I agree,
> Furthermore, there were descendents of preadamites who
>didn't perish in Noah's flood (because they didn't live in that "land"),
>and Noah's descendents are interfertile with theirs, belonging to the
>same biological species.
I still agree.
> And both populations are genuine humans, whose
>shed blood will be avenged (Gen. 9:6).
Here is another place where 'adam definitely comes into play "Whoso
sheddeth man's (an Adamite's) blood, by man (an Adamite) shall his blood be
shed: for in the image of God made he man (Adam). Lesson: Non-Adamites,
don't mess with God's chosen race.
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago"
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