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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Adam 4000 BC. Old earth. My solution
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Lots of possibilities for discussion here, but anything to do with the creation/evolution debate goes on our Dead Horses board; thus, I am moving this thread there. Hopefully there will be some lively discussion of your ideas there.
Trudy, Scrumptious Purgatory Host
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
Hi all, I'm hoping to get some feedback on my solution to the Genesis/evolution debate.
I have a five thousand word article here:
http://originofhumanity.blogspot.com/p/draft-journal-article.html
My solution includes a 4000 B.C. Adam, an old earth (ours), as well as a young earth (where the Flood was), identifying the Tower of Babel language, and much more.
It's for those who have a 'flat' view of Genesis 1-11 (ie Methuselah really lived 969 years etc), and who accept the findings of mainstream science and history.
Anyone willing to comment? Thanks
Hello. Welcome to the ship. Welcome to DH, and all that jam. Can I make a suggestion that you might want to give a brief summary of your main points as people may not have the time to read 5,000 words.
However, I had a quick look and it looks as though one of your main ideas is to distinguish between "human" and "Homo sapiens" - could you maybe explain what you mean here? Homo sapiens is merely the name of our species. If anything the term "human" is broader, not narrower, and covers a few other extinct species as well.
I don't think you'll find many, if any, people who believe that Methuselah lived to 969 and who accept the findings of mainstream science and history.
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
One.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
I don't see that you've solved anything. I do fancy your Adam and Eve as aliens bit, though.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
I don't like to be an intellectual killjoy*, but your whole essay seems to be a series of linguistic and logical contortions whose sole purpose is to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion. A couple of examples:
quote:
Fourth, note that the King James Version provides a good literal rendering of Genesis 7:20: ‘Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.’ This provides the impression that fifteen cubits (approximately seven metres) is sufficient height to flood the whole world. If so, this is a very different physical world from the post-Flood world, being extraordinarily flat.
Why is the King James Version considered to be a "good literal translation", as opposed to most other translations which considers fifteen cubits to be the height of the water above the highest peaks? This seems a rather critical part of your thesis, and yet no analysis of the translation is offered to explain why we should prefer your suggested interpretation over another.
quote:
Further, in Genesis 4:19-24, we see hints that the activity of Cain’s descendants outlasted the Flood. Jabal was the ‘the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.’ (Genesis 4:20). Jubal was the ‘the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.’ (Genesis 4:21). Fatherhood of a practice carries with it the implication of the ongoing impact of the father’s work on subsequent practice.
A more reasonable interpretation is that "father" is being used in a metaphorical sense here rather than claiming that unless you are a literal descendant of Jubal you won't be able to learn how to play a lyre or a flute. In much the same way Herodotos is referred to as "the Father of History", that doesn't mean that all historians are his literal biological descendants.
As Liopleurodon pointed out, the biggest problem is your lack of explanation as to what a "non-human Homo sapiens" would be like. What would be the biological evidence of such a change, and is there any evidence of such alterations in hominid fossils in the time frame you're suggesting? The question of state formation (or "civilization", as you've defined it) is fairly complex, but "humans just somehow got smarter and decided to re-order society" isn't so much an explanation as it is vigorous hand-waving.
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*That's sarcasm. I actually love being an intellectual killjoy!
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Welcome, MikeRussell!
Thought I'd get in on one of these threads before it gets too long.
I think your explanation creates more problems than it solves. Some of them are addressed in Henri Blocher's book In the Beginning.
The trouble with assuming a pre-Adamic race is that the archeological record makes this race disturbingly human in what we generally take to be humanity's defining characteristics. Such as burying their dead with rituals - rather odd if they don't get a chance to believe in God, surely?
Aside from that, your explanation is reminiscent of dispensationalism in that it artificially introduces divisions into the text which simply aren't there. Talk of "our world" as opposed to that of the long-lived Adam and his biological descendants sounds a lot like something out of Narnia and not very much like Scripture.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Mike, the simplest way around the Creation/Evolution debate is, as I'm sure you know, to distinguish the purpose of science and the purpose of religious explanations.
Science looks at the 'how'.
Religion looks to answer the 'why'.
I'm tempted to ask why you see the need to interpret Genesis as some kind of science-text book when that's clearly not its intention.
Genesis, most scholars (?) believe was written by Jewish priests, possibly as late as the Exile period. They wrote it to account for the origins of Israel and hence it's a theological rather than an historical/scientific work in the way we would understand such a thing today. That's not to say that they weren't drawing on older, oral traditions etc but few other than ardent fundamentalists, I suspect, would these days see it as a blow-by-blow account of how the world came into being.
I don't really understand why we should try to make it into something it clearly isn't. I'm still pretty conservative theologically, but I don't see any convincing need to take the first chapters of Genesis in anything other than a 'mythic' sense - in the grandest, C S Lewis type send of the term.
Sure, there's an historical background there, but ancient histories didn't work in the ways that contemporary histories do. Someone's mentioned Herodotus. No-one would claim that his accounts are 'factual' in the modern sense - although undoubtedly he is writing about things he'd seen or heard about.
You may dismiss me as some kind of woolly liberal, but really I'm not. I'm just puzzled as to why you would even feel the need to write a 5,000 word essay trying to resolve a conundrum that isn't actually there.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
few other than ardent fundamentalists, I suspect, would these days see it as a blow-by-blow account of how the world came into being.
Or....most of the US.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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MikeRussell
Shipmate
# 16191
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Posted
Hi there, thanks for the welcome to all - just having 7 replies feels like a great welcome.
Just to add a personal touch, I'm married with 4 kids.
But to some of the responses so far:
@ Croesos - if you look in the NIV, there's an alternative translation which says 'or rose more than twenty feet, and the mountains were covered'. They put that in, because that's what the Hebrew actually says. It's just that it's hard to understand how such a low flood could cover all the 'mountains' - that's why other translations come forward. D. Snoke brought that to my attention in his 'Biblical Case for an Old Earth'. Of course, he doesn't come to the same conclusion as me.
On the distinction between Homo sapiens and humans, my meaning is this: Homo sapiens is a biological category, while Human is much more. Human includes all the functionality and everything else that goes with being in the image of God.
For example, from Genesis we may conclude that only humans can marry. Therefore I would say only humans can make promises. Therefore I would say only humans can make laws, since laws include promises of enforcement.
So I don't think there was any biological change when the various aboriginal Homo sapiens were made human. I do think there was substantial change in ability and identity.
What confirming evidence do I have outside the Bible? There is the possibility of finding evidence of the Adamic 'strain' of humanity entering our world. For example, the raw data in Cochran and Hardy's study on Ashkenazi intelligence may be explainable in terms of my thesis. The study was trying to link Ashkenazi high intelligence with genes also related to disease. One of the critiques of their study was that evolution does not occur as quickly as they are suggesting. But of course, if we have two biological sources of humanity (and the Ashkenazis have a significant proportion of descent from Adam), this may explain the apparent speed of change. This is of course massively controversial.
You can read a bit about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence#Cochran_et_al.
@Eutychus
When you look at other animals still alive today, I think you can find analogous activity to that of pre-human Homo sapiens. For example, elephants are known to bury and grieve their dead:
'Grieving and mourning rituals make up an integral part of elephant culture. A mother may grieve over her dead child for days after his death, alternately trying to revive the baby and caressing and touching the corpse. Moss and Poole have observed a mother risking her own life for a week to grieve over her stillborn child.'
That's from Bradshaw, Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us about Humanity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 11.
More from Bradshaw:
'After Emily's death, the group performed mourning rituals. Later, when time had dissolved the last vestiges of her massive flesh, her whitened bones lay spare, but not forgotten. For years, the aftershocks of Emily's passing could be observed as the group visited her bones. [...] 'Several years before, I had seen the EBs (EB is an abbreviation for a certain elephant herd) start to bury the carcass of a young female from another family.'
On your question of whether the 'two worlds' thesis is Biblical, 2 Peter 3:6-7 is important. I think a distinction in worlds is implied by Peter's use of the word 'present' (Greek 'nun'). He makes a distinction between the world of that time and the present heavens and earth. There's no need to speak of a present heavens and earth unless there was a former heavens and earth.
@Gamaliel
I think the Bible makes claims about more than just the 'why'. It makes claims about history, including the ages of some of the earliest humans and their descent. You can reject the claims, but it's wrong to say that the Bible doesn't make them. In short, with Richard Dawkins, I reject the idea of non-overlapping magisteria.
Thanks for your interaction, guys!
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Check out my blog at http://richaelmussell.blogspot.com/, and my genesis 1-11 site at https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/
I also run www.microjointventures.org
Posts: 51 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jan 2011
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Sorry to be blunt, but more than anything else it reads as the plot of a snot-so-good science fiction or fantasy novel. If you were hoping to convince the unbelievers, um, no. Not going to happen.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
I only have one comment:
tl;dr
You can't post something like that on the Internet, the Land of 140 Characters, and expect anyone except the most hardcore apologeticists to sit through it. Clicky clicky next tab please!
You're posting on a blog; divide it into 11 articles of about 500 words each and publish them in a series.
[ 31. January 2011, 22:38: Message edited by: Spiffy ]
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Looking for a simple solution to all life's problems? We are proud to present obstinate denial. Accept no substitute. Accept nothing.
--Night Vale Radio Twitter Account
Posts: 10281 | From: Beervana | Registered: Dec 2003
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Fourth, note that the King James Version provides a good literal rendering of Genesis 7:20: ‘Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.’ This provides the impression that fifteen cubits (approximately seven metres) is sufficient height to flood the whole world. If so, this is a very different physical world from the post-Flood world, being extraordinarily flat.
Why is the King James Version considered to be a "good literal translation", as opposed to most other translations which considers fifteen cubits to be the height of the water above the highest peaks? This seems a rather critical part of your thesis, and yet no analysis of the translation is offered to explain why we should prefer your suggested interpretation over another.
I would also add that MikeRussell should try to read vv. 19-20 together, in the KJV: "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered."
It's pretty obvious, even in KJV, that the fifteen cubits were the height of the water above the highest peaks.
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
I'm curious what you're writing this for, Mike? A 42,000 word essay doesn't just happen for the hell of it.
I stumble, to say the least, at the second paragraph of your thesis:
quote:
This writer’s approach to reconciling the Genesis chronology with history and science is to make the following major claim: By understanding Adam-through-Noah’s universe as distinct from and parallel to ours, one better understands the Bible, and one can reconcile Genesis’ early chronology with known science and history.
More precisely, this writer’s claim is that the whole account of Genesis 2:4-4:10 and Genesis 4:25-8:14 is set in a different physical, parallel universe. The claim is that there were two miraculous crossings from that world to ours. The first crossing was the eviction of Cain from that world to ours, explicitly mentioned in Genesis 4:11-14 with implications described and explained in Genesis 4:15-24. The second crossing was the miraculous translation of the ark of Noah from that world to ours, implied between Genesis 8:14 and Genesis 8:15. The implications of the translation of the ark into our world are spelt out in Genesis 8:15-9:18. This understanding produces a more coherent reading of Genesis 1-11 than the traditional view, hence the term ‘better’ in the major claim.
I am not a Christian, so I'm very unlikely to accept your assumptions much less your conclusions, but I don't think your conclusions will be accepted within Christianity either. You claim to have answered questions, but to do so you are going off the proverbial deep end into Star Trek territory. You are creating whole universes based on a non-standard reading of a couple texts in the Old Testament!
Again, I wonder what this is for. If it's a thesis for an M.Div. or similar, I'd be very cautious in presenting this to your thesis committee.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Genesis, most scholars (?) believe was written by Jewish priests, possibly as late as the Exile period. They wrote it to account for the origins of Israel and hence it's a theological rather than an historical/scientific work in the way we would understand such a thing today. That's not to say that they weren't drawing on older, oral traditions etc but few other than ardent fundamentalists, I suspect, would these days see it as a blow-by-blow account of how the world came into being.
One of the 'explanations' I like the best, and which doesn't strain the text, is the one who is commonly known as the 'Framework Interpretation.' Jimmy Akin has a good post on the interpretation of Genesis One, where he examines the five most common ways of interpreting the text. They are:
- The Framework Interpretation (most plausible from a careful reading of the text)
- The Ordinary Day Interpretation (most plausible from a casual reading of the text)
- The Gap Interpretation (almost completely without foundation)
- The Revelatory Day Interpretation (virtually demonstrably false)
- The Day-Age Interpretation (demonstrably false)
He says that he tries to interpret the text literary, as in 'what does the text actually say'? He finds that the Framework Interpretation is "most plausible from a careful reading of the text." The theory is as follows: The days in Genesis 1 are actual days, but not historical days. What one is saying is that the creation of the world is shown forth in the framework of a week. A clue that a literal* interpretation is not a good one is the fact that according to Genesis 1, light was created on day one, while the sun, the moon and the stars were created on day four.
And this is also an important part of the 'Framework Interpretation.' According to it, the six first days are divided into two parts: days 1-3 and days 4-6. On day 1, God makes light; on day 4 he 'populates' it with the sun, the moon and the stars. On day 2, God makes the heavens and the sea; on day 5 he 'populates' it with birds, fish, etc. On day 3, God makes dry land appear; on day 6 he 'populates' it with animals and man. Akin writes:
quote:
For centuries it has been recognized that the six days of creation are divided into two sets of three. In the first set, God divides one thing from another: He divides the light and the darkness on Day One (giving rise to day and night), he divides the waters above from the waters below on Day Two (giving rise to the sky and the sea), and he divides the waters below from each other (giving rise to the dry land) on Day Three. Classically, this is known as the work of division or distinction.
In the second three days, God goes back over the realms he produced in the first three days by division and then populates or "adorns" them. On Day Four he populates the day and the night with the sun, moon, and stars. On Day Five he populates the sky and sea with the birds and the fish. And on Day Six he populates the land (between the divided waters) with the animals and man. Classically, this is known as the work of adornment.
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* Literal, not literary.
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
(Just to add, of course the Hebrew doesn't say 'feet', but a given number of cubits, which the NIV rendered in feet). My point in Genesis 7:20 is that the Hebrew does not speak of the waters going above the mountains BY any amount of feet, inches, or cubits. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
They clearly didn't have a good legislative drafter handy...
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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MikeRussell
Shipmate
# 16191
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Posted
Hi PJKirk, I wrote the long thesis partly to convince myself that I was right, partly because if I am right it needs defending in this much detail.
It crossed my mind that it might work as an MDiv thesis, but I agree with you - it's too radical for any mainstream institution to accept. Nevertheless, I think I'm right.
Multiple Universes aren't science fiction. From a Christian point of view, Jesus, being physical, is in other universe now.
From a scientific point of view, Max Tegmark summarises four different types of 'Multiverse'. If I had to pick one of these for my theory, I'd go for the Type III Multiverse.
You can look at that here:
http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/multiverse.pdf
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Check out my blog at http://richaelmussell.blogspot.com/, and my genesis 1-11 site at https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/
I also run www.microjointventures.org
Posts: 51 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jan 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
Hi there, thanks for the welcome to all - just having 7 replies feels like a great welcome.
Just to add a personal touch, I'm married with 4 kids.
But to some of the responses so far:
@ Croesos - if you look in the NIV, there's an alternative translation which says 'or rose more than twenty feet, and the mountains were covered'. They put that in, because that's what the Hebrew actually says. It's just that it's hard to understand how such a low flood could cover all the 'mountains' - that's why other translations come forward. D. Snoke brought that to my attention in his 'Biblical Case for an Old Earth'. Of course, he doesn't come to the same conclusion as me.
It should be noted that fifteen cubits above ground level isn't even enough to completely cover a tall tree, so one would have to conclude that this Eden/Narnia of your hypothesis was free of trees. Of course, this makes chapter 3 of Genesis a bit problematic, but maybe the 'accurate' translation is "the shrub of knowledge of good and evil". Of course if this is the case, what was the Ark made from?
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
On the distinction between Homo sapiens and humans, my meaning is this: Homo sapiens is a biological category, while Human is much more. Human includes all the functionality and everything else that goes with being in the image of God.
For example, from Genesis we may conclude that only humans can marry. Therefore I would say only humans can make promises. Therefore I would say only humans can make laws, since laws include promises of enforcement.
I always thought that the Christian God was supposed to never break His promises, though your hypothesis seems to suggest otherwise. After all, if non-human Homo sapiens (Inhomo sapiens, for the sake of simplicity) are incapable of making promises they are definitionally incapable of breaking them. Only those in the image of God can break their word, implying God does so as well.
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
So I don't think there was any biological change when the various aboriginal Homo sapiens were made human. I do think there was substantial change in ability and identity.
What confirming evidence do I have outside the Bible? There is the possibility of finding evidence of the Adamic 'strain' of humanity entering our world. For example, the raw data in Cochran and Hardy's study on Ashkenazi intelligence may be explainable in terms of my thesis. The study was trying to link Ashkenazi high intelligence with genes also related to disease. One of the critiques of their study was that evolution does not occur as quickly as they are suggesting. But of course, if we have two biological sources of humanity (and the Ashkenazis have a significant proportion of descent from Adam), this may explain the apparent speed of change. This is of course massively controversial.
You can read a bit about it here:
" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence#Cochran_et_al.[/QB][/QUOTE]
Given our inability to measure intelligence in a consistent and non-controversial manner, added to our inability to separate genetic from environmental factors in such studies, this seems like grasping at straws. Your whole thesis seems to be based on nothing more than wishing something were so for reasons completely independent of any evidence.
In short, your hypothesis seems to be based on nothing other than personal desire to believe something for reasons completely aside from the evidence.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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MikeRussell
Shipmate
# 16191
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Posted
Hi Croesos.
I'm thankful that you're engaging in a serious way.
Your first challenge was certainly your best, and had me thinking new thoughts.
I do however maintain that Fifteen cubits depth of flood (around seven metres) is enough to kill everyone if there are no substantial hills.
A seven metre tree is still a tall tree. Even if there were trees seven metres tall and higher, we need to remember that it was a forty day Flood. No one is going to live that long without food, holding onto the top of a tree.
Your second critique is too strange for me to comprehend. I don't understand the logic that charges God with breaking his word, because we do, or because 'InHomo sapiens' didn't and couldn't.
On your final critique, I certainly admit that the extra-Biblical evidence does not compel people to accept my whole theory. For now, I am happy with a much more modest claim. My understanding of the Bible is one which allows both a 'flat reading' of Genesis 1-11 and an acceptance of mainstream history and science.
More than that, my claim is that at numerous points, mine is a better reading of Genesis that those which are more mainstream. This includes for example (1) my consideration of the decline of human ages post-Flood (not post-fall), (2) my explanation of the small number of high longevity people living in the midst of the large number of normal longevity people (post-Flood), (3) my explanation for why the animals only feared humans post-Flood, and why humans were only allowed to be carnivorous post-Flood, (4) the identity of Cain's wife, the people Cain feared, the residents of the city he built, and the place he was cast, (5) the reason why we can't find the Gihon and Pishon rivers, and why they flow in the 'wrong direction'.
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Check out my blog at http://richaelmussell.blogspot.com/, and my genesis 1-11 site at https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/
I also run www.microjointventures.org
Posts: 51 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jan 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
When you look at other animals still alive today, I think you can find analogous activity to that of pre-human Homo sapiens. For example, elephants are known to bury and grieve their dead
Get back to me when you find evidence of elephants burying artefacts alongside the bodies:
quote:
Intentional burial and the inclusion of grave goods are the most typical representations of ritual behavior in the Neanderthals and denote a developing ideology
quote:
On your question of whether the 'two worlds' thesis is Biblical, 2 Peter 3:6-7 is important. I think a distinction in worlds is implied by Peter's use of the word 'present' (Greek 'nun'). He makes a distinction between the world of that time and the present heavens and earth. There's no need to speak of a present heavens and earth unless there was a former heavens and earth.
I think the distinction he draws is between 'the world as they knew it' and 'the world as we know it', and as you rightly point out, the distinction he is underlining is one in time, not space. The same distinction as between 'this world' and 'the world to come'.
Which is not the same at all as what your hypothesis calls for, i.e. two 'worlds' running at least partly concurrently.
The biggest flaw in your case is the amount of completely unsubstantiated assumptions it requires to hold water. There's as much evidence that Ezekiel was visited by UFOs - or as little.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
There's as much evidence that Ezekiel was visited by UFOs - or as little.
Am I right in thinking von Daniken thought there was plenty?
I was actually thinking of this book. Cool illustration of said spaceship from said book here, but I suppose von Daniken would do too. Just as anachronistic an approach to the problem, anyway.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
One.
Is that less than 10?
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
One of the worst problems with your proposal MikeRussell, is theological. God makes His promise to Adam and Eve, through their descendents. Your proposal necessitates that Noah and his descendents are the only inheritors of this promise among other populations of short-lived 'non-human homo-sapiens'. With this, you create two populations, who look the same, one of which are the inheritors of God's promises and are 'made in His image', and one of which isn't. Who nowadays are the descendents of parralel-world Noah, and who are the descendents of the other native population? This births the rearing head of discriminatory ideology of the worst kind. Obviously you don't intend this, but it is implicit in your proposal. Your only solution is a mass extinction event of the concurrent non-human-homo-sapiens species around 4000BC. But how do you guarantee this happened worldwide and that not all 'homo-sapiens' now alive are of two seperate species - such as for instance, those in geographically isolated areas from the spread of the new Canaanite 'humans'. I'm afraid if you follow your thoughts to their logical end you will be giving birth to severe racist ideology.
Plus other problems; God's promise to Noah is not to destroy the world again with a flood. Which world is He talking about? Why is there no sign, either in the text or the story, or in any later commentaries by Jesus etc. of Noah's 'translation' between worlds? The story follows Noah as he releases birds and waits patiently for the waters to gradually die down. When did this 'translation' happen? When he released the second bird, when he landed on Mount Ararat? There is no space in the story for you to insert this event.
quote:
I do however maintain that Fifteen cubits depth of flood (around seven metres) is enough to kill everyone if there are no substantial hills.
A seven metre tree is still a tall tree. Even if there were trees seven metres tall and higher, we need to remember that it was a forty day Flood. No one is going to live that long without food, holding onto the top of a tree.
While your measurements of cubits above ground is enough to kill all humans, the Genesis text suggests that all animal life was to be destroyed as well, with only representatives to survive, as the natural world was also tainted with sin. Enough birds, insects, even snakes and monkeys, could survive in a dense canopy above the floodwaters for long enough. Is your parrallel world now still existing somewhere still filled with animal and plant life. Plus of course, the bird Noah released could not find any living branch the first time.
Your proposal is just an extension of pre-scientific antediluvian concepts, which raises many more questions than it answers, and creates only a wishy-washy, clumsy construct that doesn't even end up explaining anything. Major problems need to be solved by your imagination since there is no evidence outside of your own thoughts and opinions. Once people start creating theories based solely on their own imaginative wranglings, it quickly becomes an exercise in futility. It's a shame, because you're obviously a thoughtful and faithful person. But I'd suggest your energies would be much useful if directed towards a greater understanding of God and a closer relationship with him, than trying to force alternative meanings out of a few chapters of the Bible, and creating additional parrallel worlds that Jesus and the Bible never mentioned. We have enough to be getting on with in this one after all.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
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MSHB
Shipmate
# 9228
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
One of the 'explanations' I like the best, and which doesn't strain the text, is the one who is commonly known as the 'Framework Interpretation.'
As you note, the Framework Interpretation has been around a long time.
You might also note that there is not only a parallel between the first three days and the second three days, but also a progression in the set of three:
The first and fourth days create light (primal physics here!) and the sun, moon, and stars - outer space.
The second and fifth days create the sky and the seas, and the creatures that move through them (birds and fishes) - terrestrial, it's getting a bit a bit closer to home, but not yet quite where we humans live.
The third and sixth days create land, land creatures ... and humans. Our people, our place.
So the framework starts far away in space with the sun and moon; then moves closer - to the seas and skies; and finally arrives at land and humans. It is a progression from far to near.
Whoever wrote it had a very organised and systematic mind. It is a literary work of genius, sadly muddled by people who miss the systematic literary mind and try to take it as a historical narrative (what history? There were no people to record any of it until day six), or as a bizarre pseudo-scientific puzzle.
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MSHB: Member of the Shire Hobbit Brigade
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, Mike, I am well aware that the Bible claims to put forward details of the first humans. Of course it does. It makes plenty of historical claims. But that doesn't mean we have to treat those historical claims in the same way that we would treat narrative histories written within the last few hundred years.
No, the comparison has to be with ancient histories such as those produced by Herodotus, and in the case of Genesis, comparison with other Creation myths and flood-stories etc.
I'm not saying we 'reject' the Biblical account at all, simply that we have to treat it in the way in which it was intended - which, it seems to me, is somewhat different to the way you're handling the material.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not saying we 'reject' the Biblical account at all, simply that we have to treat it in the way in which it was intended - which, it seems to me, is somewhat different to the way you're handling the material.
Fred Clark of Slacktivist has a post about why the term 'account' bugs him when applied to Genesis 1-11. A sample:
quote:
An account is testimony, witnesses telling what they have seen. The speaker or writer -- the one giving the account -- does not need to be a direct witness herself. She may be a journalist or a historian compiling the testimony of others. But without some basis in such testimony from actual witnesses we haven't got what we can call an account.
When I point this out -- that the story in Genesis 1 is not an "account" -- the creation-ists get upset with me, as though I were attacking the book of Genesis. But I'm not attacking it, I'm defending it. Genesis 1 does not itself claim to be an account. It does not present itself as such and it does not willingly comply with those who would treat it as such. To read the story as it is, in the way that it presents itself, cannot be an attack. It's far more hostile to the text to declare, with no basis from the text itself, that it must be read as something it does not and cannot claim to be.
That last bit seems particularly relevant to the subject at hand.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Ok, fair point, Croesos. I hadn't thought my terminology through and hadn't considered the 'baggage' that the term 'account' carries with it.
That said, and someone will correct me if I'm wrong, don't some of the OT genealogies start with a formula something along the lines of: 'This is the account of the generations of ... So and So' and so on ... with all the begettings.
Back to the OP, though, I think you're right. That Slactivist quote is on the money.
I would say, though, that I do believe it's possible to hold to a conservative position theologically without treating the creation story in Genesis as if it is a literal account.
The big problem with the overly literal approach is that it takes its proponents deeper and deeper into pseudo-science ... all manner of far-fetched special pleading brought in to defend their viewpoint to the point where it becomes untenable, unwieldy and collapses in on itself.
I haven't the time to plough through Mike's whopping big essay to find out where it starts to buckle beneath the weight. But I suspect it isn't very far in. It was beginning to creak a bit when I gave up reading a few pages in ...
Conversely, I would say the same about attempts to rationalise some of the OT miracles - give an explanation for the manna or the quail, the parting of the Red Sea, the plagues of Egypt, Lot's wife becoming a pillar of salt etc.
It strikes me that these sort of attempts end up with far-fetched special pleading too, and often with explanations that stretch credulity far more than the biblical narratives (or 'accounts' ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) ).
I 'pose where I'm at, I'm prepared to accept that there is an historical basis for much of the OT, but the farther back it purports to go in terms of chronology, the more myth and legend are woven in. Which doesn't mean that I 'dismiss' it or fail to take it seriously, it's the theological issues that it raises that are the important questions.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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MikeRussell
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# 16191
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Posted
Hi Eutychus,
I think the grave goods question is one of the substantial challenges for my thesis.
So let me say, I consider you to be raising serious issues, and to be quite on top of the discussion.
In my longer thesis, I address this issue, but I’ll take another shot here.
Let me quote from Ian Tattersall, so the extent of the challenge is clear – ‘The most striking example of Cro-Magnon burial comes from the 28-kyr-old site of Sungir, in Russia, where two young individuals and a sixty-year-old male (no previous kind of human had ever survived to such an age) were interred with an astonishing material richness. Each of the deceased was dressed in clothing onto which more than three thousand ivory beads had been sown; and experiments have shown that each bead had taken an hour to make [...] Also found at Sungir were numerous bone tools and carved objects, including wheel-like forms and a small ivory horse [...] The elaborate interments at Sungir are only the most dramatic example of many [...] in all human societies known to practice it, burial of the dead with grave goods [...] indicates a belief in an afterlife: the goods are there because they will be useful to the deceased in the future.[...] It is here that we have the most ancient incontrovertible evidence for the existence of religious experience.’ (Tattersall, Becoming Human, 11)
In spite of this evidence, I still maintain that it is possible that the beings that did this were not human. A lot of it hangs on how you define human, and how you distinguish human from animal.
But given the lengths to which elephants go in grieving their dead, it should come as no surprise that the most advanced pre-humans went further. Rather than seeing pre-humans' burial of their dead with grave goods as a sign of their belief in the afterlife and religious disposition (using analogies with human experience), these practices could just as well be seen as the practice of deeply mourning and honouring a lost loved one (using analogies with elephant experience).
But even if these beings had belief in the afterlife and religious experience, does that make them human? I don’t think so, theologically speaking. From the Bible, we can see very advanced activity attributed to animals. Animals can speak to humans without becoming human themselves (Balaam’s ass). Also, Genesis 9:5 tells us: ‘And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal.’ If animals will be asked to give an account for their actions, this implies that like humans, they have some kind of innate consciousness of God (This argument relies on God’s justice – in order that God’s judgment of animals might be fair, animals need to have an innate knowledge that such a judgment is coming). So I think we can conclude from the Bible that animals have consciousness of God, and they have some sort of moral understanding. The most advanced animals ever made, therefore, could conceivably have buried items in a ‘religious’ kind of way, in view of an afterlife, and still not be human.
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Check out my blog at http://richaelmussell.blogspot.com/, and my genesis 1-11 site at https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/
I also run www.microjointventures.org
Posts: 51 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jan 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
You said earlier that quote:
Human includes all the functionality and everything else that goes with being in the image of God.
(...) only humans can make laws, since laws include promises of enforcement.
It strikes me that if you're not careful, you'll be attributing so many "human" qualities to animals that they will be in danger of being more "human" than the "homo sapiens" who were in your outside-the-garden world. Can these animals have a "moral sense" and yet have no concept of laws?
I fear you're making a far better case for humanity (of any stripe) being impossible to distinguish from any other animal species - and for it being no more or less in the image of God than them - than you are for distinguishing homo sapiens from "real" humans.
If on the contrary you persist with your two-speed humanity, I agree with the poster who said that you are liable to fall into the trap (if you haven't already) of theorising a master race. Either way, balanced against christian orthodoxy (small o), that seems a high price to pay for having purportedly 'solved' Gen. 1-11.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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MikeRussell
Shipmate
# 16191
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Posted
Hi again Eutychus,
Let me say a little more on the definition of humanity. Obviously it's important in itself, quite apart from my thesis.
But first, in terms of Hawk's critique, I need to correct a misunderstanding:
I believe that sometime after Adam's sin (in Eden), all the Homo sapiens in our world were endowed by God with a (fallen) humanity. They all were then in the image of God. So there's no chance of finding Homo sapiens today who are less than human.
This is no more arbitrary than those who believe the first human existed around 120000 BC (the common ancestor of all modern humans).
Why should God have endowed that member of the Homo sapiens at that time with humanity? Of course, God knew this member of Homo sapiens would turn out to be the common ancestor of all humans, but at the time, it would look very arbitrary. Surely there were other Homo sapiens at the time - and why didn't they receive 'humanity'? Or did they? For those who try to merge an evolutionary account with a literal Adam, these challenges must be faced.
And my approach, I think, leads to fewer problems than locating Adam c. 120000 BC
But what about the definition of human itself? This is a tricky issue for everyone, not just for me. It's quite tricky especially for those who take an evolutionary view of things.
I think the image of God in Genesis 1 has most to do with humans being the rulers of creation under God. 'Let them rule'.... This is the foundational definition, in my view.
I think it's dangerous to define each human by functionality, since some humans have less functionality than some animals.
To identify whether a group is human today, using demonstrably Biblical notions, I would start by looking at a whole community. I'd confirm they did things that the Bible marks out as purely human (I think these include marriage, making promises and laws - but not keeping laws, which I think animals do in a certain sense). Then since the image of God passes from parent to child, any who are in such a community, even if they are severely disabled or in a coma, or whatever - they too are human.
Do you have a better account of humanity than this, Eutychus and Hawk?
I'll be back in a while to ponder the translation of Noah's ark and tree heights....
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Check out my blog at http://richaelmussell.blogspot.com/, and my genesis 1-11 site at https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/
I also run www.microjointventures.org
Posts: 51 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jan 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
Hi again Eutychus,
Let me say a little more on the definition of humanity. Obviously it's important in itself, quite apart from my thesis.
But first, in terms of Hawk's critique, I need to correct a misunderstanding:
I believe that sometime after Adam's sin (in Eden), all the Homo sapiens in our world were endowed by God with a (fallen) humanity. They all were then in the image of God. So there's no chance of finding Homo sapiens today who are less than human.
Do you have a reason for believe this other than intellectual convenience?
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
This is no more arbitrary than those who believe the first human existed around 120000 BC (the common ancestor of all modern humans).
I disagree. First, you're importing mythology into population genetics by confusing the concept of most recent common ancestor (MRCA) with the idea of species emergence. For example, virtually all gerbils sold as pets today are descended from about twenty or so individuals imported from Mongolia in the 1920s. Despite the recent vintage of the MRCA, that doesn't mean that the gerbil only emerged as a species in the early twentieth century. During my brief skim of your essay you seemed to make the same category error with regard to Y-Chromosomal Adam. While I can understand the urge to place unfamiliar scientific concepts into familiar patterns, it doesn't really work that way.
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
Why should God have endowed that member of the Homo sapiens at that time with humanity? Of course, God knew this member of Homo sapiens would turn out to be the common ancestor of all humans, but at the time, it would look very arbitrary. Surely there were other Homo sapiens at the time - and why didn't they receive 'humanity'? Or did they? For those who try to merge an evolutionary account with a literal Adam, these challenges must be faced.
And my approach, I think, leads to fewer problems than locating Adam c. 120000 BC
Wouldn't the fewest problems of all be introduced by simply positing that trying to fit human origins into your particular bronze age mythology makes about as much sense as studying the human use of fire with the starting assumption that it was the gift of the Titan Prometheus?
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
But what about the definition of human itself? This is a tricky issue for everyone, not just for me. It's quite tricky especially for those who take an evolutionary view of things.
Seems a lot less tricky to simply describe humans as a hairless East African plains ape with twenty-three chromosomal pairs than to try to explain why we're the favorite critters of some magic being.
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
I think the image of God in Genesis 1 has most to do with humans being the rulers of creation under God. 'Let them rule'.... This is the foundational definition, in my view.
I think it's dangerous to define each human by functionality, since some humans have less functionality than some animals.
Isn't "ruling" a function, making your definition nothing but defin[ing] each human by functionality"?
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
I'll be back in a while to ponder the translation of Noah's ark and tree heights....
Well, it just seems that if you posit that waters covered the whole Earth it seems a bit ant-climactic to add " . . . except for the forests". Plus there's the question of the displacement of the Ark itself. If a thirty cubit tall Ark floats to a waterline above its midpoint when fully loaded, it's not going to float in fifteen cubits of water. It'll just sit there with its keel on the bottom and its top still above water. Heck, even if it has a waterline ten cubits above its keel it'll still run aground on the roof of someone's submerged house.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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MikeRussell
Shipmate
# 16191
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Posted
I'm going to leave the tree height etc. for a bit longer. One question at a time seems optimal, and the definition of humanity will hold broader interest. But yes, I'm willing to concede that the trees must have been covered by floodwaters for the account to make sense. I'll probably concede much more than that down the track. However, I don't think such problems are terminal to my overall thesis.
But back to humanity and definitions:
I propose that Homo sapiens became human after Adam's fall because Adam is described as the first human in the Bible (1 Corinthians 15). Also, it can not be that there were fallen humans in the world before Adam fell, because 'sin came into the world through one man'- Adam
So I don't make my proposal from intellectual convenience, but in order to propose an understanding of the world which accepts both a flat reading of the Bible, and the findings of mainstream science/history.
But is my definition of human really worse than yours, Croesos?
You go for: a hairless East African plains ape with twenty-three chromosomal pairs.
Immediately you have removed many chromosomally defective humans from humanity, and reduced them to animals. The ethics that lead from such a definition should not be contemplated.
Also, theoretically, there could be a mutant ape with twenty-three chromosomal pairs who you will admit to humanity, but who is decidely still animal.
Also, you omit any non-material portion of the definition of human. It is for you purely biological. One problem with this is the implication that we are no more than our matter. So you have no place for a 'soul' or anything immaterial which distinguishes us from animals. It won't be just me that has a problem with your definition. Most people will rightly side with me that we are more than our matter. We all know within ourselves deep down that this is the case.
On the subject of whether 'ruling' is a function, the distinction I intend is between appointment and equipment.
Humans are appointed by God to rule creation. This is fundamental to our definition, and to the definition of God's image.
In order to implement our appointment, God gives us the necessary equipment (functionality). But the equipment is not primary, it's the appointment which is primary in our definition.
Get this wrong, and you can arrive at a definition of humanity that removes some diseased, comatose, or otherwise disabled people from the realm of 'humanity'.
On the question of whether I have erred in my usage of terms, including 'Y-Chromosomal Adam, feel free to point out where I have done so. I don't think I've ever used the term before.
I do accept the fact that prehistoric biological speciation is an arbitrary label applied by modern humans. There was a first Homo erectus, whose mother was a Homo ergaster. But that's just silly, since mother and son were clearly the same species as each other. But we need the labels, so we use them, despite the silliness.
Of course, I believe that in the world of Adam through Noah, there was never evolution, and so the species did not emerge from common descent. But that's another story.
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Check out my blog at http://richaelmussell.blogspot.com/, and my genesis 1-11 site at https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/
I also run www.microjointventures.org
Posts: 51 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jan 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
I believe that sometime after Adam's sin (in Eden), all the Homo sapiens in our world were endowed by God with a (fallen) humanity. They all were then in the image of God. So there's no chance of finding Homo sapiens today who are less than human.
This is no more arbitrary than those who believe the first human existed around 120000 BC (the common ancestor of all modern humans).
It is more arbitrary, since as far as I can see there is absolutely no evidence for this novel notion at all either in the historical record or in Scripture.
You're not trying to reconcile the available facts with your theory, you're inventing speculation to support it!
If I've understood you correctly, you start by assuming two categories of homo sapiens to explain the geneaologies, ages, and so on.
You go on to explain the older evidence of religious awareness in homo sapiens by a combination of minimising its import and assimilating it to non-human behaviour (thereby inadvertently granting elephants, chimpanzees and the like more humanity than quite a few humans, afaics).
Having introduced this two-speed humanity to explain away the historical record, you then dispense with it in a blow by saying that God "endowed" the non-human humans with humanity... after the Fall: just to avoid the implications of a master race still hanging around, you quickly upgrade all of homo sapiens to the same status.
It seems to me that this would involve God intervening massively in his creation to improve it after the fact. Which again, seems to create a whole lot more problems than it solves. One would have thought that such an across-the-board moral intervention on the part of God would have deserved at least a footnote in Scripture, perhaps somewhere alongside the bit where God talks about limiting mankind's lifespan.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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MikeRussell
Shipmate
# 16191
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Posted
@Eutychus
I deny that there is no evidence in Scripture.
If you accept that Cain feared/married/built a city with people not descended from Adam (which seems at least probable in the text)
and if you accept the teaching that Adam was the first human, and that all humans derive their fallen nature from him,
and if you accept that Homo sapiens existed before Adam,
and if you accept that all Homo sapiens were also human after Adam's sin,
my conclusion follows.
So it really depends how arbitrary you think these four claims are.
I deny that I apportion levels of humanness to animals.
No elephant is appointed by God to rule the world, so they can't be human. My fundamental definition of humanity is that we alone are appointed by God as rulers, so I reject your characterisation of my position.
Yes God intervenes in his creation and improves it - many times. This includes most importantly him sending Jesus to die for our sins. It also includes him taking action to improve the outlook for humanity after Adam's sin. This action involved producing many more humans at that time - humans who would play a role in the final restoration and redemption of humanity.
It feels like time to move away from the definition of humanity discussion. In my estimation, my thesis is much stronger here than on the subject of the Flood, and the ark's translation into our world. So unless someone has something sparkling on the questions of human definitions....?
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Check out my blog at http://richaelmussell.blogspot.com/, and my genesis 1-11 site at https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/
I also run www.microjointventures.org
Posts: 51 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jan 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
I deny that there is no evidence in Scripture.
If you accept that Cain feared/married/built a city with people not descended from Adam
The assumption you have to make here is that not all homo sapiens is descended from Adam. If you are willing to make that assumption, there are plenty of ways of understanding the text which, to this observer at least, appear more plausible than inventing an entire alternative (sub-)human race which is suddenly upgraded after the fall (without a shred of biblical evidence of this extraordinary action) to level the playing field.
quote:
I deny that I apportion levels of humanness to animals.
I assert that this is not at all apparent from the way you were arguing above. You brought in elephants to demonstrate that animals exhibited "human-like" characteristics. Having endowed animals with grief, morality, laws, and goodness knows what else, you are reduced to defining humanity (as opposed to homo sapiens) as "that which is appointed to God to rule (whether it does or it doesn't)". That seems to me to be a pretty poor definition of what it is to be human, as well as opening up all sorts of cans of worms to do with authority...
quote:
Yes God intervenes in his creation and improves it - many times. This includes most importantly him sending Jesus to die for our sins...
Apart from the incarnation and its outworkings, I don't think any of the post-creation interventions of God in creation actually improve its moral condition in the way you speculate (upgrading non-humans to humans, even if it's only to become aware they are fallen humans, which seems to me to be a pretty perverse deal...).
quote:
It feels like time to move away from the definition of humanity discussion.
Not when your entire hypothesis rests on there being two parallel types of humanity. We can worry about the Flood later for my money.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
So I don't make my proposal from intellectual convenience, but in order to propose an understanding of the world which accepts both a flat reading of the Bible, and the findings of mainstream science/history.
That is intellectual convenience. At least I think that's the polite term Croesus is using for what you're doing.
The root problem with your proposal is that you're treating the Genesis story as if it were raw data, evidence on the same footing as the observations that science is based on, and that as such it's necessary to reconcile it with the science. The fact that you can only attempt to do so by introducing such concepts as a parallel worlds, a two-track humanity and Divine intervention to "translate" folks between the worlds at necessary points ought to tell you something.
William of Ockham is spinning in his grave.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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MikeRussell
Shipmate
# 16191
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Posted
I feel like I've debated you in a forum somewhere else, on a topic I now forget, Eutychus. Surely there can't be heaps of Eutychuses out there.
I'll defer to your opinion a bit longer, Eutychus, as to the subject matter. That's partly because the definition of humanity is such an important subject in itself.
I have long held the view that 'image of God' should be understood as about human rule. We are like God in that we are appointed to rule the world, just as God is. I held this position long before taking my current views on origins.
I got that view on image from the now Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen.
I was persuaded by two points:
The first, that in Genesis 1:26-28, rule follows straight after image twice in a row:
First in verse 26
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule..."
Then in verse 27-28
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them,
"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."
The second point that persuaded me about image being rule is that if you go for one of the many other suggestions (e.g. we’re like God spiritually, we’re like God in that we have a rationality, or that we have language, or that we have moral sense, or that we have freedom of the will), then if this defining characteristic of a human is removed, they cease to be human. This is unacceptable to my mind, since we must not end up with a definition that removes diseased or injured people from the category of human
So for those two big reasons, I favour 'rulers of the world' as the best understanding for 'image of God'
Now it was a long time after settling this in my mind that I started thinking about ways to identify humans (if there was ever a serious question about the matter). It was really when I contemplated combining an evolutionary view with the Bible that I thought hard about the subject: What actions, if any would be unique to humans? This is a different question from the definition of human question.
The question: how do I identify a bunch of humans? is different from the question: how do I define a human?
In defending my thesis, I have to address the question of how to identify humans (not how to define them) when thinking about the Cro-Magnons, and other advanced human ancestors who lived pre-4000 BC. It's not the question of human definition which is needed, but the question of human identification. Because if we can be sure the Cro-Magnons were human, my thesis is toast.
What would the Cro-Magnons need to achieve to be unmistakeably, certainly human?
And that's where I came up with my three answers - marriage, making promises, and making laws. If they did one of those, I was convinced I would have to say they were human.
On the other side of the same question is the challenge of what animals could do while still being animals. When I discussed elephants mourning, animals giving account and so on, it wasn't to do with the definition of animal or human, but traits for identifying them.
So, Eutychus, when this distinction is understood: that between the definition of humans and identification markers for humans - when that distinction is understood, I think some of your objections are removed.
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Check out my blog at http://richaelmussell.blogspot.com/, and my genesis 1-11 site at https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/
I also run www.microjointventures.org
Posts: 51 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jan 2011
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
So, MikeRussell, let me get this straight. You argue that a race of homo-sapien 'animals' were forcibly endowed with 'fallen humanity' by God, in a completely arbitrary way, not because of anything they had done, or any law they had broken (since, as animals, they were incapable of understanding or following laws), but were condemned by God to eternal destruction despite this? And this act of God was solely in order to - well you haven't explained why - perhaps to keep Adam company in his misery? The fall in your opinion was not due to man's rebellion against God, but because God just decided to create a sinful human state and endow it to them? And He chose this world at random, as Adam's sin was carried out on another world entirely, nothing to do with the homo-sapiens on this world. I'm sorry but creating this vicous unjust construct and assigning the name 'God' to it is blasphemy IMO, and entirely against the just, holy and loving God as presented in the scriptures.
And even apart from that horrible theology, your definition of humanity is your weakest point, and you know it, as seen by your evasions, continual moving of the goalposts to redefine humanity to whatever you need it to mean at any point in the conversation. And now you try to evade the issue altogether using strawman arguments and declaring yourself the winner and moving on to niggling points of detail about water levels. Humanity is not and cannot be defined solely in terms of abstract 'rule' since you haven't defined that. How do you know which individuals have this 'rulership' status given to them by God. Your argument goes; that only humans have this, and you can tell because this was only given to humans. You've created a circular argument that is entirely unconvincing. And then you reduce its effect further by claiming that even if some 'humans' don't exhibit this rulership, or aren't capable of this, just because they belong to a community of people who do, they automatically become human. That doesn't make any sense at all. What about pets? A chimpanzee who has been taught sign language, and lives as a member of the family would be a member of this community and therefore a human in your argument. Your definition is no definition at all.
And you cannot claim your definition is correct just because of flaws in someone else's. Definitions don't work like that. I could say my definition of human as 'ape that can talk' is better than friend A's definition of 'penguin that can talk'. That doesn't mean I've successfuly defined humanity in all its complexity and splendour. I haven't even come close. Whole books have been written on the subject. You can't demand someone on a message board give you their definition and then self-declare yours to be better and therefore the correct one.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
The second point that persuaded me about image being rule is that if you go for one of the many other suggestions (e.g. we’re like God spiritually, we’re like God in that we have a rationality, or that we have language, or that we have moral sense, or that we have freedom of the will), then if this defining characteristic of a human is removed, they cease to be human. This is unacceptable to my mind, since we must not end up with a definition that removes diseased or injured people from the category of human
That's a straw man, though. No one is arguing that diseased people aren't human.
Defining any species strictly is problematic, on an evolutionary view, because if you go back far enough, all categories merge. However workable and useful definitions by way of description can and do exist, and it requires only a slight modification to Crœsos's description (a hairless ape with 23 paired chromosomes of a certain local evolutionary origin or an ape descended from the same) to include as "human" everything that would generally be considered such. You could, of course, find some contrivance to test that definition, but it is a much better and more useful one than yours, which proposes that there are two sets of animals, who look identical, act similarly, can (presumably) interbreed, and yet only some of which are human by virtue of a divine appointment to rule. Especially as the one distinctive physical test of 'humanity' in your sense (longevity) has vanished.
The idea that we should prefer your definition to any of the more common ones, simply because the everyday definitions do not explicitly rule on the specimens where some normal feature of human-ness has accidentally been lost, is absurd.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
It seems to me that Mike is just another fundie, trapped by the exigencies of his own woodenly literal framework into postulating extra-biblical and extra-traditional hypotheses in order to make his world-view cohere and 'fit'.
Move along folks, there's nothing to see ...
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
I'll defer to your opinion a bit longer, Eutychus, as to the subject matter. That's partly because the definition of humanity is such an important subject in itself.
Thank you so much. It is an important subject, but more importantly for our purposes here, it is a core component of your theory. I'm afraid that when you throw your theory open to debate, you don't get to call the shots on what is worth debating and what is not.
quote:
I favour 'rulers of the world' as the best understanding for 'image of God'
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
quote:
If they did one of those, I was convinced I would have to say they were human.
Well short of coming across a copy of Cro-Magnon marriage vows, that issue is not likely to be settled any time soon. How can you assert so confidently that Cro-Magnons did none of those things? You prefer to do so out of thin air simply because, as you admit, your theory collapses if the contrary is true
Oh, and whichever Eutychus you met, I don't think it was me.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MSHB:
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
One of the 'explanations' I like the best, and which doesn't strain the text, is the one who is commonly known as the 'Framework Interpretation.'
As you note, the Framework Interpretation has been around a long time.
You might also note that there is not only a parallel between the first three days and the second three days, but also a progression in the set of three:
The first and fourth days create light (primal physics here!) and the sun, moon, and stars - outer space.
The second and fifth days create the sky and the seas, and the creatures that move through them (birds and fishes) - terrestrial, it's getting a bit a bit closer to home, but not yet quite where we humans live.
The third and sixth days create land, land creatures ... and humans. Our people, our place.
So the framework starts far away in space with the sun and moon; then moves closer - to the seas and skies; and finally arrives at land and humans. It is a progression from far to near.
Whoever wrote it had a very organised and systematic mind. It is a literary work of genius, sadly muddled by people who miss the systematic literary mind and try to take it as a historical narrative (what history? There were no people to record any of it until day six), or as a bizarre pseudo-scientific puzzle.
Its also clearly paralelled in the structure of the Tabernacle and Temple as described in Exodus and Kings, and also in Ezekiels's visions, and even in the way the Heavens and the Earth are dismantled in the Revelation to St John. And rather less clearly in some of the opther prophetic visions and in God's reveleations to Abraham and to Moses and arguably in parts of the Gospels (though I am less persuaded of that).
And what's more its the one St Augustine used in his "literal interpretation of Genesis"
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Mike
I am certainly the most conservative here. Far more than the excellent Gamaliel for example.
Recently I came to the realisation that I was in a trench about one grenade throw closer to no man's land than you.
There is NO scientific evidence for The Flood whatsoever and nothing but evidence against it, biological and geological.
Just as there is none for a YEC and nothing but evidence against it by vast orders of magnitude.
I hoist myself with my own petard as for a YEC to be true God HAS to be in denial to the point of lying.
I then realised that the same is logically true for The Flood. And other anti-scientific claims in the - to me - still theologically perfect narrative.
Barnabas helped reconcile that for me by quoting Jack Lewis quoting God: "They're MY myths.". Now.
God has continuously met us where we are.
To what degree we don't know, but He incontrovertibly has: applying the Sabbath during the Exodus (... and I STILL believe every word of that ...) retrospectively on our myths and materially random solar system which gave us the seven day week in the first place.
God is unquestionably pragmatic. Jesus was oracular, parabolic and allegorical in using Jewish culture to make His theological points.
He always has been.
From 'the beginning'.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
I have long held the view that 'image of God' should be understood as about human rule. We are like God in that we are appointed to rule the world, just as God is. I held this position long before taking my current views on origins.
I got that view on image from the now Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen.
I was persuaded by two points:
The first, that in Genesis 1:26-28, rule follows straight after image twice in a row:
First in verse 26
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule..."
Then in verse 27-28
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them,
"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."
Ruling the fishes calls to mind that apocryphal tale of King Canute. I always thought that the ability to rule fishes was more Aquaman's thing than a characteristic of all humanity.
Seriously though, what does "ruling" over other animals, including non-domesticated ones, mean in this context? I've never given an order to a bird and had it obeyed. Wolves have never paid me an annual tribute or taxes or any kind. Is rulership just a euphemism for being tough enough to kill or drive off any other critter and, if so, what does it say about God that this is what it means to be "in His image"?
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
In defending my thesis, I have to address the question of how to identify humans (not how to define them) when thinking about the Cro-Magnons, and other advanced human ancestors who lived pre-4000 BC. It's not the question of human definition which is needed, but the question of human identification. Because if we can be sure the Cro-Magnons were human, my thesis is toast.
What would the Cro-Magnons need to achieve to be unmistakeably, certainly human?
And that's where I came up with my three answers - marriage, making promises, and making laws. If they did one of those, I was convinced I would have to say they were human.
It certainly seems that Cro-Magnons (who were biologically human) had some sense of the passage of time, which seems to be a requisite for making promises. In fact, the most generic definition of a promise is 'a statement about your own future behavior'. So you seem to be arguing that early (non-)humans lacked the ability to make statements like "I will join you for the hunt at dawn". Even the minimal organizational needs required to maintain a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle would seem to contradict your implication that Cro-Magnons had no sense of time.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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MikeRussell
Shipmate
# 16191
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Posted
Well, accepting Eutychus' call that I don't get to decide which sections get debated, it seems the focus is turning to the genre of Genesis, and how to read it best.
Let me say, I have long agreed with the Framework Interpretation, as described by Ken, and continue to do so. But that's Genesis 1. The key passages that drove me to date Adam at 4000 BC are Genesis 5 and 11.
I became persuaded that the 'gaps in the genealogy' approach does not allow any extra time at all. See my article for the argument.
Yes, I admit my first post to Gamaliel only handled half of his critique, and he seems to have been frustrated that I focused elsewhere in the meantime.
As I briefly mentioned, I think Richard Dawkins did a fine enough job showing that the Bible and science have 'overlapping magisteria'.
What I didn't address was Gamaliel's claim that I was not handling Genesis according to the type of literature it represents.
I don't know exactly what school of thought Gamaliel is from in this regard, but I'll take on one approach with which I'm familiar and with which I disagree:
that's the approach that says Genesis 1-11 is 'prehistory' and 'myth', with the historical material commencing at chapter 12.
My critiques of this approach include the following:
The text itself shows no indications of such a split. Chapter 12 flows on smoothly from chapter 11.
This is especially so with the presentation of the lifespans of the characters. The decline in ages starts in the genealogy of chapter 11, and continues through to the end of Genesis.
Also, the Tower of Babel story presents enough information to attempt to date the story historically.
Also, a 'mythical' approach to Genesis 1-11 struggles to say to what extent the characters were 'real'. This clashes with the New Testament appropriation of the stories.
The New Testament and Jesus certainly accept various of those Genesis 1-11 characters as 'real', and makes application as though the descriptions represent genuine history. Take for example Paul with 'Adam was formed first', or 'Eve was the one deceived', or Peter with his descriptions of the Flood, in particular with Jesus preaching to the spirits of those who perished in Noah's day.
My sense is that fairly few here who will accept such an argument, because of presuppositions. So I mention this defence: I think the guy who was God and who rose from the dead with an immortal body would know. When he said he'd lead his apostles into all truth, I think he's capable of doing it, and in fact did it. I have a great deal of confidence in the historical arguments for Jesus' resurrection.
Anyway, if Gamaliel or anyone else wants to bring an argument from Herodotus on why Genesis 1-11 (or Genesis as a whole?) should be treated as myth, I'm all ears.
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Check out my blog at http://richaelmussell.blogspot.com/, and my genesis 1-11 site at https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/
I also run www.microjointventures.org
Posts: 51 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jan 2011
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
My sense is that fairly few here who will accept such an argument, because of presuppositions. So I mention this defence: I think the guy who was God and who rose from the dead with an immortal body would know. When he said he'd lead his apostles into all truth, I think he's capable of doing it, and in fact did it.
Not necessarily, I believe that Jesus Christ is God, and I also think that he had a 1st century cosmology which is vastly different from our own.
They are not contradictory, because of the doctrine of kenosis.
In the doctrine of kenosis, the Son, while remaining fully God, gave up a certain degree of divinity to become fully human. Being fully human means accepting fully the contingent perspective of his cultural upbringing. I suppose Our Lord should have spouted Darwinian evolution, String theory, and the Documentary Hypothesis during his 30 or so years on earth. But he didn't, because his fellow people would have been ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Now of course, Our Lord could have indeed known the knowledge of the world and simply did not share it because it was irrelevant to his mission to the world. That I don't know, pondering the dual nature of Christ gives me a headache after a while.
I take Genesis as a myth simply because that is how we understand its spiritual meaning. To twist it in a pseudo-scientific text robs it as its deep spiritual meaning. Much of our modern distaste for myth stems from our Enlightenment presuppositions which upholds scientific reasoning over other forms of knowledge such as poetry, music, and yes, religious myths. To turn Genesis into a scientific text is about as preposterious as stating that a poem about roses is a scientific text about botany.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRussell:
Take for example Paul with 'Adam was formed first', or 'Eve was the one deceived'
Interesting you should take those examples, both from the same passage. I had already been thinking of asking you whether, what with your definition of human and of being in the image of God being "appointed to rule by God" and all, you believe males to be more in the image of God than females?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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