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Tigress
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Date Joined Feb 2003
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| Posted 5/20/2003 12:03 PM (GMT -6) |   | Everyone, including myself, always asks who did Adam and Eve's children marry?
Here's my hypothesis although it of course could be flawed:
Maybe God made other humans for them just like God made Eve for Adam. God took Adam's rib and formed Eve from it. Maybe God took the ribs from their sons to make their wives and maybe He created husbands from the dust of the Earth for their daughters. (God created Adam from the dust of the Earth). These newly-created spouses were not free from original sin even though God didn't create them through the usual human reproductive process, b/c the wives were still made from their sinful husbands, and the husbands were made from the dust of a Fallen Earth (Fallen b/c of Adam and Eve's sin.)
Again, this is just a theory, but I thought it might be plausible. In this theory Adam and Eve are still the first humans, and all the humans who came after them were still from their original seed, so they're still our first human parents.
Tigress
The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.
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DLW
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| Posted 5/20/2003 12:36 PM (GMT -6) | | Ooh and of even more relevance for this forum, why don't we debate Evolution?
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
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Laplace
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 138
| Posted 5/20/2003 1:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Tigress,
The objection is often cited in the classic question of "Where did Mrs. Cain come from?" if Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel were the only humans on the earth at the time.
There are a few theories about human origins. One says that we should not take the story of Adam and Eve literally, meaning they represent a GROUP of people rather than 2 individuals. However, this doesn't make sense against the context of the Bible where it assigns actual lifespans to people including Adam and lists geneologies as if he were an individual.
Another is your theory regarding God making other people out of the "dust of the earth" or from ribs. However, the text does not seem to indicate this in any way, and in addition it was BEFORE the Fall that God said to Adam and Eve:
"Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." (Gen 1:28)
This seems to indicate that God meant for them (more like ordered) to engage in sexual relations. This gives evidence that sex was meant as part of the goodness of creation from the start, not a cause or result from the Fall.
One way to help us answer this question is what the Bible says later:
"When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters" (Gen 5:3-4)
In 800 years one can have A LOT of children. It is possible that God was talking in Cain in anticipation of future children that were not yet born to Eve.
Another theory is that when listing geneologies, one only lists down highlighted names and not a complete bloodline. Meaning if we were to list the Geneology of the Smith family, we might mention John and his grandson George, but skip over George's dad Bill.
However, there is no hard evidence in the Bible that geneology listings follow this convention as a norm. And Luke's geneology gives a line from Adam all the way to Jesus that doesn't seem to "skip over". This is where we get the often common saying that Creation occured "about 6000 years ago" if we add up the lifespan years of all those people.
Finally, understand that if you take the Bible literally in this sense, both the Old and New Testament state that the entire earth was repopulated by only 8 people (Noah and his wife and his 3 sons [Ham, Shem, Japeth] and their 3 wives). So, you run into the same problem of "How do you get that much diversity (Black, White, Asian, etc) from only 8 people?!". The story of the Tower of Babel probably is the key to answering that question. But again, if you accept the Biblical account, you must also accept that all animals today (those who breathed air) came from just 2 on the ark.
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DLW
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| Posted 5/20/2003 1:12 PM (GMT -6) | | quick point:most of the genetic variation for humans is within group not across group(i.e., Caucasian, African, Asian and what-not).
We are very similar genetically and we all likely did have the same ancestry.
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.
Edited by - DLW on 05/20/2003 6:14:23 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 5/20/2003 5:51 PM (GMT -6) | | If one accepts the scientific data that humans pre-existed the approximate time of Adam and Eve then it would be easy to adjust our understanding of the story of the Fall to correlate with the rise of consciousness. Julian Jaynes explores the evidence for this in his book, "The Origins of Consciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". One minor point he makes is that our center for consciousness is located in the forebrain which is responsible for the shape of our skull and the consequent greatly increased pain in childbirth. Of course, consciousness itself greatly increases the sense of pain also.
Thus Adam and Eve is the story of what happened to all of us when God gave us consciousness (made us "Imago Dei" - in His image). This gives us the story of Adam and Eve as a "story" about the deeper meaning of what has happened to us as well as connecting it from there to the historical record through the genealogy. This way of understanding it allows us to see the deeper metaphorical meanings of the talking serpent, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as well as allowing us to understand that this all took place at some particular time in history record.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edited by - Iconoclast on 05/20/2003 11:01:14 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
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Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 5/21/2003 2:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Tigress
quote:
Everyone, including myself, always asks who did Adam and Eve's children marry?
Another theory:
Seeing how many years people lived back then, Adam and Eve had other children and Cain married one of them. This was later prohibited because of the strengthening of genetic weaknesses by inbreeding. But the first humans would not have had such weaknesses.
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Tigress
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Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 5/21/2003 4:35 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Tigress
quote:
Everyone, including myself, always asks who did Adam and Eve's children marry?
Another theory:
Seeing how many years people lived back then, Adam and Eve had other children and Cain married one of them. This was later prohibited because of the strengthening of genetic weaknesses by inbreeding. But the first humans would not have had such weaknesses.
Even though the skies are blue, don't they let the sunshine through?
How in the world can we know this for sure?
Tigress
The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.
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Laika
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Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 5/21/2003 4:47 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Another theory:
Seeing how many years people lived back then, Adam and Eve had other children and Cain married one of them.
Tigress
quote:
How in the world can we know this for sure?
I'm not sure we can. It seems plausible to me. "Where did Cain's wife come from?" is not a question that stumps me or would cause me to question my faith.
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 5/21/2003 5:07 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
If one accepts the scientific data that humans pre-existed the approximate time of Adam and Eve then it would be easy to adjust our understanding of the story of the Fall to correlate with the rise of consciousness. Julian Jaynes explores the evidence for this in his book, "The Origins of Consciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". One minor point he makes is that our center for consciousness is located in the forebrain which is responsible for the shape of our skull and the consequent greatly increased pain in childbirth. Of course, consciousness itself greatly increases the sense of pain also.
Thus Adam and Eve is the story of what happened to all of us when God gave us consciousness (made us "Imago Dei" - in His image). This gives us the story of Adam and Eve as a "story" about the deeper meaning of what has happened to us as well as connecting it from there to the historical record through the genealogy. This way of understanding it allows us to see the deeper metaphorical meanings of the talking serpent, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as well as allowing us to understand that this all took place at some particular time in history record.
thanks,
Iconoclast
Sources????
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me. | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 5/23/2003 8:49 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
quote:
If one accepts the scientific data that humans pre-existed the approximate time of Adam and Eve then it would be easy to adjust our understanding of the story of the Fall to correlate with the rise of consciousness...
Sources????
dlw
DLW,
What "Iconoclast" says is true, about mainstream science having concluded that human existence stretches back far further than traditional dates for the literal existence of Adam. In other words, mainstream science has indeed concluded this for numerous reasons. Is that what you were seeking sources for?
Or were you seeking sources to elaborate on the particular interpretation of Genesis 2-3 which "Iconoclast" proceeded to then summarize? That interpretation is one of several non-literal concordist interpretations of the Adam account - non-literal because they do not accept the exact historicity of the account vis-a-vis early human history, but concordist because they do accept that Genesis 2-3 accords (ie matches-up) in some way with early human history, if not directly and exactly.
Other interpretations exist which bracket the various concordist ones. There is, of course, the literal/inerrantist one (in which the account is accepted as purporting to describe early human history fact-by-fact, and that description is accepted as real history, by deduction from the premise of total factual biblical inerrancy). That interpretation is the typical young-earth creationist position, for example. And at the other end of the spectrum there is the literary/allegorical one (in which the account is accepted as purporting to give an Everyman allegory, like a parable, for the universality of sin and the responsibility each of us bear for it, without purporting to describe real history). FYI, at the present time my preferred approach is the accommodationist one (which sees God's inspired purpose for the account being that described by the literary view; but accommodated to ancient near-Eastern, and indeed universal, understanding, by co-opting an uninspired legend which incidentally does purport to be real history, as described by the literal view).
In any event, you may find the following overview interesting. The first summarizes the very mundane, non-controversial-within-the-mainstream, state of science on early human history, and outlines the problems this poses for the literal and, to some extent, some concordist interpretations (which have in common that they seek to find a match with real history directly and indirectly, respectively, in the account). The author is Davis Young, evangelical Christian and mainstream geologist at a Christian university (Calvin College):
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Bible-Science/CSR5-95Young.html#The%20Bible%20and%20Science
Note this paper is being hosted at the Web site of the American Scientific Affiliation, an organization of Christian scientists in the United States. Many other articles, from informal to scholarly, are also available on the site and in their journal. See http://www.asa3.org
Of course besides these, many many other sources are available, on the Web and in journals and books.
Hope this helps,
Scott
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DLW
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Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 5/24/2003 2:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Thankyou Scott.
No time to dialogue right now, but I am very interested in Evolution and its relation to Theism. Have there been any good past links on the relationship between OpenViewTheism and Evolution? I know that a defining mark of Process Theology has been its use of Evolution as a base metaphor for its theology, in the tradition of Whitehead.
I tend to perceive differences between OVTheists and ProcessTheists as cultural in that the former tend to come from Neo-Evangelical backgrounds/influences, while the latter come from Liberal backgrounds.
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me. | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 5/27/2003 8:56 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
No time to dialogue right now, but I am very interested in Evolution and its relation to Theism. Have there been any good past links on the relationship between OpenViewTheism and Evolution? I know that a defining mark of Process Theology has been its use of Evolution as a base metaphor for its theology, in the tradition of Whitehead.
DLW,
I myself cannot answer your question - I'm not personally familiar with any works relating evolution to open theism.
But I will say that in general I am quite leery of attempts to leverage evolution into the theological or philosophical space. John Haught's God after Darwin is the only such work I've gotten into, and even then I couldn't finish it. Reading theology out of a particular scientific theory is simply too much of an overreach - in fact it is quite similar to what atheists do in their own way.
In my opinion, it is one thing for us to investigate how best to understand the data of theology (eg, the Bible and tradition) and the data of science (eg, the physical evidence) so as to compatibly and reasonably fit with one another. It is another to say, what then can that science reveal to us about God? My felt answer is "nothing novel" - ie, nothing that everyone of every age and culture do not already intuit from their daily experience of the world around them (as in Romans 1).
Specifically, science as a whole, I think, reveals, or rather confirms, what we already knew by faith: that God is transcendant, almighty, and lawful, and that we are made sufficiently in his image so as to grasp the regular patterns by which his creation works. But asking what any particular scientific theory like evolution reveals about God is, in my opinion, asking too much from a field that speaks of nature, not the supernatural. You may as well ask about the relationship between God and gravitation. (Yet somehow people seem especially eager to use evolution in this way. You never find people wondering about the relationship between God and gravitation - though then again maybe in Newton's time you do...)
Scott
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DLW
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| Posted 5/27/2003 9:29 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
But I will say that in general I am quite leery of attempts to leverage evolution into the theological or philosophical space. John Haught's God after Darwin is the only such work I've gotten into, and even then I couldn't finish it. Reading theology out of a particular scientific theory is simply too much of an overreach - in fact it is quite similar to what atheists do in their own way.
I am also familiar with Haught's book. I think he overdoes it. What I liked best was his taxonomy of views on the relationship between Christianity and Evolution. The two are in complete opposition:which both fundamentalists and R. Dawkins-atheists are in agreement over. The two are both true, but have their own spheres or are autonomous of each other. Then, the third is that if Evolution is true then our Theologies must take this into account. In the last account, it claims we must do Theology differently on account of our understanding of the importance of Evolution. It sounds to me like you are in the second camp.
quote:
In my opinion, it is one thing for us to investigate how best to understand the data of theology (eg, the Bible and tradition) and the data of science (eg, the physical evidence) so as to compatibly and reasonably fit with one another. It is another to say, what then can that science reveal to us about God? My felt answer is "nothing novel" - ie, nothing that everyone of every age and culture do not already intuit from their daily experience of the world around them (as in Romans 1).
Well, it seems the idea is whether or not paradigm-changes in our understanding of Science/Creation might or might not spill-over into causing paradigm changes in our understanding of the creator. I would allow for this possibility, while emphasizing that in terms of what is essential for salvation, that has not changed and been present across all times and places.
quote:
Specifically, science as a whole, I think, reveals, or rather confirms, what we already knew by faith: that God is transcendant, almighty, and lawful, and that we are made sufficiently in his image so as to grasp the regular patterns by which his creation works. But asking what any particular scientific theory like evolution reveals about God is, in my opinion, asking too much from a field that speaks of nature, not the supernatural. You may as well ask about the relationship between God and gravitation. (Yet somehow people seem especially eager to use evolution in this way. You never find people wondering about the relationship between God and gravitation - though then again maybe in Newton's time you do...)
There has always been a symbiotic relationship between reflection on Nature and reflection on God. This was especially true of Newton's time. The whole Creation controversy was much stronger here in the US, because we were influenced by the Anglican tradition of Theology that borrowed rather heavily from metaphors from Newtonian Physics. So when Evolution emerged, and proclaimed that for most of time there had been mostly bloody waste and the struggle of all against all in the test of the survival of the fittest, the contrast of this view of the world with the Newtonian Watch-view of the world led many to reject Christianity/God.
Emile Durkheim, the French Sociologist/Anthropologist, who was no fan of organized religion, contended that the concepts and methods that made philosophy/science possible were developed over several centuries of theological discourse in Europe. As such, I don't think they can be viewed as autonomous of each other at a fundamental level. Alister McGrath, in "The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion", argues that there is a fundamental relationship between Christian Theology and the Natural Sciences at the level of methodology.
I don't think the distinction between the natural and the supernatural is that clear-cut.
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me. | | Back to Top | | |
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Truth Aficionado
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Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 11/11/2004 4:19 AM (GMT -6) | | Worth mentioning are the following quotes from a recent article:
GRANTSBURG, WIS. -- When the Grantsburg school board unanimously passed a resolution last month allowing "various theories/models of origins" to be taught in its science curriculum, the words "evolution" and "creationism" were never mentioned.
But by becoming the nation's only school board to allow theories other than evolution in public school classrooms, the school board created a national controversy.
"The Supreme Court says you can't teach creationism in public schools. Other than the theory of evolution, there are no other scientific theories of origin."
Last year, a Minnetonka-based evangelist, Ron Carlson, founder of Christian Ministries International, gave sermons in churches in Grantsburg and the nearby community of Webster, about theories of creation other than evolution.
A Web site biography said Carlson travels widely and lectures on "the Christian biblical response to world religions, cults, New Age philosophy, the occult and evolution." He is a graduate of Bethel College and Theological Seminary in St. Paul, the Web site said, listing among other academic accomplishments a doctorate of divinity degree that he received from the Northwest Graduate School of Ministry in Kirkland, Wash.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1592/5077798.html
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Tigress
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Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 11/11/2004 12:53 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Iconoclast
If one accepts the scientific data that humans pre-existed the approximate time of Adam and Eve then it would be easy to adjust our understanding of the story of the Fall to correlate with the rise of consciousness. Julian Jaynes explores the evidence for this in his book, "The Origins of Consciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". One minor point he makes is that our center for consciousness is located in the forebrain which is responsible for the shape of our skull and the consequent greatly increased pain in childbirth. Of course, consciousness itself greatly increases the sense of pain also.
Thus Adam and Eve is the story of what happened to all of us when God gave us consciousness (made us "Imago Dei" - in His image). This gives us the story of Adam and Eve as a "story" about the deeper meaning of what has happened to us as well as connecting it from there to the historical record through the genealogy. This way of understanding it allows us to see the deeper metaphorical meanings of the talking serpent, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as well as allowing us to understand that this all took place at some particular time in history record.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edited by - Iconoclast on 05/20/2003 11:01:14 PM
Interesting...so he would argue that what evolutionists called Neanderthals and Cro-Magnum people were the precursors to modern humans. These precursors had large brow ridges but not a very developed forebrain, so according to this theory they were humans that weren't sinful. Modern humans have a developed forebrain and so are obviously sinful. The only flaw I see in this logic is that the precursors died, as is evidenced by their fairly prevalent remains. If they were sinless and their physiology proved it, how did the first sinful action that was apparently committed by one of their descendents (evidenced by that descendent's developed forebrain) suddenly cause them all to die? It seems to me that they would be spared because they came before him. It makes more sense to me that the very first humans ever created were also the very first to sin, thus passing the "sin-disease" to their children and each successive generation.
I tend to think that scientists are too quick to assume that just because some beings a)walked upright, b)looked similar to humans and c)made tools, that that automatically means they were human like us and were our ancestors. RE: a)Since when does the way a creature walks have anything to do with being human? RE: b)Lots of primates are similar to humans in many ways but they aren't human. RE: c)And lots of creatures build things and use tools (chimpanzees use rocks to crack open nuts and they stick twigs into anthills to pull out the ants in order to eat them; ants build anthills; birds build nests; beavers build dams; bees build hives; raccoons take food into their hands and wash the food in water if it's available before eating the food, etc.) None of these things mean that they're human at all. So, why should the tools left by the remains of the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnums necessarily mean that they were human?
Tigress 
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
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