On Wed, 13 Sep 1995 07:27:39 -0400 Glenn wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
SJ>See above. A strict father-son chronology of the patriarchs is not
>necessary. But a stretching of these to beyond a hundred thousand
>years seems difficult to believe.<<
GM>Can you cite some internal Biblical evidence or external
>archaeological evidence that states that 50,80 or 100,000 are O.K.
>but 100,001 years are unacceptable? If there were actually a limit
>based upon some Biblical fact I would agree. What Whitcomb and
>Morris are saying is merely personall prejudice. It is O.K. to have
>personal prejudices but they do get in the way of explaining the
>data.
As Glenn is well aware, there is no "internal Biblical evidence" that
states how long was the gap from Adam to Noah. Whitcomb and Morris
acknowledge this but believe "to stretch the genealogy of Genesis 11
to cover a period of over 100,000 years is to do violence to the
chronological framework of all subsequent Bible history and prophecy"
("The Genesis Flood", 1961, p485).
I agree with W&M on this point, and I suspect that 99.9% of Biblical
scholars would also, eg. Kidner:
"To the present author various converging lines point to an Adam much
nearer our own times than the early tool-makers and artists, let alone
their remote forbears. On the face of it, the ways of life described
in Genesis 4 are those of the neolithic and first metal-working
cultures alluded to above, i.e., of perhaps eight or ten thousand
years ago, less or more. The memory of names and genealogical details
also suggests a fairly compact period between Adam and Noah, rather
than a span of tens or hundreds of millennia, an almost unimaginable
stretch of time to chronicle..." (Kidner D., "Genesis: An
Introduction and Commentary", 1967 Tyndale Press, London, p28)
Glenn belittles this by calling it "personal prejudice", rather than a
reasonable inference from the Biblical data. We must therfeore agree
to differ.
GM>Besides, Whitcomb and Morris are arguing against the
>position of Bernard Ramm there. I thought you liked Ramm's ideas.
Glenn correctly points out that I like Ramm's ideas. However, he
incorrectly assumes that I agree with everything Ramm writes. On this
topic I disagree partially with Ramm's in his citation of Warfield:
"[The antiquity of the human race] has of itself no theological
significance. It is to theology, as such, a matter of entire
indifference how long man has existed on earth."
(B.B. Warfield, "On the Antiquity and Unity of the Human Race",
Biblical and Theological Studies, 1911, p261, in Ramm B. "The
Christian View of Science and Scripture", 1955, Paternoster, London,
p216)
I find this a bit too easy, and only half true. Ramm (and Warfield)
are correct in saying that *theologically* it does not matter how
old mankind is. But practically there must be an upper limit on the
antiquity of man, because of the glimpses of early human culture in
Gn 4-11. Indeed, many evangelical scholars disagree with Ramm and
Warfield on this point, as I do. For example, Erickson:
"The first view summarized above (Warfield's) is untenable. It does
matter when Adam was created, for there are phenomena in the
description of his immediate descendants in Genesis 4 which are
identifiable as Neolithic." (Erickson M.J., "Christian Theology",
1985, Baker, Grand Rapids, MI, p485).
However, W&M are wrong to assert that "Christians who are
calling for an acceptance of the vast antiquity of the human race
as postulated by modern anthropologists include...Bernard Ramm"
(The Genesis Flood, p484). Ramm does not actually do this. In fact
Ramm sets an upper limit of between 200,000-500,000 years, but would
be happier with much less:
"The chief problem with an origin of man at 500,000 B.C. is the
connexion of Gen. 3 with Gen. 4. We might stretch the tables of
ancestors a few thousand years, but can we stretch them 500,000 years?
In the fourth and fifth chapters of Genesis we have lists of names,
ages of people, towns, agriculture, metallurgy, and music- This
implies the ability to write, to count, to build, to farm, to smelt,
and to compose. Further, this is done by the immediate descendants
of Adam. Civilization does not reveal any evidence of its existence
till about 8000 B.C. or, to some, 16,000 B.C. We can hardly push it
back to 500,000 B.C. It is problematic to interpret Adam as having
been created at 200,000 B.C. or earlier, with civilization not coming
into existence till say 8000 B.C. Similarly, the affinities of the
Babylonian culture and the Biblical accounts in the early chapters of
Genesis cannot be readily harmonized with man created at 500,000 B.C.
If this is so, then the entire first ten chapters of Genesis which
appear on the surface to be part of a common Semitic tradition, must
be classed as pure revelation." (Ramm B. "The Christian View of
Science and Scripture", 1955, Paternoster, London, p228).
>You wrote:
SJ>I agree we all must stretch the genealogies to fit the Biblical and
>scientific data. Many (including Whitcomb and Morris) could believe
>a gap of 100,000 years. Not many could believe a gap of 5 million
>years (if that is what you claim)<<
GM>That is what I am claiming. There is anthropological data which
>needs explaining. I will post on that tonight. But Whitcomb and
>Morris are NOT arguing for a 100,000 years, they are arguing against
>it.
Glenn correctly states that W&M not arguing "for 100,000 years" but he
incorrectly states they are "arguing against it". They set 100,000
years as their upper limit:
"to stretch the genealogy of Genesis 11 to cover a period of OVER
100,000 years... is to do violence to..Bible history.." (p485
emphasis mine).
GM>As to all of us stretching the genealogies, I find the criticism of
>the size of my gap funny in light of the fact that everyone is doing
>it, but no one wants a gap to big so no one will really notice that
>there is a gap. It is as if a gap is unseemly so if we make it
>small, no one will notice. Or better yet, it is like criticizing the
>prostitute who charges $5,000,000 while accepting the prostitute who
>charges $100,000 or $10,000 or $6,000. We are all doing the same
>thing. I am just more expensive! :-)
Glenn and I agree that everyone must stretch the genealogies. He
introduces a rather distasteful analogy of a "prostitute". It is not
a question of being "unseemly" or making it "small" so "no one will
notice", but what seems reasonable in light of the Biblical and
scientific evidence.
>Stephen wrote:
SJ>OK. Thanks to Glenn for this. But on a two-Adam model, there
>could be a larger genetic pool from whom modern man came. If Gn 1
>man wasthe entire genus Homo, then presumably that would match the
>genetic data?<<
GM>But the Bible does not talk of a two Adam man. I do not like any
>of my choices when it comes to the MHC data. But all other genetic
>data can be accounted for by my 5 million dollar gap. Oops, I mean 5
>million year gap.
While the Bible does not talk of "two Adam man", the "man" of Gn 1 and
the "Adam" of Gn 2 seem quite different. There is hardly any common
features between them. The man in Gn 1 is a broad taxonomic category
whereas the Adam in Gn 2 is an individual. The two creation accounts
appear on two different tablets (see Harrison R.K., IOT, 1969, p548).
They are usually interpreted as different but complementary accounts
and I agree. But that does not mean they are identical. In the light
of modern scientific discoveries, they could be interpreted as being
different in time. While this raises some theological problems, I
don't believe these are insuperable.
>Stephen wrote:
SJ>I do not understand Glenn's point here. He was discussing the
>chance of a single-step origin of a protein molecule from amino acids
>as a step toward the abiogenetic origin of life. <<
GM>I have not really used the probability argument in the origin of
>life question. Others have, but all I have done was say that our
>argument against it is wrong and weak. The odds of finding a
>particular protein even after life arises would be impossible even
>with selection if only one of the protiens would perform the
>function. The argument has broader implications than you are
>allowing.
Glenn seems to be shifting his argument here. However, as a parting
shot he says that "the probability argument in the origin of
life...our argument against it is wrong and weak." His original
evidence was a simple 190-letter English language sentence by Gish
(1986), as an analogy of amino acids forming a viable living protein
sequence:
"The highly specific biological activity of each protein is due
to the precise way the amino acids are arranged, just as the
information conveyed by this sentence is determined by the
precise sequence of 190 letters found in it." (Duane Gish, "The
Origin of Life," Proc. First Int. Conf. on Creationism,
Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, 1986, p. 62)
Glenn might be right that there are many ways of re-arranging a simple
English sentence. But what Glenn continues to largely ignore are more
recent and realistic restatements of the analogy by Bradley and
Thaxton (1994), which demonstrate that the problem is far more complex
than can be represented by a simple English sentence. I leave a
standing invitation for Glenn to recalculate the probability of B&T's
analogy at pp189-190 of Moreland's "The Creation Hypothesis" (1994),
as a more recent example of creationist apologetics in this area.
I think we have thrashed these issues to death, and I can see no
real point in continuing them. Glenn and I will probably
have to agree to disagree (as usual!) :-).
God bless.
Stephen
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