Nineteen items appear below:
| 1 Adam and Eve | Anonymous |
| 2 Adam and Eve – Final Reply to Anonymous | K Straughen |
| 3 Adam & Eve & Neanderthals | Anonymous |
| 4 Regarding Ancestral Eve | John H Williams |
| 5 Addendum – Adam & Eve | K Straughen |
| 6 To Straughen on Adam & Eve | Anonymous |
| 7 Eve not 'the mother of all' | H Edwards |
| 8 Evolution? Absolute Rubbish! | H Edwards |
| 9 Eve – The Mother of All | Anonymous |
| 10 Cain's Wife | H Edwards |
| 11 Interpretation, Accuracy & Neanderthals | Anonymous |
| 12 Different Interpretations–Then Unreliable | H Edwards |
| 13 Edwards Had Correct Insight on Genesis | Anonymous |
| 14 Interpretation and Lack of Detail | H Edwards |
| 15 Mr Edwards Thwarted | Anonymous |
| 16 Cleverness Thwarted? | H Edwards |
| 17 Human Origins Obfuscated | Anonymous |
| 18 Letter to Edwards | Editor |
| 19 Adam & Eve Debate Concludes | H Edwards |
ADAM AND EVE
The fossil record shows groups of pre-humans evolving towards humanity. (K Straughen, Investigator 85)
Anonymous
(Investigator 86, 2002 September)
The creation story in Genesis attributes the world's origin to God. The account is too short to easily see how scientific discoveries fit in. Suppose a man says, "I built that house on the hill." Because his statement is brief it allows for many interpretations. He may, for example, have "built" the house by signing a contract and a cheque. Another possibility is that he manufactured every nail and every item himself from raw materials and assembled everything alone.
Multiple possible interpretations do not imply that brief statements are false but rather, when more detail is wanted more investigation must be done.
One stance regarding Genesis is that of "Scientific Creationists". They claim the Universe is about 10,000 years old. They say that continental drift was 5,000 times faster in the past than now, the speed of light was millions of times faster, all fossils were laid down in a few weeks, all methods of dating the distant past are wrong, etc. If someone disagrees they ask, "Were you there?" Then they claim God was there and has given us a true account of what happened. In other words the Bible, their interpretation, and God's existence are all assumed true prior to any investigation.
My stance is different.
In Genesis Creation and Evolution (#83) I wrote, "The six days of creation can be regarded as six significant interventions of God superimposed on a planet that otherwise evolved naturally…" Let's see what this approach might make of Adam and Eve and of "pre-humans evolving".
Regarding Day Six – the creation of Adam and Eve – consider an analogy:
Suppose future scientists use genetics to create a new human species. Let's call the new species Homo superior. He has an IQ of 300; An immune system able to ward off every pathogen; A mind able to choose moral excellence in every area and stick to the decision; Self-repair mechanisms that could regrow a severed limb; A body able to make him world champion in every sport. Furthermore, Homo superior can live forever – if he eats essential nutrients from a genetically modified tree.
Would we find the origin of Homo superior in the fossil record? No – because he would be a new creation, created in the laboratory. What we would find, and do find, are fossils that anatomically resemble Homo superior.
My interpretation of the evidence of our origins – ie of Homo sapiens – is much like the preceding story:
Evolution occurred, including the evolution of human-resembling "ape men"; Humans are unconnected to the "ape men" and to their fossils – our originals arrived as if created.
Tree diagrams of "ape-men" i.e. hominids often have question marks between Homo sapiens and predecessors to indicate no known intermediary. (e.g. Scientific American, Jan. 2000, p.42)
Neanderthals coexisted with Homo sapiens and used to be considered our ancestors. However, they were ruled out as our ancestors in 1996:
If the dates are correct, it is hard to see what else one can do with the venerated belief in our Neanderthal ancestry but chuck it.In Adam and Eve Not Neanderthals (#71 p.5) I showed where Genesis implies the existence of a race unrelated to the offspring of Adam and Eve but similar enough to permit interbreeding. Science has shown a similar situation between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals – they interacted and a few possibly interbred. (This might explain the origin of some human weaknesses and genetic defects.)
(The Bulletin, December 31, 1996 / January 7, 1997. p. 54)After extracting DNA from fossil bones, anthropologists say they are now sure that Neanderthals were not our ancestors…
Northern Illinois University anthropologist Fred Smith…who has backed the view that Neanderthals were ancestral to the first modern humans in Europe, concedes that the new study is "the strongest evidence yet" that Neanderthals were not the ancestors of modern humans.
(New Scientist, 19 July, 1997, p. 5)
In addition we also have much scientific debate about findings in genetics that trace humans back to one original woman and one original man. Headings of reports include:
African Adam begat all men
All about Eve
The hunt for Adam and Eve.
Adam
& Eve – Final Reply
to Anonymous
Kirk Straughen
(Investigator 87, 2002 November)
In his article Adam and Eve (# 86) Anonymous concludes his argument with the following statement: "Clearly, it's more scientific at present to attribute our ancestors to "Adam and Eve" than to Neanderthals." (p. 12).
In my opinion this statement is not supported by science. The Neanderthals form part of the hominid evolutionary tree that is best seen not as a simple linear chain, but as a multi-branched structure with many dead ends. Homo sapiens and Neanderthals most likely evolved from a common ancestor, rather than Homo sapiens directly from Neanderthals. Naturally, there is considerable debate between paleoanthropologists on the relationships between the various hominid species; however, I can't see how this justifies Anonymous' quoted conclusion.
Indeed, Anonymous offers no sound evidence in support of the view that humans were divinely created and interbred with naturally evolving hominids. He refers to articles discussing mitochondrial Eve – the source of our mitochondrial DNA. The tern 'Eve,' however, is somewhat misleading – this woman was a member of a population of perhaps 10,000 humans, certainly not the sole female representative of our species.
By contrast, many Christians see evolution as the process by which God brought humanity into being, and regard Genesis for what it is – a prescientific creation myth that is an example of early man's attempt to account for human origins.
This
conclusion is borne
out by Biblical
scholars whose research has shown that the Hebrew version of Man's
creation,
rather than being a unique divine revelation, is derived from older
Mesopotamian
mythologies that have been reworked to conform to monotheistic ideas.
For
example, Some Sumerian accounts parallel Gen. 2:4 to 3:24 – they
contain
descriptions of a divine garden where sickness and death were
nonexistent,
and childbirth only became painful after woman was cursed for eating
forbidden
fruit.
Bibliography
Cornford, G.
(Ed.) Pictorial Biblical
Encyclopaedia,
The Macmillan Company, New York, 1964
Hublin, J.
J. The
Quest for Adam, in Archaeology
(Vol. 52, No. 4), Archaeological Institute of America, New York, 1999.
Leakey, R.
&
Lewin, R. Origins Reconsidered,
Abacus, London, 1993.
ADAM & EVE & NEANDERTHALS
Anonymous
(Investigator
88, 2003
January)
Kirk Straughen (Investigator 87) says, "Anonymous offers no sound evidence in support of the view that humans were divinely created and interbred with naturally evolving hominids."
My "sound evidence" included:
a. Tree diagrams of…hominids often have question marks between Homo sapiens and predecessors to indicate no known intermediary. (Scientific American, January 2000, p. 42)Mr Straughen needs to do more than ignore these facts – he needs to name and show us humanity's ancestor. He says, "Homo sapiens and Neanderthals most likely evolved from a common ancestor, rather than Homo sapiens directly from Neanderthals." However, Neanderthals are estimated to go back 250,000 years, modern humans came later. No ancestor common to both species is known.b. For over a century many scientists believed Neanderthals were our ancestors but were was refuted in 1996.
Mitochondria are small organelles in the cytoplasm of cells and contain genetic material (DNA). Mothers contribute most mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to offspring because their egg cells contain cytoplasm; sperm contribute very little MtDNA.
In the1980s came the theory, based on studies of mtDNA, that all modern humans descended from one woman. This resembles the Bible teaching that, "Eve…was the mother of all living." (Genesis 3:20)
Straughen
says,
"…mitochondrial Eve…was a
member of a population of perhaps 10,000 humans, certainly not the sole
female representative of our species." Although ideas vary the theory
of "mitochondrial Eve" is about ONE female – described as:
"…the ancestor of every living person…" (National Geographic, October 1988, p.460);"…a single ancestor…" (The Advertiser, June 22, 1991, p.6);
"…the most recent common ancestor of all women." (New Scientist, March 13, 1998, p.4)
South
Australia's Sunday
Mail
reported: "She died in Africa more than 150,000 years ago and
researchers
have now traced our genetic roots back to this one woman." (April 14,
2002,
p. 42)
In 1995 came the theory – again based on genetics but this time of the Y-chromosome – that all men are derived from one male. As New Scientist put it, "Adam makes a date with Eve". (June 3, 1995, p.14)
Another claim is that almost all European men trace back to ten ancestors. (New Scientist, November 4, p.16; November 18, p.25, 2000)
The current scientific picture, then, resembles the Biblical picture of an original group of humans splitting up, dispersing, and developing into peoples and nations. Did those small, pre-historic groups have stories of their origins? If so, the Bible's account of creation, including the creation of humans, was not necessarily derived from Sumerian stories but both may originate far earlier.
There is in
all this,
however, only a partial
overlap with the Bible. Evidence for the Bible is
progressive – proceeding
point by point, decade after decade–and involves scores of scientific
disciplines.
Why proof for The Bible has to accumulate gradually is explained in the
"God and evil" debate in Investigator 65-69.
REGARDING ANCESTRAL EVE
John H Williams
(Investigator 89, 2003 March)
Further to Kirk Straughen's letter (#87) regarding the "ancestral Eve", I have a clipping from The Advertiser (20/4/00) which supports his rebuttal of Anonymous. In it, Oxford University Professor of Human Genetics, Brian Sykes, has shown that all Europeans are descended from just seven women he named Ursula, Xenia, Tara, Helen, Valda, Katrine and Jasmine. These were the 'founders' of seven clans which arrived in 'Europe' during the last 45,000 years.
Predictably, the 'journalistic' sobriquet of "Eve" has been too appealing to the literal-minded to resist!
The basis of this theory was a continent-wide 6,000 person sample of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed unaltered only from a mother to her children, by swabbing the inside of people's cheeks. This laborious and expensive process is an example of the effort required to test a hypothesis, one which is peer-assessed and which is replicable.
Sykes' findings support the idea that all modem humans derive from African (in what is now Kenya and Ethiopia) ancestors, who were from several clans that exist today. (For a fee, Sykes will help people trace their ancestors, at www.oxfordancestors.com.)
So where does
this
evidence, allied with
substantial contributions from palaeontology and anthropology, leave
the 'Edenists"?
Addendum – Adam & Eve
Kirk Straughen
(Investigator
89, 2003
March)
Figure 1 [Here omitted] is a phylogenetic tree of human evolution (based on a diagram on page 29 in Archaeology - Vol. 52, No. 4) and illustrates current thinking regarding the evolution of Homo sapiens:
"The emergence of the first Homo erectus (or Homo ergaster) [marked ? in Fig. 1] was an anatomical revolution, probably related to major behavioral changes. They were the first genuine humans, fully independent of trees. With a modem gait and a hairless, sweating skin cooling their body, they were highly mobile and well adapted to the burning sun of the African steppe and savanna. They were also the first humans to spread out of Africa." (Jean-Jacques Hublin: The Quest for Adam, page 33 in Archaeology - Vol. 52, No. 4)
Concerning Mitochondrial Eve: What evidence is there that this female was divinely created, and is "the mother of all living" (Gen. 1:20)? I think the answer is none:
"It is important to remind ourselves that in all other regards, there was probably nothing remarkable or special about Mitochondrial Eve; she was certainly not the First Woman or the founder of the species homo sapiens. Many earlier women were unquestionably of our species, but happen not to have any direct female lines of descendants leading to people living today."
(Daniel C Dennett: Darwin's Dangerous idea, page 98.)
I'll paraphrase an illustration by Dennett to bring out the above: Suppose that sometime in the future a virulent pandemic swept the Earth clean of humanity except for a small tribe on a remote pacific island. These survivors would probably be closely related. This tribe's closest common direct ancestor (I'll call her X) would be a woman who lived hundreds or possibly thousands of generations later than Mitochondrial Eve, and this title would then pass to X, retroactively, just as it did to Mitochondrial Eve.
Now, suppose
that after
ten thousand years
another technological civilization arises that can trace their ancestry
back to Mitochondrial X, and have a creation story similar to that of
Christianity.
Would they be correct in assuming that Mitochondrial X was the mother
of
all living? No, they would not. Nor are our current Christians for
similar
reasons – similar causes in prehistory may have lead to the emergence
of
Mitochondrial Eve.
Bibliography
Dennett,
Daniel C. Darwin's
Dangerous Idea, Penguin Press, London. 1995.
Hublin,
Jean-Jacques
The Quest for Adam, Archaeology,
Vol. 52, No. 4.
Tattersall,
Ian. Rethinking
Evolution, Archaeology, Vol.
52, No. 4.
To STRAUGHEN on ADAM & EVE
Anonymous
(Investigator
90, 2003
May)
Straughen argues for multiple "Eves" by postulating multiple near-extinctions of humanity after which one or a few women became the mother(s) of all subsequent humans. (#89 pp.14-15)
When genetics traces humans back to one woman, using "mitochondrial DNA", I presume it refers to the first of Straughen's postulated multiple Eves.
My other critic, John H Williams, cites Brian Sykes of the Institute for Molecular Medicine at Oxford who believes Europeans descended from seven women. (#89, p.16) Professor Sykes, however, calls these women "Seven Daughters of Eve". The label is metaphorical since the oldest "daughter" lived 45,000 years ago and the youngest 10,000. (Fortean Times, August 2000, p. 12) Sykes' research allows for one original woman whose descendants produced the seven female progenitors of Europeans.
However, this gets us far back to when little is known about humans. Also, we don't have information about multiple near extinctions. The Bible describes a great flood but that's not scientifically confirmed yet.
Straughen supplied a diagram, based on Archaeology Volume 57 No.4, that implies Homo sapiens and Neanderthals have a common ancestor but denotes the common ancestor with a question mark.
To refute what I wrote in #86 and #88 requires more than question marks. We need fossils and genetic proof connecting those fossils with Homo sapiens after them and earlier hominids before them.
Although unable to prove an alternative hypothesis Straughen claims, "[evidence that] Mitochondrial Eve…was divinely created…is none."
Since the supernatural (including the "divine") is by definition distinct from science, one cannot scientifically demonstrate the supernatural including divine creation. Anything demonstrated with science automatically, and by definition, becomes "natural".
The sciences of physics, mathematics and cosmology, however, show that other dimensions inaccessible to our senses and instruments probably exist. (M Kaku, 1994, Hyperspace, Oxford University Press) This, in turn, suggests at least the possibility that the supernatural exists. By relying on science the best we can, therefore, do is to show that something is unknown perhaps unknowable. If we reach such a conclusion, then maybe what is unknown or undiscoverable is so because it originated beyond science. Such is the case, at present, with human origins.
The evidence for "divine" origin of humans includes:
1. Study of mitochondrial DNA suggests to many scientists that all humans trace back to one original woman – and this agrees with the Bible since Eve is called "the mother of all".
2. The belief of many scientists that modern humans evolved from Neanderthals was demolished in 1996. Genesis has comments that imply a race resembling early humans (maybe Neanderthals?) and which interacted with humans but which was unrelated to Adam and Eve. (See #71 p. 5)
3. Fossils linking humans to earlier hominids, or linking both humans and Neanderthals to a common ancestor, are not known.
4. Skeptics used to complain that if humanity began with two people the necessity for inbreeding would have caused unhealthy offspring. Mike Gibson in Focus magazine says:
But in time, new mutations would occur, and these would broaden the gene pool. Genetic fitness would therefore tend to increase through the generations. Eventually the population would evolve to be as healthy as if it had descended from many – rather than just two – founders. (May 1997, p.46)
Furthermore, if the original two founders were "divinely created" their creation would exclude harmful genes – hence, initially, no harmful traits to pass on.5. Many criticisms of The Bible have been mistaken and The Bible subsequently turned out accurate – I've shown this in many articles. The Bible merely seemed wrong because science had not caught up. The human-origins conflict might, therefore, be of the same sort i.e. science hasn't yet caught up.
6. Science has not ruled out the supernatural but may, instead, imply it.
Although Straughen calls the evidence for divine creation of humans "none" my above-count makes six. There are, however, confounding factors. If humans and Neanderthals interbred – a possible explanation besides mutations for harmful genes in the human gene pool – then such Neanderthal DNA constitutes a link between humans and so-called "ape men".
Finally,
remember that
my interpretation,
wherein evolution and creation interact, is only one approach and
others
disagree. I began (in #86 p.10) with an example of someone who says, "I
built that house on the hill." From such a brief statement we cannot
work
out the details of how the house came about. Genesis is like that – the
natural world is attributed to creation but the account is too short to
work out from it the process whereby God created.
Eve not 'the mother of all'
Harry Edwards
(Investigator
91, 2003
July)
There can be no doubt that Eve was NOT the mother of all. Genesis 4:16-17 clearly states that Cain, the eldest and only surviving son of Eve, met his wife in Nod, on the cast of Eden. Therefore, other beings not only existed at the same time as Adam and Eve but in fact their lineage existed long before them.
Anonymous (#71 p.5) concurs with this although he attempts to cloud the issue by suggesting that they may have been a race 'resembling' humans. Then again, I guess in the age of talking snakes and flesh and bones being created out of dust anything is possible. Realistically though, I can't visualise Cain cohabiting with 'something' other than his own particularly a very hairy female with a receding forehead and ape-like gait.
That Cain's wife was not a nomadic spinster left on the shelf is bourn out in Genesis 4:17 where it says she 'bare Enoch who built a city.' Now let's face it, we don't build cities to house three people so Mr and Mrs Cain must have been part of a very large community. This would seem to contradict any suggestion that Cain perceived his Neanderthal wife through rose coloured spectacles or met her through a blind date on the Internet.
However, given that between Genesis 4:17 and 4: 22 there is a long series of 'begats' recorded, it wouldn't take that long to populate a city.
One of the later 'begats' by the name of Tubalcain (Genesis 4:22) was an 'instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.' This implies that this descendent of Cain's family, not too far down the family tree, was part of a large and relatively advanced society. Furthermore as the Stone Age preceded the Bronze and Iron Ages by thousands of years the evidence that Cain's wife was as human as Cain and not a Neanderthal or sub-species is hard to refute.
Apart from providing evidence that Eve was not the mother of all, having been born–sorry created!–at a date later than Cain's grandparents-in-law, it raises another question.
In Genesis 1:26 (King James Standard version) we read: "And God said, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness." In the Bible Society's Good News Bible the verse reads, "And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us." Unless "us", "we" and "our" are intended to be singular used in the same sense as the royal "we" (as in Queen Victoria's "We are not amused") then there must have existed more than one god.
The Bible tells us that one specific god (the God of the Bible - He - Him - the Lord) created Adam and Eve. The other unnamed gods therefore must have created the other humans outside of Eden. Despite this team of miracle surgeons who, using unspecified materials, put together arguably the most complex, sophisticated and intelligent animal ever to inhabit the Earth, they were also human. You may recall we were made in their image and their likeness, this implies that like their creations they also had a limited life – unfortunately their genius and secrets died with them! As Nietzsche so aptly put it 'God(s) is dead!'
The above
should also
provide an answer for
the current genes dispute between Messrs Anonymous and Straughen!
Evolution? Absolute Rubbish!
Harry Edwards
(Investigator
91, 2003
July)
The theory of evolution was dismissed as 'absolute rubbish' by a writer in the March issue of The Australian Senior newspaper.
The correspondent, irate because the editor had published an article on evolution, continued by asserting that, "... the Bible has proved to be the most accurate record of earth's (sic) history beginning with the creation of mankind in the Garden of Eden about 6,500 years ago."
I responded with:
Let's review the evidence using the Bible as the reference source.
Genesis 1:27 & 2:22 alleges the creation of two human beings – Adam and Eve.
In Genesis 4:1,2 we are told that the couple had two children – Cane and Abel. Cane kills Abel and is driven out of Eden.
In Genesis 4:16 Cane ends up in Nod on the east of Eden where he meets his ladylove. She conceives and, according to Genesis 4:17-22, begat Enoch who begat Irad who begat Mehujael who begat Methusael who begat Lamech and so on ad nauseam. Interestingly all the descendants' names are recorded but not that of Cane's wife.
Accurate history? As there is no mention in the Bible of God creating human beings other than Adam and Eve, doesn't this brief account imply that other beings existed (specifically Cane's wife and her forebears) at the time God allegedly created the first humans? *
Based on that supposition alone, how can the Bible be seen to be an accurate record?
Unfortunately for the literalists, quoting from the Bible raises more questions than it answers.
For example: According to the Australian Senior correspondent and confirmed by the Bible, Adam and Eve were the first and only humans created by God about 6,500 years ago. Given that Babylonia was first settled about 4,000 BC this implies that in a period of approximately 500 years the descendants of Adam and Eve mutated into many diverse ethnic groups and spread themselves over the entire planet. An interesting one for Biblical geneticists and migration experts to explain.
But hang on! Weren't all bar eight drowned in the great deluge? Only Mr and Mrs Noah, their three sons and their sons' wives survived (Genesis 6:14-24). Oh dear! Back to the Bible!
* I used this same argument when doing a Bible course some years ago. The response was "we don't want to debate this with you!"