You're missing the point. What you are describing is first-hand transfer of information, the even happened to you and you told someone. Aside from the fact that memory changes with time (details are lost and what not) your friend's grandson is still hearing the story from the person to which the events happened.
The first hand transfer of information would have been from Adam to Methuselah. Methuselah spoke to both Adam and Noah.... there is no broken telephone here. Not to mention that Enoch, Methuselah's father, knew how to write. So, the recorded events of this time could have easily been recorded as dictated by first hand observers. In fact, Adam himself.
We may not have the original documents, but, it is not any stretch at all to believe these events were written down.
Not to mention that some of the books of the Torah were understood to have been dictated by God to Moses.
Now consider that your friend's grandson, 30 years later, tells his friend's grandson what you told him, and that person tells his friend's granddaughter the same information 25 years later. Do you think the girl, who is hearing the story third-hand and at least 80 years later, gets the exact same story you told?
Why not? Especially if it was an event such as the creation of the universe. A bit different than a walk to church on a Sunday morning... These things are profound events that get etched in your brain... Ever heard anyone say "I remember it like it was yesterday"?
You're presuming, against solid science about memory to the contrary, that your grandfather perfectly remembered an event that happened to him 40 years earlier, transferred that knowledge perfectly to you when you were ten, that you remembered the story perfectly over however many years have passed, you transferred the knowledge perfectly to your son, and he understood you perfectly. Now, to get to the number of people involved in your original scenario, your son has to perfectly transfer your grandfather's story, which he heard second-hand to his son and his son has to perfectly understand the story.
The difference between an ameba turning into a rabbit, or goo to you by way of the zoo........ is not the mistake of a forgotten detail that would render something "imperfect"
That's like gramps telling me he built a flying saucer with remote control before they had cars..... That's gramps with dementia NOT forgetting a few details.
See all those bolded perfectlys? Every one of them is a chance for a detail to be misremembered, communication to be fumbled, or something else to happen. That's a lot of potential problems to be avoided.
You mean like... "I remember my wife, when she was younger, going to the beach with her friends... or was it my uncle throwing me in the swamp with the alligators... hard to remember which, so hard to keep them straight... hmm"
Your argument is absurd. The difference between being the only man on earth, having a rib taken to make the first woman, naming all the animals, living in the garden of Eden....
AND..... a long line of preposterous events changing a single celled spark of life (which nobody is concerned about where it came from) turning into all the things we have today.
BTW, the last person Shem could have talked to would have been Jacob's father, Isaac. So that's a minimum of five retellings between Adam and Jacob, not four.
Jacob was living when Shem was still alive.
Sorry, you said "not copies of copies". I thought you meant we have the originals.
Thank you
The point being that without the originals, we can't verify if the copies are correct, whether they are once removed from the originals or twenty times removed.
Guess we better throw out Aristotle, Hypocrites, Plato, and all the other great minds... Because their work was recorded far later after the events than any bible documents.
There are more bible documents and less time from when they happened to when they were written, than any other commonly accepted work that contradicts the biblical accounts... People have a hard time accepting things that go against the hive mind.
We also don't know that Dead Sea Scrolls are direct copies of the originals.
Except that they match letter to letter with unexpected precision, to the documents we have to date.
So, if they are not copies... maybe they are the originals....
Somehow they are exact replicas. Even, to the dismay of the atheistic scholars.... who have to accept that they are exact duplicates, for points necessary.
How they are described is as a literal event in which Satan took Jesus to a literal mountain from which He could see all the kingdoms of the earth.
I'm sorry. I really am. That you have problems with our supernatural God, describing an supernatural event.
Let me ask you..... did it happen?
If it didn't, was Christ really tempted. If not, was He falsely given the right to die for my sins?
You have the ability to follow some hoecus pocus about bacterium changing to other organisms and then, finally to man.... yet you cannot believe the things in the Bible that are written?
All the while... you will hold to the fact that Jesus was God and died for your sins....
So, how do you know what to take from man's wisdom and what to take from God's truth?
I agree. however science can only study things of this world.
So, what do you do with all the things that afford you salvation but are not possible to be scientifically possible, cannot be studied by science. Not repeatable, test able or observable..... Yet, you trust your eternal soul on these events.
I guess it is necessary to believe these things, or you wouldn't have salvation. However the events of creation can be tossed aside and you follow the foolishness of man because they are not infringing on your ability to have eternal life.
Sorry but just saying that life exists on earth does not support the claim that the common understanding of Genesis is literal.
Well you wish that were true. However, let's be honest. Without life.... both creation and the TOE are toast.
So, I'll go with the one that actually gives the origin of life. Not the one that conveniently leaves that little detail out.
You wouldn't accept it if I claimed that the fact that life exists on earth is evidence that evolution is true, would you?
How could I? You have no method to explain it. Evolution is all about starting with one small organism and "evolving" into many. You're still on the hook as to where this organism came from. That class is a prerequisite for graduation to a believable concept.
Not only that, but, the people who claim that the TOE is "fact" have no explanation, refuse to attempt it and are proud to say that it doesn't matter to them... Good job boys.
What hot potato? That life exists? Biology is working on that right now. There are several theories but none have been shown to be conclusive thus far.
None conclusive thus far... hmm Well, that's just ducky... keep going lads. Keep working on that thing that doesn't concern your theory..
So, does it or doesn't it concern the theory. Cause, if I had a theory about "XYZ" and keep telling everyone that it has no relation to fact of "123" I certainly would not be wasting anytime or money trying to connect the two.... savy?
That's because the theory of evolution doesn't deal with how life began. It presumes that life began and then deals what came after that.
I'm pretty sure we can all presume that life began.... Thing is, you don't get to tell me that "you're right" with what came after "life began" if you don't have a sniff of "how life began"....
Sorry, you don't get to play with the material that God supplied, to build a structure that says we don't need God. PERIOD.
As far as the TOE is concerned, direct creation by God of the first life form, abiogenesis, and panspermia might be how it happened but it doesn't matter. Evolution is what happens after life gets started.
Keep dancing.
Are you aware that DNA is not considered the first precursor if life?
Well, with my simple mind, you would have to first have all the complex protein structures that need to exist before you even think about assembling the incredible amount of information that is stored inside the molecules of DNA.
So,,, ya, I'm aware.
Then you are requiring something of the TOE which it does not address. Do you also require the Germ Theory of Disease to explain the origin of germs? I doubt it.
Why would I? God created germs.... I'm pretty much covered no matter what theory you want to put out there.
The fact that the TOE doesn't address it does not get it off the hook of having to explain it.
You can't say that your going to fly to Hawaii to all your friends and when they say "well we don't have a plane" answer... oh don't worry about that.
You want the "Origin of Species" you need LIFE.. period.