RE: [asa] First human

"The important point is that there is NO line of descent between the various cultural developments in question"

I don't know how you can say that. For example, the practice of burying the dead (or other death preparation rituals, such as burning the body) could be a thing that was carried over from ancestors. But some cultures are radically different, such as the example in one culture where the dead are buried, and it is a gross violation to eat the dead bodies. In another culture, they eat the dead bodies and consider it to be a gross violation to burn them. That was an actual example I read from a book.

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Murray Hogg
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 12:04 PM
To: ASA
Subject: 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 15:22:19 2009