> Thank you Glenn for working on my questions. In response to my question about
> the relationship between hominids and the historical first couple you replied
> that we need to define what a human is and that some have postulated that God
> intervened at some point along the way of hominid development and called the
> suitably advanced model Adam and Eve. (Sorry about the paraphrase |: ) I have a
> couple of problems with that theory. First, its only reason for existence seems
> to be to hook the hominids to scripture. I have never heard any scriptural or
> extrabiblical support for this idea.
I would say the reason is not simpply to link the hominids to Scripture,
but to fit them into a theological framework inescapable in the NT (a
literal, spate-time Fall, original sin, the "first Adam/last Adam"
analogy used by Paul, etc.)
>Secondly, it doesn't get around the problem
> of a first couple. If God had waited until the hominids had evolved to
> Cro-Magnon, then breathed into some couple the breath of life to make them the
> first couple, what happened to the rest of the Cro-Magnon population? It doesn't
> seem to fit God's character to just wipe them out.
>
But it may well be that wihout the special act of God described as
breathing the breath (Hebrew ruah = "spirit, breath") of life, and
thereby creating the creatures in God's image (whateer else that might
mean), the creatures were not subject to redemption, and "wiping them
out" would have no more significance than other extinctions.
Garry DeWeese