If Adam and Eve never existed, then why does original sin?
Often when I am asking questions to an apologist, they won't admit to believing the crazier parts of the bible. They will admit not taking Noah's ark or Adam and Eve literally. If these stories are not literal, then why does original sin exist? And if that throws original sin out the window, doesn't that also toss any meaning behind Christ's sacrifice? If the stories are meant to be metaphorical, then why is original sin not metaphorical as well?
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If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by Stabby » Wed Sep 13, 2017 8:55 pm
- Stabby
Re: If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by jimwalton » Wed Sep 13, 2017 9:01 pm
Hmm. I believe Adam and Eve literally existed in history, but they were not necessarily the first hominids. They were the first who had evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable, and so original sin is real also.
> If these stories are not literal
"Literal" is an odd word that I think is inadequate for biblical discussion. the Bible is a rich literary collection containing music, poetry, metaphor, allegory, archetypes, parable, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, and many other literary forms, as well as genres such as prayer, prophecy, blessing, covenant language, legal language, etc. "Literally" quickly becomes a word with very little meaning or helpfulness. If a poet says the trees of the field will clap their hands and the mountains will jump for joy, is that literal? Of course not, it's poetry. If a man prays, "God, kill all those people", we may all understand that his prayer is inappropriate, and is not blessed by God, but is it literal? Well, how does that word even apply? And how does it apply to archetype, allegory, parable, and all the others? It's a word that should be dropped from the discussion because it doesn't take us anywhere except to the Land of Misunderstanding.
It's better to think that the Bible should be taken the way the author intended it to be taken. If he was using hyperbole, we're to take it that way. So also allegorically, historically, parabolic, poetic, etc. Our quest is to understand the intent of the author. In that case we'll take the Bible *seriously*, but "literally" doesn't take us anywhere.
> Noah's ark, Adam & Eve
I take both of these narratives as historical. Adam and Eve were actually, historical hominids, and Noah was an actual person who survived a flood. So I don't toss anything out the window, nor do I take the stories to be metaphorical. They have literary archetypes in them and literary devices, but they are historical narratives.
So if Adam and Eve were historical beings, original sin can be a reality, and Christ's sacrifice was necessary. The stories aren't meant to be metaphorical, and neither is original sin.
> If these stories are not literal
"Literal" is an odd word that I think is inadequate for biblical discussion. the Bible is a rich literary collection containing music, poetry, metaphor, allegory, archetypes, parable, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, and many other literary forms, as well as genres such as prayer, prophecy, blessing, covenant language, legal language, etc. "Literally" quickly becomes a word with very little meaning or helpfulness. If a poet says the trees of the field will clap their hands and the mountains will jump for joy, is that literal? Of course not, it's poetry. If a man prays, "God, kill all those people", we may all understand that his prayer is inappropriate, and is not blessed by God, but is it literal? Well, how does that word even apply? And how does it apply to archetype, allegory, parable, and all the others? It's a word that should be dropped from the discussion because it doesn't take us anywhere except to the Land of Misunderstanding.
It's better to think that the Bible should be taken the way the author intended it to be taken. If he was using hyperbole, we're to take it that way. So also allegorically, historically, parabolic, poetic, etc. Our quest is to understand the intent of the author. In that case we'll take the Bible *seriously*, but "literally" doesn't take us anywhere.
> Noah's ark, Adam & Eve
I take both of these narratives as historical. Adam and Eve were actually, historical hominids, and Noah was an actual person who survived a flood. So I don't toss anything out the window, nor do I take the stories to be metaphorical. They have literary archetypes in them and literary devices, but they are historical narratives.
So if Adam and Eve were historical beings, original sin can be a reality, and Christ's sacrifice was necessary. The stories aren't meant to be metaphorical, and neither is original sin.
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Re: If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by Saiyan God » Thu Sep 14, 2017 1:22 pm
> They were the first who had evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable, and so original sin is real also.
But evolution doesn't work like that. The offspring is always exactly the same species as the parents. It is qualitatively the same. An ear doesn't suddenly appear. Unless moral responsibility appeared as a genetic mutation?
But evolution doesn't work like that. The offspring is always exactly the same species as the parents. It is qualitatively the same. An ear doesn't suddenly appear. Unless moral responsibility appeared as a genetic mutation?
- Saiyan God
Re: If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by jimwalton » Thu Sep 14, 2017 1:30 pm
We see a chain of hominid evolution including Proconsul africanus (thought to represent the common stock leading to both apes and humans), kenyapithecus wicker, and ramapithecus, and then a large gap of missing links. After that is Sahelanthropus tchadenis, Australopithecus ramidus kadabba, and then Homo habilis, the first homo genus. Then there are a variety of pre-humans (australopithecus): afarensis, africanus, anamensis, robustus, ethiopicus, ramidus, and boisei. ("Lucy" is one of these.) Out of these homo erectus came on the scene, and eventually homo sapiens. That's the current scientific model for evolution. What I am postulating is that Adam and Eve were the first to be identified by God as having evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable. They were no longer sort-or-human-sort-of-animal or developing humans, but homo sapiens. It is at this point he breathed into them the breath of life and they became living souls, and we have the story of Genesis 2 and following.
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Re: If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by Stabby » Thu Sep 14, 2017 1:57 pm
> Hmm. I believe Adam and Eve literally existed in history, but they were not necessarily the first hominids. They were the first who had evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable, and so original sin is real also.
So a belief in the biblical Adam and Eve means a few things. You believe that all of mankind came from these two people. Afterwords, God drowned all but one surviving family and everyone we see today came from that family of booze and incest.
Now I want to point something out.
> They were the first who had evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable
This is not how evolution works. There is not a point in time when you can point at a baby and go, "look, the first human!" Evolution is much slower than that. It works with very gradual steps, not leaps.
> "Literal" is an odd word that I think is inadequate for biblical discussion.
That's a problem and it should be setting off red flags in your head. If something is so important to me that it determines the fate of my eternal soul it needs to be based on factual evidence and literal. I don't cook a meal if the recipe uses metaphors and shit, yet people are willing to gamble what they see as eternity on something so foggy.
> "Literally" quickly becomes a word with very little meaning or helpfulness.
Again, shit. Did Hitler literally start a movement that caused the deaths of 6,000,000 people or was it just an allegory? Did God literally flood the entire f***ing planet killing everything in sight including plants or was it just a metaphor? It makes a big difference and you should care about that difference.
> If a poet says the trees of the field will clap their hands and the mountains will jump for joy, is that literal?
The difference here being no one is killing for the belief that the tree clapped and mountains jumped. People kill for God every day. People die over these beliefs being literal.
> If a man prays, "God, kill all those people", we may all understand that his prayer is inappropriate, and is not blessed by God, but is it literal?
2 Kings 2:24. Sounds poetic to me.
> Well, how does that word even apply? And how does it apply to archetype, allegory, parable, and all the others? It's a word that should be dropped from the discussion because it doesn't take us anywhere except to the Land of Misunderstanding.
It's a word that should be discussed until we are blue in the face. Again, people live and die based on the belief that they are born into sin. They believe this because a priest told them how man has to pay for the sins of Adam and Eve. Jesus came down and made it possible for us to enter heaven. It needs to be literal, or else there would be no reason at all to follow it. God itself could easily be thrown away as a metaphor as you yourself wouldn't want the word "literal" entering the discussion. Something happening, an event of this magnitude needs evidence that it happened.
> I take both of these narratives as historical. So I don't toss anything out the window, nor do I take the stories to be metaphorical.
Which is to say, literally. Nice.
> So if Adam and Eve were historical beings, original sin can be a reality, and Christ's sacrifice was necessary. The stories aren't meant to be metaphorical, and neither is original sin.
Your entire argument then comes around like a big circle and relies on something being literally true.
So a belief in the biblical Adam and Eve means a few things. You believe that all of mankind came from these two people. Afterwords, God drowned all but one surviving family and everyone we see today came from that family of booze and incest.
Now I want to point something out.
> They were the first who had evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable
This is not how evolution works. There is not a point in time when you can point at a baby and go, "look, the first human!" Evolution is much slower than that. It works with very gradual steps, not leaps.
> "Literal" is an odd word that I think is inadequate for biblical discussion.
That's a problem and it should be setting off red flags in your head. If something is so important to me that it determines the fate of my eternal soul it needs to be based on factual evidence and literal. I don't cook a meal if the recipe uses metaphors and shit, yet people are willing to gamble what they see as eternity on something so foggy.
> "Literally" quickly becomes a word with very little meaning or helpfulness.
Again, shit. Did Hitler literally start a movement that caused the deaths of 6,000,000 people or was it just an allegory? Did God literally flood the entire f***ing planet killing everything in sight including plants or was it just a metaphor? It makes a big difference and you should care about that difference.
> If a poet says the trees of the field will clap their hands and the mountains will jump for joy, is that literal?
The difference here being no one is killing for the belief that the tree clapped and mountains jumped. People kill for God every day. People die over these beliefs being literal.
> If a man prays, "God, kill all those people", we may all understand that his prayer is inappropriate, and is not blessed by God, but is it literal?
2 Kings 2:24. Sounds poetic to me.
> Well, how does that word even apply? And how does it apply to archetype, allegory, parable, and all the others? It's a word that should be dropped from the discussion because it doesn't take us anywhere except to the Land of Misunderstanding.
It's a word that should be discussed until we are blue in the face. Again, people live and die based on the belief that they are born into sin. They believe this because a priest told them how man has to pay for the sins of Adam and Eve. Jesus came down and made it possible for us to enter heaven. It needs to be literal, or else there would be no reason at all to follow it. God itself could easily be thrown away as a metaphor as you yourself wouldn't want the word "literal" entering the discussion. Something happening, an event of this magnitude needs evidence that it happened.
> I take both of these narratives as historical. So I don't toss anything out the window, nor do I take the stories to be metaphorical.
Which is to say, literally. Nice.
> So if Adam and Eve were historical beings, original sin can be a reality, and Christ's sacrifice was necessary. The stories aren't meant to be metaphorical, and neither is original sin.
Your entire argument then comes around like a big circle and relies on something being literally true.
- Stabby
Re: If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by jimwalton » Thu Sep 14, 2017 2:25 pm
You are bringing assumptions to the table that are not part of what I said, and on the basis of your assumptions you accuse me of circular reasoning. Let's start again.
> You believe that all of mankind came from these two people
Nope. Not all humankind came from these two people. They were chosen out from among homo sapiens to represent what all homo sapiens are like: mortal, morally culpable, and spiritually capable. So you're off on the wrong foot already.
> This is not how evolution works. There is not a point in time when you can point at a baby and go, "look, the first human!" Evolution is much slower than that. It works with very gradual steps, not leaps.
I'm well aware of that. We see a chain of hominid evolution including Proconsul africanus (thought to represent the common stock leading to both apes and humans), kenyapithecus wicker, and ramapithecus, and then a large gap of missing links. After that is Sahelanthropus tchadenis, Australopithecus ramidus kadabba, and then Homo habilis, the first homo genus. Then there are a variety of pre-humans (australopithecus): afarensis, africanus, anamensis, robustus, ethiopicus, ramidus, and boisei. ("Lucy" is one of these.) Out of these homo erectus came on the scene, and eventually homo sapiens. That's the current scientific model for evolution. What I am postulating is that Adam and Eve were the first to be identified by God as having evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable. They were no longer sort-or-human-sort-of-animal or developing humans, but homo sapiens. It is at this point he breathed into them the breath of life and they became living souls, and we have the story of Genesis 2 and following. You seem to making a false assumption about what I was asserting.
> If something is so important to me that it determines the fate of my eternal soul it needs to be based on factual evidence and literal.
"Factual" and "literal" are two different categories. "Literal" means that if the Bible says "the trees of the field clap their hands," then trees literally have hands and they actually clap them. "Factual" relates to what actually happened. In this particular case, the trees clapping their hands is a figurative expression of joy, not a literal description of a fact. We need to draw a distinction between taking the Bible literally (which I think is a nonsense descriptor) and taking the Bible as authoritative according to the intent of the author. So I base the fate of my eternal soul on the authoritative word of God that is filled with archetypes, similes, parables, poetry, and all kinds of things I don't take literally but are still understandable.
> I don't cook a meal if the recipe uses metaphors and shit, yet people are willing to gamble what they see as eternity on something so foggy.
Of course we don't. Nobody uses poetry or metonymy to make pancakes. But understanding literary devices doesn't interfere with my understanding of Scripture. It enhances it rather than makes it foggy.
> Did Hitler literally start a movement that caused the deaths of 6,000,000 people or was it just an allegory?
Yep, he literally did. Not an allegory at all, but a horrific tragedy.
> Did God literally flood the entire f***ing planet killing everything in sight including plants or was it just a metaphor?
Neither. There is good reason (and evidence) to believe the Flood of Noah was a massive regional (continental?) deluge. It certainly was a historical event and not a metaphor, but it most likely wasn't global.
> 2 Kings 2.24
The Bible is deeper than it seems on the surface. You can't just read it 1" deep. It was a dark time in the spiritual situation of Israel. Ahab, one of the most godless men ever to sit on the throne of Israel, and his wife Jezebel, even to this day an archetype of evil, were dragging the country into child sacrifice, destructive religious practices, and immorality of every kind. The people were following, like sheep. God sent Elijah to confront the king and the false religion he championed (1 Ki. 17.1). Jezebel went on a killing spree, butchering prophets like beef (1 Ki. 18.4). The Lord wouldn't let go of his people and the covenant he had made with them, and commissioned Elijah to anoint a new king over Israel and recruit a partner, Elisha, to help set the nation back to rights. He sent prophet after prophet to confront Ahab with his evil (1 Ki. 20.35-43; 22.1-28). Ahab is killed in battle (1 Ki. 22.29-38), and the country has a chance, now, to turn around and be saved from the moral and spiritual cesspool.
The successor, Ahaziah, is not much better than Ahab. He's evil to the core. Elijah confronts him too, and he dies. Any judge that ignores evil isn't much of a judge. To let anybody get away with anything they want isn't justice, it's anarchy.
Elijah is taken away, and Elisha is his successor. Within the time of about a week, Elisha heads to Bethel, the house of God, where Abraham had met with the Lord and where Jacob had his vision of the stairway to heaven. He is minding his own business, or should I say the business of the Lord, when he is accosted by a group (unknown number; "42" is a generic term in their culture for a large group) of teens who, as members of covenant families ought to have been taught that cursing God's servants (prophets) was tantamount to cursing God, an action punishable by death. But remember, the country was depraved.
They mocked the prophet for his baldness. In those days, long hair was the mark of a true prophet. Also, the ritual cutting of hair is prohibited by the law. Now, Elisha was naturally bald, apparently, but the taunt was unmistakable: you're a fake and a fraud, and YHWH is both impotent and false. Everything about your God is illicit.
Elisha turned and rebuked their blasphemy, calling down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Was YHWH real? Was Elisha his true prophet? Did YHWH take any actions to preserve his people, keep them on the right path, and judge rebels? Would God do nothing to maintain the right, and just watch the country go down the toilet?
You'll notice that Elisha doesn't specify the curse. He rebukes them for their blasphemy. God is the one who takes the action. For all we know, all Elisha said is, "May God curse you for your blasphemy," and then to his surprise and that of the teens, 2 bears attack them.
Now, let's look at that attack a little closer. First of all, you know how bears attack. You've seen it on youtube. They're not fast like leopards. Let's be realistic—if two bears attack 10 kids, the 10 kids are going to run in 10 different directions; 42 kids are going to run in 42 different directions. Two bears are only going to get two kids. The rest are going to be GONE with the wind. And it doesn't say any of them are killed. So it's impractical to assume that all of them were mauled. The boys would run for their lives. But the effect would be the same: the Lord will not allow his name to be blasphemed without impunity. Now, I may have also already said that ravaging wild beasts were often seen as punishment sent from God. The point is clearly made even if only two boys are injured.
Not poetic at all. Not a metaphor. But we don't just read it without context, either.
> people live and die based on the belief that they are born into sin.
That's right, and we are. It's not a metaphor.
> They believe this because a priest told them how man has to pay for the sins of Adam and Eve.
I guess that priest was wrong (or you misunderstood him). We all pay for our own sins.
> Jesus came down and made it possible for us to enter heaven.
Yes, this is factual. Not figurative or metaphorical.
> Which is to say, literally. Nice.
It depends what you mean by "literally." Adam and Eve were historical persons; this is no metaphor. But A&E were probably not the first hominids, but taken out from among others (Gn. 2.15). "Literally" is just an inadequate term.
> Your entire argument then comes around like a big circle and relies on something being literally true.
Hopefully my explanation has helped you to see how misguided this statement is. I haven't spoken in big circles at all. And I just can't go with describing the Bible as "literally true." It's an inadequate term for the complexity and depth of the Bible.
> You believe that all of mankind came from these two people
Nope. Not all humankind came from these two people. They were chosen out from among homo sapiens to represent what all homo sapiens are like: mortal, morally culpable, and spiritually capable. So you're off on the wrong foot already.
> This is not how evolution works. There is not a point in time when you can point at a baby and go, "look, the first human!" Evolution is much slower than that. It works with very gradual steps, not leaps.
I'm well aware of that. We see a chain of hominid evolution including Proconsul africanus (thought to represent the common stock leading to both apes and humans), kenyapithecus wicker, and ramapithecus, and then a large gap of missing links. After that is Sahelanthropus tchadenis, Australopithecus ramidus kadabba, and then Homo habilis, the first homo genus. Then there are a variety of pre-humans (australopithecus): afarensis, africanus, anamensis, robustus, ethiopicus, ramidus, and boisei. ("Lucy" is one of these.) Out of these homo erectus came on the scene, and eventually homo sapiens. That's the current scientific model for evolution. What I am postulating is that Adam and Eve were the first to be identified by God as having evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable. They were no longer sort-or-human-sort-of-animal or developing humans, but homo sapiens. It is at this point he breathed into them the breath of life and they became living souls, and we have the story of Genesis 2 and following. You seem to making a false assumption about what I was asserting.
> If something is so important to me that it determines the fate of my eternal soul it needs to be based on factual evidence and literal.
"Factual" and "literal" are two different categories. "Literal" means that if the Bible says "the trees of the field clap their hands," then trees literally have hands and they actually clap them. "Factual" relates to what actually happened. In this particular case, the trees clapping their hands is a figurative expression of joy, not a literal description of a fact. We need to draw a distinction between taking the Bible literally (which I think is a nonsense descriptor) and taking the Bible as authoritative according to the intent of the author. So I base the fate of my eternal soul on the authoritative word of God that is filled with archetypes, similes, parables, poetry, and all kinds of things I don't take literally but are still understandable.
> I don't cook a meal if the recipe uses metaphors and shit, yet people are willing to gamble what they see as eternity on something so foggy.
Of course we don't. Nobody uses poetry or metonymy to make pancakes. But understanding literary devices doesn't interfere with my understanding of Scripture. It enhances it rather than makes it foggy.
> Did Hitler literally start a movement that caused the deaths of 6,000,000 people or was it just an allegory?
Yep, he literally did. Not an allegory at all, but a horrific tragedy.
> Did God literally flood the entire f***ing planet killing everything in sight including plants or was it just a metaphor?
Neither. There is good reason (and evidence) to believe the Flood of Noah was a massive regional (continental?) deluge. It certainly was a historical event and not a metaphor, but it most likely wasn't global.
> 2 Kings 2.24
The Bible is deeper than it seems on the surface. You can't just read it 1" deep. It was a dark time in the spiritual situation of Israel. Ahab, one of the most godless men ever to sit on the throne of Israel, and his wife Jezebel, even to this day an archetype of evil, were dragging the country into child sacrifice, destructive religious practices, and immorality of every kind. The people were following, like sheep. God sent Elijah to confront the king and the false religion he championed (1 Ki. 17.1). Jezebel went on a killing spree, butchering prophets like beef (1 Ki. 18.4). The Lord wouldn't let go of his people and the covenant he had made with them, and commissioned Elijah to anoint a new king over Israel and recruit a partner, Elisha, to help set the nation back to rights. He sent prophet after prophet to confront Ahab with his evil (1 Ki. 20.35-43; 22.1-28). Ahab is killed in battle (1 Ki. 22.29-38), and the country has a chance, now, to turn around and be saved from the moral and spiritual cesspool.
The successor, Ahaziah, is not much better than Ahab. He's evil to the core. Elijah confronts him too, and he dies. Any judge that ignores evil isn't much of a judge. To let anybody get away with anything they want isn't justice, it's anarchy.
Elijah is taken away, and Elisha is his successor. Within the time of about a week, Elisha heads to Bethel, the house of God, where Abraham had met with the Lord and where Jacob had his vision of the stairway to heaven. He is minding his own business, or should I say the business of the Lord, when he is accosted by a group (unknown number; "42" is a generic term in their culture for a large group) of teens who, as members of covenant families ought to have been taught that cursing God's servants (prophets) was tantamount to cursing God, an action punishable by death. But remember, the country was depraved.
They mocked the prophet for his baldness. In those days, long hair was the mark of a true prophet. Also, the ritual cutting of hair is prohibited by the law. Now, Elisha was naturally bald, apparently, but the taunt was unmistakable: you're a fake and a fraud, and YHWH is both impotent and false. Everything about your God is illicit.
Elisha turned and rebuked their blasphemy, calling down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Was YHWH real? Was Elisha his true prophet? Did YHWH take any actions to preserve his people, keep them on the right path, and judge rebels? Would God do nothing to maintain the right, and just watch the country go down the toilet?
You'll notice that Elisha doesn't specify the curse. He rebukes them for their blasphemy. God is the one who takes the action. For all we know, all Elisha said is, "May God curse you for your blasphemy," and then to his surprise and that of the teens, 2 bears attack them.
Now, let's look at that attack a little closer. First of all, you know how bears attack. You've seen it on youtube. They're not fast like leopards. Let's be realistic—if two bears attack 10 kids, the 10 kids are going to run in 10 different directions; 42 kids are going to run in 42 different directions. Two bears are only going to get two kids. The rest are going to be GONE with the wind. And it doesn't say any of them are killed. So it's impractical to assume that all of them were mauled. The boys would run for their lives. But the effect would be the same: the Lord will not allow his name to be blasphemed without impunity. Now, I may have also already said that ravaging wild beasts were often seen as punishment sent from God. The point is clearly made even if only two boys are injured.
Not poetic at all. Not a metaphor. But we don't just read it without context, either.
> people live and die based on the belief that they are born into sin.
That's right, and we are. It's not a metaphor.
> They believe this because a priest told them how man has to pay for the sins of Adam and Eve.
I guess that priest was wrong (or you misunderstood him). We all pay for our own sins.
> Jesus came down and made it possible for us to enter heaven.
Yes, this is factual. Not figurative or metaphorical.
> Which is to say, literally. Nice.
It depends what you mean by "literally." Adam and Eve were historical persons; this is no metaphor. But A&E were probably not the first hominids, but taken out from among others (Gn. 2.15). "Literally" is just an inadequate term.
> Your entire argument then comes around like a big circle and relies on something being literally true.
Hopefully my explanation has helped you to see how misguided this statement is. I haven't spoken in big circles at all. And I just can't go with describing the Bible as "literally true." It's an inadequate term for the complexity and depth of the Bible.
- jimwalton
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Re: If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by Turnkey » Thu Sep 14, 2017 4:11 pm
> Hmm. I believe Adam and Eve literally existed in history, but they were not necessarily the first hominids. They were the first who had evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable, and so original sin is real also.
Do you have evidence? Or did you start with a conclusion and formulate an explaination to fit it?
Do you have evidence? Or did you start with a conclusion and formulate an explaination to fit it?
- Turnkey
Re: If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by jimwalton » Thu Sep 14, 2017 4:11 pm
We see a chain of hominid evolution including Proconsul africanus (thought to represent the common stock leading to both apes and humans), kenyapithecus wicker, and ramapithecus, and then a large gap of missing links. After that is Sahelanthropus tchadenis, Australopithecus ramidus kadabba, and then Homo habilis, the first homo genus. Then there are a variety of pre-humans (australopithecus): afarensis, africanus, anamensis, robustus, ethiopicus, ramidus, and boisei. ("Lucy" is one of these.) Out of these homo erectus came on the scene, and eventually homo sapiens. That's the current scientific model for evolution. What I am postulating is that Adam and Eve were the first to be identified by God as having evolved to the point of being morally culpable and spiritually capable. They were no longer sort-or-human-sort-of-animal or developing humans, but homo sapiens. It is at this point he breathed into them the breath of life and they became living souls, and we have the story of Genesis 2 and following.
The Bible speaks of two hominids named Adam & Eve. These obviously weren't their names, because these names are Hebrew, and Hebrew wasn't a language until about 1,000 BC. But for convenience we'll call them Adam and Eve. Genesis 2.15 says God took them and put them in the Garden to "work it" (to care for sacred space as priests).
Took them from where? On the basis of an interesting parallel from the Gilgamesh epic, Adam, the archetypal (but historical) human, is being removed from the everyday realm of human existence and placed in a specially prepared place as a blessing. If other people are around, which is likely, A&E are being elected from among them to play a special role. From Gn. 4.14, 17 we could reasonably deduce there are other people around.
But if you want hard evidence of Adam and Eve's existence (like a pottery shard with their picture on it and the label "Adam and Eve"), well that doesn't exist, of course.
According to Genesis 2, A&E were instructed in moral and spiritual matters and held accountable for their decisions and actions.
What are you looking for?
The Bible speaks of two hominids named Adam & Eve. These obviously weren't their names, because these names are Hebrew, and Hebrew wasn't a language until about 1,000 BC. But for convenience we'll call them Adam and Eve. Genesis 2.15 says God took them and put them in the Garden to "work it" (to care for sacred space as priests).
Took them from where? On the basis of an interesting parallel from the Gilgamesh epic, Adam, the archetypal (but historical) human, is being removed from the everyday realm of human existence and placed in a specially prepared place as a blessing. If other people are around, which is likely, A&E are being elected from among them to play a special role. From Gn. 4.14, 17 we could reasonably deduce there are other people around.
But if you want hard evidence of Adam and Eve's existence (like a pottery shard with their picture on it and the label "Adam and Eve"), well that doesn't exist, of course.
According to Genesis 2, A&E were instructed in moral and spiritual matters and held accountable for their decisions and actions.
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- jimwalton
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Re: If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by Saiyan God » Sun Sep 17, 2017 2:51 pm
I don't understand what that first lineage has to do with anything. Doesn't matter. So at what point would the breath of life happen, what was God's criteria? The point that every child is exactly the same species as the parents still stands.
- Saiyan God
Re: If Adam and Eve didn't exist, why does original sin?
by jimwalton » Sun Sep 17, 2017 2:56 pm
It was to address your statement, "But evolution doesn't work like that. The offspring is always exactly the same species as the parents." By looking at the evolutionary chain, we can see that the point of evolution is that the offspring don't always exactly the same species as parents. Naturalism postulates that new species can arise from genetic mutation, and the fossil record possibly bears this out.
> So at what point would the breath of life happen, what was God's criteria?
The breath of life would happen at the point when evolution had progressed to the point where homo sapiens were advanced enough in reason, conscience, and a moral awareness to be morally culpable and spiritually capable.
> The point that every child is exactly the same species as the parents still stands.
You are taking a stand in contrast to current scientific understanding, which specifies that species do evolve through speciation changes.
> So at what point would the breath of life happen, what was God's criteria?
The breath of life would happen at the point when evolution had progressed to the point where homo sapiens were advanced enough in reason, conscience, and a moral awareness to be morally culpable and spiritually capable.
> The point that every child is exactly the same species as the parents still stands.
You are taking a stand in contrast to current scientific understanding, which specifies that species do evolve through speciation changes.
- jimwalton
- Site Admin
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- Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 2:28 pm
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