As I have written before I don’t see Adam and Eve as historical persons. I suppose if we do hang onto the bilblcal story in some historical sense then A and E only knew fear when they became ashamed after eating the forbidden fruit.
if we take a more evolutionary view humanity probably had a sense of fear from their animal ancestory and had it as survival mechanism. We do need a sense of fear to run away from danger.and still possess it. But fear can become negative when linked to shame and worry about status, guilt and being found out etc.
As to other intelligent pre-humans we still have noi way of knowing in what sense they may have possessed “spirit”. The whole point of the bibilcal emphasis on endownment of the spirit is I think to highlight their (our) special intended nature in respect of having something of God in us that other life only has in a lesser form of existence. God has breathed a special measure of the divine nature into us so we may come to share more fully in that nature and divine communion.
The OT word for Spirit = ruach , which also means “breath”. Psalm 104 mentions that when God takes away the “breath” (spirit) of any living creature, it dies. When God’s "spirit"goes forth into creation again there is more life and the earth is renewed with new life and creatures.
The implication is that all life in some way has something of God’s life/spirit/breath in them. Its just that humanity has some extra quality of “life” that other creatures do not have.
For someone who doesn’t see Adam & Eve as historical (which I think is a good observation) … I think it’s a little unexpected that you are trying to literally assign a Hebrew term for the non-Adamite population…
I would think once you dump Adam … it would be relatively easy to carve out whatever terminology you need…
Oh, I agree completely with that. But I keep getting stuck on the mortality part. I keep looking at the possibility that the awareness of mortality–at the level of A & E after they eat the fruit–is somehow lacking in the “almost” humans outside the garden.
As @cosmicscotus says above, we have no way of what sense of “spirit” they have. To me the breathing the breath of life is not just morality or even “spiritual awareness” (whatever that means). But whatever it means, it is what drives us to choose or reject Elohim. It has to at least a sense of personal involvement with life, such that the desires of the fruit was enough to risk mortality.
Yes, they would have. What I am getting at is what level of understanding mortality is pre-adamic genealogy people versus A&E and their offspring. IE Adam before he entered the garden, and after he had the breath of Life, but before he ate the fruit?.
Anthropology has shown awareness of death for tens of thousands of years, with flowers and trinkets in graves. If we are presuming that the “Breath of Life” conferred something different in quantity or quality of that awareness then can scripture give us any indication of what that was.
Some feel it is the moral awareness, which I agree scripture speaks to. But where is the mortality part in this? Where A&E aware of the difference in their mortality that helped make the decision to eat of the Tree of Knowledge instead of the Tree of Life?
All this is interesting discussion but its a long way from my original question which was about how we are to see the work of God in creation, through process of evolution in respect of the epochs of catastophic extinctionn followed by process of “renewal” in which thousands of new life forms and species occurred.
in what respct may we see God in the mass extinctions of life and the subseqent repopulation of the earth with new life forms. Does God care about this mass loss of life? If God “loves” the world, surely God loves all life that is “good” and that must include innocent life in all its kinds.Did God cause the loss of life in deliberate way or is it just a consequence of some sort of freedom of the operation of natural laws that means tghat such things will occur?
Do we see any future “saving” of all that past life that has suffered? Or is “heaven” only going to be populated by “Good” and Saved human beings?
Actually I tend to follow Jurgen Moltman in the idea of the futue Sabbath kingdom having some sort of representation of all life that has ever existed because it is part of the divine glory. I’d like to think I might see T Rex face to face but without fear of being eaten. Plus as a lover of bird life I may get to see all the birds and their ancestors that existed.
When the “world” is referred to in scripture, it is seldom speaking of the physical “cosmos” earth. It is usually speaking of "the world of mankind. Of course Elohim cherishes his creation. But do you cherish a bateria, a worm, a raccoon, a dog, an ape, a man? See the progression? Where is the dividing line?
I am back to the premise that the Bible is about relationships and not about material origins. You are anthropomorphizing the the “love” we have of animals. Yet that love is not (or should not) be at the same level of love for one person to another. “Greater love has no man…”
When John 3:16 SAYS “GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD” HE WASN’T TALKING ABOUT THE EARTH!" and all that is in it. Salvation is for MANKIND.
(There is a Topic over in Homeschooling I read yesterday about this issue. I credit it for it being at the top of my mind this morning. Any have a link to it? It was discussed on the Open Forum.)
The use of the word “good” is also a constraint. Obviously I am coming from a belief system that death in the pre-adamic earth was part and parcel of the existence of life. There is no way life could exist without death unless you premising a YEC 24/7 creation, where nothing existed long enough to die before A&E.
If the death of animals is “good” it means that the mechanism of death, in the support of the food chain, and the recycling of organic materials was operating efficiently and properly. No morality was attached to death. We are back-reading that morality into history.
Yes, "I believe the “Fall” did change things. There is an abuse of death. Creation does “groan” (metaphorically) awaiting “the new creation”. The death of humans by other humans is an abuse, and animals that suffer for humans in the food chain (and for covenantal sacrifice, both coming from the same source) are innocent via “the Fall”. But prior? No!
Think about that in light of your presuppositions.
Trying to fit in The Fall with the the origin of humans as the first moral creatures presents many more problems than it solves–at least that is my conclusion. Deciding just what in Gen. 2-4 is literal and what is figurative is just too difficult. I am more comfortable with accepting the evidence for the Great Leap Forward where the brain(s) of one or a few Homo sapiens was/were programmed to become Mind and language was invented by which this 'saltation’ could be spread throughout the rest of the species. It was during this spread of Mind that the full impact of being mortal dawned upon us. The bright side of the coin was the realization that greater capacity for love that our Minds allowed us to express for our fellow beings, and the realization that we have a role in fulfilling the purpose of our Creator–this allowed us to imagine some sort of spiritual life beyond this earth’s material realm. Quite a bit of unwritten history occurred after the GLF but before the Jewish covenant was reduced to writing.
Al Leo
Perhaps you’re right. The fear of death being established before the “actual Adam & Eve” had their encounter would make the stricture “…you shall surely die” potent without adding a new mortality fear to the mix. HMM, something to think about.
Likewise, Ray. A number of viewpoints expressed on this Forum are not particularly helpful in steering me towards my Creator, but some of the ideas–products of more incisive minds than mine–have enriched the later stages of my earthly sojourn. God Bless.
Al Leo
