| >Can we also agree that the resuscitated being so created by God was not
the
| >Adam of Gen. 2, but rather the "adam", the first hominid in the long
lineage
| >of humanity?
|
| No, we can not so agree. For those who may be new to the list, I need to
| explain why I do what I do before I answer your question. Christian
| theology has traditionally believed that Adam was the first of the human
| race. When this concept is added to the concept of direct, divine
| intervention in the creation of man, creation apart from and separate
from
| the animals, one then has a problem with the modern scientific data. One
| can do what liberals have done and believe that this portion of scripture
| is allegorical. But if one prefers concordism, which I do, then I have
to
| explain why unique pseudogenes are found at the same sites in man,
gorilla,
| chimp, and gibbon, but not on other primates. Since the pseudogenes are
| non-working, broken copies of working genes, it seems strange that a
| designer would design a broken part on his brand new creation. And
| especially a part that is identical to non-working parts on other,
| evolutionarily closely related species. This data clearly indicates that
| we DO have ape genes in our bodies. For the pseudogenes one cannot claim
| common design as the YECs do because designers don't design broken
things.
|
| So, the only way that I could unite the clear Biblical indications of
| direct divine intervention in the creation of Adam with the obvious
| evidence that we are related to the apes is to assume that the body came
| from the apes, and the spirit from God. This is not much different (in
| total effect if not in detail) from the Catholic belief that apes evolved
| to a particular place and God then inserted a soul. The thing I don't
| like about the 'insertion' theory is that there is no clear point at
which
| one can define the insertion. All I add to that is a suggestion that
when
| two of the ape chromosomes fused to form a single chromosome 2 in man
(apes
| have 48 and man has 46 chromosomes), that this was the point at which God
| intervened. I presume that the fusion resulted in a nonviable being
which
| God then fixed up. Can I ever prove this scenario--obviously not. But I
| can point to the fact that the divergences in the genomes of anatomically
| modern people alive today are so great that it would take 1 to 2 million
| years for all these differences to accumulate. Modern genetics clearly
| shows that our ancestry goes much further back than is possible if
| biological Adam lived within the last 100,000 years as Ross, Wilcox and
| others believe. This tidbit supports my view of an ancient Adam and does
| not support a recent Adam as long as one accepts the assumption that Adam
| must be the biological head of the human race. The only exception is to
do
| what Dick Fischer suggests and make Adam not be the biological head of
the
| human family.
As I understand it, you believe that Eve was created miraculously
from one of Adam's ribs? Why do you go half-way in accepting that
up until Adam evolution could happen 'naturally", but then at that
point have God step in and act miraculously, firstly to resuscitate
Adam and then to create Eve. What is to stop me from assuming that
mankind evolved in the same way that all other creatures did, without
divine intervention?
Secondly, how does the Fall fit in to your scenario? As I see it,
if we evolved from animals then surely it is reasonable to expect us
to behave like them too? This doesn't mean that the law of the jungle
prevails - Frans de Waal has written an excellent book about the origins
of morality among apes. Why do we have to propose a Fall to explain the
behaviour of the human race?
Regards,
Jon.
_____________________________________________________
jon.warren@ibm.net