Did Noah's Flood Kill All Humans except his family?

The similarities are just not there. that is just like my statement mentioned above, “my grandson got on the merry-go-round.” It is verifiable as I said, only for a short period of time. Such events leave no traces one can find to see if it is true or not. Parables, there fore at this point in history can’t hold ‘literal meaning’ as defined by Ayer.

The flood, can leave geological evidence, and I think it did.

Many floods left geographical evidence. No planet-wide flood a few thousand years ago left evidence.

In fact, the planet-wide diversity of flora and fauna proves that there was no planet-wide flood lasting months a few thousand years ago.

How do you think dodos got to one island in the Pacific and only there?

Did kangaroos hop from the ark to Australia and nowhere else?

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I have stated that this flood was at the time of the earliest hominids. It was also the time of the earliest hominin, who is in our group:.

Hominin: a primate of a taxonomic tribe (Hominini), which comprises those species regarded as human, directly ancestral to humans, or very closely related to humans.

or as

Hominin , Any member of the zoological “tribe” Hominini (family Hominidae , order Primates), of which only one species exists today— Homo sapiens, or human beings. Hominin | Definition, Characteristics, & Family Tree | Britannica

Well, as of right now, the earliest hominin is from Europe.
http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/graecopithecus-freybergi-hominin-04888.html

And of course, this is controversial, but everything in anthropology is controversial. lol

At 7 myr ago there was Oreopithecus living in Europe and he was bipedal. BBC Earth | Home

So, we know hominins which is our lineage were living in Europe just before the time of the Messinian at 6 myr ago and the crisis at 5.6 myr ago… All I am saying is that if there is a time for God to take an ape and turn him into a man. Doing this for H. Sapiens doesn’t work because H. sapiens didn’t do anything different from neanderthal for about 70-150,000 years.

Cobra, when you are willing to discuss the view I am proposing then come back. I am not proposing any global flood, or hopping kangaroos, so all of your note is just babbling nonsense.

In the very beginning one thing that was being discussed is what people would defend on here.

As stated before I don’t see anything negative with the view that it’s a mythological tale. I don’t think mythology or ahistorical means lying. It’s simply a mode to teach something and that what it’s teaching can be true or can be a lie but that fiction or mythology don’t equate truth or lie in itself.

But I do believe in the fall and that the fall brought sin and death to humankind. I do believe in a flood as well.

I think everything in your OP with the maps and links to videos and so on makes perfect sense. I’m not a historian so I have no idea if all the humans were in that area. I’m not studied up what so ever about that time frame.

I still believe there are mythological aspects to the story such as two pairs of all animals being sent there and 7 of the clean or even the size of the ark. If the whole Mediterranean infilling is not correct then I also believe the magnitude of the flood fits as well.

Paul uses similar language and patterns when talking about the whole world hearing them gospel.

Colossians 1:6 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

6 which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth;

Romans 1:8 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

There are many other examples to showcase this as well. But I don’t think many of us believe that the whole world as we see it is what paul meant but merely the Roman Empire.

So I believe that mythology can be applied there should the infilling not work out completely. I definitely believe the chance of the Mediterranean basin is logical though. I’m not to certain that human kind was able to orally carry that story on for so long. Was humans building boats then? We’re all humans in that area? I’m not sure.

But I do know that if not, the mythological and ahistorical aspects still points towards the truth. I definitely believe more of humanity could have been out of that area and the whole world was a specific area to Noah and all humans were those he knew of and the general area and that he was not aware of others elsewhere.

I’m not even sure what homo species were around then.

But it’s a argument worth looking into for me.

Skove, I know I am proposing something very different. I have always marched to a different drum–group think hasn’t interested me since I left YEC (a painful experience). I have studied Med geology for 30 years and only now is data in the east really available. I am excited about what I have found, obviously. Sadly it is right at the end of my life so I have little time to tell others. It is in God’s hands.

I do not believe that animals from all over the world came to get on this ark. I believe it was special animals God chose to ride the ark from the land that was about to be destroyed. I don’t believe the YEC size of the ark is correct–smaller cubit. If Cobra had had the courtesy to ask me if I believed kangaroos hopped there, I would have told him no. But he just wants to assume his way to declaring my view wrong. I will soon post on technology issues but not for a bit. Tomorrow is the weird hydrology of Eden.

Figuring out that the entire Bible from Genesis 1 to Exodus CAN be true has greatly increased my faith again. When I was a YEC I was absolutely convinced that the bible was true and my Christian life was full. when I became an evolutionist, rejecting YEC, I actually cursed the day I went into the geosciences because it had destroyed my certitude that God could communicate truth to us. From 1985 until about 2001, my faith was precarious. But it wasn’t until 2018 that my faith began to revive. Why? I learned there is scientific evidence for the existence of the soul.

Now finding that Genesis 1 can be interpreted 100% in harmony with modern science That Eden might really have existed, that the flood might actually have happened, that the Exodus really happened( having found Joseph’s palace, I now have no doubt about things like god sending the ravens to Elijah and things like that. Truth is important to faith.

There are many other examples to showcase this as well. But I don’t think many of us believe that the whole world as we see it is what paul meant but merely the Roman Empire.

If you are referring to ‘whole earth’, kol eretz in Hebrew, there are cases where ‘kol eretz’ is demonstrably NOT the whole world but just from horizon to horizon. Job 37:1-3

  At this also my heart trembleth,
  And is moved out of his place.
  2       Hear attentively the noise of his voice,
  And the sound that goeth out of his mouth.
  3       He directeth it under the **whole heaven**

We can’t hear thunder more than about 10 miles away, if we are lucky, yet this say ‘whole heaven’. ‘kol eretz’.This clearly is a use of that for a local area.

You are absolutely correct. this could not be handed down by oral tradition. It has to be divine inspiration. That is the only explanation of it, and the only thing that makes sense. This isn’t ‘accommodated’, this isn’t a fable told to stupid Hebrew Neolithics, it is reality delivered to us by a living God.

Will we ever find the ark and prove Noah was in it? Never. Believing that Noah was there is faith. Knowing that this flood matches the biblical description of the flood is simply science/history.

Lol, look above at my post on hominins alive in Europe from just before this flood. It is widely believed that God took primates and inserted a soul/consciousness into them. I believe Eden is where it happened, and Eden was in this dry desert (Edinu Akkadian for desert) of the Mediterranean, where the flood happened. Can I prove Adam and Eve were there? no. Can I prove Noah was there? no. But anyone not totally biased against concordism has to acknowledge that the breach at Gibraltar could easily be described as the fountains of the deep breaking forth. That this flood could easily have fit within the year or so time of Noah’s flood, that it did cover high mountains, and I still stand by the statement that rising air would cool and cause rain–in spite of the argument from authoriity aimed at me by Bill.

Skove, in my opinion christianity is totally stuck in useless ruts on earth history. YEC with its false science and idiotic global flood, or surrender to the Atheist view that none of the creation, fall, flood or exodus was real.- That is the Atheist view and it grieves me that so many Christians choose to agree with them about Scripture.

As I said, In January, two doctors, independently, told me I had 6 months left before this cancer gets me. God is fantastic to show me what he has in this time frame. I prayed for more information for 30 year, always being disappointed as each year closed and I didn’t have what I needed to really finish this theory off on a good basis. But now, I feel a bit like Simeon in Luke (I think), who prayed god would show him the baby Messiah. While mine is not nearly as important as his prayer, I am content since this area has been on my heart scince I was 19. I am now 70–3 score and 10. God is really good.

PS, I do believe I will live past July but I don’t know by how much.

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I definitely can personally make this particular argument fit into my views. It’s basically what I already believed just leaves data that can potentially be moved from ahistorical to a better context of history. After posting it, while thinking about it I also
Was thinking it would help showcase a divine inspiration if humans in the time of moses had information that was impossible for them to have k own at that time. Even seems like it is information only recently made known by us.

I’m very sorry to hear what you are struggling with. You seem to have come to terms with it very well and feel that God is reaching out to you and helping to guide you towards a more concrete faith and I feel lucky and am glad that with everything else that you could be doing you have decided to set apart time to share your thoughts and connect it with data to consider.

I don’t know if the next part should be said or if it sounds wrong but I hope it comes out well. I can see that it’s very important to you to get your idea out there and that you have faith it will help a lot of people and that you are also upset that often it seems to just be swept under the rug by others and that maybe it sometimes feels like it’s perhaps all in vain. But there have been many artists and authors who did great work and everyone rejected it. No one bought into it. They died thinking they failed at what they were passionate about and what they don’t know is that decades to even hundreds or thousands of years later their work is considered exceptionally great such as two of my favorite, HP Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe. So we never know. I’m sure Paul never thought he would be remembered by billions of people thousands of years later. Those people work was also no where near as available as yours. It may be bittersweet but this site will still probably have forums or archived conversations in 5 years. Your blog and other thoughts could blow up in popularity in 30 years. If you believe God is leading you towards all of this and you are passionate about it all then I hope you also have faith that even if it’s not in your lifetime your words will still help guide people towards a faith and interpretation that helps them cling to Christ.

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No. Rainbows are perfectly real. But talking snakes and magical fruit are not real. And while the Bible treats the snake and the Tree of Life as symbolic, it does not treat the rainbow as symbolic. It is given as a sign and promise which is not the same thing at all.

I certainly don’t believe so. One can make something the sign of a covenant without claiming that there was no refraction of light before. And the Bible does not claim that there was no such thing in the skies before.

Nor is there any claim that the flood was “planet-wide.” The world was not conceived in terms of a planet anywhere in the Bible.

Correct, we have no reason from science to dispute the claim of the Bible that Adam and Eve lived about 7000 years ago. Science only disputes the idea that Adam and Eve were the sole genetic progenitors of the human species, and that is something even the Bible gives reason for us to doubt.

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are well known, while the Pishon and Gihon rivers are a matter of speculation. But with the mention of Assyria I see no good reason to look elsewhere for this geography. I certainly do not see “a deep basin” needed for explaining anything whatsoever.

From my blog. I have put together a look at the geology of the region with an eye towards explaining the mists that rose mentioned in Scripture–that passage has puzzled people for centuries.

The Strange Hydrology of Eden

The Strange Hydrology of Eden

Glenn R. Morton 2020

As a geophysicist of 47 years experience all around the world, I view some parts of the Bible differently than theologians who don’t know much geology. As a geoscientist, I know that the hydrology described is highly unusual–mists, rivers splitting into four big rivers etc. I have arrived at a professional conclusion, this kind of hydrology can only exist in a flat bottomed basin. Interestingly, there is a massive, nearly US-sized dry basin right next to where the Nile, Euphrates, Pison and Tigris flowed five and a half million years ago. As you read, enlarge the pictures to see for yourselves what I am saying about them.

For those who might not have heard that this basin was empty the information can be found here, and those who wonder about the Biblical rivers being together, can find that information here.

Many won’t like how far back in time this is. That is too bad because you will miss seeing things from the Bible match up with modern geologic knowledge.

I place Noah’s flood in the dry Mediterranean basin because it is the only cataclysmic flood which matches the Biblical description. It filled up in about a year’s time, the basin was up to 5 km deep, meaning any mountain less than 5 km high would be covered by this flood, and the fact that the rivers flow into this area at that time, makes this basin a prime geological candidate for being Noah’s flood.

Mists Galore

As I said, the hydrology described by Scripture only works in a flat bottomed deep basin. Consider Genesis 2:6:

But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

Other than areas with hot geysers, I cannot think of anywhere that is watered by mists rising from the ground. I once owned a ranch and had a small temporary spring. Water which landed on the adjacent hill, (about 20-30 feet higher than the spring), would seep through the hill’s rocks and bubble up in this low area. It would last about 2 weeks after a rain. While it didn’t have the energy or pressure to spray into the air, water which drops several thousand feet in rocks very well could have had the pressure to form a mist when they spewed into the deep dry, Mediterranean basin.

So how did that happen in Eden? Below is a cross section of the geology of central Israel. Note the geologic rocks are dipping to the west, towards the Mediterranean Sea.

If we extend those dipping sediments to the continental slope, where the continent meets the ocean basin, it would look like this, you can see where the water would be spewing out.:

This geometry of rocks is certain to yield artesian flow at the continental edge. The situation would be a bit more complicated than what I have shown, but this simplification shows the basic idea. Artesian wells occur only in valleys, never on top of the mountain.

Egypt’s coast at the time is a bit more complicated but I will go step by step. One thing to know about me is that I was geophysical manager of the Gulf of Mexico for 10 years for an oil company and the knowledge I learned there about salt movement will come in handy here. Below is what the coast of Egypt looks like today.

Everything above the orange Abu Madi formation and the purple salt, has been deposited after the Mediterranean flood. We will restore the geology to approximately what it was like when the basin was dry. The first thing is to know where the salt was originally. As you move NE from the left of the cross section you will see the first set of faults (semi-vertical lines cutting through the rocks). In this area, the faults are cause by salt movement and those faults show where the salt used to be. See below:

Now we will remove all the post flood sediment and restore the salt to its original position:

The places I marked the possible artesian locations are channel cuts into the Abu Madi (first 3 from the left) and small thrust faults shown on the cross section in he middle of the section. Given that the rain falls on Egypt, 5 km higher than this surface was at the time the Mediterranean was a desert, there would have been a lot of pressure to these artesian wells.

I know the Abu Madi formation is capable of artesian flow because it is made of sand and shale. The sands today are filled with natural gas produced by the Egyptian oil industry. a cross section from another place illustrates how faulting could be the source of some artesian flow.

I have shown that it is quite possible for what the Bible says to be true. Mists would have arisen in this land regardless of whether one accepts this as Eden’s location or not.

Added to the Biologos post. The Abu Madi formation dates from 6.7 to 5.3 myr ago. It would have been the surficial deposits in the dry desert basin and with its sand content, it would have easily been able to carry artesian flow. It is the yellow in the picture below.

The Right Rivers!

The second clue that this dry basin marks Eden comes from the fact that this is the only time in geologic history that the Nile, Euphrates, Pison and Tigris flowed into the same region. See the first map in this post or for more detail see here. Today, the Euphrates, Tigris and the area drained by the Pison(it no longer exists), empty into the Indian Ocean. The Nile still empties into the Mediterranean. If The Bible is true about these river, then this is the only time and place where one could make a case for a real Eden. If this location is rejected, then Eden becomes a fantasy as many of our theologians and atheists, have claimed.

“Skinner claimed: 'it is obvious that a real locality answering the description of Eden exists and has existed nowhere on the face of the earth…(T)he whole representation (is) outside the sphere of real geographic knowledge.” John C. Munday, Jr., "Eden’s Geography Erodes Flood Geology,"Westminster Theological Journal, 58(1996), pp. 123-154,p.128-130

All I can say to Skinner is that there was a time when a locality answering the description of Eden existed. He just didn’t have the requisite geological knowledge.

This event comes at the same time as genetics says the oldest human genes originated. It is the only time genetically we could have a primal pair of parents. Isn’t that an interesting coincidence? But one will object, only small brained hominids lived at that time. That is true, but one Homo Sapiens, named Daniel Lyon, lived a full life in New York, having normal intelligence but the brain size of a two million year old hominid, H. habilis. Daniel Lyon lived a normal life, showing brain size doesn’t matter to one who bears the image of God. Furthermore the curses of Eden both involve the brains of Adam and Eve’s descendants getting bigger. If they are Neolithic farmers as everyone claims, why curse them with something they already have, namely problems arising from having a big brain?

Rivers Splitting

Another odd thing about Eden’s hydrology concerns the splitting of rivers. Scripture says (Genesis 2:10):

“And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.”

Rivers don’t split right after the spring that starts them. The only time rivers split into distributaries is when they are on flat land or at their delta, near sea level. This hydrology is telling us that Eden was at a delta or on extremely flat land. The bottom of the Mediterranean desert five and a half million years ago would satisfy that requirement. It requires a deep flat basin for this to happen.

Well, if we assume that Eden was near where the four rivers poured into the basin, and the Edenic river was sourced by an artesian well, as described above, then below is what I think Eden looked like in diagrammatical form:

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Mitch you did a good job of replying to Cobra so I don’t see a need to waste my time on him. I would clarify one point here. Science only disputes the idea that a 7000 year ago Adam and Eve were the sole genetic progenitors of the Human species. Since I have moved A and E back to the time of the oldest genes the human species has, Science can’t dispute this possibility-- people can dismiss it, but they can’t prove it wrong yet. 5.3 million years ago is the only time A and E could have been the progenitors of the entire human race.

Cobra is trying to argue against Henry Morris not me. He obviously doesn’t even read what I write. lol

I have read enough to see that you have some wild theories about events millions of years ago.

I do see that you note that no one can prove them wrong yet.

Thanks for the discussion.

Cobra if you haven’t read enough to differentiate my views from what Henry Morris (of hopping kangaroo fame) believed, you have hardly read anything at all. Is that how you go about life, disliking a view, and so, criticizing it without actually knowing what it says?

My view of this flood was published in 1995. I conceived it in around 1993 and so far, 30 years of new data has done nothing but bring out new info to support it. But yes, it is subject to normal verification processes in the sense of A. J Ayer, I quoted above. I think it is a terrible mistake for Christians to protect their theories from the risk of refutation.

So where am I at risk? genetics. But already my worst problem of 20 years ago, the MHC complex has disappeared with new data showing those genes mix in a way that means the variability of those genes in the human race didn’t arise from normal slow mutation processess. (I won’t go into details on this cause you seem not to care enough to understand what I am saying).

There is almost zero chance geology will someday say—"Oh we made a mistake there was no flood in the Med. How do I know that? Because the Nile river at this time cut a canyon 4000+ meters deep into the granite basement of the African continent. The Nile couldn’t cut that canyon with water filling the Med. It could only be cut subaerially. That means, that the Med was empty down to 4000 m deep or more for a long enough time for the Nile to erode that canyon.

" During the MSC the Nile created an enormous canyon, measured at a depth of more than 4000m below sea level in the offshore area of the delta. This drainage system transferred substantial quantities of sand-prone sediments, mainly from the red sea rift shoulders and Nubia sandstone outcrops. " AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90341 “2019 AAPG Geoscience Technology Workshop, Exploration and Development of Siliciclastic and Carbonate Reservoirs in the Eastern Mediterranean”, Tel Aviv, Israel, February 26-27, 2019

Karst are tiny holes in limestone that arise from fresh water dissolving it. They can only form subaerially. They exist on the Malta platform which is now 2000 m under water.

Extensive dissolution of limestones down to two thousand meters depth under the Maltese islands provided another indication of the lowered groundwater table during the Messinian desiccation. In fact, Karst-like features are typically present on a part of the submarine Mediterranean Ridge, which now lies more than 2000 m under water.” ~ Kenneth J. Hsu, “The Miocene Desiccation of the Mediterranean and its Climatical and Zoogeographical Implications”, Die Naturwissenschaften, 61, April 4, 1974, p. 140.

This key opens the door to the solution of several other mysteries. For example, one can now begin to understand the origin of the extensive caverns in the circum-Mediterranean lands and the peculiar topography (called ‘Karst’) of Yugoslavia, where sinkholes and pinnacles abound. One can also provide an answer to the longstanding question of why ground-water circulation once penetrated 3,000 meters below sea level in a mid-ocean island such as Malta.” ~ Kenneth J. Hsu, The Mediterranean was a Desert, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p 175

I am under no illusion that any of this will mean anything to you or that you will even care about what geology says about this region. You will continue to act like I believe and promote a global flood, which of course is nonsense. But maybe someone else will find the info interesting.

This is for other people other than you Cobra. I think I found the paper that first discovered the Nahr Menashe deposits–these are the deposits from the Euphrates and Tigris. Below is a picture of the original seismic data and you can see the river channels in Box B. Follow what it says and you will learn a bunch about how geophysicists map such features and you can see the meandering channels in some of the pictures, especially the lower left box in box B. the picture. You might need to enlarge the picture or even down load it and enlarge it to see some of the wonderful details the 3d seismic brings. This is the kind of work I did for 47 years and I really miss it. But these guys have done a fantastic job.

I have marked where i think he Tigris entered the basin and show again the 3D seismic that I originally used as a marker–for comparison

.

I decided to enlarge box B

Here are some of the issues I would have to work on overcoming to better make this fit.

It seems the Zanclean flood occurred roughly 5-6 million years ago. At that time the information I’m getting indicates that the most “human” species would have been the one so far back that chimps and humans have just split off. One species seems to be ones like Orrorin tugenensis. I’m not seeing a lot of evidence to show that these were similar to us as far as being self aware or having the ability to build boats. But maybe I’m wrong. This weekend I will go back through and read the entire post and jot down notes.

Is there a particular human/ish species that you’re as the main candidate? I also am under the impression that another struggle would be that science seems to indicate we came from a population of several thousand and not merely 2. Could still be argued God selected just two. Since I still hold to it as an ahistorical, I simply believe a god selected two out of many and so it does not cause issues.

Ok, I am sorry to have bothered you.

Is there evidence of self awareness back then? no. But I am not sure what would qualify for that. Neanderthals and H. sapiens behaved the same for about 100,000 years. Was one self aware and the other not? I don’t think so.I think both were self aware but there is no proof of it. Self awareness doesn’t fossilize, only stone tools do.

But there is evidence that small brains can be normally intelligent–Daniel Lyon had the brain size 650 cc, and led a normal life. That is the brainsize of a H. habilis who lived 2.4 myr ago.

Science can only say we didn’t have a primal pair for the a Neolithic Adam, or for those they define as H. sapiens. What they can’t rule out is a primal pair as far back as I put Adam and Eve. Indeed, this is why I started looking at that timeframe–The oldest genes in the human species are 5.5 million years old! That is just about the time of he flood. The average age of a gene in the human population is 1 myr ago. This means, that we could have had a primal pair 5.3 myr ago. Science can’t at present rule it out.

Yes, what species existed back then is an issue and I have thought about it for 30 years. my answer today is no different than my answer back then. But it takes some explanation-which some people are not willing to go through.

First. only 3% of living species are found as fossils. This means that MOST animals that have lived on earth never left a trace of themselves. Most people view the fossil record as showing us all of what was on earth in the past. It only shows 3% of what was on earth in the past. Here are two paleontologists talking about this.

" Logic dictates, too, that the oldest known fossils cannot possibly be the oldest representatives of their kind. Fossilization is a rare event, after all; and when animals first appear, they are rare. The earliest fossil bones are therefore likely to date from a time when their erstwhile owners were already common. Logic similarly dictates that if an animal is particularly unlikely to form fossils–as primates seem to be–then paleontologists are particularly unlikely to find the very earliest types. In fact, this logic can be translated into a mathematical formula (see Robert D. Martin, ““Primate Origins: Plugging the Gaps,”” Nature, May 20, 1993, pp 223-234). The fewer fossils there are (relative to the calculated number of extinct species), the older the group is liable to be, relative to the number of fossils found. " Colin Tudge, The Time Before History, (New York: Scribner, 1996), p. 172

" The number of living species that have been described is about 1.5 million…If we focus on the paleontologically important groups, present-day diversity is about 180,000 species. …Suppose we assume that the present-day level of diversity was attained immediately at the beginning of the Cambrian Period and has been maintained since then. Then 25 percent of 180,000 species, or 45,000 species became extinct and were replaced by new species every million years. In rough terms, the Phanerozoic is 550 million years log. this leads to an estimate that there have been 180,000+(45,000 X 550) or about 25 million species. Comparing this with the 300,000 described fossil species implies that between 1 percent and 2 percent of species are known as fossils." Michael Foote et al, Principles of Paleontology, (New York, W. H. Freeman and Co., 2007), p 23

If the above is true, and it is, it has one important implication that for some reason I have been unable to get people to understand. When early man lived on earth and was few in number, he could have lived for millions of years and left not one single fossil of himself. Indeed, one can compare the earliest fossil of a group with the 2nd earliest fossil of the group, and you will find HUGE gaps of time where that group lived on earth but left no fossils.

Elephants demonstrably lived on earth for 8 million years without leaving a fossil. The earliest elephant fossil comes from 60 myr ago. The second earliest fossil of an elephant is from 52 myr ago. That is a gap of 8 myr and no fossil record of them! The fossil record is very spotty. Below are some other groups.

Angiosperms (flowering plants) lived 10 my years between the first and 2nd fossil without leaving a fossil

Tyranosaurs lived 20 my years between 1st and 2nd fossil examples --no trace of them in that time

marine turtles 10 myr

Loris 20 myr.

This is enough- I have a big list of these.

So now, let’s turn to mankind. A tiny population living in forests would have little chance of being preserved. Also from the Tudge quote above, the earliest fossil of H. habilis, dated to 2.4 myr. is not the moment he was created–it is just the time of the first lucky fossil of that group! That group lived long before 2.4 myr ago. A fossil LD-350 lived 2.8 myr ago and depending on how it is classified he might be in the habilis clade. One thing to know about classifications, Ernst Mayr in 1950 was asked to study all the fossil available at that date and he claimed all should be in the genus Homo–including australopithecus. He said the differences between the creatures were less than what other taxonomic groups called the same genus. The differences were tiny in his eyes. The anthro community rebelled. lol. They wanted to emphasize differences.

I chose H. habilis because that is the earliest group that anatomy shows had pain in childbirth–a consequence of God’s curse. Documentation available by looking here.

So how long did H. habilis live on earth prior to that fossil? We don’t have anything other than statistics to say how long, But statistics don’t give us a certain date. If my cancer stats had applied to me, I would have died around 2005. I have outlived now 3 statistical prognostications of my death-- I am the outlier. So for habilis, we don’t know if he is an outlier or not. Same with H. erectus who first leaves a fossil 2 myr ago. Either of these could have lived undetected for millions of years. Either of them could have been created in Eden and been Adam and Eve. I would, of course, prefer it to be H. erectus, but I have no data. Because of the nature of the fossil record (3% rule) we are unlikely to ever get that information, which saddens me a lot, but that is reality and one must face reality.

So, the best I can offer is that one of these species was the descendant of whatever Adam and Eve looked like. But I do believe that they were small brained. Both curses relate to problems arising from a bigger brain.

When I am gone, I think I have answers to most questions one can ask on this theory to be found on my blog but it will require some digging.

Cove, as I said, when you are willing to discuss what I actually said and what I actually believe, come back. Attributing Henry Morris’ beliefs to me is silly.

Let’s enumerate my objections.

  1. 7000 years ago is the time frame that the Bible gives for Adam and Eve.
  2. Two passages in Genesis suggest that Adam and Eve are not the sole genetic progenitors of the human species.
  3. If you believe that being human is more than just a biological species then there is no problem with Adam and Eve being the beginning of humanity even if they are not the sole genetic progenitors of the human species.
  4. Pushing Adam and Eve back 5.3 million years also pushes back the significance to humanity of their relationship to God and what they did. It is basically claiming that these had nearly no measurable impact on us at all for 5 million years, and thus if we would look for any explanation of things we must look to completely different causes. That is 5.2 million years before before we even began wearing clothes or had any language (all the evidence for these things points to these starting around 70,000 to 150,000 years ago at most).
  5. So this does not even agree with the Bible on other details like the beginning of things like agriculture, which the evidence places 12,000 to at most 23,000 years ago (depending on how you define it), as well as clothes and speech.
  6. It is one thing to claim that humanity is more than a biological species and that Adam and Eve added something more than genetics, and it is quite another to make Adam and Eve an entirely different species so that they were not even human biologically. Its not like I think the biological differences are the most important things but it is just as unreasonable to relegate them to no significance whatsoever like your scenario does. The ability to speak is an important difference!!!

In summation, there is nothing which would ever convince me that your idea for Noah’s flood could ever fit with the Bible. At most this would be a suggestion that the Bible be discarded completely and that the Noah story is the oldest of myths. The only problem with this is that coming from before there was even any evidence of language, there would no way that such a myth could even have been passed down to us.

If all you want from us is to say it is so cool that there was this flood 5 million years, then you’ve got it! That is SO COOL! Our primate ancestors could have been living in a lush valley like a garden of Eden which is now the bottom of the Mediterranean sea. I can even envision making a movie of such an event, …though it would be a bit like that penguin movie since none of the characters were actually capable of speech.

[quote=“mitchellmckain, post:57, topic:42578”]
Let’s enumerate my objections.

  1. 7000 years ago is the time frame that the Bible gives for Adam and Eve.

OK, I will take these objections on. But just know I spend hours on these posts because I want them documented… First, the Bible does NOT date Adam and Eve. I was just preparing another blog entry and your first question falls right into it.

Genesis 2:5 says, ".… and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground

Based on one phrase alone, ‘plants of the field,’ Eden is clearly placed PRIOR to the Neolithic time which is when so many place him. The Scripture itself says this is wrong. It is also on a land on which it had not rained. This rules out all the usual locations suggested for Eden. It had clearly rained on Turkey, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. . Thus Scripture itself says Neolithic Adam is wrong. The Neolithic was full of farming. Indeed the earliest wheat farming took place around 9600 BCE. The events of Eden were before this time. At a time when there were no ‘plants of the field’.

  1. Two passages in Genesis suggest that Adam and Eve are not the sole genetic progenitors of the human species.

lol, Am I supposed to read the entire Bible in about 30 m searching for these mystery verses?

Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Assuming this doesn’t mean she gave birth to cats, Scripture says she is the mother of all living humans. Given that only Adam was alive with her, then there was no paramour for Eve, meaning Adam was the father of all living.

  1. If you believe that being human is more than just a biological species then there is no problem with Adam and Eve being the beginning of humanity even if they are not the sole genetic progenitors of the human species.

I am not sure how this is an objection rather than a statement of your views. By ‘more than a biological species’ I guess you mean they bore the image of God. Yes, I think thy bore the image of God.

  1. Pushing Adam and Eve back 5.3 million years also pushes back the significance to humanity of their relationship to God and what they did. It is basically claiming that these had nearly no measurable impact on us at all for 5 million years, and thus if we would look for any explanation of things we much look to completely different causes. That is 5.2 million years before before we even began wearing clothes or had any language (all the evidence for these things points to these starting around 70,000 to 150,000 years ago at most).

Clothing is one of those things that does not easily fossilize. Because of this all we can say is that it is millions of years before the evidence of clothing. One can’t categorically state that there was no clothing. And there is indirect evidence for clothing of some type as early as a maybe 2

“Between about 900,000 and 700,000 years ago, the first humans to settle in these northern lands had migrated north from Africa, together with the many species of animals they hunted. The first Europeans and Asians were small Homo erectus bands, originally tropical and subtropical hunters, who were adapted to live within a range of temperatures around 80 degrees F (27 deg. C). This particular temperature is the critical level at which humans neither cool nor warm their bodies, neither sweat nor shiver. We can withstand surprisingly large variations about this temperature, by maintaining an artificial microclimate around ourselves as near to this temperature as possible. For Homo erectus to be able to adapt to the more temperate climate of Europe and Asia, it was necessary not only to tame fire but to have both effective shelter and clothing to protect against heat loss. Homo erectus probably survived the winters by maintaining permanent fires, and by storing dried meat and other foods for use in the lean months.” ~ Brian M. Fagan, The Journey From Eden, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), p. 76

H.erectus lived at Dmanisi, Georgia–the Georgia in Asia, around 1.8 myr ago. It was a famous find. He might have needed clothing during the winters. And there is Lantian, China from 1.6 myr ago, a fossil skull and subsequent researches have found stone tools at Lantien dated to 2.1 myr ago–in China. I can say for a fact that one can’t live naked through a winter in central China. I lived in Beijing. In winter I usually war a sheepskin coat (yes an animal skin thrown over my body) to keep me warm and it wouldn’t do it on occasion. There is a story to tell about this picture below of my son and Daughter in law. It was January and they came to visit me in Beijing–wanted to see the sites. I told my dau. in law that I would buy her a fur lined hat with ear flaps. She flatly told me she wouldn’t wear one. I bought it anyway. Throughout the morning she went with head exposed in Beijing but was clearly uncomfortable. She soon put on a scarf, and that didn’t solve the problem. But when we went to the Great wall a few miles outside of Beijing, I carried that hat with me, and she finally wanted to wear it. I was in my fur coat and fur lined russian style hat and was cold. I loand my son a mink hat I had and he is wearing it–and we were still very cold.


Below is my outfit and I was freezing.

"Finally, modern humans don’t always wear clothing. The Ona
To get back to my subject: Ona clothing Children of bith sexes wore robes like their parents’. Fir small children, the soft skins of the very young guanaco were used. These however, got sodden with rain too rapidly to be of much use in bad weather. When the temperature permitted, the boys ran about stark naked, but the girls, though discarding their robes, always retained their tiny aprons. I have heard an Ona sternly reprove his wife for allowing their little daughter, a child of six or seven, to play without her apron. It was the wearing that was important; if in the child’s gambols her apron worked its way half round her body, it would have been of no account and would have brought no comment from the father." ~ E. Lucas Bridges, The Uttermost Part of the Earth, (New York: Dutton, 1949), p. 373

And my grandkids ancestors the Guachichile, part of the Chichimecas: “This,however, was not the case with the indigenous natives of the north who led barbarous primitive existences. for the most part, they went about naked and lived off he land by eating seeds and plants.” David T. Raphael, The Conquistadores and Crypto-Jews of Monterrey," Chapter 4 kindle edition location 622…

  1. So this does even agree with the Bible on other details like the beginning of things like agriculture, which the evidence places 12,000 to at most 23,000 years ago (depending on how you define it), as well as clothes and speech.

Already addressed farming–the Bible doesn’t say that Eden was in Neolithic times contrary to extremely widely belief. Speech. Jay and I disagree on this issue. There is one thing you need to know about speech. it comes from the neocortex, not from the emotional centers. All animal vocalization comes from their emotional centers. This is a significant difference and speech is tied to both Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas of the brain–no that isn’t all there is to speech, but, Humans have a part of the brain that leaves an impression on the inside of the skull from Broca’s area.

The one area of the cortex that best distinguishes an ape brain from a human brain is the frontal lobes. A triangular fold of gray matter known as Broca’s area appears in left frontal lobes of humans and is associated with speech. This area does not appear in ape brains. Not only is the lower frontal lobe the best area for distinguishing an ape brain from a human brain, but it is also the area which is most likely to leave a good impression on the inside of the skull and therefore appear on an endocast --a happy accident.” ~ Dean Falk, Braindance,(New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1992), p. 48-49

So, when was the first fossil with that impression?
The oldest evidence for Broca’s area to date is from KNM-ER 1470, a H. habilis specimen from Kenya, dated at approximately two million years ago. From that date forward, brain size ‘took off,’ i.e., increased autocatalytically so that it nearly doubled in the genus Homo, reaching its maximum in Neanderthals. If hominids weren’t using and refining language I would like to know what they were doing with their autocatalytically increasing brains (getting ready to draw pictures somehow doesn’t seem like enough).” ~ Dean Falk, Comments, Current Anthropology, 30:2, April, 1989, p. 141-142.

Two million years ago Broca’s area is found inside a habilis skull and habilis are as I have stated in earlier posts the earliest hominids who showed signs of them having pain in childbirth–in other words, they were descendants of Eve.

  1. It is one thing to claim that humanity is more than a biological species and that Adam and Eve added something more than genetics, and it is quite another to make Adam and Eve an entirely different species so that they were not even human biologically. Its not like I think the biological differences are the most important things but it is just as unreasonable to relegate them to no significance whatsoever like your scenario does. The ability to speak is an important difference!!!

Again, I just covered speech. Everyone really misses what a paleontological species is. It says nothing about the ability of two creatures to produce offspring. In the 1990s everyone knew that Neanderthal and Human could produce no viable offspring. that was the group-think of the day. I won’t quote people saying that but now we know they did leave offspring and we are descended from them. We are also descended from H. erectus. The latest erectus lived to around 110 kyr ago, living into the time of H. sapiens. We do share genes with erectus because the average age of our genes is about 1 million years,and the only real candidate for the source of those million year old genes is erectus.

In fact, while neutrally evolving autosomal loci have TMRCAs ranging from 0.8 to 1.5 million years (MY) [24], gene regions under balancing selection may show coalescence times dating back more than 4 MY.” Rachele Cagliani et al, “Balancing selection is common in the extended MHC region but most alleles with opposite risk profile for autoimmune diseases are neutrally evolving,” BMC Evolutionary Biology201111:171, p. 8

If all you want from us is to say it is so cool that there was this flood 5 million years, then you’ve got it! That is SO COOL! Our primate ancestors could have been living in a lush valley like a garden of Eden which is now the bottom of the Mediterranean sea. I can even envision making a movie of such an event, …though it would be a bit like that penguin movie since none of the characters were actually capable of speech.

Well, I have answered your questions on every point–as I said earlier, over the last 30 years I think I have heard every possible question and everyone that comes up with a list thinks they are the first. They aren’t. I have thought about every objection that was presented to me. And I worked on a solution. Maybe you should take some time to absorb what I have just shown you.

Mitch, it is very easy to throw rocks. The hard thing is to come up with a novel theory to explain things. I expect the rocks will keep coming without actually thiniking about things like, Why did that habilis have a Broca’s area? or how did naked erectines live in cold weather regions? or Why does Eden start with a statement specifically ruling out the Neolithic age, yet group think of this day ignores that sentence. I have spent 2+ hours answering your questions. I hope you will take at least as long thinking about my answers. that would be the courteous thing to do. This is why I leave this place every now and then. there is no way to do the research I want to do when answering the same questions for the 20th time on the internet.

  • I wrote that comment before paying attention to the fact that the other guy is named Mitchell. Which is also my name but I have always went by Mi for the most part. So I read that part of your comment as directed at me.

I understand.

I do consider what your saying. I just also have to consider science and other questions that I’ve pondered that can overlap.

As I stated way before I even knew of BioLogos or knew of you or thoughts I was already wondering these kinds of things in various ways.

Such as if Adam and Eve are real people, and they fit into those time periods then how do I make their genealogy match up. I’ve researched compressed genealogies before and was not convinced of it.

So I considered of scripture seems to place Adam and Eve 6-10k years ago, even with a old earth view, and even considering their being other humans such as the ones Cain pulled his wife from that would mean a major flood in the last 10k years and there is no evidence for it.

When reading of the Mediterranean basin being filled I really liked the idea. I did wonder about it. I read the comments a few times and my first thoughts was if they are literal and the story is literal then how can I stretch that genealogy out to five million years. Why is there only a fraction of the genealogy mentioned.

I even went back and reread genesis a few times and pondered over s belief someone told me before that they believe genesis 1 and 2 were two separate creation accounts. That there was a creation account in genesis 1 and then sometime later there was a second special creation account in genesis 2.

I do ponder it. I’ve pondered things for a long time. These forums and BioLogos was not anywhere near the beginning of me pondering questions about Adam, Eve, the flood and things like which manuscript is the most accurate and did Jesus use the Septuagint vs another and so on or why does Jude mention the prophecies of Enoch but the Torah shows no mention of it and why does Joshua mention the book of Jasher and we don’t have it and could some of the missing details be found in books falsely left out by men who decided what books should be in the Bible and should I accept the books in the Bible at face value or should I consider that maybe some of them are not suppose to be in there and some of the others were and if the earliest manuscripts left out these verses but another manuscript contains them and so on.

I have thought about ideas very similar to yours throughout my life. I’ve read books about genesis verse one and potential Hebrew translations of it and concepts like the 6 days represent undefined ages and so on.

Way before BioLogos i was already interested in God and the bible and how to make it fit. I wondered things like maybe a global flood happened and that’s why multiple cultures has stories of it and then wondered can we truly trace back native Americans stories of a great flood and ark to a time before pilgrims came here and so on.

So I am considering what you’re writing. A lot of it is similar to things I’ve already considered and worked on deconstructing it and looking up counter arguments. All of that over my lifetime has all lead me to the belief I have about genesis 1-11 being mythological.

So when I see your statements that you believe it can be taken way more literally and that you believe parts of scripture shows that it happened prior to this or that time, and you believe a particular flood we know happened could be the biblical flood I have to measure it up against things such as could humans. 5 million years ago build a boat and were they partying and marrying. I have to consider of Noah was around 5 million years ago, and the people at that time could build a boat of some sort and communicate and they were saved and it all matched up with that flood account and the Mediterranean basin infilling then what about the genealogy and if the genealogy is compressed and ect…

Definitely feel free to take time as needed to pursue more knowledge. I’m going to keep investigating the claims made and working it out on my own. For my whole life regardless of what happens or how long or short it is I will always be a Christian and I’ll always pursue these kind of things.

You mentioned at one time the lack of supporting evidence for genesis 1-11 was a hurdle in your faith and since new discoveries it’s been awakened again. I’m glad. For me years ago I already accepted that same lack of evidence and my faith was strengthened in a different way. It was lifted up by drawing the conclusions that the Bible is fiction and nonfiction woven together into a beautiful story and the fact parts of it is not real was not a burden to me. It was a blessing. Knowing that the Bible itself has a messy tale of how it came to be was not a burden but a blessing. It made me realize I don’t have to understand every singe Hebrew root word and nuance to make sure I understand the Bible perfectly because what if I misinterpreted something and because of that my theology was wrong and because of that I was deceived and Tsingtao false things and went to hell. I went through a phase believing that if I could not understand something in the Bible it meant I must shut off from the Holy Spirit and working my way to hell. But as soon as I realized that the Bible we have now is not even the same as it’s always been and we don’t even know what all books should have actually been in it and realized it was just some council of mankind deciding what books they liked based off of what they felt made it qualify I realized there is no way God expects us to understand it all. That even Jesus as a kid asked questions of the Pharisees.

I believe God meant for the word to be fiction and nonfiction combined. Not because he could not do it another way, but because he knew it was a story that would best communicate his love to humanity.

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