On Sat, 14 Sep 1996 15:50:13, Glenn Morton wrote:
>SJ>Thanks Paul. Glenn appears to have his own "2-Adam theory"
>because presumably if "Genesis 2 is a totally separate event" which
>"occurred billions of years after Genesis 1", then he holds that the
>"Man" of Genesis 1 is different from the "Adam" of Genesis 2? The
>difference main between Glenn's and my 2-`Adam' theory is that Glenn
>believes that Genesis 1 and 2 are separated by "billions of years",
>whereas I maintain that the Genesis 1 "Man" and Genesis 2 "Adam"
>overlap and may later have converged (eg. Cain's wife -- Gn 4; Sons
>of God and daughters of men -- Gn 6, etc.):
GM>Genesis 1 in my view is the proclamations of what the universe
>would be like, made by God prior to the existence of the universe.
>There was no Adam prior to the creation of the universe.
OK. I forgot that Glenn believes in a version of Hayward's "Days of
Divine Fiat" theory:
"This theory suggests that Genesis does not intend us to take the six
days of creation as the days on which God did the actual work.
Instead, they could be the days in which God issued his creative
commands, or 'fiats' as they are usually called." (Hayward A.,
"Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and
the Bible", Bethany House: Minneapolis Minn., 1995, p176)
Hayward believes that Genesis 2 is the acting out of Genesis 1:
"...it throws light on Genesis 2.4-25, which unbelievers criticize as
being a second (and contradictory) account of creation. Genesis 2 is
nothing of the kind. It can be regarded as the last, and greatest,
of God's descriptions of the way one of his fiats was brought to
pass. It is a detailed account of how God first fulfilled, 'Let us
make man in our image.'" (Hayward A., "Creation and Evolution:
Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible", Bethany House
Publishers: Minneapolis Minn., 1995 reprint, pp177)
On Sun, 15 Sep 1996 07:30:02 -0400, Bill Hamilton wrote:
BH>I heard this view a number of years ago from a man who taught a
>seminar in our church. The seminar had nothing to do with origins,
>(it was on Scriptural guidance for family living or the like) and
>this man seemed to be quite orthodox in his theology.
My critique of Hayward's Days of Divine Fiat is briefly as follows. I
do not make any claim that either Hayward or Glenn is not "orthodox".
Hayward's solution is like the Gap Theory or the Revealed Days
theory. It purchases peace between the Bible and science by removing
Genesis 1 from actual historical reality. Everything in Genesis 1
becomes something forseen in eternity and nothing in Genesis 1
actually happens *at the time* in time. Yet Genesis 1 strongly
indicates that what is uttered by God in eternity actually happens in
time *at the time*. The repeated pattern of command, fulfillment and
inspection, eg. "And God said, `Let there be light,' and there was
light. God saw that the light was good..." (Gn 1:3-4), argues for
God actually acting in time *within Genesis 1*.
Indeed, if "Genesis 2 is...the last, and greatest, of God's
descriptions of the way one of his fiats was brought to pass", where
is the descriptions of the way the other fiats were brought to pass?
Having said the above, I do not want to get sidetracked into a
full-scale debate of Hayward's or Glenn's Days of Divine Fiat
theory, since I regard that as a diversion from Glenn's 5.5 mya Homo
habilis Adam theory. But I would remind Glenn of what he wrote on 18
Aug 1996:
----------------------------------------------------------
Stephen, To have a real theory that explains scientific data, there
must be some discovery which would disprove the view. Can you name
one thing which would disprove your two-Adam theory? It seems that
your 2-Adam view is as plastic and flexible as you often claim of
evolution.
----------------------------------------------------------
and again on 28 Aug 1996:
----------------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------------
I did answer Glenn's challenge. Now perhaps Glenn could explain how
his Days of Divine Fiats (or Proclaimations) view could be disproved?
:-)
GM>The Genesis 1 Adam refers to the Genesis 2 Adam in the same sense
>as a prophecy refers to the future. One Adam. That is all there
>was.
The only problem with this is that there is no "Genesis 1 Adam". The
Hebrew word in both Gn 1:26 and 27 is "Adham" which is rightly
translated "man". No translation that I am aware of translates the
Heb. "Adham" in Genesis 1:26-27, as the personal name "Adam".
"Adam" as a personal name of an individual does not appear until Gn
2:19-20:
"Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the
field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man
("Adam" KJV) to see what he would name them; and whatever the man
called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave
names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts
of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found." (Gn
2:19-20 NIV).
But even on Glenn's own view of Genesis 1 as a "prophecy", there is
no reason why it could not have been referring to *the total process*
of developing the image of God through hominid ancestors,
culominating in Homo sapiens sapiens who appeared only 50-100K ago,
as the Pre-Adamite model proposes. What Glenn has to show is that
the part of the alleged "prophecy" in Genesis 1 that refers to "man"
(ie. Gn 1:26-30), uniquely refers to his 5.5 mya Adam = Homo.
habilis theory and not other theories, including my Pre-Adamite
model.
God bless.
Steve
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net |
| 3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au |
| Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 9 448 7439 (These are |
| Perth, West Australia v my opinions, not my employer's) |
-------------------------------------------------------------------