ABSTRACT. The thesis of a young Adam, and the antithesis of an
old Homo, might be resolved by a synthesis where Genesis
1 Adam ("Man") and Genesis 2 Adam and Eve are different. Later
convergence and extinctions would ensure that only modern Homo
sapiens survived to be both biologically and theologically in "Adam".
This model has theological difficulties, but so does every model of
the
antiquity and unity of humanity. Ultimately the books of nature and
Scripture must agree, if only we had all the pages and interpreted
them right!
On Wed, 23 Aug 1995 16:12:00 -0400 you wrote:
TG>I for one do not have a problem with non-human, tool-making,
>weapon-making, non-spiritual beings (even Darwin's finches make and
>use tools). I think that it is risky to make these capacities (or
>even others commonly used) the essence of humanity. The scriptures
>indicate that man is made in the image of God, but doesn't go a long
>way to define that image except in knowledge, righteousness, and
>holiness (as the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it) and with
>dominion over the creatures. I have some problem with having
>speciation even in the human lineage after the creation of Adam and
>Eve. Thus to say that Homo erectus or even Homo sapiens
>neanderthalensis are fully human in the Biblical sense makes me much
>more uncomfortable than the observation that these pre-humans have
>some human characteristics.
I share your concerns. I believe that only Homo sapiens is truly man
in the image of God. God has seen to it that only one species of man
is extant today. As Warfield long ago pointed out, theologically the
unity of the human race is more important than its antiquity.
TG>Along these same lines is a more general problem with Glenn's
>attempt at harmonization. The civilization depicted in the early
>chapters of Genesis is the civilization recognized in the anthropological
>and archeological record as existing within the past 15,000-20,000
>years. See Davis Young's recent article in Christan Scholar's Review:
>The Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race Revisited. Here are the
>closing two paragraphs:
Again, I agree. The Biblical picture is of a fairly recent humanity
in the Fertile Crescent. A very ancient Adam and Eve raises more
problems than it solves.
TG>"Again, the challenges are primarily theological. On this
>position, Adam cannot possibly be the father of Cain and Abel.
>Although Warfield had no problem with an ancient human race, his
>solution was to stretch the genealogies by allowing for the
>possibility that several generations were omitted between the names
>in the lists. But no amount of stretching genealogies can salvage
>the position because Genesis treats Cain as the immediate son of Adam
>and Eve. The text explicitly states that Adam lay with Eve, she
>conceived, and gave birth to Cain. And Eve acknowledges the help of
>Yahweh in bearing Cain. But Cain and Abel lived at the beginning of
>Near Eastern civilization according to Genesis 4 whereas his father
>Adam lived at least 40,000 years ago. To be sure, the ages of the
>biblical patriarchs are very large, but we have no reason to argue
>that Adam lived 30,000 years before begetting Cain! The major
>challenge then for this position is to account for a time gap, tens
>of thousands of years long, of which the Bible seems to know nothing.
While some of the genealogies must be parent-child, not all of them
need be. In Eastern genealogies a tribe can take the name of its
founder. Many of the life-spans appear to be symbolic:
"5.5 Whether the large numbers describing human longevity in the early
chapters of Genesis are literal or have a conventional literary
function-or both-is uncertain. Some believe that several of the
numbers have symbolic significance, such as Enoch's 365 (v. 23) years
(365 being the number of days in a year, thus a full life) and
Lamech's 777 (v. 31 ) years (777 being an expansion and multiple of
seven, the number of completeness, cf. the "seventy-seven times" of
Lamech's namesake in 4:24). The fact that there are exactly ten names
in the Ge 5 list (as in the genealogy of 1 1:10-26) makes it likely
that it includes gaps, the lengths of which may be summarized in the
large numbers. Other ancient genealogies outside the Bible exhibit
similarly large figures. For example, three kings in a Sumerian list
(which also contains exactly ten names) are said to have reigned
72,000 years each-obviously exaggerated time spans." (Barker K. ed,
"The NIV Study Bible", 1985, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, p13)
IMHO the fact that there are demonstrable gaps in the genealogies
eg Lk 3:35-36 (following the Septuagint) includes "Cainan":
Shem->Arphaxad->*Cainan*->Shelah->Eber
whereas Gn 11:10-14 (Hebrew Masoretic text) does not:
Shem->Arphaxad->Shelah->Eber
plus the above rounded lists and symbolic ages, indicates to me that
God is telling us not to take them as strictly contiguous, and
therfore to rest no theology on it.
GM>The biblical and scientific data pertaining to the antiquity and
>unity of the human race seem to force us toward positions that are fraught
>with serious flaws. Perhaps the weaknesses of these positions are sending
>a signal that careful reexamination of the fundamental premise regarding
>literal historicity is in order. Or perhaps others can achieve
>satisfactory solutions without abandoning the fundamental premise. In any
>case, my aim has been, not to solve the problem, but simply to encourage
>Christian theologians, anthropologists, archeologists, and paleontologists
>to collaborate in honest, forthright assessment of the available evidence
>and in development of a position that preserves the fundamental biblical
>doctrines of man, sin, and salvation."
I agree with Glenn that much of the problem might be to do with our
ideas of "literal historicity". There is no explicit Biblical teaching
based on the length of the genealogies. But I do not believe we can
abandon the concept of bilogical unity of the human race in Adam.
TG>For me, an old earth, an evolutionary origin life and of the body
>of man, and a local flood scenario (including other survivors beside
>Noah and his family) is not inimical to the Biblical text. The major
>scientific problem that remains with my "harmonization" is the
>polymorphisms in the MHC genes that seem to pre-date the chimp-human
>(body) split. See Ayala's article in Scientific American, December
>(I think) 1993. From this sort of data one can estimate the
>population size of the transition population and it comes out to
>500-10,000. This is difficult to square with a single ancestral Adam
>and Eve.
There could be a "single ancestral Adam and Eve" taken from that
population. This would explain other Biblical data about an
apparently already populated Earth (Kidner, Genesis, p29).
TG>Derek Kidner in his commentary on Genesis (Tyndale OT commentaries)
>has an interesting solution. God uniquely endowed Adam with the
>divine image and a human soul, specially created Eve as his wife,
>making them the first pair and the covenant head. Then he endowed
>all of Adam's "collaterals" (Kidner's word) with the divine image and
>human souls. Kidner's view does away with the biological unity of
>the race (thus solving the above genetics problem), but preserves the
>coventantal and legal unity of the race as required in our Biblical
>theology.
>I'm not yet ready to go with Kidner and give up the biological unity
>of the race, but there are problems with my view.
I don't believe that Kidner does this. He says:
"...any doubt of the unity of mankind...would be of course, quite
untenable. God as we have seen, has made all nations `from one'
(Acts 17:26)" (Kidner, p29)
My two basic principles are: 1. a biological and theological unity of
the human race; and 2. a fairly recent Adam & Eve. It may be that the
Adam (lit. "man") of Genesis 1 and the Adam of Genesis 2, are
different, although Jesus quoted Gn 1:27 and Gn 2:24 in the one
sentence as "the beginning" (Mt 19:4-6). However, this could just be a
reference to prove
a point about the antiquity of monogamous marriage, without making any
deeper assertions about human origins. The issue of Jesus quoting OT
passages is a difficult one and goes to the heart of what His full
humanity (and full Deity) means.
The following simplified model would explain how the human race
could be both biological one in Gn 1 Adam and theologically one
in Gn 2 Adam and Eve:
\|/g. Modern man (after convergence)
/|
/ |\ _ f. Boskop Man? (Eiseley) extinct
d. Neanderthals _ / | \/
(extinct) \ / \ | /e. Noah
\/ \|/
\ /c. Gn 2 Adam & Eve
\ /
a.Homo erectus _ |b. Gn 1 Adam ("man")
(extinct) \ |
\|
I have thrown in Boskop Man as the possible last surviving remnant of
the pure original Genesis 2 Adam, after reading Eiseley:
"There's just one thing we haven't quite dared to mention. It's this,
and you won't believe it. It's all happened already. Back there in
the past, ten thousand years ago. The man of the future, with the big
brain, the small teeth... When the skull is studied in projection and
ratios computed, we find that these fossil South African folk,
generally called "Boskop" or "Boskopoids" after the site of first
discovery, have the amazing cranium-to-face ratio of almost five to
one. In Europeans it is about three to one." (Eiseley L., "The
Immense Journey", 1958, Victor Gollancz, London, p127ff).
BTW this latter is not central to my argument, just interesting! :-)
In this model, the Genesis 1 Adam would have had the divine image
and so would all his descendants. The image of God might have been
a developing set of attributes (eg. art, tools, spirituality) as the
human
brain experienced "the most rapid...event in the history of evolution"
(Gould, Ever Since Darwin, p181)? However, they would not have been
put to the test of obedience/disobedience of God until Genesis 2 Adam
and Eve, and hence sin and salvation would not apply to them. Later
convergence and extinction would ensure that the current human race
is one in "Adam" both biologically and theologically.
This would also throw light on the convergence hinted at in the story
of
"the sons of God" marrying "the daughters of men" (Gn 6) and
Cain's fear of being killed by other men (Gn 4:14), and where he got
his wife (Gn 4:17).
The main problem is that Genesis 1-11 represents the family histories
of that twig off the bush of humanity from whom Abraham (and
ultimately Messiah) came. Its primary purpose is theological, not
anthropological. We just don't have enough information!
There are difficulties with this synthesis, but there are difficulties
with any model of the antiquity and unity of the human race. It
seems to however encompass a greater range of data, both Biblical
and scientific than other models.
But whatever the outcome, one thing I believe is that both books of
nature and scripture have one Author, and if we had all the pages, and
interpreted them right, they would ultimately harmonise.
God bless.
Stephen