Re: [asa] Historical Theology and Current Theology re: Original Sin & Monogenism

Phil said: *However else can we understand that the original humans were in
Mesopotamia, when we know through genetics that they were actually in
Africa? *
**
I'm not sure I want to concede this so readily. First, the mitochondrial
DNA studies this is based on aren't calibrated with laser-like precision.
Second, it doesn't seem impossible that humans originated in Mesopotamia,
dispersed (or were dispersed by God after the fall or flood / Babel) into
Africa, and then migrated back through Mesopotamia and Europe. If a small
number of humans had remained in Mesopotamia, maybe we'd still see a similar
mitochondrial DNA pattern after they became homogonized with the "returning"
African population, particularly given the very limited sample sizes on
which the current out of Africa theories are based (I think you're talking a
sample size of only hundreds or thousands of presently living people).

But, ok, all of the above does seem to be grasping. From the perspective of
harmonizing these things, it would be easier, if we are retaining Adam as a
real person (which to me is still important), to take him as a
representative whose choices had the possibility of affecting the nascent
human race for good or ill. Perhaps that small group of early human
progenitors that first migrated out of Africa wasn't "Bibliological" man --
not yet possessing God's image in a way that put them into the possibility
of a covenant relationship with God. Adam was the first "Bibliological"
man, and his breaking of the first covenant between man and God affected us
all, including, somehow, his contemporaries. (This is a view John Stott
tentatively advances in his commentary on Romans).

Maybe. I'd like to study how all this can be developed within the stream of
historical theology.

On Nov 24, 2007 1:09 PM, <philtill@aol.com> wrote:

>
> I don't know exactly how this would relate to a theology of the imago Dei
> and original sin, but it seems to suggest that biological descent alone
> doesn't determine one's spiritual status.
>
> As I've discussed (partially) with David off-line, my personal favorite
> hypothesis is that the Fall of Man was something that can only be
> comprehended outside of spacetime. It would be somewhat analogous to the
> Atonement in that Christ took the sins of God's people from both before and
> after the event -- it was not limited to the sins already committed. If the
> Fall is also outside spacetime, then it needn't have occurred in a single
> event by a single human at any particular location in spacetime. It may
> have been that "Adam"=mankind partook of the Fall in some way as a community
> outside of time, neither before nor after the universe (so it is not a
> question of pre-existence of the soul). If so, then we as a race are
> inherently fallen, possessing original sin, and so from the very start God
> created just the sort of universe that would be fitting for our redemption
> and projected humanity into it. The universe therefore never "fell". It
> was created "fallen" (with pain, etc.) from the Big Bang onward because it
> was made for us. The account of the garden would therefore be understood as
> a metaphor written into the setting of spacetime so that we could comprehend
> what the Fall entails, even though we cannot comprehend it in its fullness
> any more than we can comprehend Christ's payment on the cross in its
> fullness. We are dealing with infinities of sin and culpability and
> holiness and grace, and so the best we can do is to extrapolate what we do
> know, project it into comprehensible symbols, create analogies to
> communicate how we should see our relationship with the Eternal God. The
> account of the garden may be one such analogy -- and a divinely inspired one
> at that -- written in the well-known mythopoeic genre of the time so that
> the original audience would understand the message without being confused by
> the form of the analogy.
>
> However else can we understand that the original humans were in
> Mesopotamia, when we know through genetics that they were actually in
> Africa? The text goes to some detail in describing the four rivers that
> were clearly Mesopotamian. I have tried to no avail to find a way around
> that. So it's not just a question of monogenism versus polygenism that
> keeps us from taking the account as entirely literal with a universal Adam.
> It's also a question of the setting and the timing. Because of its setting
> and timing, either we must take the garden to be a literal event that was
> well after the origin of humanity and well outside of the region of
> mankind's first appearance (Dick's view), or we must take it to be at least
> partially non-literal. If we wish to believe Adam (or "Adam") was the
> universal progenitor, then it becomes a question of _how_ non-literal the
> account was. Is only the Mesopotamian setting non-literal? Well, there's
> also the snake, which was non-literal. (It wasn't merely a snake, the most
> crafty beast of the field, as the text says.) Was a piece of fruit that
> gives you the knowledge of good and evil also entirely literal, or was that
> figurative of a spiritual transaction more profound than simply biting into
> food? Let's face it -- the account is written pretty closely to
> expectations as something intended by its author to be understood within the
> mythopoeic genre. How could we ever fail to see that?
>
> This doesn't mean that there wasn't a literal, universal Adam way back in
> Africa, represented by the Mesopotamian "Adam" of the account. Maybe there
> was, maybe there wasn't, as far as this text interpreted according to that
> genre is concerned. So it becomes a matter of science and of systematic
> theology, but not biblical theology. What does systematic theology require
> us to believe about Adam?
>
> If my view is truly heretical for some reason I have not seen yet, then I
> will abandon it. But this is what I've been considering as a possibility
> for a year or two, now.
>
> Phil
>
>
>
>
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Received on Sat Nov 24 13:43:20 2007