RE: [asa] Does ASA believe in Adam and Eve?

Hi George:

God provided for Adam. In turn, Adam had an obligation. To me that’s a
covenant relationship. Today, we have a gorgeous day here in greater
Washington. All Washingtonians receive God’s blessing equally as did
Noah’s sons. Whether Ham and Japheth enjoyed a covenant relationship as
to salvation is an open question. I certainly don’t pretend to know,
though I think not. The agreement from God’s part was not to bring
another devastating flood. And that is true to this day in the areas
that they currently reside. Note the devastating tsunami that struck
Asia, for example, was not in an area occupied by Noah’s kin. Which
further exemplifies my point.

When Shem’s line (or at least some of it) resided in Babylon along with
Ham’s line including Nimrod, who had a covenant relationship with God?
If you know I’ll abide by your answer because I don’t. However, I’ll
agree that at least at the time of Noah, God did establish a covenant
with Noah’s entire family. Salvation history working backward from
Christ seems to eliminate the branches, though to whom God grants
salvation is entirely up to him.

As to this part:

>>This doesn't invlidate your basic argument about the historicity of
Adam but it does mean that it's wrong to suggest that the stories about
Adam are just the family history of Israel. They belong equally to the
people of Tarshish in Spain, the Ionians, &c - & given what I said
earlier, to the Aztecs & in fact everyone<<

I feel like you just ran back into a burning building. The historicity
of Adam and Noah precludes the Aztecs unless you wish to establish a
point in time as does Hugh Ross when it would be possible. Do you have
such a point? C’mon George, climb down out of your ivory tower and take
a stand. Don’t reach for the waffle iron. You want Adam and Noah to be
ancestral to all mankind, so Adam and Noah, when and where? And don’t
ask us to go read something. Just cough it up.

Dick Fischer

Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

 <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org> www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of George Murphy
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 12:49 PM
To: Dick Fischer; ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] Does ASA believe in Adam and Eve?

Dick -

If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that the Noachic covenant
gets narrowed down to Israel so that the covenant with Israel is the
covenant with Noah. To which I would reply, yes and no.

Yes in the basic theological sense that there is only one covenant, that
with Jesus Christ - God's election of Jesus Christ before creation, the
covenant for the sake of which creation has taken place. (If this
sounds like Barth, that's no accident.) & all the others that we refer
to - the covenants with Noah, or at Sinai, or the "new covenant in my
blood" - are different expressions or reaffirmations of that one
covenant.

But that is something that we see only in retrospect, from the
standpoint of faith in Christ. Historically, & the way the biblical
story unfolds, there are diifferent covenants. That at Sinai makes no
reference to Noah, & the Noachic covenant makes no reference to a
covenant with Adam - for the simple reason that in the biblical story
there is, strictly speaking, no covenant with Adam. (The first use of
the word is in Gen.6:18, looking forward to Ch.9.)

Your statement that the covenant with Noah applies only to Shem, not Ham
or Japheth, is simply wrong. "God blessed Noah and his sons" (9:1) and
"I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you"
(9:9). (If fact it goes on to include all living things.) Ham &
Japheth are not excluded - which doesn't mean that they may not be
unfaithful. As Paul says about a later stage of the covenant, "The
gifts and call of God are irrevocable" (Rom.11:29).

This doesn't invlidate your basic argument about the historicity of Adam
but it does mean that it's wrong to suggest that the stories about Adam
are just the family history of Israel. They belong equally to the
people of Tarshish in Spain, the Ionians, &c - & given what I said
earlier, to the Aztecs & in fact everyone.

I continue to think you're wrong about Mizraim & Egypt: They aren't 2
different things or people. Your argument would be less forced if you
would adopt something more loike Westermann's view of the table of
nations, & I don't think that would affect your basic argument about
Adam.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

----- Original Message -----

From: Dick <mailto:dickfischer@verizon.net> Fischer

To: ASA <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>

Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 2:02 PM

Subject: RE: [asa] Does ASA believe in Adam and Eve?

I believe the “moral law” or covenant was first established with Adam,
reestablished with Noah and further established with Abraham. Mosaic
law was established at Sinai. Occasionally God likes to restate things
for new people so they keep updated. The Sumerians, Egyptians and
everybody else was outside the camp so to speak. (But there are lots of
people more poetic about this than I am.) Egypt existed before Mizraim
got there so when the OT uses Mizraim for Egyptians it may mean
everybody or just those from him. Elamites were named for Elam but
originally they spoke an unrelated language so presumably those original
aborigines were unrelated to the Semites or Sumerians even though later
they were dubbed Elamites.

The covenant relationship seems to follow the line of promise from the
beginning. That is it does not appear to follow family relationships
once they branch off. The covenant with Noah followed Shem not Ham or
Japheth. The covenant with Abraham followed Isaac not Ishmael. The
covenant with Moses followed the children of Israel and remained with
them until the time of Christ. Of course Christ established the New
Covenant with us all. All this in my humble opinion.

Dick Fischer

Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

 <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org> www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----
From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 10:06 PM
To: Dick Fischer; ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] Does ASA believe in Adam and Eve?

OK, that's clear. Now sometimes you've said that Adam was the ancestor
of the Israelites & sometimes of the "covenant people." What covenant
do you mean? If it's just Israel then presumably it's the covenant at
Sinai. I have been assuming that that's what you mean & that's why I
described the fact that the peoples listed below (& more) are portrayed
as descendants of Noah - & thus of Adam - as "devastating" for your
view. But maybe you mean the Noachic covenant. That would mean that
the Egyptians, the Ionian Greeks (Javan) & many others - but not the
Chinese or Native Americans &c - are descended from Adam. So which do
you mean?

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

----- Original Message -----

From: Dick Fischer <mailto:dickfischer@verizon.net>

To: ASA <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>

Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 12:36 PM

Subject: RE: [asa] Does ASA believe in Adam and Eve?

Hi George:

I think it would be well nigh impossible to fabricate a list of
patriarchs retroactively based upon discovery of ancient populations and
then ingeniously devise who begot who. And it would be the mother of
all coincidences that peoples discovered just happened to bear the names
of Genesis patriarchs. It seems far more logical to me that the people
who bore the names of their ancient forefathers came from actual people.
So yes, put Westermann and me in separate camps on this issue, however,
Westermann was a first class scholar and I am in agreement with many of
his conclusions. It’s just that I have the benefit of close proximity
to the Library of Congress where most others don’t.

Take Asshur, Noah’s grandson, as one case alone.

Asshur (Gen. 10:11) began the Assyrian empire in the northeast corner of
Upper Mesopotamia where the Tigris runs from northwest to southeast. A
vassal treaty of Esarhaddon ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/681_BC> 681-
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/669_BC> 669 BC), son of Sennacherib
(705-681 BC – see 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles and Isaiah), who had been
murdered while on the throne, carried a seal naming “Ashur,” founder of
Assyria, as a god. And appropriately, Esarhaddon named his son, who was
crown prince at the time, “Ashurbanipal” in honor of him. Just as
Tubalcain descended from Cain so too some Assyrian kings were named
after their famous forefather, i.e. King Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria
(833-859 BC) and the 38th king on the earliest Assyrian king list was
"Puzar-Assur.”

This quote is from The Cambridge Ancient History:

The knowledge about some of the cities buried under these mounds was
never lost. That the mound of Nimrud on the east bank, close to the
point where the Greater Zab flows into the Tigris, was the town of
Kalakh mentioned in Genesis 10:11 was told by the natives to a British
representative of the East India Company who explored the site in 1820.
They even knew that the country to which this town had once belonged was
named ‘al-Assur'.

Dick Fischer

Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

 <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org> www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----
From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 1:48 PM
To: Dick Fischer; ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] Does ASA believe in Adam and Eve?

Yes, many of the names listed in Gen.10 can be identified with nations
known from secular history in the ancient world. I was going to go on
to the implications of that but it wasn't what I was asking. Are these
_just_ names of nations or do you think this chapter in fact gives
genealogies of real individuals from whom those nations descended &/or
were named? Westermann (Genesis 1-11, p.504), e.g., takes the 1st view.
In reference to the "sons" of Japheth: "The 'sons' are peoples or
countries. The genealogical pattern is only the form of presentation;
it is not meant to indicate descent. Only Japheth is a person; he does
not stand for a people or country. The same holds for Shem and Ham; all
three are only the names of persons and they are part of the tradition
history of the flood. They do not belong to the table of nations, but
act as a connecting link with it."

This seems plausible to me, though I'm a little cautious about saying
what the biblical author "meant." In any case, can I assume that you
don't hold that view but think that the references to Gomer &c as sons
of Japheth, Ham & Shem are to real historical individuals?

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

----- Original Message -----

From: Dick Fischer <mailto:dickfischer@verizon.net>

To: ASA <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>

Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 10:11 AM

Subject: Re: [asa] Does ASA believe in Adam and Eve?

Hi George, you wrote:

Just so we're not talking at cross purposes, am I right in assuming that
you read Gen.10 as a collection of real genealogies - i.e., that the
people who are listed there are biological descendants of Noah's 3
(real) sons?

Working back from Abraham we can trace as far as Shem’s children, Elam,
Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. Elam refers to a people, Elymæans,
concentrated around Susa initially, the ancient capital. Elamites are
encountered first as Persians speaking a non-Semitic language. Scholars
place Elam at the head of this Persian culture, and he is listed as a
king in Persian history books. Asshur, of course, founded Assyria.
Arphaxad is known as the forbearer to the Chaldeans, Arphachshad was
called Arruphu by the Akkadians, and was known to Hurrians in the Nuzi
tablets as Arip-hurra.

Scholars from the time of Josephus have concurred that the Lydians
descended from Lud, called the Luddu from the annals of Ashurbanipal.
Lydians were famed archers in the ancient world. In Josephus, “Aram was
father of the Aramites, whom the Greeks call Syrians ...” The
Aramaeans, founded by Aram, situated themselves in various parts of
Syria and Mesopotamia, and the Aramaic language stems from the children
of Aram.

In short, almost every one of the enumerated children stemming from the
three sons of Noah can be found somewhere in the ancient world. It’s in
my upcoming book.

Dick Fischer

Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

 <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org> www.genesisproclaimed.org

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Received on Wed Mar 28 13:00:49 2007