Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
By "honest" I meant an honest reading. I wasn't suggesting any particular conclusion - mine or otherwise - other than to say I didn't see how the idea of the OP fits. One can think whatever one wants - speculate until content - but at the end of the day if it doesn't fit with Genesis it shouldn't be called a Biblical view.
So, by "honest" I was referring to maintaining as much objectivity as possible - in the sense of reading Genesis without assuming it must be either strictly literal or strictly allegorical. I was referring to approaching Genesis with a heart bent on knowing God's intent in this text - without fear of criticisms stemming from the world's scientific claims and without surrendering to theological constructs likely invented after the fact.
With that in mind, I have no qualms confessing my own view of Genesis as history - which admits both elements of the literal, the allegorical, and more. However, even if I were to consent (for the sake of discussion) to only allegorical considerations, I would still think the OP has problems in fitting with the text.
I'm not personally insisting on a particular reading, although I do believe there must be an intended reading as we likely agree that Genesis is God's Word.
I personally see the universe as also being God's word, not written, but plain enough that all should see His hand and know of Him. Thus, where historical, Genesis must fit with the observable created world. Where allegorical, we learn something of what is beyond the created world.
1. God made all the things we see by his power and all good.
2. God made Mankind to have rule/stewardship over His creation.
3. Man had a relationship with God, but chose his own way over God's.
4. Out of love, God continues to make provision for man, including salvation.
Putting a generous light on what you've said, I suppose it is something like that. However, I'll note that Christ is God's Word (John 1:14) and Christ is not the universe (Gen 1:1).
Christ is the author of the universe (John 1:3). And the universe testifies to His being and attributes (Rom 1:20).
... general and special revelation cannot conflict.
Despite the earth's "four corners" (Is 11:12 and others) and "ends" Deut (33:17 and others), we know the earth to be a sphere. Likewise the sun does not rise or set like the Bible says, it just looks that way.
The issue is about which parts are literal and which are figurative.
I'd be curious to know your basis for rejecting the premise in the OP.
Yes and no. John says that everything was made through Christ. Romans says that he can be perceived in the things that were made. You might think I'm nit-picking, but words are important* ... or at least they are to me - my hobby is writing. To say the universe testifies to him is to personify the universe, which is different. The agent is changed from us perceiving it to the universe testifying to us. That is the beginning of pantheism, which I hope you're not suggesting.
This gets tricky. I don't insist on literal interpretations as you're probably used to it, but neither do I take references to four corners or sunrises as total figurative speech. To this day our local weatherman speaks of the sun rising even though I doubt he believes that to be a literal statement and neither do I. But when the weatherman speaks about sunrise I don't sit back and think, "What a lovely allegory. I wonder if he's talking about an inward swelling of my spirit." No. I know him to mean that based on our common reference, darkness will disappear and be replaced by light at a specific time tomorrow. He is referring to a very real historic event.
So, when David writes a psalm, I don't expect him to have what we would consider a perfect scientific understanding of what a sunrise really is. He writes in the vernacular of his time. When God steps in to assist Joshua in battle, I don't expect him to ask Joshua to step aside for a brief cosmology lesson so he'll understand exactly what God is doing in order to eliminate nonsense statements about the sun standing still. Rather, God comes down to Joshua's level and "stops the sun" to aid his battle.
And to this day God is still lowering himself to our level. He overlooks the arrogance of some of our mistaken scientific claims.
Actually, it's not. IMO those arguing for figurative interpretations are just looking for excuses. You can't randomly choose an object and claim it to be a symbol for whatever you speak of. I can't claim the Confederate battle flag now stands for racial equality ... or for the honor of Caucasian Americans living in the Southern U.S. ... because it doesn't. That's not what that flag means.
The Bible uses symbols in a specific way, and you are playing with fire to suggest they mean things they don't mean. The Word means Christ. Creating from the dust means creating, not procreating. Breathing into Adam's nostrils means humanity has been set apart from other animals by the very indwelling of God's spirit. It doesn't mean anything else. And all of that refers to a specific historic event where God interacted with this world.
Are those the exact details of how he did it? Probably not. The language is picturesque. Were it to be a scientific treatise, it would have been written much differently. But that doesn't mean the whole story is allegory only.
Moses was intelligent enough - and the idea of animals merging and changing is an ancient enough idea - that if God had sat in his recliner waiting for man to evolve, he could have easily indicated that in a way Moses could understand through the use of different words and symbols: e.g. And on the fifth day the fish came up out of the waters and crawled upon the land.
Though originally I phrased it as a question, I think I've said. It doesn't fit with what the text is saying. And I think I've added significant detail to that in the preceding sections. But I'm willing to discuss it more if something is not clear to you.
Psalm 19 and 97 speak of the heavens as telling, proclaiming, declaring--much as a masterful work of art declares something of its maker. So the universe, though not a person, indeed testifies. God frequently points to the creation to declare himself.
It's good that you don't expect scientific exactitude from the Bible, that is not its purpose.
By 'mistaken scientific claims' do you mean evolution? What specifically do you think is mistaken about its claims?
I see that you think that Genesis was written by Moses. The Bible doesn't claim this perspective.
Does it fit with what the text means? The biological data is inconsistent with an initial pair of humans no matter how ancient they are.
Science doesn't classify organisms as "human"; it's not a scientific category. We have genetic data that shows the human population was larger than a single pair for at least the last half million years or so.Current biological theory is inconsistent with an honest reading of Genesis. That is true. Data is a different matter. Do we have data regarding the first population of organisms modern science would classify as human?
Science doesn't classify organisms as "human"; it's not a scientific category. We have genetic data that shows the human population was larger than a single pair for at least the last half million years or so.
To reiterate and perhaps assuage some confusion, my contention is that there was an original pool of anatomically modern homo sapiens, out of whom God chose two, male and female, to enter into covenant with by way of ensoulment via supernatural intervention. This ensoulment marks the demarcation line between merely homo sapien and human.
This view reconciles the scientific evidence of genetics and population studies with the reality of a literal pair of two humans from which all existing humans descend.
I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. Yes I do believe this is consistent with an honest reading of GenesisDid you see my question at the beginning of post #18?
An "honest" reading need not be a literal reading.
To take an example of what I'm saying, consider the phrase "from the dust of the ground". This could easily be seen as idiomatic of the idea of emerging from the earth. Just as the church teaches that humans are at once both corporeal and spiritual, this may be a way of explaining the unity of earth and spirit in the human being. Hence us being formed of the "dust of the earth" and yet also having the "breath of life" breathed into us by God. In this I see the corporeal and spiritual united into one being. This is especially clear when, in Genesis 1, we see the phrase "let the earth bring forth" in reference to the animals. I see in this phrase a direct parallel to the phrase "from the dust of the earth".
We're straying from the context in which I made the statement. My comment only referred to your interpretation of Romans 1:20, and that only because it seemed to me your reference to the universe as God's word was an improper use of Biblical symbolism. I realize personifications occur elsewhere, but they must be kept in their proper context.
And yes, uses of "word" in the OT often refer to God's message delivered through the prophets. But since Christ is God, and Christ is the Word, it is all connected. The modern age has somewhat lost the sense of wonder surrounding the idea of words, and that is too bad. Think about it. Words are delivered by the breath (which in Hebrew is ruach - the same word used for "spirit"), and that breath is formed by the throat (which in Hebrew is nephesh - the same word used for "soul").
Your reference to idiom is fitting, and that is about as far as I would go. God may use idiom, and people in the Bible may have expressed mistaken ideas about physics, but I don't believe God's accommodations amount to lies. Accommodating someone with lesser understanding does not require misrepresenting.
Per the example of sunrise, I've seen people sneer because they have been enlightened that the earth goes round the sun, not the sun round the earth. That is a somewhat mistaken idea. While it is the most parsimonious explanation, the motion of bodies in space is much more complex than that ... to the point that current science postulates no fixed point at all. All motion is expressed as relative motion. Therefore, to speak of the motion of the sun relative to the earth is actually perfectly acceptable. The error would be to make a scientific claim that the earth is fixed at the center of the universe. Given all the use of idiom, I don't see that the Bible is ever making such a claim.
You're right that there is a sense in which it doesn't matter if Moses wrote Genesis. But don't be too quick to state the Bible makes no such claim. The first 5 books - the Pentateuch - are referred to as the Books of Moses, and the Bible uses that term (e.g. Nehemiah 13:1). The gospel of John refers to giving the law to Moses (John 1:17), which at the very least means Deuteronomy. If Moses wrote Deuteronomy, who came before him to write the rest? It would seem no one, because in Luke 24:27, when Jesus teaches from the beginning, he starts with Moses. I see no reason to think he didn't write it. Maybe he collected from prior sources rather than actually writing it word for word from a voice in his head, but it seems most likely he is the one who put pen to paper.
So, it's not important in the sense that the Bible's veracity depends on God and not on Moses. But if the Bible is actually claiming Moses wrote it, it is important to stand by that claim.
Current biological theory is inconsistent with an honest reading of Genesis. That is true. Data is a different matter. Do we have data regarding the first population of organisms modern science would classify as human?
A Love Divine said:I also found in an earlier post mention of my view allowing the possibility of non-ensouled homo-sapiens existing today. I reject this. A key part of my "hypothesis" is that ALL existing humans are descended from the covenantal pair. Even if some humans share some dna with pre-Adamic homo-sapiens, they also share dna with post-Adamic humans and are therefore also ensouled and covenantal. This view is supported by the scientific notion of "Mitcochondrial Eve" a single woman from whom all humans genetically descend.
Yes, I debated that word. I considered saying "homo sapiens", but then that begs the question of whether homo erectus, etc. had souls.
And therefore all humans descend from her. She one of many common ancestors that all humans descend from; she happens to be the one who is a universal ancestor by strictly female descent.All women existing descend from Mitochondrial Eve in central Africa around 200,000 years ago (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve),
More precisely, she was a single woman, but part of a larger population.but even this Eve is not thought to be a single woman.
You're confusing ancestry of DNA with genealogical ancestry. Each piece of your DNA has a single ancestor -- your parent's chromosome that it descends from. Each chunk of DNA in the population has a common ancestor: a piece of chromosome that is ancestral to all living copies of that chunk. Those ancestral chunks were in many different humans (or their ancestors) who lived anywhere from ~100,000 years ago to well over a million years ago.All men existing descend from Y-chromosomal Adam ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam ), but there is some debate over how old, perhaps overlapping with Eve, but geographically distinct. So while all men descended from mtEVE, yAdam was very likely not her mate. Also, the descendants of mtEve mated with Neanderthals and Denisovians which explains the admixture remaining in our genomes today (and the absence of Neanderthals and Denisovians). So a "covenantal pair" is possible, but everyone on earth is not their direct descendent.
And therefore all humans descend from her. She one of many common ancestors that all humans descend from; she happens to be the one who is a universal ancestor by strictly female descent.
More precisely, she was a single woman, but part of a larger population.
You're confusing ancestry of DNA with genealogical ancestry. Each piece of your DNA has a single ancestor -- your parent's chromosome that it descends from. Each chunk of DNA in the population has a common ancestor: a piece of chromosome that is ancestral to all living copies of that chunk. Those ancestral chunks were in many different humans (or their ancestors) who lived anywhere from ~100,000 years ago to well over a million years ago.
Genealogically, each person has two ancestors, his or her parents. The number of genealogical ancestors doubles with each generation back that you look. Thus, all living humans could easily share a pair of ancestors within the last few thousand years (assuming no population was completely isolated around that time). But of course, they weren't the only people in their population.
Impossible to say, since no other mtDNA survived from that population. I would expect that it had mtDNA diversity typical of a decent-sized population. (It's actually more complicated than that, since human ancestry comes from more than a single population at that time.)How many women in that population had mtDNA L0?
mtEve is by definition a single woman: she is the most recent common ancestor of all living humans by purely female descent. There is no reason at all to think that her entire population shared the same mtDNA; it's wildly unlikely that they did, in fact.mtEve could in principle be a single woman, but this is highly unlikely. The mtDNA of the "matrilineal MRCA" represents a population with identical mtDNA.
Y and mtDNA diversity tell you essentially nothing about the time of our most recent genealogical ancestors. See this paper to see how one can model the time to that ancestor, and why it's likely to be in the range of a few thousand years.I'm doing no such thing. You are correct that all living human might share a common pair of parents, but their DNA predates those parents, and it wouldn't be in the last few thousand years--the Y and mtDNA diversity is much too large for that possibility.
Well yeah, I think this model of a historical Adam and Eve is deeply flawed, but not on genetic grounds.But assuming a common pair at an appropriate time in the past (ie A&E and ensouled as defined in the OP and represented by mtEve and yAdam), would genetically "identical" individuals at the same time be considered non-ensouled? And how long ago did their last descendants die out to be replaced by solely A&E descendants.
Impossible to say, since no other mtDNA survived from that population. I would expect that it had mtDNA diversity typical of a decent-sized population. (It's actually more complicated than that, since human ancestry comes from more than a single population at that time.)
mtEve is by definition a single woman: she is the most recent common ancestor of all living humans by purely female descent. There is no reason at all to think that her entire population shared the same mtDNA; it's wildly unlikely that they did, in fact.Technically you're correct, but as you point out there may be others with the same mtDNA in the population--diversity within a population takes lots of time for mtDNA--typical diversity may be an erroneous assumption.
Y and mtDNA diversity tell you essentially nothing about the time of our most recent genealogical ancestors. See this paper to see how one can model the time to that ancestor, and why it's likely to be in the range of a few thousand years.
True. But ALoveDivine isn't concerned with just the MRGAs of the existing population. Assuming that Biblical history covers about 10,000 years, which is reasonable, they need to account for the first ancestors (pair) of all the humans existing in the historical window---because none after A&E lack souls. The 2004 study is a statistical model which assume equal chances of any male mating with any female-- the authors acknowledge that this is not reflective of reality. So, while its possible to account for all currently living humans with a couple ancestors a few thousand years ago, the geographic isolation of the past makes a larger number more likely. The genetics don't help solve or show signs of becoming concordant with a literal reading of Genesis or a YEC position.
Well yeah, I think this model of a historical Adam and Eve is deeply flawed, but not on genetic grounds.
Fortunately our flaws are forgiven.
I suspect that no one here as a problem with the doctrine that Christ's death atones for our sins--one man for all--why is it difficult to see Adam in a similar light? I.e. The sin of one corrupts the whole, not because of biological descent, but because of spiritual descent. This places no constraints on the genetics and is agreeable with traditional Christian theology-Catholic and Protestant.
Assuming anatomically modern humans appeared ~200,000 years ago, genetic evidence currently suggests that there was no accompanying population bottleneck (e.g. see this paper).That more than a single population is present then is likely, but not certain. mtEve corresponds roughly with the emergence of Homo sapiens. An evolutionary bottleneck was certainly present then and it is quite plausible to envision a small population that represents all members of the new "species". I don't however see any barrier to mating between Homo subtypes, certainly Neanderthal was a viable mate.
Correct.We can't even be sure that mtEve is Homo sapiens can we?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?