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

From Phil
Hi Dick,
Thanks for the interesting discussion.  Being grilled is not comfortable, but I appreciate its value.  My replies are interspersed below:

-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>
To: ASA <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 1:46 am
Subject: RE: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?

Hi Phil:

I see your point.  Now please fill in some blanks for me.  Gen. 4:1: “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain …”  Since you’ve shown Cain can’t be a “literal individual” whom did she bare?

>>  Keep in mind I'm proposing this as a hypothesis and I expect it would take many years of thought to work out the details if it turns out to be correct.  In the meantime, I believe the answer to your question is that the way the Bible says these things, as if he were an individual but referring representatively to a group, is a perfectly good way of speaking in the mythopoemic genre. 

Eve then said, “I have gotten a man from the LORD.”  A mystery man no doubt since Cain’s off the table.  If this was someone else, who was it? 

>>  No, it refers to "Cain" the non-literal character in the account.  It is a play on words.  The word translated "gotten" is _qanah_, is similar to the name of "Cain", _Quayin_ , in both sound and meaning.  It means "erect" or "create", just as Cain's name means "smith", someone who erects and creates.  In context "Cain" implies the making of things by your own efforts in order to save yourself of find your place in the world apart from resting in God, an effort that God curses and rejects.  So here we see Eve says that she has "made a maker" -- she "qanah'ed a quayin."  Thus, the quote is meaningful in the thrust of the theology of the passage and need not be literal to have been incorporated in the account.  Again, this is perfectly normal writing style for the genre that I believe it to be. 

>> Consider the opposite:  if it is merely reporting of historical details, then Eve said essentially this: "Well, I had a baby -- a boy baby."   That's not so theologically important, is it?  Why would God bother reporting to us such a mundane little sentence that a mom said at an individual baby's birth?  If we particularize the text in this way, treating it as mere historical reporting of details, then we rob it of its deep meaning.  Only if it is a general statement representing the great flow of the human condition does it have deep meaning for us.  I believe the text is dealing with sweeping, important truths, and every line of the text is important.  Hence, we need to generalize it as a statement about mankind and not overly particularize it by treating it as a precisely literal genre.

>>  We could try to have it both ways:  it was a literal statement at Cain's birth that somehow was remembered (despite its utter unimportance at the time).  But God moved on Eve to say it in this way so that it foreshadowed Cain's later sinful tendencies as a _Quayin_.  Then, Moses later included it here in the account to teach theology.  Thus, it is both particular _and_ deeply meaningful.  But is this hypothesis credible?  Do we need two explanations for why it was included here if only one explanation is sufficient?  I.e., if the genre explains that an author can put words like this into a representative person's mouth to teach theology, then why add the additional burden of it _also_ being literal and somehow surviving into the text, something that the genre does not require?  It becomes clear that we are insisting on making it literal only because of our modern biases, not because of any good exegetical reason.

 
“And she again bare his brother Abel” Gen. 4:2).  Now you have me wondering whether Abel is real or made up.  Who kept the sheep and who tilled the ground? 

>> This is normative for the mythopoemic genre

Gen. 4:6: “And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth?”  Who was God talking to?  And who knocked off Abel?

>> mythopoemic genre.  He was talking figuratively to early mankind.  The "Cain" people who create works-based religion are enemies of the true workshippers. 

>> I don't feel really confident about the theological significance of Abel's name, which means "transitory" or "vanity" or "emptiness" or "unsatisfactory".  Abel was a good character and God accepted his sacrifice, which seems to rule out the more negative meanings as being descriptors of the person.  So maybe the negative thing implied by this name is actually the _absence_ of the good person, an absence which occurs in the account after he is killed by Cain.  The point then would be that early mankind did not have true worshippers of God like Abel -- they were missing because they were "killed".   Thus, Abel = "emptiness" refers to absence, Abel = "transitory" refers to its vanishing from the Earth.

>> Let me quickly clarify -- I'm not trying to make this into an allegory where everything has a meaning.  Mythopoemic accounts aren't like that.  Instead, it is a tale with lots of particulars that may not be too important, because that was the style of the genre.  (E.g., it wasn't important that Pandora had a box instead of a vase.)  But some things like names are usually important and the audience of these kinds of accounts will look to the names to clue them in to the meaning of the account.  (E.g., Pandora's name is important because it means "all gifts," including the gift of the box that had the potential for great evil.)  So the account tells us that Abel = "Transitory" brings good sacrifices but he then is killed -- alas, such is the nature of being transitory.  "Cain" the worker brings God an offering of his own "works" (which are rejected), and then he kills off "Transitory" (the true worshipper), then is cursed and so he works (again) to build a civilization that is cursed (God consistently rejects the works of Cain).  But Noah = "Rest" brings rest from our works (says Lamech) to those who do not rely on works but rather rest in the grace of God.

>> In trying to work out this hypothesis, parts are already very cohesive but other parts do not seem cohesive yet.  This is to be expected, since we are trying to discern the motives of an author we don't fully know who was writing in a genre that no longer exists.

Gen. 4:25: “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.”  Okay, who is real in this sentence, who is fictitious, how can we tell, and why are real people and theological constructs mixed together in the same sentence?

>> remember, its a young hypothesis and I don't expect to have solid answers for everything yet.  If the Bible starts with mythopoemic accounts to teach theology, and then transitions to literal history, would an ancient author alert us to the point of change?  Answer:  none of the ancient cultures did that.  They all slide directly from mythopoemic genre to incorporating elements of literal history without a break.  At least, in my brief study of mythology that's the impression I got.

>>  Was the Biblical author being dishonest in doing this?  I don't think so, since he was using the normal mode of communication.  

>>  But I think you can basically tell where it becomes literal because a change in the characteristics of the text.  It becomes filled with mundane details.  these details are such that they are feasible to have survived (via cuneiform or oral history).  The details are not obviously construed for the sake of teaching theology.

>>  I believe the hypothesis needs work precisely on this point:  how to tell if the details in an account are there because they are literal facts (thus indicating a literal account) or if they serve merely as the non-literal setting for a non-literal account.  What distinguishes the two kinds of details?  After all, there are a lot of details about the four rivers.  If these are non-literal, then why would the author put them in there?  I can't answer that.  This is the weak point of the hypothesis where more work is needed if the hypothesis is to be ultimately successful.

>> I am weighing this weakness against your own hypothesis:  that it is all precisely literal, and thus Adam could not have been a universal progenitor (because of his location and time in Mesopotamia), and that the author never intended him to be understood as a universal progenitor.  I understand your arguments, but I have chosen not to accept them because it seems that the transition from Genesis 1 to 2 to 3 assumes that the same "Adam" (man) is being discussed in each case, and yet in Genesis 1 everything is so universalist that it simply must be referring to the origin of mankind.  That's how it "feels" to me.  I do understand your arguments, and I can't prove you wrong with an an indisputable argument, but as I weigh things I'd rather live with the unknowns of this other hypothesis than with a view that (IMO) doesn't follow the line of reasoning of the author as regards Adam's universality.  I see one view as incomplete, the other as wrong, so I choose incomplete.  there is always hope that it will be completed in the future!

>>  As for the two geneologies, I think it's clear that Seth's line is literal with all those details in the birth and death dates that have no particular theological significance.  I also think it's clear that Cain's line is a literary construction because it lacks birth and death dates and because the sequence of names are obviously distorted versions of the names in Seth's line, contrived negatively to tell a very pointed message.  Working back from there, Adam of the geneology with his birth and death dates must be literal, but Adam as a universal progenitor can't be literal if he lives in Mesopotamia between the four rivers.  We now know from science that a univeral progenitor could not have lived there -- he must have been in Africa.  Hence, I think the author took the real Adam father of Seth and "mythopoemicized" him into a universal progenitor.  (I'm refusing to say "mythologized" due to the negative connotation.)

>>  So where it the break between mythopoemic and historical literature?  I think it is the sentence you quoted above, “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.”  I am hypothesizing that the arrival of Seth is so important that it is punctuated by putting words into Eve's mouth to announce his arrival.  Just as the "making of a maker" for Cain was announced by words put in Eve's mouth, so the arrival of the founder of the people of God is now anounced by words put in Eve's mouth.  This tends to set Seth apart from Cain's line as if Seth is not descended from the line of "Cain".  In reality, I think Seth was indeed descended from earlier peoples whose distant anscestors were hunter-gatherers all the way back to the origin of homo sapiens.  Thus, Seth's anscestors were living under the "curse on Cain," the inability of mankind to redeem himself by his works despite his procilivity to try.  But Seth was unique in that he became the first believer in God, and so it is important to emphasize his coming into the world.  It is stated in this way by saying Adam knew his wife "again", so that Adam ("mankind") has started over again in Seth.  The purpose of having Eve say what she did is to indicate that this is a new beginning.  This new beginning is also the beginning of historical reporting because (apparently) the Semites kept records as far back as their founder.

Personally, I think you either have to go with all of them being real or else the whole genealogical thing in the first eleven chapters of Genesis was made up from the start.  That includes everybody.  Then, at what point do fictitious people begin to have flesh and blood children?  Do we start at Abraham?  David?  Mary?

And who would have had a motive for making it all up? 

>> Every ancient people group that ever existed had a motivation for producing mythopoemic accounts of origins.  They all had accounts of this genre.  The Hebrews would need their own so that they would not believe the false ones from the other religions.  Hence, God inspired this account to be true in the sense that, when interpreted according to the norms of the genre, everything it teaches is inerrant.

Who would have believed it? 

>> Who knows what were the circumstances when the original material, which Moses used, was written?  Apparently the original audience understood how to interpret that genre, and they believed it the way it was meant to be believed.

Would the Israelites have been so stupid and gullible Moses could just hand them a bunch of baloney?  

>>  Absolutely not.  They understood the genre and they knew it's limits, and they didn't consider it to be baloney.  It was serious literature!  But we have been separated from the culture in which it was written by over 3 millenia, and so we are the ones who are now gullible and unable to understand what it meant.  So the unbelievers say it is a bunch of baloney, and the conservatives (like me) want to believe it is not baloney and so we declare it literal despite all the difficulties.  We are the ones being stupid and gullible, right?  If only we understood the genre better then we'd see what Moses and his audience saw, and I believe the difficulties would all disappear. 

>> Dick, I agree with everything you say from Seth on down.  And I think the Sumerian myths of Adapa may have been in the Genesis author's mind when he was composing his account of Adam; but I think the Genesis author had his own inspired agenda and was not entirely beholden to Sumerian Adapa.  He was teaching some things more important, more grand, and more correct than what the Sumerians believed.  Hence, he taught about the origin of all mankind, just like he taught about the origin of rain, and plants, and fish, and animals.  He did not leave out mankind.

Somebody would have stood up and said, “Hey, these aren’t my ancestors.”  It would have blown his credibility completely.  Then they’d start asking him where he got those commandments.  Why are there only ten?  Why is lying on the list while rape and incest isn’t?  The whole Pentateuch could have come unraveled.

>> Not if we understand the genre.  Besides, there are things in the NT that the best, conservative scholars do not beileve are literal.  When the centurion goes to Jesus to tell him not to bother coming under his roof, the other gospel says that the centurion sends his servant.  Alfred Edersheim explains that we shouldn't be too literal in the first case.  The genre allowed it to be simplified to say that the centurion went, although it was really his servant who went.  This was normative in the genre and it was not an error.  The use of normal modes of communication does not blow the credibility of the Bible.

I’ll just stick with all real, nothing made up.

I will admit whoever named their kid “Cursed of God” had a real unusual sense of humor.

>>  Whether you see it or not, its true that there are problems in your view.  For example, a snake was not literally the most crafty beast of the field, and snakes don't have adequate lung capacity to literally speak.  The account never says it is really the devil inhabiting a snake's body.  We are filling that in because we have rejected the literal view that it was a serpant, a crafty beast of the field.  We are being inconsistent if we allow a non-literal view of the serpant (by making it out to be the devil in a snake's body, which the Genesis text nowhere suggests) and yet insist that the tree or garden was exactly literal.  But we don't realize how utterly inconsistent this is because we are so used to doing it. 

>> Long ago, somebody was concording the account with science, and he knew that snakes can't annunciate vowels so he decided it was non-literal.  That was as far as he got at the time because that was as much as science knew at the time and so there was no need to seek further concordance.  But notice that he was indeed willing to go at least that far, and this affirms that it is OK to appeal to non-literal concepts in this Genesis text.  (Otherwise, we'd better start insisting that it was really a very crafty snake.) 

>> But now, we have forgotten that our predecessors were interpreting the text non-literally to get concordance with what we know about snakes.  We think this non-literal view is actually a literal view, simply because it has been around for so long. 

>> But to be consistent, we ought to continue the process of seeing what is non-literal in the account.  To do this with exegetical honestly, we need some principles to guide the process rather than being ad hoc in declaring things to be symbolic whenever we have a problem with them.  I think this is what you are reacting to, above.  You are concerned that I am cherry-picking.  But my whole point in making this hypothesis is to propose some unbiased exegetical principles, not to cherry pick.  I'm not declaring Adam and Eve and Cain to be symbolic as an ad hoc answer to evolution.  To the contrary, I think there is strong internal evidence that Cain's geneology is non-literal, as I have pointed out.  I think this much is definitively proven.  Likewise, the fact that men began calling on the name of the Lord with Seth & Enosh seems to be important to the text, and that implies there was a prior period in which men were _not_ calling on his name.  Hence, Adam could not be their literal father else there would have been no such period of darkness.  This period of darkness is represented symbolically by the geneology of Cain, which was inserted between Adam (the universal progenitor, reflected back from the literal Adam ) and Seth (the literal person), so that the account can teach about mankind's darkness prior to the coming of Seth.  I believe there are other internal evidences that come into focus the more we understand the account.  I'm proposing that, by exploring this further, we can develop a set of hermeneutics that are a model for interpreting the ancient genre, that represent a high view of Scripture, and that resolve the problems with science.

>>  BTW, I can't wait to buy your new book.  I bought your prior book about 10 years ago when it first appeared.

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Received on Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:57:54 -0500