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

Dick,
I still say you've got it backward. The first chapter of Genesis takes
the Babylonian view of the cosmos, which can't be reconciled with what we
know of the universe, and presents an apology. It takes eisegesis to get
any semblance of concordance. Yet you claim to get concordance between
the extended Mesopotamian mythologies and the entire stretch of chapters.
I find that it does not work on many levels. At least Isaac de la Peyrere
had the honesty to put the Flood in Palestine.
Dave

On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:10:18 -0400 "Dick Fischer"
<dickfischer@verizon.net> writes:
Hi Dave, you wrote:

I'd turn you upside down. You hold that the first chapters of Genesis
agree with Mesopotamian sources because both reflect the same history. I
think they agree because the Mesopotamian myths were there and the
apologist responded to them in order to communicate with maximum clarity
in the circumstances. This requires that there were fully human beings
long before the time you give for Adam's existence.

Agreed. I've said that all along.

I find a grave problem with your idea that a notion could transform a
humanoid creature that is not quite fully human into a fully human being,
and that notion (which could not be transmitted across oceans to the
already inhabited New World) made the others also human.

I think you have me confused with someone else. All humans whether
related to Adam or not are fully human. I’ll use myself as an example.
My family came from eastern Europe and Germany. Although conceivably
some Japhethites could have migrated there I have no proof any did nor do
I have any evidence any did. So I presume that I do not possess any
Adamic/Noahic ancestry. If I were Asian, or African, or native American,
I could be pretty certain I wouldn’t have any Adamic roots as there is no
evidence Noah’s family was any other than middle eastern in terms of
race.

Could there have been any kind of human society without moral notions?

Jer. 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it?”

Could an idea, however deep and sublime, produce a soul (which I hold to
be biblical) or produce the Nancey Murphy kind of function?

Wikipedia says: “Her first book, Theology in the Age of Scientific
Reasoning, won prizes from both the American Academy of Religion and the
Templeton Foundation awarded the 1999 Prize for Outstanding Books in
Theology.” Are you assuming I’ve read her book? I haven’t.

Glenn has also pointed out worship long before 7000 B.C. I conclude that
your idea for an Adam is too late and too pathetically weak. Also, as I
have noted elsewhere, I
see no way that you can escape Universalism.

Dave, I think you are borrowing some from column A and some from column
B. If a historical Adam introduced in southern Mesopotamia about 7000
years ago doesn’t fit your theology then change your theology. It is as
simple as that. I don’t have any ulterior motives other than to say that
all the evidence I have gathered puts him there and then. If you don’t
like him in that historical niche dig up your own evidence that places
him someplace else at some other time and publish it. Whatever
theological ramifications result from a Neolithic Adam don’t seem all
that dire to me. What are they?

As to possibilities in an old universe, God could have chosen 2 hominoids
and changed them into ensouled beings, at least 50,000 years ago, letting
them replace all earlier "species" (varieties ?) of _Homo_. Or he could
have done something similar with an entire breeding group. The soul could
have been transmitted to all hybrid descendants as well as the pure bred,
giving Glenn his hair. Alternatively, the development of the group may
have resulted in their becoming "ensouled," whether with or without
creative intervention. I see these as the basic kinds of explanation, but
know of no way to definitively test them.

Tell you what, I’m sending you the same list of books I sent brother
Michael. Pick out some good titles and dig in. Or ask my suggestion and
I’ll choose a few for you. But the trouble as I see it is that everybody
has overlooked history in trying to wrestle with Bible/science issues.
History is like the third leg of a three legged stool. My method of
apology rests on a solid base. All the others have severe logic flaws.
For those who haven’t dug into it I can see that a lot of possibilities
might exist. After over twenty years now I can say with some confidence
that this method is the only one that makes sense and it is practically
bullet proof.

Dick Fischer
Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org

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Received on Fri Mar 30 17:36:53 2007