RE: The wrong horse in evolution education

Hi Phil, you wrote:
 
Note that the next verse tells us that only when Seth's son Enosh was
born that men began calling on the name of the LORD. This is such a
momentous occaision in human history, that Eve is personified to point
out how Seth at long last replaces the last previous godly person who
lived on the earth, Abel. Note that the Bible doesn't actually say that
Eve said this. "She said" was added by the translators. Without the
"she said" it could more easily be a poetic personification as literary
technique.
 
Someone please tell Luke. He didn't see it that way.
 
If the Adam of the Garden of Eden was calling on the name of the LORD,
and if he had been recently alive, then this verse makes no sense.
 
Adam was still alive, but men started calling on the name of the Lord
after the birth of Seth. Nothing wrong with this chronology.
 
The momentousness of the occaision makes sense only if there was a long
period of time had elapsed when men **weren't** calling on the name of
the Lord. This means there must have been a very long gap between Adam
and Enosh, perhaps between Adam and Seth.
 
You would need many thousands of years and there is no trace of human
occupation in the land of the Tigris and Euphrates prior to 10,000 years
ago. Genesis alludes to irrigation. This is largely missed by
apologists because they didn't understand the Garden of Eden within the
history of Southern Mesopotamia. "Eden" comes from the Sumerian edin.
By driving Adam back in time all the historical elements are lost.
 
Plus, I hesitate to bring this up (and I hope it won't become a
distraction), but I suspect that Seth's actual father really may have
been named Adam. I suspect that this historical Adam, the father of
Seth, was then reflected back to become the figure representing the
origin of all humanity.
 
Yes, and Christians are largely responsible for that. That's what I've
said all along.
 
Seth's literal father couldn't have sired Cain, since the descendants of
Cain eventually led to the invention of so many remarkable achievements
that came too early, like pastoral nomadism, which began in the 5th or
4th millenium BC among the steppe nomads.
 
If you see that Cain's children were instructors and not inventors this
objection melts away. Tubalcain was an instructor who taught others how
to make implements out of metal. Typical Hebrew-speak obscures that and
makes it appear that he invented metallurgy.
All the principle characters are tied together in one verse. I could
pile on the legend of Adapa who has been suggested by writers other than
me to be Adam, but if Adam and Eve had Cain who built "Enoch," Sumerian
"Unug," game over.
I agree with you that Enoch was probably the same word as Unug, but I
don't believe that a single individual named Cain built it.
 
L'Enfant didn't build Washington DC either, he designed it. Cain
probably oversaw the building of the city of Enoch.
 
How could Cain round up enough non-Adamites to live in his city?
 
I assume Cain was long-lived just as Adam was. Nine hundred or so years
is long enough. They were those for whom Cain was given his mark so
they would accept him and from which he took his wife. From this
settlement of people a city eventually developed. Asshur didn't build
Nineveh from scratch either. Nineveh existed for a thousand years
before the Semites got there.
 
Did he walk around through the hills and tell people that if they come
down to the arid but fertile plains to build irrigation ditches then
they can start to grow crops, and if they work fast enough then the
crops will come in before they starve in the first season? Did they all
follow him down from the hills and try it and discovered that it worked?
 
No hills in that area. I presume Cain initially approached a settlement
of Ubaidans probably, just as Adam was introduced to a settlement of
Ubaidans living in Eridu. The roots of the Accadian language probably
stem from the language of the indigenous Ubaidans who predate both Adam
and the Sumerians.
 
That would be amazing for anyone to accomplish such a feat; it would be
far more amazing for a person who had been cursed to wander and driven
from the face of the earth so that he could not practice agriculture.
 
I believe Cain was cursed from that ground in Eden (near Eridu) and was
sent wandering. How long it took him to reach a new settlement where he
would be accepted, I don't know. But the mark was there so that he
wouldn't be killed. By saying he "dwelt in the land of Nod" implies
there were people there. Anytime the Bible says land of (blank), it's
the (blankites) who live there.
 
Happy Easter to you to. He is risen!
Phil Metzger
 
He is risen indeed!
 
Dick Fischer
~Dick Fischer~ Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
 
Received on Mon Apr 17 11:54:21 2006