<<Bob, you have misunderstood what I have said. I am uncertain of what to do
with the australopithecines. >>
I know about your uncertainty with the australopithecines. Yet in you book,
_Adam, Apes and Anthropology_ (p. 185) you wrote, "Five and a half million
years ago, an ape-like creature gave birth to a child that had a grievous
genetic defect. This child had 46 chromosomes rather than the normal 48 of
her species. The child was born dead. God took pity on this creature, fixed
the defect, and breathed life into it. This was Adam."
Your account is very imaginative and I admire your ingenuity in trying to
bring Scripture and science into accord. But you depict God as acting
opportunistically, on the spur of the moment, out of pity, to correct a
grievous defect, and from this action emerged Adam. This is a radically
different account from the one given in Gen. 1: 26-27, where the Godhead takes
deliberate council to create humanity in their image, not out of pity, but
with a grand purpose for them to multiply and have dominion over the earth.
Was this resuscitated hominid you describe the Adam of the Bible? The Adam of
the Bible had enough brain power and language facility to study and name the
animals that God brought to him. God wanted to see what Adam would call them.
Adam acted in the best traditions of a modern scientist. Does your
resuscitated hominid possess capabilities that enabled him to do that? Or
to manage the garden where God placed him? That's stretching my credibility
beyond the breaking point.
Granted that making of art probably goes back a long way in the human lineage
as you described in your last post. But this is far different from the
cognitive activity of classifying and naming animals as Adam did. The ability
to use language is probably dependent on the formation of the Broca and
Wernicke areas of the brain (p. 13, _AA and A_) which appeared in the human
lineage a long way downstream from the resuscitated Adam you described on p.
185. I don't see how a such an Adam qualifies as the Adam of the Bible.
For the best arguments for a recent, historical Adam I refer everyone to
Chapters 10, 11, and 12 of Dick Fischer's book _The Origins Solution_. His
ideas are summarized in " The Search for the Historical Adam, Part 1" in
_Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith_Vol. 45, December 1993; and " The
Search for the Historical Adam, Part 2" _PSCF_ March 1994.
Bob