Being fairly new to theistic evolution, I'm wondering where everybody stands on Adam...

Do you allegorize the first eleven chapters of Genesis, or take them literally?

I personally believe the genealogies from Adam to Noah (and beyond) in Genesis, and from Adam to Jesus in the New Testament - in addition to the references to Adam, Noah, and others in the N.T. - forces us to accept Adam as a literal, historical figure.

But I've read of several Christians who aren't sure if Adam is meant to be a literal or figurative character, and they often lean toward him being figurative, apparently because it's hard to make sense of the fact that modern humans lived on earth 100,000 years ago...

For those who believe Adam is a literal, historical figure, do you believe he was an evolved hominid or 'modern human' without a soul, whom God breathed a soul into? And do you believe he lived around 6,000 years ago, or further back? If further back, do you think there's a reasonable way to deal with the geneaologies dating him around 6,000 years ago?

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I am a Christian and I recognize the fact of evolution.

I take the first eleven chapters of Genesis literally.

I recognize Adam as a literal, historical figure.

I believe Adam was an evolved hominid.

I believe Adam lived about 5,500,000 B. C.

The genealogies of the first eleven chapters of Genesis are 100% accurate, and they are not complete. "Father of" can mean "ancestor of", even as "son of" can mean "descendant of". By far the largest gaps are in Genesis 11, as I date the Flood and the tower of Babel way back to the same general timeframe as Adam (i. e., 5.5 million years ago).

Go here for Glenn Morton's website: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm, and I suggest buying the two books he has for sale. I find his harmonization of Genesis and science by far the best I've ever seen.

Hi Geoffrey,

I was going to reference Glenn's hypothesis in the OP, but I thought I'd wait and see if he wanted to explain it himself. I know Glenn is a brilliant man, and I'm sure I have a lot to learn from someone who has done as much research as he has.

But when the same genealogies are repeated in the N.T., though there are a few discrepencies, it has been pointed out by others that there isn't a whole lot of room for huge gaps, once you fill in the blanks with biographical information the Bible contains. It seems like adding millions of years goes way beyond ridiculous. I'm speaking frankly, but not to start a battle with you or Glenn :)

Also, when you consider that the 'development of society' in Genesis seems fairly close to that of Mesopotamian history, doesn't it seem odd that mankind would have essentially stood still for millions of years.

Also, don't most secular scientists place modern humans at only 100,000 years ago?

Again, please don't take these questions personally. I have been struggling intensly with these issues, and keep wondering what I might be missing...

Does anyone know if there would be any major obstacle that would prevent us from accepting that Adam was formed from a hominid around 6,000 years ago?

Couldn't other human-like creatures have existed without souls for 90,000 years, especially since, in all that time, they never recorded any history, or progressed much at all societally?

To other theistic evolutionists, is Glenn's view in the minority? And what are the other factors used in determining any time period for Adam?

I put together a synopsis on the homepage of www.OriginScience.com, and I want to make sure I'm not off base...

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I neither allegorize all the first chapters of Genesis nor take them all literally. I try to interpret them account by account, just as I interpret Psalms psalm by psalm. I think the first account (Genesis 1:1-2:3) is a creation hymn that reveals God is the creator of all through a symmetrically structured template of six days, followed by a day of rest (this template, of course, is for the work week and Sabbath). It is not exhaustive of all of God's creative work, and the arrangement is driven by literary and thematic concerns rather than revealing an unwitnessed historical chronology.

I think the second account (Genesis 2:4-4:26) tells the broad brush strokes of prehistory and reveals their meaning through a symbolic narrative. People represent more than individuals, snakes represent more than clever beasts, and trees represent more than magic plants. Many of the symbolic elements are "defined" elsewhere in Scripture, including Adam (Genesis 5:1-2), the serpent (Romans 16:20; Revelation 12:9), and the tree of life (Revelation 2:7; 22:1-2, 14-19). So, just as Ezekiel 16 recounts Israel's rebellion through the account of one woman, Genesis 3 recounts humanity's rebellion through the account of one man (who later is formed into a man and a woman). Most Christians see how Genesis 3:15 becomes increasingly significant if one allows for symbolism instead of mere literalism, and I think the entire account should be read the same way.

The genealogy (Genesis 5) may preserve the names of many legendary characters of old, but its main point is to drive home the result of the expulsion from Paradise: the repeating refrain after all but one name is "and he died." The exception, Enoch, perhaps gives us a glimpse at what may have awaited the first humans had they continued to walk with God.

I don't have a strong view on the merged flood account (Genesis 6:1-9:17), aside from accepting that it is the result of combining at least two accounts into a single story. My instinct is to view the events as historical and describing a local flood, but I'm open to the idea that it is closer to the form of a parable. The remainder of early Genesis I haven't studied in depth.

As for Adam, I think it is widely accepted that even within Genesis this Hebrew name sometimes means humanity (Genesis 1:20; 5:1-2; 6:1) and sometimes means an individual (Genesis 5:3-5). The question is which meaning applies where. The genealogies don't prove that "Adam" in Genesis 2-3 refers to an individual any more than they prove that "Adam" in Genesis 6 refers to an individual. In any case, I would never build a doctrine on a genealogy, especially since our culture differs so greatly from the original authors in how we view genealogies. (I recently listened to a message -- I think by Bob Utley -- about how all parts of Scripture have a purpose, but some parts may be more for others than us. He illustrated this through the genealogies and how they have more profound value for some cultures.) I think the genealogies are there for a reason, but we don't necessarily understand that reason. If anyone is tempted to rule out an interpretation based mainly on genealogies, I think Paul's admonishment in 1 Timothy 1:3-4 and Titus 3:9 is worth noting.

Support for the idea that Adam represents humanity also comes from Paul's references to the Eden account. In general, he uses "Adam" and "one man" as a shorthand to refer to the actions of both Adam and Eve; he only refers to Eve when he refers specifically to the deception part of the narrative. The other explanation for this is Federal Headship, wherein only Adam's sin counted and spread to others, but I think the Adam=humanity explanation fits better with how Genesis portrays Eve's participation.

Originally posted by mpb1

I put together a synopsis on the homepage of www.OriginScience.com, and I want to make sure I'm not off base...

On your site, your tagline for Theistic Evolution is "God started it all". I think it is fairly common among TEs to see creation as an ongoing act by God, rather than limiting God's influence to starting the process. "God is still doing it" may be a better tagline.

Originally posted by mpb1

Being fairly new to theistic evolution, I'm wondering where everybody stands on Adam...

Humanity is an ongoing process. If God allows us another 100,000 years or so, our descendants will look upon us as a form of "primitive mankind" just as we view those who lived in the stone age from our current vantage point.

My personal belief is that Adam and Eve were literal people who lived at the dawn of humanity and the first people to whom God gave souls, revealed Himself, and the first He held accountable for their actions, including accepting His will or choosing to reject it.

My belief isn't set on stone on this. I believe that Genesis is true, but like so many I am struggling to discern what is literal and what is allegory, and how to interpret it correctly.

What I see in the Genesis account and in the rest of scriptures is that God created humanity by whatever means. Humanity chose to reject Him. God had such great love for us that He sacrificed Himself so that we might be saved. Literal or allegory, I find that the essence is the same.

Hey Mercury,

You mentioned Dr. Bob Utley. I've also enjoyed his 'You Can Understand the Bible' (free) online video seminar. For anyone who wants to watch it, it's near the bottom of this page: http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/

On that page, you'll also find links to his free commentaries. I read through his free 113-page (PDF) commentary on Genesis 1-11. He provides a great deal of information to use in study, and he accepts evolution within species. But he offers so many differing views, that you come away from it understanding more about individual pieces of the puzzle, but more confused on the whole, than when you started :) Regarding Genesis, I guess that's unavoidable.

He believes in 'billions of years,' but places Adam 6-10,000 years ago. He seems to mix Day-Age Creation with theistic evolution (evolution only within species), which is kind of where I have been leaning. I just don't know if special Creation of any kind is compatible with DNA evidence or not. I started the thread below on that topic, in case anyone has any thoughts on it:

"Evolution Question: Shared Ancestry / 'Family Tree' Evidence in the DNA"
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=86259

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I’m a TE, and my belief is that Adam is mythological. Which is to say, mythological in the anthropological sense of the word, as opposed to the common sense of the word, which carries a disparaging connotation.

The early chapters of Genesis contain the Hebrew versions of the world foundation mythologies typical of the Ancient Near East. They trace the foundation of the human race back to a single ur- individual or individuals (i.e. Adam = “man”) and forward into the people who bear the mythology (i.e. the Hebrews). At some point in such cycles, the mythological is left behind, and the historical begins. Where this occurs is the domain of archaeology, with Abraham, Moses, David, etc., each having been put forward as candidates by various scholars.

Of particular relevance to Christianity is the concept of Original Sin. It is possible to read Genesis in such a way that the fall results in a curse, yet not Original Sin in the later sense. At some point, the story of the fall gave rise to the idea of Original Sin, and the idea of Original Sin was read back into the story of the fall. It’s probably a tangled case of mutual influence, with the mythological transfer going both ways.

A lot of our historical Christian theology about Original Sin was developed by the Apostle Paul, but there are clear traces of the idea going far back into Hebrew scripture (e.g. the Psalms). Oddly enough, though much Christian and Hebrew philosophy historically moves towards Hellenism, Original Sin seems to have moved the opposite way: from being more like a Hellenistic “fatal flaw” to more like the Hebrew idea of an hereditary taint.

So, in my opinion, Original Sin is our myth which explains why each individual feels separated from God, and why, to paraphrase Paul, “we do that which we don’t want to, and don’t do that which we know we should.” In this sense, “the Fall” is something that occurs in each of us, as a we grow, develop moral knowledge (i.e. “knowledge of good and evil”), and see ourselves succumb to temptation and knowingly make wrong choices. So the “one man,” the Adam, by which death enters into the world is each of us. And likewise the “new man” by which death is overcome, must take the form of Christ entering each one of us.

By this means, for me, both the legendary parts of the Bible (e.g. early Genesis) and the parts I believe are primarily historical (e.g. later OT, the Gospels, etc.), come together to form a coherent mythology. Some of the details of this historical boundary are relatively critical to Christian theology, as is the case with the historicity of the resurrection (historical, I believe). Other parts, such as the creation fugues of Genesis, are much less important.

On the whole, I believe the mythological approach to religion is much healthier than that theological approach. The gist of the theological approach is that we can know “this or that” about God and our own spiritual natures in a kind of technological sense. This is unsatisfying at best, often creates illusions, and – at worst – can lead to religion at it’s worst. The mythological approach, on the other hand, says that we can only experience God and spiritual things in a relational sense: the relationships between us and God, to others, to our history, and even our private internal relationship to ourselves. This seems to me to be a very healthy thing, and the way humans and human communities have approached religion when functioning at their best.

We do “-ologies” and other sciences very well, and they often teach us a lot and help us build a better world, but we are storytellers first and foremost. No great scientist – not even Einstein – would deny this. One of the tragedies of the YEC-approach is that it neglects this, and tries to force the living myths of faith into the dry catalog of fact. And when it succeeds, and the facts prove unsound, the moribund skeletons of the once-living myths crumble along with them.

-Neil

there is an interesting book on the topic:
Evolution from Creation to New Creation: Conflict, Conversation, and Convergence
by Ted Peters, Martinez Hewlett

http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Crea...e=UTF8&s=books

one real strength of the book is that it looks at a wide spectrum of TE views from BB.Warfield on the right (Adam is a literal person, the father of all humanity) to the most common viewpoint, which is well described above as adam is a mythological representative.

These articles have been referenced repeatedly on other threads, but they're worth repeating:


In Search of the Historical Adam: Part 1
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolu...-93Fisher.html


In Search of the Historical Adam: Part 2
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolu...-94Fisher.html


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More food for thought (from the Day-Age Creation view):

I don't know how much, if any, of the Day-Age Creationist View coincides with theistic evolution...


Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man - Dr. Hugh Ross and Dr. Fazale 'Fuz' Rana - radio show webcast
http://www.reasons.org/resources/mul...51212_kgnw.ram


Who Was Adam?" (MP3) - Dr. Hugh Ross - radio show webcast
http://www.thethingsthatmattermost.o...d/06-18-06.mp3


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Originally posted by mpb1

But when the same genealogies are repeated in the N.T., though there are a few discrepencies, it has been pointed out by others that there isn't a whole lot of room for huge gaps, once you fill in the blanks with biographical information the Bible contains. It seems like adding millions of years goes way beyond ridiculous. I'm speaking frankly, but not to start a battle with you or Glenn :)

It seems to me that once it is recognized that the Genesis 11 genealogy is incomplete, there is nothing in the text that would forbid any number of generations not mentioned in the abbreviated list. Science has established humanity's age at millions of years. To me it is a simple process:

incomplete genealogy + humans millions of years old = hundreds of thousands generations skipped in the genealogy

I submit that it is a purely emotional "gut instinct" that makes one balk at recognizing that the Genesis 11 genealogy covers millions of years. But gut instincts are merely feelings, while we have to do with facts (both biblical and empirical). When I first came across Glenn's theories they struck me as extravagent, but upon study they revealed themselves to me to be sober, biblical, and scientific.

Originally posted by mpb1

Also, when you consider that the 'development of society' in Genesis seems fairly close to that of Mesopotamian history, doesn't it seem odd that mankind would have essentially stood still for millions of years.

But what about the peoples who even today live in societies with the most primitive of tools? Their existence illustrates that it is not odd for humans to live indefinitely with only the most primitive of tools.

Originally posted by mpb1

Also, don't most secular scientists place modern humans at only 100,000 years ago?

That sounds about right for skeletons virtually identical to ours.

Originally posted by mpb1

Again, please don't take these questions personally. I have been struggling intensly with these issues, and keep wondering what I might be missing...

Does anyone know if there would be any major obstacle that would prevent us from accepting that Adam was formed from a hominid around 6,000 years ago?

Couldn't other human-like creatures have existed without souls for 90,000 years, especially since, in all that time, they never recorded any history, or progressed much at all societally?

We know that humans for hundreds of thousands (and in some cases even millions) of years have talked, made tools, had religion, made art, made music, etc. I don't see any way to deny that these humans are human. If someone can do all those things and yet be held to not be human, then how could I prove even my own humanity to someone who doubted it? I could point to my accomplishments in language, tool-use, religion, art, music, etc., but it wouldn't prove my humanity to a determined doubter.

Originally posted by mpb1

Hi Geoffrey,

I was going to reference Glenn's hypothesis in the OP, but I thought I'd wait and see if he wanted to explain it himself. I know Glenn is a brilliant man, and I'm sure I have a lot to learn from someone who has done as much research as he has.

I want to thank you and Geoffrey for the very kind words. It makes me blush

But when the same genealogies are repeated in the N.T., though there are a few discrepencies, it has been pointed out by others that there isn't a whole lot of room for huge gaps, once you fill in the blanks with biographical information the Bible contains. It seems like adding millions of years goes way beyond ridiculous. I'm speaking frankly, but not to start a battle with you or Glenn :)

The thing which drove me to go with the old Adam was 1. the geologic evidence that there really is zero evidence for a year long flood anywhere within the past 5 million years. Those who beleive in a Mesopotamian flood don't realize that the water would drain out of there in a couple of weeks--the land slopes to the Persian Gulf and there is no wall on the south side of Iraq which can hold 3000 feet of water to move the ark towards the foothills of Turkey. For more see http://home.entouch.net/dmd/mflod.htm

Those who try to follow Ryan and Pitman's Black Flood version of Noah's flood ought to realize that they do not seem to accept the concept anymore. see http://home.entouch.net/dmd/bseaflod.htm for my objections to that locale.

The only place that even began to match the description was the infilling of the Mediterranean which happened 5.5 million years ago. Water rushed in and filled that 900,000 sq. km basin with 3-5 km of water. Huge mountains were covered. The land was utterly destroyed as the Bible says, it is no longer land. And, it can't be flooded again without another drying out.

But, when I was thinking about this back in the early 1990s, I didn't like it any more than most do today, until I realized that the hominids appeared on earth circa 5.5 million years ago, at the time of the flood. It was this realization that made me get highly motivated to look at anthropology.

Clearly, there was no evidence of technology that long ago (but of course, I just posted in the Could homo sapiens be 5.5 million years old? thread that such technology may not be required http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...7&postcount=40 )

I also thought about how much technology we would be able to take into a new world if only 8 people were allowed to live. I would say, zero of our technology would be able to make it through such a population bottleneck and IF those 8 survived, they would spawn naked savages before the original 8 died. Ask yourself this: Do you know how to make iron? Do you know what copper ore looks like? can you build a spindle? If you farm, you have to wait 3 months to eat, so you will become a hunter because you can't wait that long. Thus, no technology would survive such a bottleneck and it would be millions of years before it re-developed.

And then as I studied anthro, I realized that all of the marks of Adam are quite old--so much older than the current apologetical views that we either say that those marks are not important (which I am loathe to do) or we are forced to say that Adam lived very very long ago. And that fits with the only event which has ANY chance of matching the description of the Biblical flood.

And since I believe in inspiration, I don't have to have this story passed down.

Also, when you consider that the 'development of society' in Genesis seems fairly close to that of Mesopotamian history, doesn't it seem odd that mankind would have essentially stood still for millions of years.

Actually it doesn't. Tents were invented as long ago as 1.6 million years. Neanderthals were living only off of sheep 45-70,000 years ago. The Tubalcain passage doesn't say anything about metalurgy, so in my opinion, the only way one can actually say it is mesopotamian is by assumption, which a person is free to do, but one must always question the assumptions of anything--especially if the majority believe it. (after all, the majority of Christians are YEC).

Also, don't most secular scientists place modern humans at only 100,000 years ago?

First off, those 'modern' humans were anything but. They had brow-ridges, and very thick bones, which is a characteristic of the archaics. Secondly, by saying that modern humans were only x number of years ago, you are defining humanity by appearance. If they look like us they are human; if not, they aren't. Isn't that how Europeans defined human during the slaving years?

Again, please don't take these questions personally. I have been struggling intensly with these issues, and keep wondering what I might be missing...

By all means criticize my ideas, but expect the same. Only via constant questioning of assumptions and what we think we know about this area will we ever make progress. Christianity has been stuck in the same ruts for 200 years. Neither rut works.

Does anyone know if there would be any major obstacle that would prevent us from accepting that Adam was formed from a hominid around 6,000 years ago?

You have to give up that Adam was the father of all humanity. OUr genes are much older than that. But, my views can't compete with the young-earth-adamite view because people simply don't want an Adam as old as I think the data says.

Where was the flood that lasted a year and killed all but 8 souls? That is the real clue to WHEN Adam was.

Couldn't other human-like creatures have existed without souls for 90,000 years, especially since, in all that time, they never recorded any history, or progressed much at all societally?

This is the racist problem of this view. Do any of them still live? If they don't have souls, can we enslave them? Can we make them our sex slaves? Can we make them work our fields as we do cattle and other soul-less animals?

I suspect you will say they don't exist, but if Adam was only 6000 years ago, they most assuredly do exist. If God emplaced a soul in Adam 6000 years ago, all ethnicities were in existence at that time. If Adam was Semitic, then someone may think that I am one of those soul-less peoples who can be enslaved for their benefit as part of man's dominion over nature--me.

To other theistic evolutionists, is Glenn's view in the minority? And what are the other factors used in determining any time period for Adam?

So few accept my views that it isn't even fair to call it a minority. However, these views just happen to be one of the few views which actually accepts all the scientific data.

Thank you Glenn for going through all that. I really appreciate you taking the time.

You've researched this issue much more than most of us (way more than me). So I definitely respect your views.

It sounds like the Flood is the major issue that forces a researcher like you to conclude that Adam must have lived millions of years ago.

IF we could assume the geography has somehow changed, and that a mountain-high regional Flood could have been contained in that area, then that obstacle to a 6,000 year-old Adam would be removed.

Then we'd have to prove that all the pre-Adamic 'humans' were destroyed in the Flood (which the Bible seems to indicate), so there wouldn't be any soul-less humans alive today...

If these two issues were solved, would that take care of it? If it could be proven (to a reasonable degree) that the biblically-described Flood was possible, and that all pre-Adamic humans were destroyed, could the '6,000 year-old Adam' interpretation float? :)

Originally posted by mpb1

I put together a synopsis on the homepage of www.OriginScience.com, and I want to make sure I'm not off base...

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Mark, I spent some time on your site and noted that you too went through a crisis of faith when you realized that YEC was wrong. I did that also, which is why I don't want anything I teach to not match the observational data (no human theory is 100 percent capable of that but that should be the goal). I wish more YECs here would realize what it is that they do to people when they teach things which can be so easily disproven. Most of the hard-core atheists I know are former YECs.

I would note, that because of this one must be careful to also accept the anthropological data. If one wants an historical interpretation of the Bible, then one simply must accept observational data, be it from astronomy, geology or anthropology.

This is all to say, I understand the feelings you had when you learned that much of what you had been taught was false. It makes one wonder, as you say: "if Christianity was one huge lie". I too felt this.

Originally posted by grmorton

<snip>

Actually it doesn't. Tents were invented as long ago as 1.6 million years. Neanderthals were living only off of sheep 45-70,000 years ago. The Tubalcain passage doesn't say anything about metalurgy, so in my opinion, the only way one can actually say it is mesopotamian is by assumption, which a person is free to do, but one must always question the assumptions of anything--especially if the majority believe it. (after all, the majority of Christians are YEC).

Greetings, Glenn,

I don't get this at all.

Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah.

How do you get bronze without metallurgy? I can just possibly imagine iron tools created from meteoritic fragments, but bronze? That won't wash. We do know that the earliest bronzes are found in Mesopotamia and Iran in the millenium immediately preceding the beginning of writing, which fits well with a mythologized history.

The other question I'd ask is why you don't accept a localized Mesopotamian flood. We certainly know that many cities in the region underwent periodic catastrophic floods. It makes sense that without any way to judge the separation in dates of those floods, later residents would be likely to put all of the evidence of local floods together into a single tale. Certainly, no one questions the fact that the Ziusudra tale is Mesopotamian and derives from actual Mesopotamian floods.

As ever, Jesse

Originally posted by grmorton

Mark, I spent some time on your site and noted that you too went through a crisis of faith when you realized that YEC was wrong. I did that also, which is why I don't want anything I teach to not match the observational data (no human theory is 100 percent capable of that but that should be the goal). I wish more YECs here would realize what it is that they do to people when they teach things which can be so easily disproven. Most of the hard-core atheists I know are former YECs.

I would note, that because of this one must be careful to also accept the anthropological data. If one wants an historical interpretation of the Bible, then one simply must accept observational data, be it from astronomy, geology or anthropology.

This is all to say, I understand the feelings you had when you learned that much of what you had been taught was false. It makes one wonder, as you say: "if Christianity was one huge lie". I too felt this.

Yeah, Glenn, for the most most part, this crisis of faith I experienced was in the last month. So it's still fresh. I became obsessed with trying to find answers to make sense of it all.

It's very encouraging to find other former YEC's who found a way to reconcile science and faith (to whatever degree was possible), rather than abandoning the faith. I feel sorry for the ones who do, but I now understand the disconnect that happens in your head when you realize a face-value reading of Genesis absolutely does not match science. Then you have to start the journey of piecing together a logical explanation...

I agree with you that no matter what Christians teach about science, we add to the risk of 'creating atheists' if we don't build a bridge between science and faith - instead of pretending we can explain away science.

Originally posted by taoist

Greetings, Glenn,

I don't get this at all.

Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah.

How do you get bronze without metallurgy? I can just possibly imagine iron tools created from meteoritic fragments, but bronze? That won't wash. We do know that the earliest bronzes are found in Mesopotamia and Iran in the millenium immediately preceding the beginning of writing, which fits well with a mythologized history.

Go to this thread ( http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...t=84517&page=3 ) and read Glenn's post there of Oct. 21st. It addresses your concern in detail.

Originally posted by taoist

The other question I'd ask is why you don't accept a localized Mesopotamian flood. We certainly know that many cities in the region underwent periodic catastrophic floods. It makes sense that without any way to judge the separation in dates of those floods, later residents would be likely to put all of the evidence of local floods together into a single tale. Certainly, no one questions the fact that the Ziusudra tale is Mesopotamian and derives from actual Mesopotamian floods.

As ever, Jesse

Though I obviously can't speak for Glenn, I can tell you why I don't accept a localized Mesopotamian flood. It's because it wouldn't be THE biblical Flood. I don't believe that the Genesis account of Noah and the Flood is an exaggerated cobbling-together of disparate little flood stories. Rather, it is an account of exactly what happened.

Originally posted by grmorton

I also thought about how much technology we would be able to take into a new world if only 8 people were allowed to live. I would say, zero of our technology would be able to make it through such a population bottleneck and IF those 8 survived, they would spawn naked savages before the original 8 died. Ask yourself this: Do you know how to make iron? Do you know what copper ore looks like? can you build a spindle? If you farm, you have to wait 3 months to eat, so you will become a hunter because you can't wait that long. Thus, no technology would survive such a bottleneck and it would be millions of years before it re-developed.

This is precisely why I think that the tower of Babel was made very shortly after the Flood, perhaps within a mere 100 years.