On Mon, 11 Nov 1996 23:23:30, Glenn Morton wrote Re: Stephen, I was
wrong (was heory-Data Matching)
SJ>I bought Glenn's book in good faith and I will still quote from
>it, where I think it is correct. If Glenn wishes to show where
>those quotes are wrong, that is his right. But he will have to do
>it on a case-by-case basis, not by a blanket "I was wrong"
>disclaimer.
GM>Stephen, Let me point out that you bought Josh's book, not my
>book. I ghost wrote the book you bought, and my name only appeared
>on an inside page not on the front cover. And you told me that
>they have not removed my name from the Australian edition entirely
>(I guess after a few years one is permitted to forget to mention
>who actually wrote the book.) I will assure you that on my book,
>which I am currently peddling, my name does appear on the cover and
>I didn't get someone else to write it for me.
I fail to understand Glenn's point here. If he "ghost wrote the
book", then it is *his* book, ie. the thoughts and words are his.
To be sure Josh McDowell's and Don Stewart's names appear on the
front, but Glenn (according to his own admission) was the *real*
author. My original message acknowldged this - I prefaced my quote
with:
"...McDowell & Stewart (ghost-written by Glenn) say:..."
But it is Glenn who has made an issue out of the fact that he wrote
the book:
"... I ghost wrote the evolution section for Josh McDowell's
_REASONS_.."
and
"...what I wrote as a YEC was wrong, stupid, and ill-informed..."
If he hadn't told everyone, no one would have known - I certainly
wouldn't - my edition of the book doesn't even have Glenn's name in
it.
Glenn can't have it both ways - he can't claim it is "Josh's book,
not my book" yet at the same time claim that it is all "wrong".
In any event, my main point is that despite Glenn's "blanket...
disclaimer", I will still quote from the book "where I think it is
correct". Glenn can "show where those quotes are wrong...But he
will have to do it on a case-by-case basis". I am not going to stop
using a book I bought just because its ghost-writer now says he has
changed his mind.
On Tue, 12 Nov 1996 15:19:27, Glenn Morton wrote Re: ORIGINS: a
new successful prediction for my view 2/2:
SJ>While I disagree with Ross about his "soulish" - "spiritual"
>distinction, the existence of a musical instrument (if indeed it
>was a musical instrument), being played by a Neanderthal (if indeed
>it was played by a Neanderthal), 15,000 years *after* Ross' date
>for Adam, is no problem for his view, since his criteria for
>humanity is not music but spirituality:
GM>No, Stephen, you obviously didn't read what I wrote. The
>earliest flute, a multihole, multi-note instrument from Libya is
>dated at around 80-100 thousand years ago. This is 20-40,000 years
>PRIOR to Hugh Ross's date of 60,000 years ago.
OK. I did misunderstand what Glenn wrote re the date of this . I
thought he was talking about another "musical instrument". It now
appears that Glenn is talking about the Haua Fteah "multiple pitch
whistle:
----------------------------------------------------------- On Sun,
20 Oct 1996 16:34:34, Glenn Morton wrote:
GM>The oldest flute I have been able to find is a from Haua Fteah in
>Libya. It is had at least two perforations and thus was much more
>complex than the first flute I mentioned above, the Le Placard
>Eagle bone flute. McBurney notes,
>
>"To these may be added a remarkable bone object most plausibly
>explained as a fragment of a vertical 'flute' or multiple pitch
>whistle,
[...]
>22. C.B.M. McBurney, Haua Fteah (Cyrenaica),(Cambridge:
Cambridge >University Press, 1967), p. 90
-----------------------------------------------------------
If so, I doubt if Ross would be troubled by that either, since (as I
said) "his criteria for humanity is not music but spirituality".
GM>[snip]
SJ>Now Ross may be wrong about this criterion (I believe he is - at
>least in part), but his view is at least internally consistent, and
>hence immune from criticisms like Glenn's that use a different set
>of criteria and then try to show that Ross is inconsistent with
>those.
GM>His view is contradicted by the evidence.
Is that so? Glenn should know (see below)! :-)
SJ>In any event, Glenn's 5.5 mya Homo habilis Adam view is so much
>more inconsistent with both Scripture and science, and has so many
>more problems than Ross' view, that Glenn is in no position to
>criticise Ross until he gets his own house in order (Lk 6:42).
GM>Thanks for the advice.
I would rather Glenn heeded my advice and did not thank me, than
thank me for my advice but did not heed it.
On Tue, 12 Nov 1996 15:19:27, Glenn Morton wrote:
SJ>While I disagree with Ross about his "soulish" - "spiritual"
>distinction, the existence of a musical instrument (if indeed it
>was a musical instrument), being played by a Neanderthal (if indeed
>it was played by a Neanderthal), 15,000 years *after* Ross' date
>for Adam, is no problem for his view, since his criteria for
>humanity is not music but spirituality:
GM>No, Stephen, you obviously didn't read what I wrote. The
>earliest flute, a multihole, multi-note instrument from Libya is
>dated at around 80-100 thousand years ago. This is 20-40,000 years
>PRIOR to Hugh Ross's date of 60,000 years ago.
OK. I did misunderstand what Glenn wrote re the date of this . I
thought he was talking about another "musical instrument". It now
appears that Glenn is talking about the Haua Fteah "multiple pitch
whistle:
-----------------------------------------------------------
On Sun, 20 Oct 1996 16:34:34, Glenn Morton wrote:
GM>The oldest flute I have been able to find is a from Haua Fteah in
>Libya. It is had at least two perforations and thus was much more
>complex than the first flute I mentioned above, the Le Placard
Eagle >bone flute. McBurney notes, > >"To these may be added a
remarkable bone object most plausibly explained >as a fragment of a
vertical 'flute' or multiple pitch whistle,
[...]
>22. C.B.M. McBurney, Haua Fteah (Cyrenaica),(Cambridge:
Cambridge >University Press, 1967), p. 90
-----------------------------------------------------------
If so, I doubt if Ross would be troubled by that either, since (as I
said) "his criteria for humanity is not music but spirituality".
GM>[snip]
SJ>Now Ross may be wrong about this criterion (I believe he is - at
>least in part), but his view is at least internally consistent, and
>hence immune from criticisms like Glenn's that use a different set
>of criteria and then try to show that Ross is inconsistent with
>those.
GM>His view is contradicted by the evidence.
Is that so? Glenn should know (see below)! :-)
SJ>In any event, Glenn's 5.5 mya Homo habilis Adam view is so much
>more inconsistent with both Scripture and science, and has so many
>more problems than Ross' view, that Glenn is in no position to
>criticise Ross until he gets his own house in order (Lk 6:42).
GM>Thanks for the advice.
I would rather Glenn heeded my advice and did not thank me, than
thank me for my advice but did not heed it.
On Tue, 12 Nov 1996 15:19:37, Glenn Morton wrote Re: The man with
the rhesus monkey brain...:
SJ>This is the real show-stopper to Glenn's Homo habilis Adam
>theory. I give full credit to Glenn for taking Genesis 1-11
>seriously - most theistic evolutionists would dismiss as
>"concordist" any attempt to harmonise Genesis 1-11 with modern
>science. But Glenn's desire to harmonise Noah's Flood with the
>geological evidence for the infilling of the Mediterranean basin 5
>mya has led him to embrace an extreme "old-Adam" position which is
>irreconcilable with the basic theological thrust of the New
>Testament, namely that Adam had to be fully MAN, in order to be our
>representative.
GM>I thought MAN-hood was determined by bearing the image of God.
>Many christians in the last century thought that Africans could not
>be human because they looked so different from us. They believed
>that they were a different species. This view was held so widely
>that the United States Supreme Court succombed to it. And remember
>that hese views were held by the majority of Europeans and
>Americans.
The whole point is that "they were" NOT "a different species". They
were all *one* species, namely Homo sapiens.
[...]
GM>Basing humanity upon outward looks reminds one of 1 Sam. 16:7,
>"Man looks at the outward appearance, the the Lord looks at the
>heart."
Who is "Basing humanity upon outward looks"? I don't. I can accept
that Homo habilis/erectus' "outward looks" may have been so similar
to H. sapiens we could not tell the difference.
But from all we know of his language, art, technology and culture,
H. habilis *inwardly* was not one of us.
GM>While this does not prove that any earlier hominid species bore
>the image of God, it does render void the objections to them being
>human, which are based upon appearance only.
I have never even said that "earlier hominid species" were not
"human", let alone that it was "based upon appearance only". For
the umpteenth time I will quote an anthropologists definition of
"human" with which I broadly agree:
"What then is "human"? There may well be as many definitions as
there are human beings! We suggest, however, that a sound
explanation of the term be based on the two criteria previously
mentioned: first, a body structured for standing upright and
walking on two legs (bipedalism), thus leaving the arms free for
functions other than locomotion; second, a complex brain that
provides the abilities for abstract thought, symbolic communication,
and the development of culture as a way of life. The term "human,"
then, is not synonymous with hominid. Early hominids
(Australopithecines) possessed only one of these criteria-bipedal
locomotion. Although H. erectus is included, anthropologists
usually reserve the human designation for Homo sapiens. With this
dual emphasis on biology and culture, our definition once again
underlines the biocultural view of human evolution." (Nelson H. &
Jurmain R., "Introduction To Physical Anthropology", West Publishing
Company: St. Paul, Fifth Edition, 1991, p13)
GM>Your argument against my view is based solely upon their
>appearance
I sometimes wonder where Glenn gets his ideas about what other
people believe? In my case it is certainly not from reading my
posts! :-) What I believe is the *exact oposite* what Glenn claims.
I believe the major difference between Homo sapiens and all other
members of the genus Homo is *inward*, ie. intellectual and
spiritual. For example, I have in the past quoted Carnell:
"Let us also observe that the Bible teaches that what distinguishes
man from the lower 'kinds' is not the structure of this organism,
but, rather, his having been made in the image and likeness of the
Almighty. Yet science tries to base its case for human evolution
upon the structural similarity between man and the other Primates or
Vertebrata, when, as a matter of fact, this need not be the key to
unlocking the mystery of man's origin. The Christian teaches that
though Pithecanthropus may have had a frame which evolved
considerably within the appointed limits of 'threshold' evolution,
even to the point where he resembled the other Primates more than
does modern man, that structural deviation does not relieve
Pithecanthropus of his membership in the classification Homo
sapiens. Even science admits that all of the fossil men that it has
discovered are still men, despite their structural peculiarities.
Since the individuating principle in man is not his bone-structure,
but rather his rational nature and his qualifications to worship
God, the fact that the bodies of the primitive men have evolved in
this way or that, is neither here nor there." (Carnell E.J., "An
Introduction to Christian Apologetics", Eerdmans: Grand Rapids,
1948, p240)
One of the problems in understanding what is human is that we only
have fallen man as an example:
"If we choose to investigate the Bible's depiction of man, we find
that man today is actually in an abnormal condition. The real human
is not what we now find in human society. The real human is the
being that came from the hand of God, unspoiled by sin and the fall.
In a very real sense, the only true human beings were Adam and Eve
before the fall, and Jesus. All the others are twisted, distorted,
corrupted samples of humanity. It therefore is necessary to look at
man in his original state and at Christ if we would correctly assess
what it means to be human." (Erickson M.J., "Christian Theology",
Baker: Grand Rapids MI, 1985, pp495-496)
My view is what ultimately defines *full* humanity is the ability to
have a personal relationship with God:
"the image of God is intrinsic to man. Man would not be human
without it. The meaning of this concept will be explored in chapter
23. Let it be said for the moment, however, that whatever it is
that sets man apart from the rest of the creation, he alone is
capable of having a conscious personal relationship with the Creator
and of responding to him. Man can know God and understand what the
Creator desires of him. Man can love, worship, and obey his Maker.
In these responses man is most completely fulfilling his Maker's
intention for him, and thus being most fully human, since humanity
is defined in terms of the image of God." (Erickson M.J.,
"Christian Theology", Baker: Grand Rapids MI, 1985, p471)
Other members of the genus Homo may have had religious thoughts and
feelings (eg. bear cults, burial of their dead with flowers, etc),
but this is no more conclusive evidence of a relationship with God
than the religion of the Canaanites was. Ultimately of course this
is a *Christian* view of man that cannot be accepted by so-called
"neutral" naturalistic science. I am unrepentant about that! :-)
"The contention that we are advancing here is that the Christian
view of man is more pertinent to him than is any competing view.
This image of man accounts for the full range of human phenomena
more completely and with less distortion than does any other view.
And this view more than any other approach to life enables man to
function in ways that are deeply satisfying to him in the long run."
(Erickson, 1985, p472)
GM>in spite of the fact that even several of the authors you have
>cited agree that all forms of homo had a language.
Yes, bu probably not a fully developed complex "language" that H.
sapiens has, but rather a protolanguage:
"I suspect, therefore, that only with the evolution of Homo habilis
did some form of spoken language begin. Like Bickerton, I suspect
that this was a protolanguage of sorts, simple in content and
structure, but a means of communication beyond that of apes and of
australopithecines." (Leakey R., "The Origin of Humankind",
Phoenix: London, 1994, p129)
Even H. Neandertalensis may not have had the same rich, complex,
syntactic language as H. sapiens:
"They may not have had a language as complex as ours," says
Christopher Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History
Museum in London. "We have past, present, and future tenses. We
have symbolism. They may not have had all that, but at least they
could talk to each other." (Gore R., "Neandertals", National
Geographic, Vol. 189, No. 1, January 1996, p30)
GM>Remember it was God who taught Adam to speak. If they spoke,
>they must be descendants of Adam.
There is no Biblical evidence that "God...taught Adam to speak".
The Bible depicts God talking to Adam from the outset (Gn 2:16-17).
On the Pre-Adamite view, language would have developed in the genus
Homo along with intellect, art and technology, culminating in a pool
of advanced anatomically modern humans, from which God drew Adam,
the first fully human being and the compeleted imago Dei.
God bless.
Steve
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