Adam and his Soulless Neighbors

[Ark Guy]

Adam and his Soulless Neighbors

This topic has been floating around on several threads and I thought it deserved it's own.

Some of the The-Evo Sect have realized that they need to create a whole population of souless men who were living side by side with the first people in which God had placed souls...Adam and Eve.

In other words there were two groups of people. Those without souls..... and a second group of people, Adam and Eve and their descendents who had soul.

I think I explained that correctly...

Now what I'm after....

I ask those of the Theo-Evo Sect who subscribe to the above to present the biblical support to back this theological concept.

This thread is an opportunity for those that subscribe to the above soulless man scenario to present all their scriptural support in one place and not on several threads.

In doing so it will help us to analyse this interesting point of view.

 

[Vance]

Then gather up all the arguments I make for this scenario and put them here, if you like.

The important point is that this is one of a number of possibilities.

The text is fairly clear that there were others around at the time of the murder of Abel by Cain. This is one model to explain how this might have happened. If you can provide a convincing model which is wholly consistent with a plain reading of the text, please feel free to do so. So far, no one has done this around here.

God could also have specially created a whole bunch of people *after* He created Adam and Eve (and thus either Eve was the "spiritual" mother of all of them, or the genetic mother using the scientific Eve theory).

Adam was created and then placed *into* the garden afterward, according to the text. Where was he before? How long after his creation was he placed in the garden? We know that the first creation story talks about creating Man and Woman, and mentions nothing about Adam. The text does not indicate that he only created one man and woman, but created "man" and "woman". The second creation account mentions creating an Adam and then an Eve.

One possible interpretation is that He created the race of Man first, then later created an Adam and an Eve for a specific purpose.

Again, this is just one possible reading.

 

[Ark Guy]

vance
The text is fairly clear that there were others around at the time of the murder of Abel by Cain. This is one model to explain how this might have happened. If you can provide a convincing model which is wholly consistent with a plain reading of the text, please feel free to do so. So far, no one has done this around here.

How is this not consistent with a clear reading of the bible?

You claim it is...but really don't present a reason.
instead you seem to jump into the other scenario with out any real explanation.

I'll be waiting for your verses. It will be helpful to see them all in one place.

 

[Ark Guy]

Is the text really clear that there were others around at the time of the murder?

Here is what vance say suports that claim.

GEN 4:14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."

The question is...does this verse CLEARLY say there were other people around...or is it Cain looking into the future when the earth will be more populated?

I think you can make a point that it MAY refer to other people..but it certainly isn't a clear point.

 

[Vance]

You are missing the point. The verses are Genesis one and two. In those two creation stories, we have a description first of God creating Man and Woman, but it does not say *how* He created them. Then in the second story, we have a description of a His creation of a specific man, and then a woman, and how He placed them in a garden. There are a number of ways to read this, as I have explained in the other Cain thread.

But which is the most likely? You say the YEC reading of single male and female from which every man and woman since has descended, and that He created none others. You say this ONLY because it is based on what you call a "plain reading" of the text. Yet, you are willing to follow a very "unplain" reading of the Cain story. Instead, you twist the Cain story around so that it fits with your reading of the creation of Man. And it IS a convoluted reading of the Cain story, there is no getting around that fact. You are reconciling the Cain story to your reading of Adam and Eve.

I am just considering (and considering is the key there) the same approach, but starting instead with the Cain story (for reasons I will give below), and interpreting the creation of Man story so that it is more consistent with a plain reading of the Cain story. The same process that you are following, but starting with a different section of Scripture and reconciling them, just as you have done.

Either way, you must read additional material into the text, since God did not provide us with a full and complete account (which was both uneccesary for His purposes and probably impossible anyway).

The difference is that the Creation of Man stories are more subject to various possibilities due to the fact that there are two of them, the poetic language used and uncertainty created by the original Hebrew. It is simply more open to interpretation than the Cain story. To me, it is much more certain from the text that there were others besides Adam and Eve's descendents living at the time of the murder.

So, you see that it is essential for you to be able to justify your "Cain married his sister" position in order to justify your reading of the creation of Man story.

The problem is that you state your position dogmatically, as if it is the only possible truth. I state my position tentatively, because I don't think we can discover the truth on this point and that taking dogmatic positions is not only arrogant, it is dangerous to the message of the Gospel.

Oh, and this has nothing to do with evolution. The fact that a few of the possibilities of how the others got here may somehow fit with what we know about evolution is besides the point. The others could have been addtional special creations either before or after Adam and Eve, which would not rely on evolution at all. The point is that there were very likely other people on Earth at the time who were not descendents of Adam and Eve and I am curious who they might have been.

 

[Ark Guy]

vance..you seem to miss the point.
My Cain married his sister or even neice is much more probable than you souless man scenario. Why? Because the scripture tells us that Adam and Eve had other kids. In other words it was likely. true, as I have said to you before, the bible doesn't make this claim, but the simple reading easily concludes this.

The problem for you is that I can point to different places in scripture that support the likelyness of my view.

Your soulless man scenario has about as much biblical credance as Cain marrying an alien from a UFO.

That is why I askd for the verses to support your scenario.

If you can't supply them then you must admitt that your scenario has absolutly no biblical support where as the Cain marrying his sister is the best scenario given what we know from scripture.

 

[Godzman]

I believe the bible story, those who say it is allegorical are missing the point, because specific people are mentioned in the story, Adam and Eve in particular. I do believe that Genesis does not tell the whole story, I wondered about that myself, I don't believe Cain married his sister, I just really don't believe that. I ain't gonna try to figure it out unless something in the bible points it out and explains it, I can make a guess, but I won't. Some say that there are two creation accounts, some may say one just described man in more detail. Do we really know for sure, I would worry less about it, because we are here, and that is a fact. And there is sin all over the world.

 

[troodon]

I believe the bible story, those who say it is allegorical are missing the point, because specific people are mentioned in the story, Adam and Eve in particular.

The good Samaritan is a specific person, is he not?

 

[Ark Guy]

I'm still waiting for the verses that show a race of people without sould living in Adams neighbrohood.

 

[Vance]

The Scripture is that combination of Scriptures which strongly indicates that there were other people who were not of Adam and Eve's descendents, alive at the time of the murder. If they were not descendents of Adam and Eve, then who were they? What made Adam and Eve unique among these others? And, I provided the other Scriptural text which raises the possibility that Man lived outside the garden for some time before Adam was placed in it. These are part of the text and must be dealt with.

I have never said that the other were *necessarily* without souls, just pointed out that this is one of the theories which have presented. As someone else pointed out, another is that Adam and Eve were the first "Jews" or chosen people. There are many other possibilities. I listed a few of the possibilities.

You blithely say that you can point to other scripture to support the likelihood of your "Cain married his sister" viewpoint, but have failed to do so. You have not once addressed the issues raised in my original post on this topic. It is, indeed, a possibility, but it is NOT the plain reading of the Scripture.

Until you address the issues raised in my first post, and explain how that is a plain reading of scripture, we get back to the same point:

The reading of Cain marrying his sister requires a very convoluted and un-plain reading of the text. Fine. But if you are going to do that, you should be willing to approach other scripture the same way.

You are setting up a red herring to avoid the issue. Until you squarely address the Cain issue, we can not go forward with the rest of this discussion since the idea of other, non-family members alive at the time of the murder is supported by that Cain text.

 

[Godzman]

The good Samaritan is a specific person, is he not?

Jesus told everyone stories in parables they knew from the get go that they had deep meaning but weren't true but just made up stories with a point and some facts in them.

No where in Genesis does it say the adam and eve story was that

 

[Vance]

Although it is written in the type of poetic language and style that such early cultures used when presenting such allegorical or teaching tales. If that is what it was, they would never say "and here is an allegory of the Creation", they would write exactly as Genesis is written.

Personally, I do not think it is allegory, but I acknowledge that the Biblical and Hebrew scholars who point out this fact are correct regarding the style.

 

[Ark Guy]

Vance, am I to assume that you have no verses that show of a soulless civilization that lived next door to Adam and Eve?

 

[Vance]

Ark guy, I have already provided you with the verses that indicated most clearly that there were other humans, not descended of Adam, at the time of the murder: see above. The idea that humans may have pre-existed Adam, who was the first man who was infused with a soul, is not my concept, but one which has been around for a very long time. It is one theory which can be considered to explain who those people were. Therer are others, as I provided. One variation would be that He did not leave them "soul-less", but that Adam was just the *first* which He infused, not the only one. These are mere analysis of all the evidence we have before us, and presenting possible concepts, nothing more. You seem to have a hard time grasping this.

I notice that you are still avoiding dealing with the question I have raised about the "Cain married his sister" theory, which is crucial to this discussion. Do you admit that this theory is based on an "un-plain" and convoluted reading of the text?

 

[Ark Guy]

vance, either post the verses or go away. Stop doing the Mr. Bojangle dance as you soft shoe around the issue in hopes that it will go away.

Secondly, you have found no flaw in my cain marrying his sister scenario...on the other hand your soulless neighbors still needs to be shown to us.

 

[Vance]

OK, for the last time, the verses are those which include the Cain story, and those which describe two different accounts of the Creation of Man. I have pointed to exactly why I think those verses make it unlikely that the people who were alive at the time of the murder were Adam's descendents and provided a list of alternatives which have been presented over the 2,000 years of Christianity. And the fact that, after God had created Adam, he breathed into him. Now, we know that God had created a lot of other beings that were alive, so it was not simply life that Adam got, it had to be something more. What was that "more"? Many (including many anti-evolutionary fundamentalists) believe that what was breathed in was a soul, the thing that provides that special relationship to God and distinguishes us from the animals. So, Adam got a soul from God.

But if their were others on the earth who were not descendents from Adam (as the text strongly suggests), were they also given souls at the same time? Was Adam just the first, but not the only? Was Adam the first human created, given a soul, but then other humans were specially created (with souls) after Adam, maybe even after the fall? These questions we don't know.

Remember, I never said that Adam's neighbors were soul-less. It is not even one of the possibilities I included in the OP to my Cain thread. Yes, the concept that the hominids which preceded Adam were soul-less and that God's creative miracle for Mankind was to infuse them with a soul *is* one of the theories presented, but I have never presented the idea that Adam's neighbors after the Fall were without souls as one of the possibilities. You are really creating a huge strawman to knock down. Very odd.

Regardless, I have presented both the Scriptural and analytical bases for the concept I *am* presenting: that there were other humans which existed at the time of the murder that were NOT Adam's descendents, and for the possibility (among many) that Adam was the first among humans who was brought into a special relationship with God (and given a soul).

You have no more excuses for dodging the issues raised in my original Cain post.

 

[Ark Guy]

There is only one account of the creation of man...why do you keep spreading this unsupported strawman argument?

 

[Vance]

Well, that is nonsensical to say there are not two. There is a beginning and an end to the first one, then it starts with a second one, telling the "account" of the creation.

The question has never been whether there are two, but how the two inter-relate. I think they inter-relate just fine, others think they contradict each other.

 

[Ark Guy]

Ok, I'll grant you that..there are two accounts of the same creation event.

Genesis 5:1 - 2 even present a very abbreviated 3rd account of the same creation event performed by Jesus Christ.

 

[lucaspa]

Ok, I'll grant you that..there are two accounts of the same creation event.

Nope. Two accounts of different creation events. The sequence of creation is entirely different in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

Genesis 5:1 - 2 even present a very abbreviated 3rd account of the same creation event performed by Jesus Christ.

Where does Genesis 5:1-2 mention Jesus Christ?

Genesis 5 is still a third story. Notice that there are ben elohim now not mentioned in Genesis 1 or 2 that mate with human women. And this is the cause that God limits human lifespans to 120 years.

BTW, note that Genesis 5:1-2 contradicts Genesis 2. We have the generations of Adam mentioned, but Adam is now created by the method of Genesis 1 and not Genesis 2. Also notice that there is no mention of Cain and Abel.

What Biblical scholars have concluded is that we have the Redactor of Genesis making an introduction to this third creation story and borrowing parts of the other two as introduction.