RE: The wrong horse in evolution education

Hi Dick, you wrote (10 Apr 2006):
> ...
> How we view and interpret the OT Scriptures can depend on whether we
> think of them as God's Words copied down by Hebrew prophets, or whether
> we favor the idea that the Hebrew prophets wrote their own words under
> Godly supervision, or something in between.

It may have been any mixture of those and more. The prophets wrote their own
words, but God motivated them, guided and inspired their thinking in various
ways, refrained them from going off in a tangent, ordered them point-blank to
put in some specific word or statement, placed a spiritual charge on them for a
week before allowing them to go on writing, etc. etc. The kind and amount of
God's influence may have varied quite a lot. We don't know.

But we can surmise that God achieved his goal he had in mind with the particular
piece being written. And with the particular book being composed over some
period of time. And with the whole canon finally being selected. And with the
effect his Word was to have on many people, first in Israel, but also in many
other peoples, cultures, and times. No matter how much or how little of this the
writer knew or understood.

We have various biblical statements relevant for framing a theory of
inspiration, and I'm sure many theologians have analyzed them. I'd be glad to
find a book on a theory of inspiration that rings true and unbiased.

> In the case of Gen. 1-11 the original human authors had been long
> deceased before a later editor (Moses?) put them together. I might
> agree with you if I thought God was writing over the heads of the human
> Hebrew authors and was aiming at a gentile audience. He could have, but
> I don't think so.

No, I don't think God was writing over the heads of the human authors, see
above. At least such a thing would be more of an exception than the rule. I have
said before that sometimes the authors might not quite have understood all the
aspects of what they wrote - according to biblical testimonies. A biblical text
_may_ have more than one correct interpretation (e.g. the reference Paul makes
to Hagar and Sarah in Gal. 4:24-31 or to Israel's wilderness experiences in 1
Cor. 10:1-11).

As for "aiming at a gentile audience", I'd rather say God announced some aspects
of his future plans, such as his word to Abraham, "in you all the families of
the earth shall be blessed" (Gen. 12:3). And I hardly think we miss the point if
we take the cration narrative of Gen. 1 to be a message for all humans. And so
with many aspects in-between, although of course Gen. 2-11 represent primarily
the history of the descendents of Adam.

> What I go on is more than just reading the words out of context. There
> is a definite Hebrew attitude toward people outside the camp. I would
> be shocked to think that the Israelites would read Gen. 1:27 and think
> it pertained to anybody besides them.

I'm sorry to be shocking you, but I definitely believe that Gen. 1:27 is very
relevant for all of humanity, including gentiles. How some Israelites might have
read it is beside the point. I cannot imagine Jesus, who said, "make disciples
of all nations", to have read it in a restrictive sense.

> One of the reasons I suspect that Noah (and Cain) married outside the
> royal bloodline is because of the way their wives are given short-shrift
> and are unnamed, versus Adam and Abraham who had wives to be proud of,
> so to speak. God may have considered these women worthy of a mention
> had He been the primary author.

I agree that Cain (and possibly Noah) married outside the Adamite line. But I
wouldn't subscribe to your last sentence. Didn't God consider Tamar, Rahab, Ruth
and Bathsheba to be women worthy of mention in Jesus' kingly genealogy (Mat. 1)?
And look at their references! Foreigner would be the most gentle of their
connotations. And they did get mentioned, although no author writing in terms of
his contemporary culture alone would do so (just as with women being the first
witnesses of Christ's resurrection!).

> If 'adam had been translated "Adam" every time it came up in Genesis
> 1-11 we wouldn't be having these discussions at all. But the KJV
> translators had preconceived notions and we're stuck with them.

We are not stuck with the KJV; I very seldom look at it. And whenever an
argument is to be made about a particular name, word, or phrase, I'll consider
it in Hebrew or Greek, with their connotations in other contexts. I know and
share your criticism about depending on some translations or other traditional
concepts.

> As I have pointed out before, 'adam and 'ish are both used for "man."
> Translators have carelessly commingled them, however, so we can't see
> the differences in pertinent verses.

None of my arguments commingled 'adam and 'ish.

> Once you have given up the distinction as you do by conferring 'adam on
> generic man in Genesis 1:27, you have lost the ability to make any
> further conclusions on subsequent verses that would aid your (and my)
> case that Adam comes late in the progression of mankind and that the
> Adamic race is not the same as the human race.

If you believe 'adam must always refer to Adamites and 'ish always to people not
descended from Adam, you should present a plausible justification for it,
considering all occurrences in the OT. With 'ish, that would be quite some work
as there are far more than 1000 occurrences. But there is no need for that: in
Gen.2-3, the 4 occurrences of 'ish all refer to Adam, Eve's husband. And in
Gen.6:9, Noah is called a "righteous man ['ish]". So the distinction between
'adam and 'ish on something like a "racial" basis doesn't work. The specific
meaning of 'ish has to be found from the particular context where it appears, in
addition to the general way it is used elsewhere.

> By keeping the proper distinction between 'adam and 'ish there are other
> verses that make better sense where the KJV translation that blurs the
> distinction makes little sense.
>
> Psalm 49:1-2 is a case in point: "Hear this all ye people; give ear all
> ye inhabitants of the world: both low and high, rich and poor,
> together."
>
> The two Hebrew words bene 'adam, translated "low" in the second verse,
> are literally "sons of Adam." What comes to us as "high" is bene 'ish.
> The word 'ish is a more general term meaning "man," "male," "human
> being," or "mankind." Instead of "low and high," which bear no
> semblance of meaning from the original Hebrew, either "sons of Adam and
> sons of man," or "Adamite and Non-Adamite" would have been literal
> translations, faithful to the Hebrew text.

Ok, here the meaning might possibly be "Adamite and Non-Adamite", although, in a
psalm, which is clearly poetical, working with paired expressions for the same
idea, such distinctions between the members of a pair should not be emphasized
too much.

Furthermore, the expression /beni 'ish/ (sons of man), found in Ps.49:2, also
occurs in Ps.4:2, but here it is not paired with /beni 'adam/ (sons of man), but
apparently refers to (enemy) Israelites, i.e. Adamites, because David is asking
them to trust in Yahweh and offer him sacrifices (v.5).

The same case can be made for Lam.3:33, where /beni 'ish/ occurs unpaired, and
the context shows that it refers either to the Israelites, whom God is just
afflicting and grieving, or perhaps more generally to all humans, but certainly
including the Israelites.

> Ah, but who could the sons of man be who are not sons of Adam?
> Non-Adamites? How could that be possible? So, the translators avoided
> certain controversy by substituting the benign "low and high," virtual
> synonyms for "poor" and "rich." Modern translators of newer versions
> have simply followed along.
>
> This technique of substituting words of convenience where 'adam and 'ish
> are contained in the same sentence is used also in Psalm 62:9, where we
> do not read, "Surely vanity are the sons of Adam, a lie are the sons of
> man ..." Instead we read, "Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men
> of high degree are a lie ..."

Here, we have the same case as in Ps.49:2.

> In Isaiah 2:9, do we see the Adamite bow down, and the Non-Adamite
> humble himself? No, we see instead, "And the mean man ('adam) boweth
> down, and the great man ('ish) humbleth himself ..."

Same case as in Ps.49:2, but both 'adam and 'ish evidently refer to Israelites,
as the passage begins with "The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning
Judah and Jerusalem" (Is. 2:1), and the immediate context again emphasizes "you
have rejected your people, the house of Jacob" (v.6).

> This same pattern is repeated in Isaiah 31:8, where the term for generic
> man 'ish becomes a "mighty man," while 'adam is a "mean man." So,
> thanks to a sanitizing translation process, even a prophet may have
> difficulty getting his message to the people.

Here, we again have a poetic pairing of similar expressions, but as both of them
are governed by a "not", there is no way of determining whether or not there is
any distinction between the two expressions 'adam and 'ish.

> And that's my point. Blurring the distinction between 'adam and 'ish
> may be tempting in the opening verse of Genesis, but it sets you up for
> error interpreting the rest of the Old Testament as it did for the KJV
> translators.

I agree with you that translaters should be more careful (although the first KJV
translators probably didn't have some of the information we have today for doing
so). But I don't think you have made your case for restricting the term 'adam to
descendents of Adam (nor 'ish to non-Adamites).

> And the "image" becomes meaningless for Christ if every member of our
> species born under the sun is in the "image" too. Let's preserve that
> special status for the one whose bodily resurrection we will celebrate
> this Sunday.
>
> Dick Fischer

A direct NT reference to Gen.1:27 ("God created man in his own image") is found
in Jam.3:9, "people who are made [gegonótas] in the likeness [òmoíosin] of God".
But notice that here, we have neither the term /eikôn/ for the "image of God",
which is used in all the other references below, nor the term /ktízô/ for "to
create".

Another, less direct reference to Gen.1:27 is in Col.3:10, "the new self, which
is being renewed in knowledge after the image [eikóna] of its creator
[ktísantos]." A more difficult occurrence of the "image of God in man" is 1
Cor.11:7, "a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image [eikôn] and
glory of God". This last reference may even refer to nonbelievers, but it
certainly includes non-Adamites.

Christ as "God's image" is found in in 2 Cor.4:4, "Christ, who is the image
[eikôn] of God"; Col.1:15, "He is the image [eikôn] of the invisible God, the
firstborn of all creation."

Believers are to be transformed into Christ's image: 2 Cor.3:18, "we all, with
unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the
same image [eikóna] from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the
Lord who is the Spirit." To a certain degree, it seems that this may happen even
in this life. But in a full way, it will be realized after our resurrection:
Rom. 8:29, "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to
the image [eikónos] of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among
many brothers."; 1 Cor. 15:49, "Just as we have borne the image [eikóna] of the
man of dust, we shall also bear the image [eikóna] of the man of heaven."

These are all of the relevant NT occurrences of "image" I found. I think you are
right in seeing Christ's _being the image of God_ as something unique. Yet it is
also clear that believers in some way will be transformed into this same image,
but this will be fully realized only in our resurrection. In its full sense, no
human being is in this image now.

On the other hand, all humans have borne the "image of the man of dust", which
may be Adam or the first human (if they are different, as I believe they are).
But in what sense now is this first human being "created in the image of God"? I
don't see any reason to restrict this to Adam, or to descendents of Adam. There
seems to be a distinction between "_being_ the image of God" (Christ only) and
"being (created) _in_ the image of God" (all humans).

There is still a very slight possibility that we could both be right on this,
namely that all modern humans might have Adam as one of their ancestors. On 03
Apr 2006, I wrote to you and the list about this:

"We certainly don't have to go back to the common ancestor of man and chimp to
find the most recent common ancestor of all modern humans.
Every person has 2 parents, 4 grandparents,... and 2^n ancestors n generations
back. 33 generations get us to 8.59 billion ancestors, but with 25 years per
generation that just goes back 825 years. Clearly, some of these ancestors
pretty soon have to be the same persons, reached through different lines of
descent, just as Joseph of Nazareth, Mary's husband, descended from David at
least by two different lines (Mat. 1:6-16; Luke 3:23-31).
Rohde D.L.T., Olson S., Chang J.T., 'Modelling the recent common ancestry of all
living humans', Nature 431, 562-566 (2004), wrote in their abstract:..."

After discussing Rohde et al.'s work, I admitted (under the assumption that
there could have been just some - very few - of Adam's descendents that reached
Africa, Eastern Asia, Australia, and America): "Thus, even if you insist on
calling only (biological) descendents of Adam 'real' humans created 'in the
image of God', certainly all presently living humans are included, and perhaps
even all the way back to a few hundred years after Adam."

Yet the problem of the "archeological-cultural big bang" around 40,000 years ago
remains if you place Adam in the Neolithic where he belongs.

Peter

> - -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of Peter Ruest
> Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 1:57 PM
> To: Dick Fischer
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: The wrong horse in evolution education

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)