>Glen,
>I like your creation model because it does place Adam as first man. It
> seems to me to be the most reasonable reading of scripture. I think you
>are in conflict with scripture with your time frame. To require that
>Adam be created 5.5 mya just doesn't seem to fit well with the society
>described in Genesis 4 & 5. In fact this society sounds strikingly
>similar to descriptions of the development of the Sumerian civilization
>in the Tigis-Euphrates valley between 9000 and 3000 BC. There is
>physical evidence that the metal working mentioned in Gen 4:22 began in
>the vicinity of 5000 BC (Science News, V 149, #15, pg 230). If, in
>actual fact, Adam was created in the vicinity of 10,000 BC that
> presents a big problem with the reconciliation of the flood story and
>geology. Where are the flood deposits? There is also the problem with
>evidence of Homo sapiens back to 40,000 ya, and before that the
>hominids. Where do they fit into to the model? I have no answers. My
>present position is that there are unexplainable differences between
>scripture and our present physical descriptions. Because of my encounter
>with Jesus Christ and the subsequent transformation of my life I am at
>ease with this unexplainable difference. I am simply waiting for new
>information.
> Bob Miller
>
Put yourself in Noah's shoes. If you and 7 of your nearest and dearest
were the only survivors of our present civilization, how much of today's
technology would you be able to pass on to your children? I contend that
you would not be able to re-start today's society. Today's society is
based upon specialists in various disciplines who support eachother
economically. I find oil for you, you teach my children for me. But the
farmer provides food for both of us so that we can engage in our
respective activities. Without the surplus of food neither you nor I
would be able to do our thing.
In a world with only 8 people left, the most pressing need would be food
now! They would not be able to wait 4 months for the crop to come in they
need to go hunting now. Anything you brought with you from the present
world would quickly become useless. A metal plow will rust and you can't
make a new one. Books left in the rain will rot so there goes the
collective knowledge of our society. After the flood, there would have
been a long dark age in which the people would be quickly reduced to
savagery. I would not expect that our current conceptions that Noah
picked up where the pre-flood world left off would even have been possible
with the technology of 5000 years ago. They were quite advanced 5000
years ago with a lot of specialists--metal workers, potters, stone masons
etc.
I believe that God taught the original civilization what it needed to know
but He didn't do that for the descendants of Noah. Thus,there must of
necessity have been a long, long period of savagery after the flood while
technology was gradually re-developed.
We do know that there is at least one gap in the genealogy of Genesis 10
which I think is a hint to us not to take the genalogies as being too
complete.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm