Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article

James -- reading what you've said here, I'm wondering if we've been
disagreeing when we really basically agree.

You said: *to deny what Genesis tells us about Adam and Even being the ones
God chose to impart spiritual existence to, and who chose to sin.*

I respond: Personally, I believe Adam and Eve were real individuals whom
God chose, into whom God breathed something "more" for the first time, and
who chose to sin, the results of which propogated throughout the entire
human race. So I don't think we disagree here.

You also said: *there’s some genetics back there with Cain wandering off,
it seems. What does one do with the aborigines that appeared in Australia at
circa 40 kBC?*

I respond: yes, exactly! So there are "humans," not descendants of Adam,
around when Cain wanders off (hence his fear and the need for the mark of
Cain). Cain and other descendants of Adam intermingle with them and the
resulting generations are therefore also descendants of Adam, in some
mysterious way propogating the imago Dei and original sin. Certainly by the
time the scriptures are written, all living people can trace their geneology
to Adam, though *genetically *the human population is more diverse than n of
2.

To me, the foregoing sort of model at present seems to do the best job of
integrating all the information we have available, including the data
(however mushy) from population genetics, and preserves some important
theological considerations concerning how scripture treats Adam. It leaves
some interesting questions -- what about the spiritual status of those
"pre-Adamites" with whom Adam's descendants mingled? -- but if scripture
doesn't tell us, maye we don't need to know.

If we agree that the foregoing is a viable model, I don't think we really
have any substantial disagreement. If you want to say -- *"let's hold a
model such as the above as a tentative possibility, with another possibility
being that there's enough fuzziness in the pog gen data that maybe somehow
all the genetic diversity can trace to an n of 2 as well"* -- I'm perfectly
fine with that and would happily welcome robust data to show that.

David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
 On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 9:51 PM, James Patterson <james000777@bellsouth.net>
wrote:
>
> -- I've read many of the scientific articles you cite before, but I'm not
sure I've read all of them. Do any of them suggest an "n=2" for the origin
of modern humans? I don't think that's the case, but I could be wrong.
>
> Nope. Not a one. To do so would be considered a religious bent, and would
be unacceptable in a scientific (read: naturalist) journal. I think that, if
Adam and Eve were the progenitors of mankind, or even the Hebrews, then God
stirred the pot. Russell’s OSP if you don’t like miraculous intervention.
>
> -- When you say "n=2", do you insist that "n" consist of the origins of
the modern human genome?
>
>
>
> Not insistent, but I don’t presume it’s impossible. However it is worth
pointing out here that even RTB states that the dawn of man was *sometime*
10-100 kBC, mankind spread out from its origins at ~40 kBC, the flood was
about ~20 kBC, was universal and not global, and that Noah’s lineage was the
origins of the Hebrew race. So…there’s some genetics back there with Cain
wandering off, it seems. What does one do with the aborigines that appeared
in Australia at circa 40 kBC?
>
>
>
> Can "n" consist instead of spiritual properties?
>
>
>
> I think so.
>
>
>
> Let me offer something I think is an analogue: if Abraham was the father
of the Hebrew nation, was it necessary that every "true" Hebrew have genetic
material derived only from Abraham and Sarah, or was it possible to be
grafted into the Hebrew nation through marriage or other spiritual
relationships (follow up query to this question: were the children of Moses
and Zipporah Hebrews?)?
>
>
>
> Well I certainly hope it’s possible to be grafted into the Hebrew nation!
I’m counting on it! I think I answered this question above, tho.
>
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> JP
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Received on Wed Feb 25 09:42:42 2009