On 10 Dec 95 15:41:52 EST you wrote:
>More support for "de novo Adam" from Alan Hayward, "Creation and Evolution"
>[pp. 195-96]:
>
>"[Re: Genesis 2:7] There appear to be no Biblical grounds for interpreting
>'breath of life' as 'spirituality,' or anything like it. The same phrase
>'breath of life' occurs several times in the story of the Flood and each time
>it is made clear that it is possessed by both man and the animals. Genesis
>uses 'breath of life' to mean 'that which gives physical life to air-breathing
>creatures of all kinds.' The creationist reading of Genesis 2:7 agrees with
>this usage, but the [theistic] evolutionist reading appears to be in sharp
>conflict with it....
>
>"The 'living being' (KJV 'living soul') that man became means simply a 'living
>creature.' Indeed, the identical Hebrew phrase is translated that way in
>Genesis 1:20, 'Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures,' and
>again in verses 21 and 24. The [theistic] evolutionist interpretation of
>'living creature' to mean 'spiritually-minded creature' seems unjustified.
>
>"If we let the Bible speak for itself there appears to be only one natural way
>to read Genesis 2:7: the verse informs us that God miraculously created Adam
>from non-living matter (though without telling us precisely how he did it).
>The idea of God stamping his image upon a living super-ape can hardly be read
>into Genesis 2:7 without distorting it."
Hayward contrasts two views of the *instantaneous* creation of man:
"According to the conservative theistic evolutionist this means that
God took a living specimen of 'super-ape', the recently evolved Homo
sapiens, and imparted to him a spark of the divine. (Hayward A.,
"Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the
Bible", Bethany House Publishers: Minneapolis, 1995, p195).
I would not accept either of Hayward's examples. The verse:
"the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man
became a living being" (Gn 2:7)
says nothing about *time*, and as Hayward himself points out, it tells
us that God miraculously created Adam from non-living matter (though
without telling us precisely how he did it)". It seems inconsistent
for him to leave open the "how" but close off the "how long". Indeed,
Hayward's lists among the advantages of his own "days of divine fiat"
approach:
"...it allows the days to be viewed as consecutive literal days,
making up a 'divine week'; yet it allows any amount of time for the
physical processes that were the consequence of those days of fiat."
(Hayward A., "Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from
Science and the Bible", 1995, Bethany House Publishers: Minneapolis
p176)
I regard Gn 2:7 as a *picture*, not which reflects an underlying
literal, historical reality:
"It is argued that the picture of God working like a potter with wet
earth, anthropomorphically breathing life into man, constructing woman
from a rib, with an idyllic garden, trees with theological
significance, and a talking serpent, is the language of theological
symbolism and not of literal prose. The theological truth is there,
and this symbolism is the instrument of inspiration. We are not to
think in terms of scientific and anti-scientific, but in terms of
scientific and pre-scientific. The account is then pre-scientific and
in theological symbolism which is the garment divine inspiration chose
to reveal these truths for their more ready comprehension by the
masses of untutored Christians. This is the view of James Orr who
wrote:
`I do not enter into the question of how we are to interpret the third
chapter of Genesis-whether as history or allegory or myth, or most
probably of all, as old tradition clothed in oriental allegorical
dress-but the truth embodied in that narrative, viz. the fall of man
from an original state of purity, I take to be vital to the Christian
view.' (Orr J., The Christian View of God and the World, 1897, p185)
(Ramm B. "The Christian View of Science and Scripture", Paternoster:
London, 1955, pp223-224).
Gn 2:7 depicts man's origin as being, like the animals, twofold:
1) from "the dust of the ground", eg. Gn 1:24 "And God said, "Let the
land produce living creatures according to their kinds..."; Gn 2:7
"the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground..."; Gn 2:19
"Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the
field and all the birds of the air..."; and
2) from the breath of God, eg. Gn 1:30 "And to all the beasts of the
earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on
the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it..."; Gn 2:7
"...and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life"; Gn 6:17 "I am
going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the
heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it..."; Gn 7:15
"Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to
Noah and entered the ark."
There is nothing special about man in the sense of him either being
formed from the earth or having God's breath of life in him. The same
words "living being" used of man in Gn 2:7, is used of the animals:
"This unity already finds expression in the classical passage of the
Old Testament-the first passage to indicate the complex nature of
man-namely, Gen. 2:7: "And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life- and man
became a living soul"...The word "soul" in this passage does not have
the meaning which we usually ascribe to it-a meaning rather foreign to
the Old Testament -but denotes an animated being, and is a description
of man as a whole. The very same Hebrew term, nephesh chayyah (living
soul or being) is also applied to the animals in Gen. 1:21,24,30."
(Berkhof L., "Systematic Theology", Banner of Truth: London, 1958,
p192)
IMHO, this leaves open the possibility that God formed man by a series
of miraculous vertical interventions at strategic points, while
allowing much horizontal natural processes, as per Ramm's PC model:
"In progressive creationism there may be much horizontal radiation.
The amount is to be determined by the geological record and biological
experimentation. But there is no vertical radiation. Vertical
radiation is only by fiat creation. A root-species may give rise to
several species by horizontal radiation, through the process of the
unraveling of gene potentialities or recombination. Horizontal
radiation could account for much which now passes as evidence for the
theory of evolution. The gaps in the geological record are gaps
because vertical progress takes place only by creation." (Ramm B.
"The Christian View of Science and Scripture", Paternoster: London,
1955, p191).
God bless.
Stephen
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| Stephen Jones | ,--_|\ | sjones@iinet.net.au |
| 3 Hawker Ave | / Oz \ | sjones@odyssey.apana.org.au |
| Warwick 6024 |->*_,--\_/ | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sjones/ |
| Perth, Australia | v | phone +61 9 448 7439 |
----------------------------------------------------------------