I would say this is a rough scenario that may allow an acceptance of a literal Adam and Even and a humanity wiping flood in light of what we know from modern science:
I distinguish between biological humans and full metaphysical humans. Souls are supernaturally created by God for each person. They are not material and have no natural source of origin. In the fullness of time, God elevates two existing biological humans with rational souls. They are appointed special grace. They sin and screw up loosing these preternatural gifts and are subject to death and such. They lose these gifts for us as well through privation (the fall/original sin) since we are their descendants. A parent who squanders their wealth leaves their child nothing behind. God creates souls at conception for their children and childrenâs children and so on. That means they will coexist with biological humans. How far and wide the full metaphysical humans would have spread I do not know. It is quite conceivable a large regional flood could have wiped out all these metaphysical humans save 8 who are now the genealogical ancestors of every fully ensouled human today.
Certainly not provable. It a work of harmonizing what are perceived as two truths and straddles the line between science and the Bible while admitting the genre of Genesis 1-11 is certainly not history. It also allows us to take the universal language of the flood more seriously from the limited perspective of an ancient author.
Even if they are genealogical ancestors as noted above?
Noise vs sin, yes it does. Some interpret sin as the noise and others as racket and maybe overpopulation. This looks different from Genesis to me:
[After the creation of humanity] 600 years passed,
And the country was as noisy as a bellowing bull.
The god grew restless at their racket,
Ellil had to listen to their noise.
He addressed the great gods,
The noise of mankind has become too much,
I am losing sleep over their racket..
An immaterial, rational soul that God supernaturally creates at conception for each human.
My point was about letting tension exist between scripture and science and not just lopsidedly caving. At the end of the day, and we can disagree on this, if we are convinced scripture intends to teach something specific, it takes a back seat to nothing in my mind. Interpreting the Bible is not a simple endeavor, however. That is where conservatives go wrong, They confuse their interpretation of scripture with scripture or exactly what God is saying, In the end it is only what they think God intends to teach in this passage. So our disagreement is with their interpretation not necessarily with God or the Bible. Our beliefs are also our interpretation and not necessarily the exhaustive opinion of God.
You have not understood the point of the GAE scenario:
Genetic inputs from a single mated pair decline by half each generation.
But Genealogical inputs from a single mated pair expand GEOMETRICALLY âŠ
competing with other mated pairs to become a handful of Universal Common
Ancestral pairs.
This expansion can expand to millions within just a 100 generations averaging
20 years!
So, contact with the âbearers-of-Gods-imageâ is not based on genetic components
but on spiritual markers somehow inculcated spiritually into each generationâŠ
PS: Depending on the denominational bias of the believer, the distribution could be as simple as âlearning about God and His/Her covenant with humanity ⊠or it could be from Godâs creation of each new soul âbearing Godâs imageâ.
First, I want to clarify that I do believe there is only one God above everything else. I assume that we agree in most matters related to God although we use different approaches and language. There are only(?) some points where we may disagree.
That said, I think that the assumption that it is not possible to have two identical players is, in theory, too limiting. Yes, it seems that there is only one but we should not exclude any theoretical possibility just because it does not fit to what we think. When I was in work, we sometimes dealt with models where the competing entities could either be identical or differ in some detail. We called the case of identical entities as intraspecific competition and the case of dissimilar players as interspecific competition.
This difference may be insignificant in the case of God, just theoretical nitpicking, but I try to be as open and honest as possible towards all possible options. That is why I may sometimes tell that some assumptions are too limiting.
I do not know if you really meant how I understood your words but that way to express the matter seems to be less than optimal. âI we assume/accept that xxxx, then its not possible for God to not be oneâ. God is not limited by our assumptions or acceptances.
It is ok to make an assumption and then think/analyze what is true if that assumption is true. We just need to keep it clear that we are talking about a special case in a hypothetical virtual reality, not what God can truly be. Maybe this is again just theoretical nitpicking but if we are talking of what is, in theory, possible or not possible, it matters.
I am currently reading the book âA worldview approach to science and scriptureâ by Carol Hill. She presents in the book a model of interpretation she calls âa worldview approachâ. The label sounds general but in practice, it seems to be an interpretation assuming that all biblical stories, unless shown otherwise, are based on historical events that are interpreted and told within the ancient worldview and way to tell stories. From this viewpoint, she uses both the information given in the biblical scriptures and data from external souces (other cultures, science, etc) to find the location and time for the historical events.
For example, she deduces the location and time of the garden of Eden, and the location and time of the Noahâs Flood.
That is an interpretation that takes the biblical stories very seriously and literarily but despite it, necessarily throws out many of the beliefs held by various churches. For example, if the Garden of Eden was situated in the region of the ancient town Eridu somewhere around 5500 BC, that necessarily throws out the belief that A&E were the biological ancestors of all humans.
Based on the excavations in Mesopotamia, Hill concludes that there were two periods with exceptionally thick flood deposits. The first one was around 4000 BC, the second around 2900 BC. Based on the archeological findings, she concludes that the 2900 BC (±200 years) would be the timing of Noahâs flood. Using what the Hebrew text actually tells, she claims that the story tells about a huge regional flood. That interpretation is based on what the biblical text actually tells when the expressions are interpreted through the ancient worldview and culture of the writer.
It is so unlikely for the diversity of humanity to derive from one gene set, especially in the relatively short time frame from their supposed existence. There woud appear to have been humans in china, and the east, Australasia, And the Americas whose ancestry goes back at least as far if not further than the time frame given for Adam and Eve.
Trying to put the Garden narrative into history is still fallacious, no matter how much people need then to exist theologically. (Scripturally).
UnlessâŠ.. Adam & Eve were created or adopted AFTER a pre-Adamite human population had evolved, and then joined any part of the population and started producing children. In 2,000 years, a privileged mated pair is able to become one of humanityâs Universal Common Ancestor Pairs!
This is not what âimageâ meant in the ancient Near East. I wrote a whole Bible study on the topic with my friend Catherine McNiel that one day BioLogos might get around to publishing. In the mean time, this old article by Pete Enns is very instructive as is this podcast by a Bible scholar Richard Middleton, who wrote a definitive work on the topic.
I was not referring to academic study or knowledge, even if it could be proven as accurate. I was referring to the general public, at large, who would not even consider the thoughts of the ancients. The ignorant view will always be that image involves shape and form. That is the modern usage derived from film and photography or art.
I am sorry, but i am highly skeptical or this idea that we can be certain what a person who died 2000 years ago thought or understood in the context of reading Scripture, and. as it is accepted that Genesis was taken literally, claiming their understanding is significant on this matter would seem to be cherry picking.
The numerology aspect is told also in the book, although in a condensed form. The book includes a lot of interesting facts and interpretations.
The very concise presentation in much of the book is a bit of a weakness for two reasons.
One is that the reader would like to know the reliability of what is told but cannot evaluate how reliable the claims are when the matter is mentioned just shortly.
The other reason is that, without some alternative interpretations, evaluation and details, the text appears to be an authoritative text: this is how the text needs to be interpreted, take and belive it. That was perhaps not the intention of the author but the concise and focused presentation makes the text look like that.
A more general impression about the books written about the topic in USA is that the majority have either a âtooâ academic approach, or are written in a simplified and almost commanding tone: âthis is how you must interpret/believe the textâ. This impression is based on a small sample of books, so it may be skewed but it is my current impression.
Books with an academic approach and style are seldom such books that would attract the attention of the common man, which means that the attempts for a balanced approach do not spread beyond the somewhat academic audience.
The other common category, books with a single interpretation model and authoritative style (âthis is how the text must be understoodâ), are often written so that they attract a wider audience but the one-eyed approach and authoritative style promotes the deepening of divisions between people. One interpretation may become the only allowed one because the books do not tell that there are other possible/acceptable ways to interpret the text.
Then you seem to be saying you are highly skeptical that comparative literature, comparative linguistics, historical anthropology, and archaeology are legit academic disiciplines that can inform discussions of theology because what matters most is an uninitiated personâs contextless gut response to a translation of an ancient document. You are certainly entitled to being dismissive of huge swaths of research, but good luck convincing the general nerd population on this forum that yours is a compelling position on the matter.
Why does everyone take offence when someone questions their conclusions?
If you were going to be true to the scientific method, the only valid proof would be from the horseâs mouth (proverbially)..
Also, there is a difference between the response of the common person, and the understanding of the academic or scholar. That apples as much to the past as it does to today.
@knor said we could be images of God even if our shape was completely different. I agree with this, because the ANE construct of image-bearing was about representing the authority and executing the plans, and carrying on the legacy of the rightful ruler, it wasnât about physically looking like someone or something.
You said that his correct assessment was âspin,â and we should consider what an average English-speaking person reading a translation of Genesis in English would take away from the text, and your conclusion was then âwe are made in the shape and form God wanted us to be rather than a reptile, insectoid, or other functioning blob.â I, along with experts in a number of fields disagree with this conclusion. I donât think being image-bearers has anything to do with bilateral symmetry, bipedalism, lack of fur or feathers, or any other physical attribute characteristic of typical humans. Clearly our cognitive capabilities and language give us some prerequisite abilities to do image-bearing things, but I donât think God has a big brain or speaks a human language.
I was simply disagreeing with what I understood to be your idea that academic disciplines are irrelevant because âcommon peopleâ arenât aware of their insights, so âmade in the image of Godâ has to do with âphysical form.â Thatâs just discussing, itâs not being offended.
Donât know how that could be an issue with my post since I said nothing about any âprime movers.â I certainly donât know what definition you are using for this term.
a person or establishment that is chiefly responsible for the creation or execution of a plan or project. (google search result)
Is that what you mean?
Wikipedia divides to 3 for engineering, 1 for anatomy, 6 for entertainment, and 11 for music.
Surely you cannot be talking about Aristotleâs âunmoved moverâ or uncaused cause since that would exclude anything contingent and I specifically addressed that already.
Not sure what that means and even less sure that this is relevant, since I only asked if it was not meaningful to say âGod cannot stand on His own?â
The statement is meaningful and thus the predicate is meaningful.
The AI response to your claim isâŠ
The phrase âGod is not a somethingâ reflects theological ideas, especially in Judaism, Christianity, and mysticism, that God transcends being a finite object, person, or thing within the universe, emphasizing God as the un-conceptualizable source of all being (Ein Sof), the âGround of Being,â or pure âisnessâ beyond human language, avoiding anthropomorphism and limitation to time, space, or physical form. This view counters treating God as just another item on a list, asserting God as the necessary, self-existent reality that grounds everything else, rather than a created entity.
I certainly think God is not a finite object, or limited to a singularity of personhood, and definitely not a thing within the universe. I also think God transcends any conceptualization but I think describing him as âun-conceptualizableâ or beyond language is absurd â not beyond the simple understanding that nothing in concept or langauge is the same as the thing they refer to. Nor do accept any of this âground of beingâ or pure âisnessâ rhetoric.