Peter said:
Yes, if we want to both take Adam and Eve as a
literal human pair and
respect what we know from science, there are just
these two possible
interpretations: either (1) Adam is placed into the
Pleistocene (or even
earlier), or (2) there were genuinely human
Preadamites. Solution (1)
requires us to ignore the clearly Holocene
environment the Bible presents us
in Gen.4-5, whereas (2) requires us to
understand Adam as the
representational head of humanity, rather than a
biological founder. Neither
of these two solutions is straightforward,
and it is a matter of opinion
which one to prefer. By the way, a solution
(3) of refusing to accept Adam
and Eve as a literal human pair is even
less straightforward. I don't
believe either (1) or (3) to be more
acceptable theologically than (2).
What do you mean by genuinely human here? If you mean biologically
human, ok, but couldnt there be more to being human than just biology?
Could a 4th possiblity be that Adam and Eve were true historical figures
that God created in his own image around what 7000 years ago, give or take a
few thousand. There were other homo sapiens around then of course, and
prior to this, but somehow Adam and Eve were different, spritually only
perhaps, a difference that science is unable to discern. And we are
all descendants of Adam and Eve only.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Mon Feb 23 2004 - 10:21:28 EST