Re: [asa] First human

It's in the very nature of dating of archaeological evidence that there are very broad uncertainties on the measurements - so "at about the same time" means precisely that.

The important point is that there is NO line of descent between the various cultural developments in question - so it doesn't really matter whether they happened at precisely the same moment or over the space of hundreds of years. What matter is this: if one chooses to define "human" by appeal to cultural phenomena of the sort in question (a more or less "socio-cultural" rather than "biological" or "theological" definition), then this would be inconsistent with the idea that there is a first human pair from which all humans are descended.

Which, needless to say, gives lie to the claim that humans NECESSARILY descend from an original pair (actually, I'm surprised that Greg, given his HSS perspective, doesn't recognize the physical science [i.e. Darwinist] assumption he HIMSELF is making in his argument for a "first human" - but there you go).

All that needs to be added is that (1) one could still argue for common ancestry if one chooses another definition; and (2) it could be argued that this sudden development in human cultures came about due to some divine activity occurring at more than one place among more than one group of people - so I think it quite possible that one could argue theologically that "at about the same time" to mean "simultaneously."

Blessings,
Murray

Dehler, Bernie wrote:
> When you say:
> "at about the same time"
>
> You may mean over the course of over a few hundred years, not in the same year, correct? Just trying to be more precise.
>
> ...Bernie

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Received on Tue Oct 6 15:06:19 2009