RE: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?

Last post for the evening--I really ought to be
asleep!!

Anyway....I'm assuming you're referring to the moment
in the story in which God breathes the breath of life
into Adam and makes him a living being
(=consciousness?)??

If so--putting aside the question of how consciousness
arose--I still see Adam being historical in the
following way...from my own experience as a
genealogist, you tend to research lines in your tree
as far back as you can go, and then you hit a brick
wall; you get stumped; in doing so, you start thinking
of them as the top of the tree--your origin if you
will, because the history beyond that is nameless. I
think that in Israel's heritage, the historical person
of Adam could have been just such a person--the
farthest person back that they could trace their
heritage to. In authoring the story then, they placed
the historical person representing their oldest
origins in an envisioned setting of what they thought
creation's origins must have been like, in order to
demonstrate theological truths.

To say it another way--recently in one of the ASA
journals, a book was reviewed entitled "Paul Meets
Muhammad", in which Paul and Muhammad are placed in a
fictitious debate setting and discuss Islam and
Christianity. Real, historical people; envisioned
setting; demonstrated theological principles.

Thus, I would characterize the moment where God places
the breath of life into Adam as one of those
envisioned moments featuring a historical person that
simultaneously conceptualizes both Israel's and the
world's origins.

Hope this clarifies :)

In Christ,
Christine

--- "Dehler, Bernie" <bernie.dehler@intel.com> wrote:

> Hi Christine-
>
> I think we are on the same mind as to why/how
> Genesis was written, as
> you state below. However, if evolution is true, I
> think it blows the
> idea that "Adam is a historical person" out of the
> water. The reason
> being is that evolution works very slowly over time
> with groups of
> creatures, so I think the conscience gradually arose
> with the
> development of the brain. (I don't think we had
> fully equipped humans
> waiting for the "spirit" to be implanted, as the
> Catholic system seems
> to think is a possibility).
 Yes, I think the
> Biblical account is clear
> that Adam was a unique person and that's why it was
> used in genealogies;
> but I also think it is wrong (just as it was wrong
> about the earth being
> the center of the universe or that the firmament(or
> "expanse") separated
> the waters... the blue sky above is not water as the
> ancients thought.
> The stars were hung in the firmament, and there is
> no water above them
> (we know that with today's science; but those in the
> OT and NT didn't
> know it).

>
> ...Bernie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of Christine Smith
> Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 8:39 PM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: RE: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of
> Adams?) pseudogenes are
> overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
>
> Hi Bernie,
>
> Welcome to the group :)
>
> The "color" of my house (to use your nify remodeling
> motif from your previous post) for the time being
> seems to be somewhere between ID/OEC & TE, leaning
> strongly to TE. Going off Collin's definition of a
> typical TE (p. 200, Language of God), the only one I
> would question/reject is #4 (still evaluating this
> one) and I would modify #6 to say that while humans
> are certainly unique, I believe that animals have a
> spiritual nature too (but that's a whole different
> thread!!).
>
> Pertaining to the earliest portions of Genesis,
> here's
> my current thinking...
>
> Primarily based on the genealogical details (I'm a
> genealogist in my spare time :) )and the historical
> context, I do think that most, if not all (including
> Adam and Eve) of the people in Genesis were real
> people and/or were based on real people.
> Particularly
> for Adam and Eve, I could see them being based on
> real
> people but given different names in order to
> represent
> larger concepts (analogous to Jacob taking the name
> Israel). Likewise, I could easily see the flood
> being
> a massive local event, similar to in our time
> something on the scale of Hurricane Katrina or the
> Asian tsunamis. More generally, the view that makes
> most sense to me is that the early Genesis stories
> were written, at least in part, as an apologetic
> against other ancient religious belief systems,
> adopting (hijacking!) many of the same motifs and
> symbols but replacing the substance of the stories
> with their (divinely inspired) religious beliefs and
> nationalistic (Israelite) origins/heritage.
>
> Hope this helps :)
>
> In Christ,
> Christine
>
>
> --- "Dehler, Bernie" <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
> wrote:
>
> > David Opderbeck said:
> >
> > "Ok, so why am I, who had been leaning towards all
> > these TE arguments,
> > now pushing back a bit? I've come to realize that
> a
> > "strong" TE view
> > seems inevitably to lead to a non-literal Adam &
> > Eve, or a large
> > population of first humans -- something that seems
> > completely
> > incongruous with arc of the Biblical narrative to
> > me."
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm leaning to the TE side, and trying to decipher
> > the Adam and Eve
> > story in light of it. I hope to have a first
> draft
> > by the end of the
> > year. Yes, I tend to think that if evolution were
> > true, then there is
> > no unique Adam and Eve. Evolution works on
> groups.
> > Also, there was no
> > global flood, but OEC's already have that
> > position... only instead of
> > saying it was local, I would say there was no such
> > flood at all. I
> > think the reason for the flood and creation in
> > Scripture is to teach a
> > spiritual lesson, but they (creation with Adam
> and
> > eve, and the flood)
> > are not historical events. Yes, I'm not claiming
> > the bible is inerrant,
> > but I think I can still say it is "authorative."
> >
> >
> >
> > ...Bernie
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> > [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> > Behalf Of David Opderbeck
> > Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 3:59 PM
> > To: Randy Isaac
> > Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> > Subject: Re: [asa] ORIGINS: pseudogenes are
> > overwhelming evidence for
> > evolution...?
> >
> >
> >
> > Randy said: Mixed in the middle of all these
> > discussions is often a
> > discussion of functionality of so-called "junk
> DNA".
> > Many ID advocates
> > have argued that a design perspective implies that
> > there really is a
> > usefulness of those portions of genetic code for
> > which we do not yet
> > know any function. In this mode, discoveries of
> > function in junk DNA
> > serve as support for ID but that doesn't work, in
> my
> > books, since ID
> > doesn't mandate it and evolution doesn't require a
> > lack of
> > functionality.
> >
> >
> >
> > But this does undercut the argument that
> non-coding
> > regions are nothing
> > but "relics" of evolution, just like fossils in
> > rock strata. Fossils
> > in rock strata are dead and non-functional, and
> > serve only to evidence a
> > past history. Likewise, junk DNA is purported to
> be
> > nothing but
> > evidence of a past history. If this supposedly
> > non-functional DNA in
> > fact has a function, however, that undercuts the
> > "appearance of age"
> > argument against a progressive creation / re-use /
> > design perspective
> > concerning DNA.
> >
> >
> >
> > Randy said: [re-use] It's certainly a
> hypothetical
> > possibility but it's
> > the particular pattern of genetic modification
> that
> > renders this
>
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Received on Mon Nov 5 00:19:19 2007