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by Stormarm on February 12th, 2011
by Anoname on February 11th, 2011
by BMaltby on February 11th, 2011
by cloudman on February 11th, 2011
by TallJasperMan on February 11th, 2011
by Milner on April 26th, 2011
by King Daniel on February 21st, 2011
by Robertd903 on February 19th, 2011
by arizonaannie64 on February 14th, 2011
If the forbidden fruit was a Durian, would that certain lady have eaten it in the first place?
by Koz - Passion Perseverance Patience on August 26th, 2011
| 2 people like this
Is Adam a mortal spirit?
by The Holy Spirit on November 20th, 2011
| 1 person likes this
Suppose on a certain planet the local Adam and Eve did not commit the original sin.Will we find their offspring naked in a kind of paradise?
by Pallieter1942 on September 10th, 2011
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If you could ask Eve one question, what would it be?
by kami on September 8th, 2011
| 10 people like this
Since the first humans were black, was Adam and Eve black?
by Ailurophile on November 18th, 2011
| 1 person likes this
You're reading who was first Adam & Eve or cavemen? guess it goes by faith or science.
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Comments
"Alternative reading?" Alternative according to whom and why would a person even need an alternative reading to something that is quite self-explanatory?
by Milner on April 26th, 2011
Pre-adamite theories as well as co-adamite and multiple creation theories go back at least as far as the 2nd century BC and probably to the very time Genesis was written. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Adamite for starters.
As for "quite self-explanatory" - if you think that Genesis 1-3 is quite self-explanatory then you know nothing of Biblical Hebrew or how to read ancient literature. Gen 1, for example, functions as an outline in allegorical form of the rest of Genesis: the 10 "let there be's" point to the 10 accounts while the 7 "warmings" (that's the literal meaning of the word that gets translated as "days") point to the 7 generations/contests for being the heir: 1) Seth, not Cain; 2) Shem, not Ham; 3) Abraham, not Haran/Lot; 4) Isaac, not Ishmael; 5) Jacob, not Esau; 6) Judah & Jospeh, not Reuben, Simeon, or Levi; 7)
Incidentally, the refrain of Gen 1 literally translates: "And there was a slow subtle concealing, and there was sudden violent bursting forth, a #th warming." It's talking of a cycle of corruption and divine intervention to rescue the situation, that repeats itself throughout Genesis.
As for Adam and Gen 2, the author is presenting him as the prototype of Israel: the people who were lifted out of the mud pits of Egypt, exlated and made his royal-priesthood, placed in a protected land flowing with milk and honey in the center of the world, with God dwelling in their midst, and the tables of Right & Wrong enshrined in the center of the land. And like Adam, Israel would eventually be exiled (to Babylon) for breach of the Covenant, losing the abiding Presence of God which is Life because of their sins.
by Stormarm on April 26th, 2011
the 7th cycle clause above got deleted accidentally and I didn't notice until too late. the 2nd paragraph above should end:
7) Perez & Ephraim, not Zerah & Manasseh.
by Stormarm on April 26th, 2011
Interesting wiki article Stormarm but are these theories accurate or even plausible? I ask this not to begin a lengthy discussion or as an attack, rather I ask this because the notion of a pre-Adamite race of human like beings on Earth, who were judged and destroyed, cannot be reconciled with the Bible and I might add was not originally part of the Gap Theory.
I'm not the brightest bulb on the string but doesn't this theory, also known as the Ruin-Reconstruction Theory, place an undetermined period of time between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2 where Earth sat in the dark, an uninhabitable ruin, as a result of the fall and judgment of Lucifer? Or am I off the mark here?
In my humble opinion, you seem to be putting way too many words in the Lord’s mouth (the Bible) to justify a pre-Adamite civilization of mortal beings. If indeed this is what you are trying to do. If not I apologize. There are even some pastors, that not only teach that there was a creation on earth before Genesis but they go as far as saying the serpent seduced Eve, and became the father of Cain. That notion doesn't even begin to pass the smell test.
The idea of a pre-Adamic civilization is popular among some who are trying to reconcile an old Earth with a young civilization to explain the fossil record. There isn’t any Biblical basis for such a view where living beings are concerned, although I do believe that a case can be made for the Earth to be much older than the 6000 years during which it’s been populated. Anyhow, I saw this conversation and thought that I would jump in and add my two cent's worth.
by Antipas on April 27th, 2011
Well, most theologians I know and know of - and also the official position of the Catholic Church - is that there's no theological problem with pre-Adamites. The theological problem comes when one postulates co-Adamites, that is, that there are human beings who aren't descended from Adam. This was a version of the pre-Adamite hypothesis claimed by various persons and groups of a racist bent. They contend that Adam was only the progenitor of the Jews (a silly contention given the Bible also claims him as the progenitor of all the Semites, Hamites, and Japhethites (which presumably includes all Indo-European & Turkik peoples at the very least), while Adam's supposed contemporaries were the progenitors of the Gentiles.
The theological objection, however, operates on the presumption that "the creation of Adam" was an actual creation of an individual with no parents, and that any pre- or co- Adamites would therefore have been the product of a separate creation. I think that's a wrong reading of the text, that "the LORD God formed the man* from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being" is to be understood in precisely the same sense that one would understand "the LORD God formed Israel from the lowest of the low in the mudpits of Egypt, and gave them His Law and His Presence which is True Life." So in that understanding, Adam and the pre- or co- Adamites are the same race with a common ancestor, just as Israel and all the nations that descended from Noah were the same race with a common ancestor. In this schema, the doctrine of the unity of man is preserved, which is the principle concern theologians have in the question of pre-Adamites.
I'm not one much for the tradition Ruin-Reconstruction Theory. I do think Genesis (and Judges, and 1&2 Kings, 1&2 Chronicles, and all the latter Prophets) is built on the cycle of corruption & decline, chastisement, repentance & reform, deliverance & renewal, and back to corruption and decline, so there's no reason to suppose that this hadn't been going on since the time of homo erectus. Adam is just where the story begins because it had to begin somewhere, and recounting 100,000 generations is exactly feasible or helpful.
The thing we have to remember is that Genesis is not a natural history: it's the prologue to the Torah (kind of like the Hobbit to the Lord of the Rings), written to the generation of the Exodus, the Wilderness years, and the Conquest, and written to speak to and resonate with their experience.
by Stormarm on April 27th, 2011