On Wed, 28 Aug 1996 21:08:59, Glenn Morton wrote:
GM>Stephen Jones wrote:
SJ>Why would this rule out "a recent origin of Adam"? If God took
>Adam from a pool of anatomically modern hominids between (say)
>10,000 - 50,000 years ago, would this not be consistent with him
>having the genetic history of those hominids and their primate
>ancestors?
GM>Because at the rate mutations occur, there has not been time to
>generate such diversity by mutation.
Why not? If the "pool of anatomically modern hominids"
continued to exist and the fallen Adamic line mated with it, then
would not this be consistent with the MHC evidence? Pearce suggests
the enignmatic reference in Gn 6:2 to "the sons of God" marrying "the
daughters of men":
"...the Bible story does not make it quite clear whether Adam was
alone in the world. The presence of other races already fallen may
be indicated. For instance, Cain was in danger of being slain by
other men when he travelled afield. Also, reference to the 'sons of
man' in contrast to the 'sons of God' in Genesis 6 could have a
similar interpretation." (Pearce E.K.V., "The Origin of Man",
Crusade: London, 1967, p9)
and
"...Many pre-historians take it for granted that when New Stone Age
man migrated, he intermarried with the earlier Old Stone Age and
Middle Stone Age peoples, and indeed this could be inferred
concerning Cain and his wife, or it could be a possible explanation
of the intermarriage referred to in Genesis 6 between the "sons of
God" (the Adamic race) and the "daughters of men" (surviving members
of earlier creations). " (Pearce E.K.V., "Who Was Adam?",
Paternoster: Exeter, 1969, p61)
GM>By the way, I will ask this again. Is there any fact which would
>disprove the 2-Adam theory? If you don't answer I would presume
>that nothing could disprove it.
Glenn tries to give the impression that I am trying to hide
something and that I "don't answer" the hard questions. Nothing
could be further from the truth! I have answered variations of
question many times over the two years I have been on the Reflector
and arguing the two-"Adam" model. Glenn's "again" no doubt refers to
a *private* message Glenn sent me on 18 Aug 1996:
---------------------------------------------------------
>Stephen, To have a real theory that explains scientific data,
>there must be some discovery which would disprove the view.
---------------------------------------------------------
Because this was a private message I responded by sending it to
the Group via Glenn with this header:
(Glenn, I assume that this was sent to me direct by mistake as it
seems to be intended for the Reflector. I have therefore replied in
that vein. However, because it was sent to me direct, I am sending
it back to the Reflector through you. Please feel free to respond in
public through the Reflector, since from my perspective at least,
there is nothing confidential about it).
Now that Glenn has sent a virtually identical message to me
public, I am free to answer in public. Here is what I said:
==============================================================
I have answered this several times already, but for the benefit of
newcomers I will answer it again. The Two-"Adam" Model is not a
"theory", it is a high-level *model* which attempts to relate the
Biblical and scientific pictures of the origin of man. It would
be "disproved" if (for example) the Biblical account of modern man's
origin and early development was found to be fundamentally
un-historical (eg. if Adam and his sons could not possibly have been
New Stone-Age farmers who originated in the Middle East between 10
and 50 thousand years ago).
Here is what I recently wrote to David Tyler:
-------------------------------------------------------------
...Briefly, I have previously explained that Genesis 1 "Adham" =
"man" (Heb.) refers to a *category*, whereas Genesis 2 "Adham" =
"Adam" (Heb.) refers to an *individual*. Both are on separate
tablets. This was set out in Pearce (1969):
"The first two toledoths embodied in Genesis used to be taken as two
separate stories of creation, the second starting in Genesis 2:4.
Now that one can be regarded as a sequel to the other, many of our
difficulties concerning the Biblical origin of man can be solved.
This would mean that in Genesis 1, Old Stone Age man is described,
the Hebrew collective noun "adam" meaning mankind as a whole; but in
Gen. 2:4, the second toledoth commences. This second toledoth makes
the characteristic brief Summary of the preceding toledoth, and then
speaks mainly about Eden. Here the noun becomes "The Adam" or "the
Man", with the article referring to an individual, and then becomes a
proper name ' Adam' . This man named Adam is the individual from whom
our Lord's descent is eventually traced. These themes will be
developed in the succeeding pages. We shall use the name Adam to
refer to this individual, a New Stone Age farmer of about 10,000 to
12,000 years ago. Although the Hebrew word adam is used collectively
in the first chapter of Genesis, we will call him Old Stone Age Man,
to avoid confusion, and the proper name, "Adam", will be reserved for
the Adam of Eden. " (Pearce E.K.V., "Who Was Adam?", Paternoster:
Exeter, 1969, p21).
Note that I do not accept everything that Pearce wrote, and probably
these days, nearly 30 years later, neither does he.
The two-"Adam" model would see the "man" in Genesis 1 as representing
the *category* man (all other items in Genesis 1 are categories). In
scientific terms, this would probably be the genus homo. IOW Genesis
1 "man" scientifically is homo erectus leading up to homo sapiens.
Genesis 2 Adam picks up where Genesis 1 leaves off and describes an
*individual* who came from the endpoint of this Genesis 1 man homo
sapiens stock.
The two-"Adam" model (as originally fits all the facts both
Biblically and scientifically, and therefore I find it compelling.
Bill Hamilton for one thinks it sounds reasonable. I don't think of
it in a simplistic or "concordistic" way, any more than I think of
Genesis 1 in a simplistic or "concordistic" way. I see the Biblical
and scientific models as *pictures* of real, underlying historical
reality, therefore both must eventually harmonise.
This can be rejected as "contrived" but this is superficial. *All*
attempts to relate Genesis 1-2 with modern science have elements of
contrivance because of the inherent dificulties in relating the
different pictures of reality that both paint. Many theologians just
give up on the difficulties and assume that Adam and Eve are
non-historical. But Jesus believed in the essential historicity of
Adam and Eve (Mt 19:4-6), and this cannot be easily set aside by
those who believe that Jesus was God and could not err.
Those who reject the two-"Adam" should come up with a model which
relates the following:
1. scientific evidence that there is a succession of human-like
beings of ascending intelligence and spirituality going back millions
of years.
2. Biblical evidence that there was an Adam and Eve, the ancestors of
all modern mankind, who lived in the ANE no more that 50,000 years
ago.
It will be found that their models will have more problems than the
two-"Adam" model. While I do not claim that the 2AM is the absolute
stone end of the matter, I regard it as the best high-level harmony
of the Biblical and scientific pictures that I have yet seen. If
someone can offer a better one, I will accept it.
-------------------------------------------------------------
GM>Can you name one thing which would disprove your two-Adam theory?
I find this a bit rich, coming from Glenn who claims that
Adam was a 5.5 million-year old Homo habilis, without a scrap of
scientific or Biblical evidence! :-) There is *not one* scientific
authority anywhere who believes that Homo habilis existed 5.5 million
years ago:
"Homo habilis. Habilis, "handy man", was so called because of
evidence of tools found with him. Habilis existed between 2.5 and
1.5 million years ago" (Foley J., "Fossil Hominid FAQ", 1995)
"Homo Habilis. This newly discovered fossil is dated about 2 million
years ago, making it a contemporary of Australopithecus africanus."
(Mader S., "Biology", Wm. C. Brown, Third Ed., 1990, Indiana, p433)
"One of the most surprising aspects of the early evolution of
hominids is the fact that there was not just one but a number of
species living at the same time in southern and eastern Africa
(Walker, Leakey, Harris, and Brown, 1986). There is still
considerable controversy over the exact identity of many remains as
well as their ages and specific relationships, but there appear to
have been at least three coexisting lineages between 2 and 3 million
years ago. In addition to Australopithecus afarensis, these lineages
include the larger, but lightly built, Australopithecus africanus,
Australopithecus boisei, which had extremely massive teeth, and, by
about 2 million years ago, the first member of the modern genus, Homo
habilis." (Carroll R.L., "Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution", W.
H. Freeman & Co: New York, 1988, p475)
"Ralph Holloway examined the shape of the brain of skull 1470, a fine
example of Homo habilis found east of Lake Turkana in 1972 and
determined to be almost 2 million years old..." (Leakey R., "The
Origin of Humankind", Phoenix: London, 1994, p129)
"The habilis material at Olduvai ranges in time from 1.85 mya for the
earliest to about 1.6 mya for the latest... Additional discoveries at
Turkana also strongly suggest the presence of a hominid lineage
contemporaneous with and separate from australopithecines...The
dating of all this crucial early Homo material from Turkana is tied to
the dating of the KBS tuff..the dating of this key bed has recently
been established at around 1.8 mya. Thus, the earliest Homo
materials at Turkana and Olduvai are contemporaneous (i.e., 1.8-2.0
mya)." (Nelson H. & Jurmain R., "Introduction To Physical
Anthropology", West Publishing Company: St. Paul MN, Fifth
Edition, 1991, p438,440)
GM>It seems that your 2-Adam view is as plastic and flexible as you
>often claim of evolution.
On the contrary, I have always been totally frank and clear-cut about
my "2-Adam view", which is a modification of E.K.V. Pearce's model
set out in his 1969 book, "Who Was Adam"? I have continually tried
to relate the model to any Biblical or scientific evidence that comes
up. It easily accommodates all the scientific evidence that Glenn
posts and has passed all other tests to date. At least one
Reflectorite has accepted it and while other Reflectorites have had a
go at cricising it, no-one (not even Glenn) has found any fatal flaws
in it.
OTOH, no-one AFAIK has accepted Glenn's model that Adam (and indeed
Noah) was a Homo habilis that lived *3 million years before* the
first fossil appearance of Homo habilis. There is not a shred of
scientific evidence for it and it it were true it would turn upside
down the entire science of paleoanthroplogy. Glenn's argument that
the first appearance of a form in the fossil record is not
necessarily the first existence of it is of course true, but if a
theory is going to be accepted as truly scientific there must be some
rigour to it. Homo habilis only appears in the fossil record for
about 1 million years (between 2.5 and 1.5 MYA) and to claim that a
member of such a rapidly developing genus as Homo, existed unknown in
the fossil record for *three times* that period, is not scientific
in any meaningful sense of the term. This is a fatal flaw of Glenn's
model that (until he attends to it), renders all his other posts
supporting it, irrelevant.
==============================================================
Maybe Glenn will respond to the above publically through the
Reflector? If so, this will cross in the mail. But I will add this
paraphrase of Glenn's words for him to answer:
By the way, I will ask this...Is there any fact which would
disprove the 5.5 million year-old/Homo habilis-Adam theory? If
you don't answer I would presume that nothing could disprove it. :-)
God bless.
Steve
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