On Mon, 02 Sep 1996 22:08:59, Glenn Morton wrote:
[..]
GM>It is amazing how quiet it gets everytime I ask someone to
>actually explain the data of geology and biology within a biblical
>perspective. The silence is even more deafening when the person has
>been a critic of what I am offering.
I am attempting to "actually explain the data of geology and biology
within a biblical perspective" and have been doing so for 2 years on
this Reflector. I am also "a critic of what" Glenn is "offering"
(eg. 5.5 mya Adam/Noah). I hope for Glenn's credibility's sake he
is not including me in his "silence" that is "even more deafening"?
:-)
GM>Let me further say, that the questions I raised above are
>perfectly legitimate questions for which someone can legitimately
>expect an answer.
OK, here is my Pre-Adamite model "answer":
GM>Is Neanderthal preflood or post flood?
Pre-flood but perhaps surviving to post-Flood. They may have been
ancestors of the Nephilim" ("giants in the earth" AV):
"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also
afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and
had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of
renown. " (Gn 6:4)
who survived through their descendants down to early Biblical times:
"We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the
Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we
looked the same to them." (Num 13:33)
BTW the presence of pre-Flood and post-Flood Nephilim (or even their
descendants) is hard to account for on a global Flood (or even an
anthropologically global local Flood) unless one of Noah's son's
wives was descended from the Nephilim.
Inrestingly Gooch (a non-Christian) sees the Biblical story of
"the sons of God" and "the daughters of men" as a record of the
intermingling of Cro-Magnon man and Neanderthal women:
"Skilled and aggressive in battle, Cro-Magnon overran the
Neanderthal peoples of the Middle and Near East in short order...
Cro-Magnon took full advantage of this happy position, enjoying all
the conqueror's standard rights. In particular he took full advantage
of Neanderthal woman. 'The sons of God saw that the daughters of
men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose.'
Genesis VI, 2. ...Therefore, abruptly, for the first time in geological
history we find skeletons showing mixed characteristics of Cro-
Magnon and Neanderthal in the caves of Mount Tabor in Israel."
(Gooch S., "The Neanderthal Question", Wildwood House: London,
1977, p.xii)
Gooch (like me) finds it significant that the first fossils of
the meeting of anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals occurred
in the Middle East:
"I feel it to be no kind of chance that the first skeletons we find with
blatantly, almost grotesquely mixed Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal
characteristics are in a cave on Mount Carmel in Israel. These are the
so-called Tabun and Skuhl remains...The finds are dated 35,000 B.P.
(It is thought, however, that as much as 10,000 years may separate
the two sets of remains.)Much of the real 'action' of late pre-history
seems to centre around this part of the world. At Shanidar in Iraq we
have the most ancient remains so far discovered of truly civilized
man. They are a daunting 60,000 years old. These are followed by
the highly significant Mount Carmel finds 25,000 years later. Then,
dating from 9,000 B.P., we find the oldest city in the world- Jericho."
(Gooch S., "The Neanderthal Question", Wildwood House: London,
1977, p122)
GM>Is he a descendant of Adam or something prior to Adam's creation?
>Why did he make flutes, build huts, build patios and walls?
My Pre-Adamite model would claim that "Neanderthal" was Genesis 1
"man" with emerging qualities (eg. bipedalism, high intelligence,
speech, etc.) that would make up the image of God (Gn 1:26-27), but
not Genesis 2 Adam who alone posessed the full and completed image of
God. "Neanderthal" was not a "descendant of Adam" but some of
Genesis 2 Adam's descendants may have mated with Genesis 1 man's
descendants (Gn 4:14; 6:2).
Prior to 1908, it may have been possible to deny humanity to
Neanderthal man, but not after their burial sites were found, as
Eiseley movingly writes:
"When we consider this creature of `brute benightedness' and
`gorilloid ferocity,' as most of those who peered into that dark skull
vault chose to interpret what they saw there, it should be remembered
what was finally revealed at the little French ave near La Chapelle aux
Saints in 1908. Here, across millennia of time, a very moving
spectacle can be observed. For these men whose brains were locked
in a skull reminiscent of the ape, these men whom serious scientists
had contended to possess no thoughts beyond those of the brute had
laid down their dead in grief. Massive flint-hardened hands had
shaped a sepulcher and placed flat stones to guard the dead man's
head. A haunch of meat had been left to aid the dead man's journey.
Worked flints, a little treasure of the human dawn, had been poured
lovingly into the grave. And down the untold centuries the message
has come without words: "We too were human, we too suffered, we
too believed that the grave is not the end. We too, whose faces
affright you now, knew human agony and human love." It is
important to consider that across fifty thousand years nothing has
changed or altered in that act. It is the human gesture by which we
know a man though he looks out upon us under a brow suggestive of
the ape. If, in another fifty thousand years, man can still weep, we will
know humanity is safe. This is all we need to ask about the onrush of
the scientific age." (Eiseley L.C. , "Neanderthal Man and the Dawn of
Human Paleontology", in "Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X", E.P.
Dutton: New York, 1979, p199-200)
GM>If you believe that God really worked in space-time then you must
>attempt some answer to these very interesting questions. Someone
>who presumes to teach in the area of apologetics ought to have some
>idea of how to answer these things. If one doesn't, then what is he
>teaching?
I agree with Glenn here, even though I don't agree with his solution
of a 5.5 mya Adam. Christian apologetics needs to start grappling
with the anthropological evidence and relate it to the Biblical
evidence. IMHO the Pre-Adamite model does this but Christian
apologists are too quick to dismiss becuase it raises some
exegetical or theological problems.
For example, systematic theologicans Strong and Erickson recognise
the model's advantages but give up on it because of a few theological
problems:
"This descent of humanity from a single pair also constitutes the
ground of man's obligation of natural brotherhood to every member of
the race. Acts 17: 26-" he made of one every nation of men to dwell
on all the face of the earth...Winchell, in his Preadamites, has
recently revived the theory broached in 1655 by Peyrerius, that there
were men before Adam: "Adam is descended from a black race -not the
black races from Adam." Adam is simply "the remotest ancestor to
whom the Jews could trace their lineage... The derivation of Adam
from an older human stock is essentially the creation of Adam."
Winchell does not deny the unity of the race, nor the retroactive
effect of the atonement upon those who lived before Adam - he simply
denies that Adam was the first man. ... He " regards the Adamic
stock as derived from an older and humbler human type," originally as
low in the scale as the present Australian savages.Although this
theory furnishes a plausible explanation of certain Biblical facts,
such as the marriage of Cain (Gen. 4:17), Cain's fear that men would
slay him (Gen. 4:14), and the distinction between "the sons of God"
and "the daughters of men"(Gen. 6:1,2), It treats the Mosaic
narrative as legendary rather than historical....Upon this view Eve
could not be "the mother of all living" (Gen. 3:20), nor could the
transgression of Adam be the cause and beginning of condemnation to
the whole race (Rom. 5:12, 19)." (Strong A.H., "Systematic
Theology", 1907, Judson Press: Valley Forge PA, 1967 reprint, p476)
"If we accept the view that it is language which distinguishes man
from other creatures and hence the first man appeared about 30,000
years ago, an additional problem, to which we have already alluded,
still remains: the problem of the Neolithic elements in Genesis 4.
If Adam was created 30,000 years ago, if Cain and Abel were his
immediate descendants, if we find genuinely Neolithic practices
(e.g., agriculture) in Genesis 4, and if the Neolithic period began
about 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, then we have the problem of a gap of
at least 20,000 years between generations, the ultimate in generation
gaps. Several suggested solutions have been offered: 1. The
pre-Adamite theory says that Adam was the first human in the full
biblical sense, but was not the first human in the anthropological
sense. There were genuine representatives of Homo sapiens before
him. (Pearce E.K.V., "Who Was Adam?", Paternoster: Exeter,
1970).... 3. In the creation account (e.g., Gen. 1:26; 2:7) the
Hebrew word ADM ('adam), which is often used symbolically of the
entire human race, refers to the first man, who is anonymous. In
other passages (e.g., Gen. 4:1; 5:3) it is a proper noun pointing to
a specific individual who came later. (Seeley P.H. , "Adam and
Anthropology: A Proposed solution," Journal of the American
Scientific Affiliation 22, no. 3 September 1970, p89)...None of
these theories seems completely satisfactory. All have some
hermeneutical problems, but they appear more severe for views (1)
through (3). In addition, in view (1) the pre-Adamites would seem to
be fully human. But if that is the case, how are we to account for
Paul's statement in Romans 5 that sin and death have come upon the
entirety of the human race because of Adam's sin? This seems to
argue for a monogenistic origin of the human race-all humans are
derived from Adam...But this is an area in which there are
insufficient data to make any categorical statements; it will require
much additional study. (Erickson M.J., "Christian Theology", Baker:
Grand Rapids Mi, 1985, p486).
Scientifically qualified writers like Pun and Hayward, likewise are
unwilling to grapple with the theological issues:
"The large gap that exists between the first human as evidenced from
the fossil record and the advent of human civilization is a major
problem. It deserves diligent efforts by scholars intimately
involved in anthropological studies. There are several suggestions
in the attempt to resolve this apparent enigma. We have seen the
fiat creationist position that ignores the early human fossils and
the theistic evolutionist position that ignores the Genesis account.
Both of these theories create more problems than they solve. Still
another idea is suggested in the gap theory... [which] ...attributes
early human fossils to pre-Adamites in a first creation "implied" by
Genesis 1:1....Another theory suggests there were two Adams. This
idea states that Adam of Genesis 1 is not the same as the Adam in
Genesis 2, the former being the Old Stone Age Adam and the latter
being the New Stone Age Adam. This theory suggests that the rest of
the Bible is about the Fall and salvation of the New Stone Age Adam
(30). The last two theories are not exegetically sound and seem to
impinge on the fundamental concept of the unity of the human race."
(Pun P.P.T., "Evolution: Nature and Scripture in Conflict?",
Zondervan: Grand Rapids MI, 1982, p267)
Hayward raises a host of problems (that are not necessary to the
Pre-Adamite model):
"The Problem of Pre-Adamic Man. The creationist position is not
without its problems, but how to explain pre-Adamic Man is not one of
them. To the creationist, Adam was in every sense the first member
of the human race. Because, as we saw in chapter 11, the Bible does
not tell us how long ago Adam lived, we have no idea where to fit him
into the succession of fossils unearthed by the anthropologists.
(And in any case, as chapter 3 showed, there are many unanswered
scientific questions relating to those fossils.) All we can say for
sure is that any ape-like creatures existing before Adam cannot have
been human, and must have belonged to some advanced species of
animal...The anthropologist Victor Pearce (Pearce E.K.V., "Who Was
Adam?", Paternoster: Exeter, 1970, pp21, 33-38) suggests that the
pre- Adamites were Old Stone Age men, and that Adam was the first of
the New Stone Age farmers. He proposes that we should regard the
'man in God's image' of Genesis I as referring to the
pre-Adamites.But it is doubtful whether Genesis permits us to do any
such thing. Genesis 5 begins thus:
This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created
man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he
created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they
were created. When Adam had lived...
The words printed in italics are a reference to Genesis 1.26-7. Yet
the preceding sentence and the following sentence both speak of Adam
by name. This is quite a strong hint that Genesis 1.26-7 is about
Adam. More decisively, Psalm 8 refers to Genesis 1.26-7 and applies
it to our own race - Adam's race - and not to an extinct race of
pre-Adamic men. Berry (Berry R.J., "Adam and the Ape", Falcon:
London, 1975, pp43,50) visualizes the pre-Adamites living on and
intermingling with the race of Adam, and sees references to them in
Genesis 4.14, 17 and 6.2. He implies that Christ might have been
descended from these pre-Adamites, and says explicitly that he was
not necessarily a physical descendant of Adam (17 Berry R.J., 1975,
p42) - a view which evidently contradicts Luke 3.23-38. Berry
recognizes that Genesis 3.20 presents a problem, with its reference
to Eve as 'the mother of all living', and suggests that it might be
possible to give a figurative meaning to the verse. (Berry R.J.,
1975, p43) But that would certainly distort its natural meaning.
There are also later Scriptures, especially Acts I7.26 and Malachi
2.10, which seem to emphasize that the entire human race is descended
physically from Adam. It is not easy to reconcile such passages with
the notion that Homo sapiens evolved from ape-like ancestors before
Adam was personally selected for upgrading to Homo spiritualis."
(Hayward A., "Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from
Science and the Bible", Bethany House Publishers: Minneapolis, 1995,
p197-198)
Paradocically, Ramm criticises the Pre-Adamite model because it is
too good:
"We may assert that there is a difference between fossil man and
Biblical man. Different alternatives are possible here. We may
believe that fossil man was part of the original creation of Gen. 1:
1, if we are adherents of the gap theory. We may teach that fossil
man is sub- human or pre-human. Or, we may resort to some theory of
pre- Adamism. ...Pre-Adamism was systematically defended by Isaac
Peyrere in his Systema Theologicum ex Praeadamitarum Hypothesi
(1655). It was also defended by Winchel (Preadamites, or a
Demonstration of the Existence of Man Before Adam, 1890), and by
Fabre d'Envieu (Les Origines de la Terre et de l'homme, 1878) who
argued that these men before Adam had died before Adam was created.
Short thinks that these fossil men might have been pre- humans, and
that Adam was a de novo creation possessing spiritual qualities these
pre-Adamites lacked. Torrey accepts the pre- Adamite theory, but
believes some of them were alive at Biblical times. There are
problems with this theory before it can be a good option. It seems
too much like having our cake and eating it. We can admit all that
the anthropologists say; and then announce that it has nothing at all
to do with the Biblical account of man. We can have the antiquity of
man, and the recency of Adam! But who is to tell where one leaves
off and the other begins? Certainly, if pre-Adamism leads to the
breakdown of the unity of the race we have theological problems with
the imputation of sin through the fall of one man. The American
Indian has been here for about 20,000 years according to some
estimates. Is he pre-Adamite or Adamite? Indians reveal typical
signs of a fallen nature, and Christian Indians manifest the fruits
of the new birth. Adam must be as old as the migrations of the
Indians. This makes it very difficult to tell which are pre-Adamite
men and which are Adamite men in archaeological research in human
palaeontology. According to Torrey pre-Adamites were alive during
Biblical times. How do they fit into the doctrines of redemption and
sin? We judge that the pre-Adamite theory, as nicely as it gives us
both ancient and recent man, also has its vexing problems."
(Ramm B., "The Christian View of Science and Scripture",
Paternoster: London, 1955, pp221-222)
As we have seen, Pearce has proposed a "two-`Adam'" model to
reconcile the vast antiquity of Homo with the recency of the
Biblical Adam:
"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." (Pearce E.K.V., "Who Was
Adam?", Paternoster: Exeter, 1969, p21)
But a major shortcoming in Pearce's work is that he does not address
the theological problems of how his model relates to the Christian
doctrine of sin and salvation.
Kidner makes a start:
"Man in Scripture is much more than homo faber, the maker of tools:
he is constituted man by God's image and breath nothing less. It
follows that Scripture and science may well differ in the boundaries
they would draw round early humanity: the intelligent beings of a
remote past, whose bodily and cultural remains give them the clear
status of 'modern man' to the anthropologist, may yet have been
decisively below the plane of life which was established in the
creation of Adam. If, as the text of Genesis would by no means
disallow, God initially shaped man by a process of evolution it
would follow that a considerable stock of near-humans preceded the
first true man, and it would be arbitrary to picture these as mindless
brutes. Nothing requires that the creature into which God breathed
human life should not have been of a species prepared in every way
for humanity, with already a long history of practical intelligence,
artistic sensibility and the capacity for awe and reflection. On
this view, Adam, the first true man, will have had as contemporaries
many creatures of comparable intelligence, widely distributed over
the world. One might conjecture that these were destined to die out,
like the Neanderthalers (if indeed these did), or to perish in the
Flood, leaving Adam's lineal descendants, through Noah, in sole
possession. Against this, however, there must be borne in mind the
apparent continuity between the main races of the present and those
of the distant past, already mentioned, which seems to suggest either
a stupendous antiquity for Adam (unless the whole accepted dating of
prehistory is radically mistaken, as some have tried to show - e.g.,
Whitcomb and Morris, op. cit.) or the continued existence of
'pre-Adamites' alongside 'Adamites'
If this second alternative implied any doubt of the unity of mankind
it would be of course quite untenable. God, as we have seen, has
made all nations 'from one' (Acts 17:26). Genetically indeed, on
this view, these two groups would be of a single stock; but by itself
that would avail nothing, as Adam's fruitless search for a helpmeet
makes abundantly clear. Yet it is at least conceivable that after
the special creation of Eve, which established the first human pair
as God's viceregents (Gn. 1:27,28) and clinched the fact that there
is no natural bridge from animal to man, God may have now conferred
His image on Adam's collaterals, to bring them into the same realm of
being. Adam's 'federal' headship of humanity extended, if that was
the case, outwards to his contemporaries as well as onwards to his
offspring, and his disobedience disinherited both alike.
There may be a biblical hint of such a situation in the surprising
impression of an already populous earth given by the words and deeds
of Cain in 4:14,17. 2 Even Augustine had to devote a chapter to
answering those who 'find this a difficulty', 3 and although the
traditional answer is valid enough...the persistence of this old
objection could be a sign that our presuppositions have been
inadequate. Again, it may be significant that, with one possible
exception, the unity of mankind 'in Adam' and our common status as
sinners through his offence are expressed in Scripture in terms not
of heredity but simply of solidarity. We nowhere find applied to
us any argument from physical descent such as that of Hebrews 7:9,10
(where Levi shares in Abraham's act through being 'still in the loins
of his ancestor') . Rather, Adam's sin is shown to have implicated
all men because he was the federal head of humanity, somewhat as in
Christ's death 'one died for all, therefore all died' (2 Cor. 5:14).
Paternity plays no part in making Adam 'the figure of him that was to
come' (Rom. 5:14)." (Kidner D., "Genesis: An Introduction and
Commentary", 1967 Tyndale Press, London, p30)
While I would substitute the words "progressive creation" for
"evolution" in Kidner above, I find his courage in trying to wrestle
with the theological problems of Pre-Adamism , refreshing, and I find
that a more wholistic view of the world opening up.
God bless.
Steve
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