Thank you for the quotes (Thu, 13 Nov 1997 06:16:37 -0600) showing what
Gish, Morris, Hugh Ross, Davis and Kenyon, Phillip Johnson, and others said
about Homo erectus, and your answer to my question,
>>What is your view of "the Christian view of how fossil men fit into the
>>Scriptural framework"?
As you said, there are 2 main views of how to fit fossil man into a
scriptural framework, which I would summarize as
1. recognize fossil apes and fossil men, and a few apparently intermediate
forms (which don't make a good transitional series) as perhaps post-babel
populations struggling to survive in difficult postflood conditions
(Genesis 10-11 on)
- or -
2. try to fit them into Genesis 1&2, which requires placing the fossil
record below them into Genesis 1 also, and if that fossil record represents
evolution through millions of years, requires a "day-age" or "gap" view of
Creation week, and very limited geological impact of the Flood.
At present you are choosing the latter view:
> I believe that Adam and Eve were created
>millions of years ago. The spirituality and other capabilities of fossil
>man seems to require it.
The evidences of spiritual awareness would seem to require millions of
years of the existence of mankind -- if we are to believe radiometric
dating.
As you may guess, I would offer evidence that this is not our only choice.
(see upcoming post on the KBS tuff as an example to consider.)
We can either ignore the data or agree that a being
>who was more ape like (he had simian shelf inside the jaw, sloping forehead,
>browridges, large jaw etc) was a spiritual being.
Some of the evidences of spiritual practices (such as the specially paved
area for, well, it looked like canabalism...) point to behavior that is not
christ-like. Is it possible that some of these folks were doing some
inappropriate cross-breeding also -- not a nice topic at all -- such as
that alluded to in Genesis 6? (The human heart was not changed at the
Flood.)
> This is an evolutionary change.
These people were "spiritual beings", but it may be that they were not
headed toward godliness, but were dying out in their unhappy practices.
:-(
Karen
P.S., What is Bilzingsleben? I didn't find it in my German dictionary.