Hello Mike,
> Mike: In my last note I mentioned that I see evidence of men before
> Adam in both
> Gen. 1:26,27 and in Rom. 5:13.
>
> At the time I wrote that note I thought some things went
> without saying.
>
> For instance, the fact that if there were no other
> communities of people
> living outside of Eden at the time of Adam and Eve then Cain
> must have
> married his sister. But we know God's law later given to
> Israel expressly
> forbid such incestuous relationships. I believe it did so not
> just to avoid
> the increased chance of birth defects. But also because such
> relationships
> are often very emotionally destructive to families. That
> being the case, it
> seems highly unlikely to me that God would intentionally
> create a situation
> that required people to engage in unhealthy relationships
> which He Himself
> would later expressly condemn and forbid.
AT: You are expecting the bible to do more than it intends to. The early
chapters of Genesis are meant to reveal theological truths, not
scientifically precise descriptions of historical events, and one of them is
that Adam is the source of original sin that we all are afflicted with as
his descendents. If you wish to read it literally, then Cain could have
married a *distant descendent* of Adam, since, it gives no time frame for
when Cain went to Nod, and Adam had other children in his 930 year lifetime
(Gen 5:4-5). My opinion is that the author was not too concerned about the
numbers, chronology, and scientific facts.
> Also, if Adam was the first man in an absolute chronological
> sense, then the
> Bible is clearly at odds with science. Why? Because science
> tells us that men
> just like ourselves have populated the earth far longer than
> Genesis allows
> us to date the creation of Adam. For instance, we are told
> that Australia has
> been continually populated for over 30,000 years and North
> America for over
> 15,000 years. Yet Bible chronology seems to date Adam's
> creation to only
> 4,000 BC. Some respond to this by saying that maybe there are
> "gaps" in the
> Genesis genealogies which allow us to understand that Adam
> was actually
> created several tens of thousands of years ago. The problem
> with this is that
> scientists also assure us that the various activities Genesis
> 3 and 4 tell us
> Adam and his immediate descendants were involved in (raising
> crops, herding
> animals, forging tools of iron and copper, and building
> cities) took place
> nowhere on earth any earlier than 10,000 years ago.
AT: Mike, you seem to want to read the accounts of Cain literally, and yet
reject a literal reading of the 6-days of creation. What standards are you
applying that allows you to read one part literally and not another part?
Blessings,
Adrian.
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