I can't find the original on this so I will use Mike's quotation of Dick,
Dick wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of MikeSatterlee@cs.com
>Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 10:17 PM
>
>Dick Fischer wrote: Since you want the "image" to start before
>Adam, you must
>say where that begins. Any date you pick would be arbitrary - 4 million
>years ago, 100,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. You can guess,
>but you don't
>know.
It is not entirely arbitrary. Whatever activity you choose to represent the
existence of the image, be it art, murder, burial, religion etc, all these
activities have a time of first appearance in the fossil record. Thus if we
say that art is a characteristic of the image then the earliest art is
either the Golan venus figurine from 300,000 years ago, the Olduvai
phonolite pebble of 1.6 myr or the Makapansgat pebble of 3 million years
ago.
If we say altars are a requirement, then the oldest altar-looking discovery
is at Bilzingsleben Germany from 400,000 years ago.
If we say burial or ritual postmortem treatment of a body it is 1.4 myr ago
at Sterkfontein, S. A.
It isn't a case of pick a value, any value, out of the air.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
>Dick, this raises a question I had hoped to get your opinion on.
>Regardless
>of whether Gen. 1:26, 27 is referring to God's creation of the human race
>prior to His creation of Adam and Eve or to His creation of Adam
>and Eve, I
>would like to know how and when you and others on this list
>believe God first
>created the human race? As you say, all we can do is guess as to
>the "when."
>The "how" may also be a matter of some disagreement here.
>
>I'll volunteer to go first.
>
>I believe God "created" man by making highly evolved primates into
>"spirit"
>people. A "spirit person" is a person who has a spirit unlike that of
>animals, a spirit which returns to God upon our death. (Eccl. 3:21; 12:7)
>Being a "spirit person" also means having the ability to comprehend
>"spiritual" concepts. Concepts such as eternity, morality, justice
>and God. I
>believe at some point during the physical evolution of our species God
>intervened and gave mankind the ability to comprehend such "spiritual"
>concepts. I believe God also then began giving us eternal spirits.
>I believe
>these were the creative acts spoken of in Gen. 1:27.
>
>I believe our ability to think "spiritual" thoughts has, since that time,
>been inherited from our parents. However, the eternal spirits all human
>beings have since possessed may be individual gifts which God gives to all
>human beings at their births, at the time we take our first
>breath. This may
>have been what was pictured by God breathing the breath of life into Adam.
>(The Hebrew word "neshamah" which is used in Gen. 2:7 can mean
>both "breath"
>and "spirit.") If this is so, I believe it can truthfully be said that all
>human beings, before and after Adam, have been individually
>"created" in the
>same way that Adam was. (Adam was created from preexisting organic
>material,
>the dust of the earth, and had a spirit breathed into him directly by God.)
>
>I suspect God created the human race in this way about 100,000
>years ago, at
>the time scientists tell us people just like ourselves first appeared on
>earth.
>
>I would much appreciate reading the thoughts on this subject of others on
>this list.
>
>How and when did God create man?
>
>Mike
>
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