The First Humans

[mrsticky005]

Genesis says the first human was Adam. It is unknown when Adam would have been though many have speculated.

Evolution says it was sorta like an ape and from the ANCIENT ANCIENT past. When exactly is unknown though.

Anywho there has been a lot of arguing especially between young earth creationists and old earth evolutionists
as to when the first man was created or evolved.

But I was wondering...Are we all even arguing about the same thing. We say "first human" but what are we defining
as human anyways? There's the scientific definition....But is the biblical definition necessarily even the same?
Could it not be that what evolutionists consider human....the bible considers to merely be apes? I think it is quite
clear that Genesis shows Adam and Eve to be highly intelligent beings. They're far from being cave men.

Now I'm not trying to prove anything one way or another. If you must know my view point I don't really think
it matters all that much...evolution or strict creationism I think that either way they are only possible through God
it is just a matter of methodology. Well at least to me. But I'm not here to argue that. I just wanted to try and look
at this issue from another angle.

Well what do you think?

Could Adam and Eve be a more advanced human than what evolution would consider the earliest humans
and that the Bible does not consider those earliest humans to be human in the first place?

[pancreasman]

Genesis says the first human was Adam. It is unknown when Adam would have been though many have speculated.

Evolution says it was sorta like an ape and from the ANCIENT ANCIENT past. When exactly is unknown though.

Anywho there has been a lot of arguing especially between young earth creationists and old earth evolutionists
as to when the first man was created or evolved.

But I was wondering...Are we all even arguing about the same thing. We say "first human" but what are we defining
as human anyways? There's the scientific definition....But is the biblical definition necessarily even the same?
Could it not be that what evolutionists consider human....the bible considers to merely be apes? I think it is quite
clear that Genesis shows Adam and Eve to be highly intelligent beings. They're far from being cave men.

Now I'm not trying to prove anything one way or another. If you must know my view point I don't really think
it matters all that much...evolution or strict creationism I think that either way they are only possible through God
it is just a matter of methodology. Well at least to me. But I'm not here to argue that. I just wanted to try and look
at this issue from another angle.

Well what do you think?

Could Adam and Eve be a more advanced human than what evolution would consider the earliest humans
and that the Bible does not consider those earliest humans to be human in the first place?

I wonder if you might get more comments on this if you posted in in Natural Science or Protology. This area is for nontheists only.

[mrsticky005]

I wonder if you might get more comments on this if you posted in in Natural Science or Protology. This area is for nontheists only.

Sorry about that.

How do I move a thread?

[rogue06]

Reported. Should eventually be removed.

[pancreasman]

Sorry about that.

How do I move a thread?

No worries. We all mess up from time to time. Mods will move it for you.

[Raphael]

Moderated By: Raphael

Moved to NatSci

***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.***
Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publically complain or whine, please take it to the Psychotherapy Room unless told otherwise.

[Ansgar Seraph]

Well, Adam and Eve would be Homo sapiens, which isn't the first human species by taxonomic classification. So Adam and Eve were not the first humans. But usually when people talk about humans, they specifically mean Homo sapiens. So we could ask whether Adam and Eve were the first Homo sapiens. But we still get into a little trouble because different creationists (OEC/YEC/TE) disagree on the time frame that Adam and Eve could have occupied. YECs naturally think that Adam and Eve had to have been created very recently (< 10,000 years), some OECs think that Adam and Eve could have been created less recently (~ 200,000 years ago), some OECs and TEs think that Adam and Eve were specific Homo sapiens who, while not the first of the species, were the first humans to be given souls. It gets a little complicated.

--Sam

[magellan004]

When was the first car made? I heard it was in 1806.
A car is a vehicle , which isn't the first vehicle by taxonomic classification. So the car was not the first car. But usually when people talk about cars they specifically mean vehicles.

Don't fall for that 'reclassification' game.
The Bible says that Adam was a man. Their is no doubt that a man is a human and that Adam was the first human.


Magellan

[phank]

Well, why not...

Genesis says the first human was Adam. It is unknown when Adam would have been though many have speculated.

There are also many many other creation tales, all of which necessarily have the first people. They have different names, of course, but they are all coincidentally members of the tribes that invented them. Dating into the distant past is something few cultures make an effort to do in their creation tales.

Evolution says it was sorta like an ape and from the ANCIENT ANCIENT past. When exactly is unknown though.

How exactly do you need "exactly" to be, and how human do you need the humans to be. The fossil record indicates that genus homo first appeared perhaps 2-3 million years ago, as part of the ape clade (and it still is, of course). Over the course of the intervening years, perhaps as many as a dozen different species of genus homo evolved, maybe even more. Reliable dating methods indicate that at least several of those species lived concurrently - I've seen estimates of up to six species overlapping in time, at the same time. Modern man, homo sapiens, is thought to have evolved in current form about 200,000 years ago. An eyeblink in evolutionary time - we're VERY modern.

Anywho there has been a lot of arguing especially between young earth creationists and old earth evolutionists as to when the first man was created or evolved.

Most of this argument involves talking past one another, because the foundational evidence for each position (one ancient culture's creation fables versus another culture's extensive biological, paleontological, geological, genetic, and other real-world observational evidence) are simply incompatible. Accept science, and Genesis (or the tales of other tribes) are necessarily regarded as myth. Accept the fables literally, and real-world observation becomes a real challenge to explain away honestly. So one side says "how can you deny the sum total of intense human curiosity?" and the other side says "how can you ignore the very Word Of (our) God?" and we have a stalemate.

But I was wondering...Are we all even arguing about the same thing.

I would say no. Not even close.

We say "first human" but what are we defining as human anyways? There's the scientific definition....But is the biblical definition necessarily even the same?

As far as I can tell, this isn't the problem. The bible talks about Man, and the scientists talk about homo sapiens, but the two are apparently the same species.

Could it not be that what evolutionists consider human....the bible considers to merely be apes?

Well, setting aside the taxonomic issues which generally place homo sapiens spang in the middle of the ape clade on morphological and molecular grounds, evolutionists and the bible SEEM to be talking about people. After all, our species has existed for perhaps 200,000 years and the bible was written very recently, only maybe 4000 years ago at the very earliest. And in the last 4000 years, humans haven't changed biologically at all. A modern man transported back 4000 years not only COULD breed with a girl of those days, but would almost certainly wish to, and enjoy the experience. And the last remaining other member of genus homo, the Neandertals, seem to have died out about 35,000 years ago, so there's no ambiguity. Humans today have no close relatives.

I think it is quite clear that Genesis shows Adam and Eve to be highly intelligent beings. They're far from being cave men.

Again, hopefully we understand that "cave men" (let's say, Cro-Magnon man of 40,000 years ago) were just as intelligent as people are today. And if they were that smart 40,000 years ago, they were that smart 4000 years ago as well.

Now I'm not trying to prove anything one way or another. If you must know my view point I don't really think it matters all that much...evolution or strict creationism I think that either way they are only possible through God it is just a matter of methodology. Well at least to me. But I'm not here to argue that. I just wanted to try and look at this issue from another angle.

Well what do you think?

From the scientific viewpoint, any gods must be carefully not included in any investigations or explanations. I recently attended a lecture on the creation tale of one American Indian tribe. It was very long and detailed and involved, and took a long time to present. It included all three gods, and two people who were just like us. I hope someday to get first-hand accounts of multiple other creation tales - perhaps of the Navajo, the Hopi, the Zuni, the Mata-Ortiz, etc. These are really fascinating. But what they have in common is that they are all myths, highly meaningful to the tribes in terms of their cultures and traditions and often their languages and their lands, but unrelated to the findings of science.

(At the lecture, during the question period, someone asked "Do you people actually believe that stuff?" And the tribe member giving the lecture said essentially "that's not the point. From these stories we learn a lot about our culture and our history as a people, they bring us together through common backgrounds and understandings in the same way that popular TV shows give modern Americans a common cultural base." In other words, myth offers something much deeper and more profound than simple literal belief. So did they think their three gods were "real"? The question didn't make sense to them. Their gods enabled them to make a certain sense of their world, and were in no way incompatible with modern science.)

Could Adam and Eve be a more advanced human than what evolution would consider the earliest humans and that the Bible does not consider those earliest humans to be human in the first place?

Apparently not. The bible's authors really could have no clues about other species of genus homo which went extinct many tens of thousands of years previously. The evidence currently available is that our species has existed for maybe 200,000 years, and has been the ONLY member of genus homo for 35,000 years. The knowledge that modern humans had ancestor species and concurrent "cousin" species is quite recent, thousands of years more recent than anything in Genesis.

[DuraGizer]

The Bible says that Adam was a man. Their is no doubt that a man is a human and that Adam was the first human.

Define "human".

[Ansgar Seraph]

Don't fall for that 'reclassification' game.
The Bible says that Adam was a man. Their is no doubt that a man is a human and that Adam was the first human.


Magellan

Yeah, I made a mistake.

Adam and Eve would have been Homo sapiens sapiens.

[JimL]

Genesis says the first human was Adam. It is unknown when Adam would have been though many have speculated.

Evolution says it was sorta like an ape and from the ANCIENT ANCIENT past. When exactly is unknown though.

Anywho there has been a lot of arguing especially between young earth creationists and old earth evolutionists
as to when the first man was created or evolved.

But I was wondering...Are we all even arguing about the same thing. We say "first human" but what are we defining
as human anyways? There's the scientific definition....But is the biblical definition necessarily even the same?
Could it not be that what evolutionists consider human....the bible considers to merely be apes? I think it is quite
clear that Genesis shows Adam and Eve to be highly intelligent beings. They're far from being cave men.

Now I'm not trying to prove anything one way or another. If you must know my view point I don't really think
it matters all that much...evolution or strict creationism I think that either way they are only possible through God
it is just a matter of methodology. Well at least to me. But I'm not here to argue that. I just wanted to try and look
at this issue from another angle.

Well what do you think?

Could Adam and Eve be a more advanced human than what evolution would consider the earliest humans
and that the Bible does not consider those earliest humans to be human in the first place?

The bibles assertion is that Adam and Eve were the first and only humans, not that they were a more advanced or evolved human. Of course, according to the bible no living thing evolved, which only makes sense since evolution wasn't revealed to the authors thereof. Oops!

[magellan004]

Define "human".

That was a question in the Opening Post. Ansgar Seraph thought he could hijack the debate by telling us that there is no question about how we define human.

Magellan

[DuraGizer]

But how do YOU define human?

[rogue06]

The bibles assertion is that Adam and Eve were the first and only humans, not that they were a more advanced or evolved human. Of course, according to the bible no living thing evolved, which only makes sense since evolution wasn't revealed to the authors thereof. Oops!

I think how you define "human" is crucial here. If it means possessing a soul then they would represent the first and only humans.