Re: Dick Fisher's "historical basis" remains no less doubtful

I have asked this question a couple of times, but my posts dont seem to be
making it to the list. :( I am sorry if this is a problem on my end, or if
this is redundant.

But, I have a question for Dick regarding his early date of Adam.

If Adam doesnt appear until sometime after 10000 BC, how are geographically
distant Homo Sapiens Sapiens part of the family of Adam?

If Adam was created late, by that time there were human people throughout
most of the world, including Polynesia, Australia, and North America. How
are these people then connected to Adam?

If Adam is unique only in some spiritual sense, what does that mean for
peoples that are not one of his descendants?
----- Original Message -----
From: "ed babinski" <ed.babinski@furman.edu>
To: "Dick Fischer" <dickfischer@earthlink.net>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 12:32 AM
Subject: Dick Fisher's "historical basis" remains no less doubtful

> "Dick Fischer" <dickfischer@earthlink.net> writes:
>> But if the historical Adam is seen in conjunction with the historical
>>flood and the
>>historical tower of Babel, then I think the totality of evidence is
>>overwhelming. Genesis 2-11 does appear to have a historical basis.
>
>
> ED: How you define the term, "historical basis," is what I was
> questioning. Shared names in tales that appear in mythologies of one
> small relatively homogeneous region of the world where culture was shared
> a mere thousand years ago, does not prove that the Bible's versions of the
> tales of Adam and Eve, Noah and Babel, are necessarily superior to (nor
> any less doubtful and questionable "historically" than) the versions from
> Egypt and Sumer which you cite.
>
> I pointed out that entire pre-historic human villages have been dug up in
> different parts of the world, including cultural artifacts and drawings of
> a primitive female-centered and animal-centered sort and that such
> pre-historical artifacts and items of concern all preceded the
> civilizations of Egypt and Sumer by way over 10,000 years. If you go back
> earlier still, there were the ice ages, mammoth hunters and cave painters.
> Such pre-historic discoveries have a definite "historical basis" but such
> pre-historic peoples from round the world left no written language nor
> pictures of "Adam and Eve" or "Seth" and the rest of the Biblical stories
> that you focus upon. The stories of Adam and Eve and Seth that you rely
> upon to help support your "historical" view of the Bible all appaer later,
> far later. That is what "history/archeology" teaches us. It also took a
> long long time before written language first appeared. Neither does the
> Bible mention these vast ice ages and inter-glacial periods of
> pre-historic man.
>
> What do you mean by an "historical" "tower of Babel" incident? I believe
> Paul Seely, another ASAer, was working on a paper on that topic, or had
> one published in the Westminster Review not long ago. See also Walton's
> NIV APPLICATION COMMENTARY on Genesis, found at any major Evangelical
> bookstore to read what he has to say about the Tower of Babel story.
> There is no linguistic evidence that all of the world's languages began in
> Babylon. The world's languages appear to have evolved naturally, just as
> Old English grew to differ from Middle English and that grew to differ
> from modern English. Or as Latin evolved into various European languages.
> The process of the evolution of language has been examined, especially so
> since the written languages arose, and not found to require supernatural
> initiative.
>>
Received on Sat Nov 13 16:15:39 2004