>I presume you have control of what you make your scenario say. I too
>believe that Adam is representative but he is also the progenitor of the
>human race.
According to anthropologists (but what do they know?), 5.5 million years
ago would be the sub-human race.
>>You can't mix anthropology in with biblical sources very easily.
>
>Why? You mix the Gilgamesh Epic in with the Bible all the time? And as I
>have observed when the Bible contradicts the Gilgamesh Epic, it is the
>Gilgamesh Epic which you believe is the correct version.
The eleventh tablet of Gilgamesh is one epic written in a Semitic language
precursor to biblical Hebrew, which parallels the biblical account. The
narrative was probably (my guess) written by an imaginative scribe who drew
upon traditional beliefs. Whether the king of Uruk (biblical Erech) ever
met the man who survived the great flood is problematical though they may
have been contemporaries.
The similarities imply that the story was known at the time by the
Accadians. Parts of the story are true, if the Bible is true. I trust the
biblical
text for reasons that go beyond the verity of the flood narrative.
Discrepancies and variances in the two versions can be ascribed to
antiquity, separate paths taken (Abraham left Sumer for the land of Canaan,
many of his kin remained in the region and eventually became what we call
Babylonians), the whims, motives, and inspiration (or non-inspiration) of
the scribes. The Bible prophesys in connection with historical narrative,
placing the inspired text in another category besides history.
Dick wrote earlier:
>>Adam
>>entered a populated world. All the races were in place including native
>>Americans. The flood was judgment upon the Adamites. After the flood
>>the Adamite clan mixed with the Sumerians to form the Babylonians, all
>>easily dated at around 1700 BC to 2000 BC.
Glenn replied:
>Then I must conclude that my wife should not have married me.
I know I wouldn't have (Dick fired back snidely).
>Genesis 6:1-3 says that God takes a dim view of such intermarriages.
I must have a look at your translation.
Let's examine Gen. 6:1-2: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply
on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons
of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them
wives of all which they chose."
The "sons of God," who are they? Some contend these are angels, perhaps
fallen angels. But is that the case here? The Hebrew phrase in this
passage, and elsewhere in the Old Testament, can refer to angels (Job 1:6;
2:1; 38:7; Psa. 29:1; 89:6). But the same term also describes humans who
lived their lives in service to God (Deut. 14:1; 32:5; Psa. 73:15;
Hosea 1:10). How should it be interpreted here?
For a start, what are angels supposed to do regarding us humans? In
Hebrews 1:14, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister
for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" If that is their proper role,
wouldn't it be out of character for them to be involved in these trysts?
Also, even if they had the desire to sire human offspring would they be
capable of that? Angels, while appearing as men at certain times, do not
possess physical bodies as we do, and should not be able to father human
children.
Furthermore, angels do not marry. "The children of this world marry, and
are given in marriage: but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain
that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given
in marriage; neither can they die anymore, for they are equal unto the
angels and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection"
(Luke 20:34-36). And in Mark 12:25, "For when they shall rise from the
dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels
which are in heaven."
Two relevant bits of information exude from these passages. Angels do not
die or marry. Sons of God, who marry, should be humans. Throughout the
New Testament, the term "sons of God" or "children of God" is applied
exclusively to humans (Matt. 5:9; Rom. 8:14,19; Rom. 9:26; II Cor. 6:18;
Gal. 3:26). Nowhere in the New Testament do these terms apply to angels.
Could they have been fallen angels? Would it have been possible that
disenfranchised angels took possession of the bodies of humans in order to
engage in marriage and procreation? Not likely; fallen angels or demons
are not called "sons of God" anywhere in Scripture. They have forfeited
that right.
Furthermore, if these had been fallen angels dabbling with the human race,
then the flood would have brought only temporary relief. Demons would not
drown. Any marriage-minded demons could have just waited and preyed upon
the next batch of humans. Besides, the notion of demons desiring to enter
into holy matrimony is a bit curious.
If the term "sons of God" refers to humans, then who could they have been?
Perhaps those "who called upon the name of the Lord," the generations of
Seth. Then who were the "daughters of men"? The daughters of men could
have been descendants from the now mixed generations of Cain, or perhaps
they came from the indigenous populations that co-existed with the Adamites
in the same region.
Some have contended that what has been translated "sons of God" (bene
elohim), refers instead to sons, or servants, of pagan gods. Indeed, a
clear example of this can be found in Exodus 18:11 which states, "the Lord
is greater than all gods (elohim) ..." Daughters of ha'adam or "the Adam,"
then, would be Adamite women. Using this line of logic, Genesis 6:1-2
would be translated: "And it came to pass, when the Adamites began to
multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that
the sons [or servants] of the gods saw the daughters of the Adamites that
they were fair ..."
What comes through in either translation is that there were two distinct
populations, some were in the covenant line from Adam, others were not, and
they were intermarrying. In 1860, Edward William Lane wrote:
... the most obvious meaning, beyond dispute, is, that the
men and women here mentioned were of different races, and
hence that the former saw in the latter a beauty surpassing
that of their own women.
What was the consequence of such mixed marriages? Reduced life spans.
Genesis 6:3: "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with
man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty
years."
If angels or demons, who are presumed to be immortal, had been the
bridegrooms, the effect should have been a prolonging not a shortening of
life spans. But if these were human bonds of matrimony, then the outcome,
a reduction in life spans, is what we would expect. Marriages between the
long-lived descendants of Adam and the short-lived daughters from the local
population, perhaps mixed with the line of Cain, produced offspring with
intermediate life spans, limited eventually to no more than 120 years.
Enoch walked with the Lord after 365 years, and Noah's father, Lamech,
succumbed at 777. An early demise kept Lamech from being caught up in the
deluge. Noah passed on at age 950, twenty years older than Adam when he
died. Original Sin may have brought some form of death, but through ten
generations, life spans were unaffected.
Noah's son, Shem, died at 600 years of age. The first downward shift in
longevity came after ten consecutive generations of long life. This is an
indication that Noah's wife was the probable cause, and that she had Cainite
ancestry or a direct bloodline tie to the indigenous population. Although
Noah was "perfect in his generations" (Gen. 6:9), no claim is made about his
wife. When Noah's perfect line, through Adam and Seth, was mixed with his
wife's imperfect line, their offspring had shorter life spans; and Shem, who
only lived to 600, was the first to suffer a speedy demise.
Look at the succeeding generations of Shem. Arpachshad, Shelah, and Eper
failed to make it to 500. The next five generations did not see a 250th
birthday. Abraham and Isaac passed away at 175 and 180, respectively.
Jacob died before reaching 150, and so it went. Intermarriages between
the long-lived Semites and their short-lived neighbors produced children
who died off at increasingly younger ages. Gradually, the results of
mixing took its toll.
In light of all we now know, Genesis 6:1-3 describes intermarriages between
the Adamite populations and the Ubaidans or Sumerians. From the Lagash King
list, Jacobsen noted that the post-flood kings of Lagash (Semites
probably) not only lived extraordinarily long, they also lived
extraordinarily "slowly."
In those days a child spent a hundred years
In diapers (lit. "in <bits> of the wash")
After he had grown up he spent a hundred years
Without being given any task (to perform)
He was small, he was dull witted
His mother watched over him.
In contrast to the long-lived post-flood kings, skeletal remains at the
pre-Adamic city of Catal Huyuk yielded an average age at death of about 34
years old. Has archeological discovery confirmed the mixing of covenant
generations with non-covenant generations? This comes from Jacquetta Hawkes:
Another break in cultural tradition and an acceleration in civic
advance began around 4000 BC. Some historians believe that these
changes were due to the arrival of the Sumerians on the plain,
perhaps again coming from the north. Others do not accept a
distinct immigrant group but see the Sumerians as an amalgam of all
the prehistoric peoples of the region. The language, however, when
it came to be recorded, does suggest a Sumerian tongue overlaying a
more primitive one that might well have been that of the Ubaidans.
It also contains some Semitic elements and it is likely that Semites
were already drifting into the valley from the north.
Technically, "Semites" refers to the descendants of Shem because universally
historians do not recognize Adam or Noah. Is it possible, though, that the
Sumerian language contained not "Semitic elements," but Adamic or pre-flood
Accadian language elements? If so, then the presence of loan words in the
Sumerian language supports Genesis 6:1-3. Adamites were mixing with
Non-Adamites.
>Your view seems to have certain overtones that I find disturbing. In
>light of that verse, why is it OK for my wife to have married me when
>she is an Adamite and I am not?
Moses had an "Ethiopian" wife - no problem. The results of the inter-
marriages were that the Adamites became polytheistic and began to take on
other disturbing aspects of the Sumerian civilization.
>So am I to understand you correcty that "ish" means non-Adamite except
>when you say it doesn't? Similarly "adam" means Adamite except when you
>say it doesn't? Why should occurring the the same sentence make any
>difference.
Do you remember a story about blind men feeling various parts of an
elephant? One thought an elephant was like a rope, another a snake, a
tree, etc. The entire elephant can be appreciated only when we take off
the blinders and see in its entirety. I can't compress the entire book
into this forum. I couldn't even get all the corroborative data stuffed
into a 380 page book! All I can tell you is that the entire sequence of
events from Adam through the tower of Babel makes the most sense, is the
least confusing, and is partially corroborated when taken in a local
and recent context.
Dick Fischer
THE ORIGINS SOLUTION
http://www.orisol.com
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