>What is the source for your knowledge here? I don't know who the kings of
>Egypt were in the 35th century BC but that does not allow me to say
>definitively that there were no kings at that time. I would dare say that
>you are as lacking in proof for this statement as I am lacking proof for
>my belief that there was an Adam. Your certitude has no place on this
>issue unless you have been talking privately to God and He told you this
>information.
Well I did talk privately to God quite a bit about this about 10 years ago :) .
Seriously, my claim follows logically from acceptance of BOTH positions of
Glenn and Dick (forgive me if I mis-remember exact details, but I think I have
the essential points correct):
1) Glenn says that a literal Adam must be the progenitor of all mankind,
but anthropological and molecular biological evidence establishes that any
such progenitor is older than 100,000 years, maybe as old as 5.5 million years.
I agree with this 100% and am impressed by the weight of evidence.
2) Dick says that a literal reading of Genesis demands that any literal Adam
must be 7,000 years old (or less?). I confess I'm inclined to agree with this
-- it seems to be in accord with the Biblical timeline presented, and it
strains credulity to think that a 5-million year old ancestor could wind up in
a Hebrew story of only a few thousand years ago.
I and a large fraction of the posts accept BOTH 1 and 2 -- a literal Adam
must be the progenitor of all mankind -- hence older than many 10's of
thousands of years -- but must also be no older than 7,000 years.
----><----
There is no logical possibility of satisfying both these conditions, ergo there
was no literal Adam. There may have been a historical "Atum" guy running around
-- probably was -- but this guy is not the progenitor of the human race and,
correspondingly, not _literally_ specially created in a Garden with only one
rule.
-- Dave