Adam

[A Beautiful Truth]

The following was orginally posted by Sinai in a past thread http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15799

Hebrew has two words for soul, nefesh (or nephesh) and neshama (or nishmath), and both come into play in the first two chapters of Genesis. When Genesis 1:21 tells us that “God created…every living creature,” it signifies that all animals (humans included) are infused with the nefesh or soul of life--i.e., they are living creatures--or some would say they are soulish creatures. When humans are mentioned a few verses later (Genesis 1:27 and 2:7), the text tells of a further creation that distinguishes humans from lower animals: The third “creation” mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis is of our human soul (or God's spirit or God's breath of life or the capacity to fellowship with God), our neshama (the first two “creations” were of the universe and of life).

The closing of Genesis 2:7 has a subtlety lost in the English: It is usually translated as: “…and [God] breathed into his nostrils the neshama of life and the adam became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). Dr. Gerald Schroeder has noted that the Hebrew text actually states: “…and the adam became to a living soul.” Nahmanides, over seven hundred years ago, wrote that the “to” (the Hebrew letter lamed prefixed to the word “soul” in the verse) is superfluous from a grammatical stance and so must be there to teach something. Lamed, he noted, indicates a change in form and may have been placed there to describe mankind as progressing through stages of mineral, plant, fish, and animal. Finally, upon receiving the neshama, that creature which had already been formed became a human. He concludes his extensive commentary on the implications of this lamed by saying that “it may be that the verse is stating that [prior to receiving the neshama] it was a completely living being and [by the neshama] it was transformed into another man.”

According to Nahmanides, who is generally regarded as being one of the all-time greatest Jewish theologians and commentators on the Bible, the biblical text has told us that before the <I>neshama</I> there could have been something like a man that was not quite a human. Note that Nahmanides’ writings preceded discoveries of modern paleontology by hundreds of years---and the Bible said it three thousand years before discoveries of modern science.

One of the reasons old earth creationists are not as likely to feel threatened by modern scientific evidence--even that pertaining to humanoids who apparently lived much longer than 6-30 thousand years ago--is that they generally understand that the Bible itself is not being contradicted or challenged by such evidence. On the other hand, those whose interpretation of scripture requires a 6000-year old earth (and universe) may well feel quite threatened by it.

Sinai, I'd like to ask a few questions. I need to start with this question and then I'll ask the others. Do you believe that all mankind are descended from this Adam who was transformed with a spirit?

[Sinai]

Sinai, I'd like to ask a few questions. I need to start with this question and then I'll ask the others. Do you believe that all mankind are descended from this Adam who was transformed with a spirit?

I really don't know. But since Cain was worried that "I will be a restless wanderor on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me," there is at least an implication that other people could have been present besides those who were descended from Adam.

[A Beautiful Truth]

I really don't know. But since Cain was worried that "I will be a restless wanderor on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me," there is at least an implication that other people could have been present besides those who were descended from Adam.

These others would have spirits per se to make them human, right? Would their spirits have been given to them each, individually, or would they have evolved spirits, or were they descendents of Adam, (seeing as how Adam had other sons and daughters and the life expectancy in the beginning was longer than today)? The Bible says Eve was the mother of all the living, it seems clear that she was the mother of humanity--right?

The Bible says God made the stars. Through science we know the basic process of how a star is formed. So the Bible is not wrong, God did create the stars, the Bible just does not tell us about nuclear fusion, etc. The Bible only goes as far as to tell us that God was responsible for the creation.

Do you think it is likewise possible that when the Bible said God made Adam it leaves open the possibility of God making him through evolution? Do you believe the start of humanity was when God took this creature, endowed him with a spirit and placed him in the Garden? (The scriptures do say he was made outside of the Garden and afterward was placed there).

[Abigail]

(The scriptures do say he was made outside of the Garden and afterward was placed there).
Verse please?

[A Beautiful Truth]

Verse please?

Genesis 2:8

[Socrates]

I really don't know. But since Cain was worried that "I will be a restless wanderor on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me," there is at least an implication that other people could have been present besides those who were descended from Adam.
Not at all. These were his many brothers and sisters that Adam and Eve had in ~the 129 years from creation to Cain's murder of Abel (Eve had Seth at age 130 and he was specifically a replacement for Abel). Adam is also the "first man" and Eve "the mother of all living", and Jesus is our (kinsman)-redeemer (Isaiah 59:20), so all humans must be related to Him via common descent from Adam. See Cain’s wife—who was she? (www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/tools/cains_wife.asp) and Pre-Adamic man: were there human beings on Earth before Adam? (www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/humans.asp)

[Sinai]

I really don't know. But since Cain was worried that "I will be a restless wanderor on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me," there is at least an implication that other people could have been present besides those who were descended from Adam.

Not at all. These were his many brothers and sisters that Adam and Eve had in ~the 129 years from creation to Cain's murder of Abel (Eve had Seth at age 130 and he was specifically a replacement for Abel). Adam is also the "first man" and Eve "the mother of all living", and Jesus is our (kinsman)-redeemer (Isaiah 59:20), so all humans must be related to Him via common descent from Adam.

I stand by my earlier statement that "there is at least an implication that other people could have been present besides those who were descended from Adam." But I also agree with Dr. Sarfati that a good argument can be made that they could have been Cain's brothers and sisters (or even half brothers and sisters through Eve but not Adam, as some theologians contend) or their descendents.

The Bible is not really concerned with spelling out all the details in this area, since it is more interested in getting on with the greatest story ever told: God's love for us and His plan for redeaming us from the power of sin.

[Socratism]

The Bible says God made the stars. Through science we know the basic process of how a star is formed.

Actually we don't.

I spent some time in Barnes and Noble during my vacation and went through all the books they have on astronomy. The consensusis that science does not know how galaxies first formed or even whether stars formed first or vice versa.

Once a sufficient mass of gas has acuumulated into an isolated ball (nobody knows how) it will then possible condense over many years and form a star. Whether this is how it actually happened is not known but it is the only "natural" method that anyone has conceived to date. The initial formation of an "isolated ball of gas" is believed to be due to gravity, but all our experience with gas is that it tends to disperse rather than condense. There are no analyses which would confirm that this could happen, except the 80 year old idea of Jean's which simply set the kinetic energy of the gas at temperature T equal to the potential energy of the the gas particles assuming their total action was concentrated at the center of gravity of the assumed isolated ball of gas. Since the gas never actually becomes concentrated at the center even in a star, this assumption is not satisfied on the face of it, as all astronomers know, but it is easy to teach to students and might possibly give an answer close to the ballpark provided that "something" made the gas condense in the first place.

I think it is remarkable that this basic phase of presumed star formation has never been subjected to a thorough critical examination. Apparently everyone at university takes it as a given that stars form by gravitational collapse of diffuse gas, even though there is no analytical support for the idea.

Do you think it is likewise possible that when the Bible said God made Adam it leaves open the possibility of God making him through evolution?

The situation here is similar to that in astronomy in that the basic mechanism that would presumably cause one major type of creature evolve into different types has no solid scientific foundation. The assumption is that copying errors when acted upon the environment (which would eliminate all "failed" attempts, which it doesn't) is the driving mechanism that given sufficient time would effect such major transformations.

The problem here is that there is no analytical support for such an idea, especially now that we have knowledge beyond Mendel's simple thesis. We now know that proteins do not in general act as individual "factors" in lifeforms, indeed they are arranged in networks of "feedback control mechanisms" similar loosely speaking to the mechanisms engineers and scientists use in robotics and space mechanisms.

This has profound implications on the concept of "copying errors", for it is well known in technical circles that errors or alterations in a single component of a feedback control mechanism will always be deleterious unless accompanied by simultaneous alterations in other components which together comprise the overall mechanism. Thus the "ante" for the concept of copying errors as an evolutionary mechanism is raised by squared or higher power probabilities placing it well beyond the realm of reasonable feasibility even given billions of years for its action.

In summary, cosmology has failed to solve the problem of the underlying cause of galaxy/star formation and evolution is similarly lacking a feasible mechanism to accomplish the things attributed to it.

This being the case it is tragic that Christians have been fooled by the proponents of naturalistic origins into believing that science has demonstrated these foundational issues to have been solved by scientific techniques.

[apologetics]

Not at all. These were his many brothers and sisters that Adam and Eve had in ~the 129 years from creation to Cain's murder of Abel (Eve had Seth at age 130 and he was specifically a replacement for Abel). Adam is also the "first man" and Eve "the mother of all living", and Jesus is our (kinsman)-redeemer (Isaiah 59:20), so all humans must be related to Him via common descent from Adam. See Cain’s wife—who was she? (www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/tools/cains_wife.asp) and Pre-Adamic man: were there human beings on Earth before Adam? (www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/humans.asp)

Exactly, Socrates!

This is an interesting discussion that falls into my current bible study! I have begun re-reading Genesis and reading Adam Clarke's commentary along with it. Clarke has some interesting insights and one that pertains specifically to this discussion.

Clarke:

Most people who read this account wonder why Cain should dread being killed, when it does not appear to them that there were any inhabitants on the earth at that time besides himself and his parents. To correct this mistake, let it be observed that the death of Abel took place in the one hundred and twenty-eighth or one hundred and twenty-ninth year of the world. Now, "supposing Adam and Eve to have had no other sons than Cain and Abel in the year of the world one hundred and twenty-eight, yet as they had daughters married to these sons, their descendants would make a considerable figure on the earth. Supposing them to have been married in the nineteenth year of the world, they might easily have had each eight children, some males and some females, in the twenty-fifth year. In the fiftieth year there might proceed from them in a direct line sixty-four persons; in the seventy-fourth year there would be five hundred and twelve; in the ninety-eighth year, four thousand and ninety-six; in the one hundred and twenty-second they would amount to thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight: if to these we add the other children descended from Cain and Abel, their children, and their children's children, we shall have, in the aforesaid one hundred and twenty-eight years four hundred and twenty-one thousand one hundred and sixty-four men capable of generation, without reckoning the women either old or young, or such as are under the age of seventeen." See Dodd.

http://www.studylight.org/com/acc/view.cgi?book=ge&chapter=004

There could have been hundreds of thousands of people on the earth in that amount of time. Cain would have felt endangered by those with close familial ties to Adam. Just look at today. With women starting to have kids at 20 or so, how many children could be born in 130 years? Enough to make Cain nervous, that much should be obvious!

[Socratism]

Exactly, Socrates!

This is an interesting discussion that falls into my current bible study! I have begun re-reading Genesis and reading Adam Clarke's commentary along with it. Clarke has some interesting insights and one that pertains specifically to this discussion.

Clarke:

Most people who read this account wonder why Cain should dread being killed, when it does not appear to them that there were any inhabitants on the earth at that time besides himself and his parents. To correct this mistake, let it be observed that the death of Abel took place in the one hundred and twenty-eighth or one hundred and twenty-ninth year of the world. Now, "supposing Adam and Eve to have had no other sons than Cain and Abel in the year of the world one hundred and twenty-eight, yet as they had daughters married to these sons, their descendants would make a considerable figure on the earth. Supposing them to have been married in the nineteenth year of the world, they might easily have had each eight children, some males and some females, in the twenty-fifth year. In the fiftieth year there might proceed from them in a direct line sixty-four persons; in the seventy-fourth year there would be five hundred and twelve; in the ninety-eighth year, four thousand and ninety-six; in the one hundred and twenty-second they would amount to thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight: if to these we add the other children descended from Cain and Abel, their children, and their children's children, we shall have, in the aforesaid one hundred and twenty-eight years four hundred and twenty-one thousand one hundred and sixty-four men capable of generation, without reckoning the women either old or young, or such as are under the age of seventeen." See Dodd.

http://www.studylight.org/com/acc/view.cgi?book=ge&chapter=004

There could have been hundreds of thousands of people on the earth in that amount of time. Cain would have felt endangered by those with close familial ties to Adam. Just look at today. With women starting to have kids at 20 or so, how many children could be born in 130 years? Enough to make Cain nervous, that much should be obvious!

In this regard it is interesting to note that in some areas of SubSahara Africa the population is soaring despite the fact that a large percentage of the population is infected with the AIDS virus and will die young.

This is, according to the UN, due to the fact that the average female bears over ten children.

Ain't compound interest amazing?

[apologetics]

In this regard it is interesting to note that in some areas of SubSahara Africa the population is soaring despite the fact that a large percentage of the population is infected with the AIDS virus and will die young.

This is, according to the UN, due to the fact that the average female bears over ten children.

Ain't compound interest amazing?

There was no such thing as birth control and none of the congenital birth defects that claim children at an early age today. There was basically no population producing barriers.

I simply cannot understand how people can read "pre-Adamites" into this section of Genesis...or any, for that matter.

[man-in-armor]

Shalom.

A)Socrates I like some of your answers. (Cains wife, diffusing pre-adamic man)

I just thought I'd add some food for thought about Adam, and the fall.

Dont you find it interesting that God cursed Eve's Womb?,
and that Jesus had to come through a virgin birth?

Or, that "Cain who was of that wicked one"(I John 3:12)...a murderer, a founder of cities when God created nature, a tiller of the ground God just cursed, a wanderer (Like a familiar character in Job)

And that Abel was a keeper of sheep and offered a blood sacrifice?

Clue-serpent seed

[Lion]

That was a very interesting comment about where Cain, or for that matter any other male, got his wife. Now some of the other comments about the soul lead me to believe that the word translated soul merely means a living creature. Animals behave by something we call instinct, but man is different. Man has the power of reason which animals only have a limited power to reason. I have read of experiments where people taught some of the larger apes to ask for food by sign language, but they still did not have the abiliy to reason in an abstract way.