Were Adam and Eve Neanderthals? Four short items appear below:
ADAM, EVE & NOAH FOUND ON ARARAT
(Investigator 49, 1996 July)
"This is the first public announcement of this information in Australia," declared physics/geology graduate Barry Setterfield. "They have found the resting place of Adam and Eve."
"The Flood is recorded on Noah's gravestone," he said. "The marker actually states it is the grave of Noah. All the actors in the drama are named."
Speaking at the Portside Christian Revival Crusade [Adelaide, SA] on June 16 [1996] Mr Setterfield showed transparencies of alleged pictograms from Mount Ararat.
"They actually took the mummified bodies of Pre-Flood patriarchs onto the Ark and [later] reburied them," said Mr Setterfield.
He claimed the chronology on the graves agreed exactly with the chronology of Genesis.
Mr Setterfield speculated that archaeologists are about to prove God created Adam without a navel and that this will destroy the theory that humans evolved.
Early in his lecture Mr Setterfield argued living creatures exhibit proof of design and that the 2nd law of thermodynamics refutes evolution.
He then argued that every centimetre of space and every atom is filled with energy even at absolute zero.
He said, "Power is flowing through every square metre of Space…at the rate of 10117 kilowats."
"Without this zero point energy every atom in the Universe would undergo instantaneous radiative collapse.
"God upholds the whole Cosmos by this ginormous power."
Setterfield's book CREATION AND CATASTROPHE limits geological ages, mountain building, continental drift, ice ages, asteroid impacts, continent-wide lava flows, and the development of millions of species to a few centuries near the Flood in 3536 BC.
(BS)
COMMENT IN BRIEF
(Investigator 56, 1997 September)
DO WE HAVE RELATIVES?
Isolation of genetic material from the Neanderthal skeleton found in 1856 indicated that: "Neanderthals and humans [are] distinct genetically." (The Advertiser 1997, July 12, p. 16)
The press clipping has been passed to "Anonymous" (a theologian who defends the Bible in Investigator) to explain how Neanderthals fit in with the story of Adam and Eve.
COUSIN CAVEMAN
(Investigator 69, 1999 November)
Current conclusions about Neanderthals are that they died out 28,000 years ago, were a separate species to modern humans (Homo sapiens) but probably sometimes interbred with them. (The Advertiser 1999, October 27, p. 38)
A question for "Anonymous": What does the Bible say about Neanderthals? Were they related to Adam and Eve?
ADAM AND EVE NOT NEANDERTHALS
Anonymous
(Investigator 71, 2000 March)
Investigator 69 p.7 asked whether the Bible suggests any relationship of Adam and Eve with Neanderthals.
Most current references to Neanderthals call them a separate species to humans (Homo sapiens) and suggest they died out although there was limited interbreeding. Since the Bible says that all humans descended from Eve (Genesis 3:20) – and we haven't died out – it follows that Adam and Eve and their descendants could not be Neanderthals.
In this I differ to the so-called "scientific creationists" who interpret most of the "cave man" discoveries as descendants of Adam And Eve.
The Bible implies that men or near-humans, not related to Adam and Eve, existed outside of the "Garden of Eden". Cain, for example, was afraid that: "whoever finds me will slay me." (Genesis 4:14) Therefore: "the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him." (4:15)
Cain's fear would be silly if the planet was devoid of "any" who might "kill him" especially since at that stage Cain did not even have any brothers!
Therefore the threat referred to as "whoever" and "any" could suggest creatures closely resembling humans.
Genesis 6:4 says: "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, (and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them). These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown."
I've added the brackets to clarify that "the sons of God" and the "children they bore" are not the Nephilim.
Rather the Nephilim were "the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown." Perhaps this is a reference to Neanderthals who – as shown by the fossil evidence – were physically more powerful than humans.