RE: Adam never met Eve

From: Vandergraaf, Chuck (vandergraaft@aecl.ca)
Date: Fri Nov 10 2000 - 21:30:11 EST

  • Next message: Dawsonzhu@aol.com: "Re: Adam never met Eve"

    Dick,

    Thanks for "butting in." I don't mind; I've always found your comments
    interesting. I'm going to be out of the country for about a week and won't
    have time to look at your response in any detail. However, I note that you
    did not address Adam and his rib or Jonah and his whale/fish. Maybe we can
    leave that to Howard, once he's back on his feet again.

    Chuck

    > ----------
    > From: Dick Fischer[SMTP:dickfischer@earthlink.net]
    > Sent: Thursday November 09, 2000 9:27 PM
    > To: asa@calvin.edu
    > Subject: RE: Adam never met Eve
    >
    > Chuck Vandergraaf wrote:
    >
    >
    >
    > Lately, though. I've started to see myself as a penguin on an ice
    > floe
    > heading north, towards the equator: I'm the penguin and the ice
    > under my
    > feet is Word of God. As we obtain more and more information, more
    > and more
    > of the OT turns out to be not what we were taught it to be. There
    > was
    > apparently no "Adam" as he is portrayed in Genesis, and his missing
    > rib
    > didn't turn into his spouse. There may not have been an Ark as we
    > understand it and Noah (or whoever he was) did not bring all the
    > animals
    > with him. The book of Esther may have been little more than a
    > "morale
    > booster" and Jonah may not have visited Nineveh.
    >
    >
    > and:
    >
    >
    >
    > Finally, how does this impact on the Sunday School curriculum? Do
    > we still
    > tell the stories about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and let
    > the kids
    > find out later that "it wasn't necessarily so," or do we tell them
    > that
    > "it's only a story" so that they won't have to face disappointment
    > later on?
    >
    > The ice floe is melting....
    >
    >
    > Please pardon me for being Mr. Butinsky, as this was addressed to Howard,
    > but I have been on this list for years now, and have argued until I turned
    > blue upon occasion that all of Genesis 2-11 has historical integrity.
    > Okay, set aside Adam and Noah for awhile. Let's look at some of Noah's
    > progeny starting with his sons, Japheth, Ham and Shem.
    >
    > Genesis 10:2. Japheth had seven sons: "Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal,
    > Meshech, and Tiras." Josephus attaches Magog to the Scythians on the Sea
    > of Asof and the Caucasus. The Medes are derived from Madai. Javan is
    > given credit for founding the Greeks. Herodotus placed descendants of
    > Tubal on the east of Thermodon. Meshech relates to the Moschi "in the
    > Moschian mountains between Iberia, Armenia, and Colchis." Tribal
    > offshoots of Tiras have been associated with Thrace, Egypt, and Assyria.
    >
    > Genesis 10:3. Gomer had three sons: "Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah."
    > Ashkenaz has been linked with some peoples in the area of Germany, and
    > possibly with the Ascanians in upper Phrygia. Many who live in the
    > eastern United States call themselves "Ashkenazi Jews." The Armenians can
    > be traced to Togarmah.
    >
    > Genesis 10:4: The sons of Javan were "Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and
    > Dodanim." Spain may have been the land of choice for the offshoots of
    > Tarshish, although Tarsus in ancient Cilicia, birthplace of Paul, is
    > Tarshish in Hebrew. Kittimites can be found in Cyprus, and possibly, on
    > the shores at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. Dodanim's
    > descendants are connected with the north of Greece.
    >
    > Genesis 10:6. The sons of Ham are: "Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and
    > Canaan." The descendants of Cush are identified with Eastern Mesopotamia,
    > Arabia, Southern Asia, and Khuzistan in present-day Iran. Mizraim is
    > Egypt. Even when Mizraim is mentioned later in the OT, translators put
    > "Egyptians." The Canaanites took the southeastern shore of the
    > Mediterranean Sea.
    >
    > In 1977, the Canaanite city of Ebla was brought to light at Tell Mardikh
    > in Syria. Dating to the Chalcolithic period, Ebla appears to have been a
    > major trading partner with Mari and Uruk. The clay tablets excavated from
    > Ebla revealed a cuneiform style of writing similar to that found at
    > Shuruppak and Abu Salabikh, dating to the same period.
    >
    > Genesis 10:8: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the
    > earth."
    >
    > Genesis 10:10: Nimrod is called the "mighty hunter." "And the beginning
    > of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the land of
    > Shinar." All of these cities have been found and excavated except for
    > Accad. Yet Accad is known from the written history of southern
    > Mesopotamia. The exploits of Nimrod remain a mystery. No traces of
    > Nimrod have yet been found in the annals of ancient history except for a
    > city named Birs Nimrud.
    >
    > Genesis 10:11: "Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh,
    > and the city of Rehoboth, and Calah." A clay tablet was recovered in
    > excavations at Khorsabad in 1933-34. It contains a list of Assyrian kings
    > beginning with "17 kings who lived in tents," probably nomads. "Tudia"
    > tops the list of kings followed by "Adamu," a likely namesake of his
    > famous forefather. Farther down the list, the 38th king is "Puzar-Assur."
    > He was one of many Assyrian kings named in honor of a more immediate
    > forefather, Asshur of Genesis 10:11.
    >
    > Asshur began the Assyrian empire in the northeast corner of Upper
    > Mesopotamia where the Tigris river runs from northwest to southeast. Here
    > mounds of ruins can still be found today along both banks of the river.
    >
    > This is a quote from The Cambridge Ancient History: "The knowledge about
    > some of the cities buried under these mounds was never lost. That the
    > mound of Nimrud on the east bank, close to the point where the Greater Zab
    > flows into the Tigris, was the town of Kalakh mentioned in Genesis 10:11
    > was told by the natives to a British representative of the East India
    > Company who explored the site in 1820. They even knew that the country to
    > which this town had once belonged was named 'al-Assur'.
    >
    > Building cities, however, does not mean Asshur started from scratch on
    > virgin soil. Although the excavations at the city of Asshur only hint at
    > previous habitation, the underlying ruins beneath Nineveh revealed levels
    > of occupation that preceded the arrival of the Assyrians by roughly 1,000
    > years. The artifacts recovered at Nineveh were related to the pre-flood
    > Ubaid or Halafian cultures, not to the Semite or Sumerian peoples.
    >
    > Pottery and artifacts dating to the pre-flood period at Nineveh is
    > unmistakable evidence of a pre-existing populated site upon which Asshur
    > could build an Assyrian city, but the testimony runs deeper then that.
    > Cuneiform writing found at the site reveals the city already was called
    > "Ninua" before Asshur arrived
    >
    > Mizraim and his sons are associated with Egypt. By no means does that
    > signify they gave birth to the entire Egyptian populace. With the
    > exception of the Philistines, who came from Casluhim with reinforcements
    > from Caphtor, the rest of Mizraim's sons leave only sparse traces in
    > various parts of Egypt. Pathrusim is associated with the island of
    > Pathros where John was exiled.
    > From Noah's grandson, Canaan, came Sidon and Heth, followed by the
    > Jebusites, Amorites, Girgasites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites,
    > Zemarites, and the Hamathites.
    >
    > Sidonians dwelt at the "northern borders of Canaan or Phoenicia." The
    > Hittites are the sons of Heth, and initially occupied a stretch of land
    > south of the Black Sea before they began their conquering ways. Jebusites
    > inhabited Jerusalem. Amorites remained closely associated with the
    > Canaanites, and ranged from "the mountains of Judah and beyond the Jordan
    > in the time of Moses."
    >
    > The Arkites found their space in the south of Lebanon, also the home of
    > choice for the Sinites, though no one seems to know exactly where. The
    > Arvadites took up residence on a "small rocky island of Arados to the
    > north of Tripolis." Zemerites were the "inhabitants of Simyra in
    > Eleutherus." The town of Hamath, located about 115 miles north of
    > Damascus, was founded by the Hamathites.
    >
    > Genesis 10:22: The children of Shem are: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and
    > Aram. From Lud came the Lydians who may have remained in the same general
    > area as the Assyrians, though Bush places them in Ethiopia. The
    > Aramaeans, founded by Aram, situated themselves in various parts of Syria
    > and Mesopotamia, and from them the Chaldeans descended. The children of
    > Aram - Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash - are all to be found in close proximity
    > to the same area settled by their father. Joktan is considered to be the
    > head of the primitive Arabian tribes; his sons can be traced largely to
    > places and districts in Arabia.
    >
    > In short, the geneaologies in Genesis 10, confirmed by archaeology and
    > ancient history, underscores the historical integrity of the biblical
    > narrative. By the way, this is one of the reasons I find Glenn Morton's
    > explanation so "out to lunch." How could grandsons and great grandsons,
    > which are identifiable as living from about 3,000 years ago, be
    > immediately related to a man (Noah) who presumably lived 5 million years
    > ago?
    >
    > Start paddling that ice berg back south, Chuck.
    >
    > Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
    > "The answer we should have known about 150 years ago."
    >
    >



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