How many think that Adam and Eve were real people? Why not allegorical characters? (Gospel, women)
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The creation account is not presented as poetry, nor was it considered allegory by people in the Bible.
Well, of course the people in the bible wouldn't consider it allegorical. They were as primitive and ignorant as the authors. Ancient peoples believed all manner of nonsense.
One day humans will become extinct and the descendants of humans will be called something else. They will look at photos of the human primate and wonder how could their ancestors be so primitive.
Actually, I think future humans will be genetically inferior to the humans alive today.
With modern medical care and modern technology, people like me with a birth defect are able to have very productive lives and pass our defects on to our offspring.
Years ago, people needed to be physically robust and have good immune systems to survive and procreate. That is not true today.
Personally, I am very glad I am alive today instead of living 500 years ago.
Since I was a child I was able to use reason and figured out the Adam and Eve story was allegorical.
However, it seems many actually believe in a real Adam and Eve. Some go through complicated hoops to explain different racial groups on the planet (white, black, asian, etc). This is difficult to explain within the context of just a few thousand years.
Sola Scriptura fundamentalists do not believe in evolution and yet they want people to believe Adam and Eve evolved into different racial groups over a very short time?
Dennis Venema, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Senior Fellow, BioLogos Foundation
Biology Department
Trinity Western University
7600 Glover Road
Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1
Researching The Human Genome
Venema says there is no way we can be traced back to a single couple. He says with the mapping of the human genome, it's clear that modern humans emerged from other primates as a large population
John Schneider
Calvin College
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Department: Theology
Another one is John Schneider, who taught theology at Calvin College in Michigan until recently. He says it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence.
"Evolution makes it pretty clear that in nature, and in the moral experience of human beings, there never was any such paradise to be lost," Schneider says. "So Christians, I think, have a challenge, have a job on their hands to reformulate some of their tradition about human beginnings."
Intellectual Rift
That's only true if you read the Bible literally, says Dennis Venema at Trinity Western University. But if you read the Bible as poetry and allegory as well as history, you can see God's hand in nature — and in evolution.
"There's nothing to be scared of here," Venema says. "There is nothing to be alarmed about. It's actually an opportunity to have an increasingly accurate understanding of the world — and from a Christian perspective, that's an increasingly accurate understanding of how God brought us into existence."
Just a quick reply. The problem is evolution is a broad term. Micro evolution isn't incompatible with the Bible. However, Macroevolution (the idea/fact/etc that all plants and animals, all life forms, originated from a prokaryotic cell) is not. Also, many people who believe in macroevolution will point to say horses and state the difference between a Clydesdale and a Belgian or Andalusian is "evolution." However, such differences would also fit what the Bible states about creation and "kinds." There is a lot of variation that can occur within a kind.
The other issue with some scholars is they may be agnostic or hope to bridge the gap between macroevolution and Christianity either with sincere intentions or to sound credible and intelligent. The problem is when a person such as Jesus who is central to Christianity (Christians believe he was a perfect man who perfectly reflected God) refers to Adam and Eve as real people it creates a problem in credibility. Some may argue Jesus didn't know everything but stating something as fact (that Adam and Eve were real) is far different than not disclosing something (i.e the date of Armageddon). Therefore, these scholars need to think more carefully about what they teach unless they are agnostic or have some agenda to begin with.
For me there is no problem with Jesus's credibility as opposed to the credibility of some scholars.
Actually, I think future humans will be genetically inferior to the humans alive today.
With modern medical care and modern technology, people like me with a birth defect are able to have very productive lives and pass our defects on to our offspring.
Years ago, people needed to be physically robust and have good immune systems to survive and procreate. That is not true today.
Personally, I am very glad I am alive today instead of living 500 years ago.
You make a good point. But, look at it from this other perspective. Robust people may not have enough brains treat their bodies poorly and get themselves killed before spreading their genes. Smart less robust people may take better care and avoid destructive behaviors such as drugs and crime.
Just a quick reply. The problem is evolution is a broad term. Micro evolution isn't incompatible with the Bible. However, Macroevolution (the idea/fact/etc that all plants and animals, all life forms, originated from a prokaryotic cell) is not. Also, many people who believe in macroevolution will point to say horses and state the difference between a Clydesdale and a Belgian or Andalusian is "evolution." However, such differences would also fit what the Bible states about creation and "kinds." There is a lot of variation that can occur within a kind.
The other issue with some scholars is they may be agnostic or hope to bridge the gap between macroevolution and Christianity either with sincere intentions or to sound credible and intelligent. The problem is when a person such as Jesus who is central to Christianity (Christians believe he was a perfect man who perfectly reflected God) refers to Adam and Eve as real people it creates a problem in credibility. Some may argue Jesus didn't know everything but stating something as fact (that Adam and Eve were real) is far different than not disclosing something (i.e the date of Armageddon). Therefore, these scholars need to think more carefully about what they teach unless they are agnostic or have some agenda to begin with.
For me there is no problem with Jesus's credibility as opposed to the credibility of some scholars.
You need to post the verse where Jesus states Adam and Eve are real people.
I could tell you Eve was real in a scientific or poetic sense if I am vague with my words. All of mankind comes from Eve. There, I have said it. What does it mean?
Quote:
In the field of human genetics, the name Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all currently living anatomically modern humans, who is estimated to have lived approximately 100,000–200,000 years ago. This is the most recent woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother’s side, and through the mothers of those mothers, and so on, back until all lines converge on one person.
Foregoing all other references to Adam or Eve in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments,
let's take a look at the Word from Christ Himself in Matthew 19:4.
Now, in most translations, you will read some variant of
"Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’.. which could be understood as not signifying a singular male and singular female.
However:
Young's Literal Translation reads:
4 And he answering said to them, `Did ye not read, that He who made [them], from the beginning a male and a female made them.
Again affirmed by "A Commentary on the New Testament" (1942)
which has the Imprimatur and is declared Nihil Obstat... it reads in reference to Matthew 19:4...
and I quote, "1. Male and female: it is important to note that in the original both of
these words are in the singular: God made only one man and only one woman; therefore
the institution of monogamous marriage is from God himself."
There is a genetic Adam and Eve. Eve lived in southern Africa before humans were as fully developed as they became, around the time of the 'big squeeze'. It was a mass species killer thought to have come from massive volcanic activity which before the land recovered winnowed humanity down to some believe less than a thousand individuals. The struggle to survive winnowed out the unsuccessful genes, and noted cultural changes followed. Art makes its first appearance. A diversified food supply and the first evidence of agriculture mark a huge leap. One individral woman they call Eve is the genetic multiple grandmother of humanity. Recently, dating from a later period in central Africa, a single male has been identified as the single male grandfather of all humanity.
So if you don't pidgenhole the source of your adam and eve, yes they were real. If you insist that a mythological creation story is true, then I will only give it credence as mythology akin to any other.
There is a genetic Adam and Eve. Eve lived in southern Africa before humans were as fully developed as they became, around the time of the 'big squeeze'. It was a mass species killer thought to have come from massive volcanic activity which before the land recovered winnowed humanity down to some believe less than a thousand individuals. The struggle to survive winnowed out the unsuccessful genes, and noted cultural changes followed. Art makes its first appearance. A diversified food supply and the first evidence of agriculture mark a huge leap. One individral woman they call Eve is the genetic multiple grandmother of humanity. Recently, dating from a later period in central Africa, a single male has been identified as the single male grandfather of all humanity.
So if you don't pidgenhole the source of your adam and eve, yes they were real. If you insist that a mythological creation story is true, then I will only give it credence as mythology akin to any other.
I don't think 'god' belongs to any religion, but all of them. The rest of mythology is human creativity.
There is a genetic Adam and Eve. Eve lived in southern Africa before humans were as fully developed as they became, around the time of the 'big squeeze'.
It is OK to believe in the magical stuff of the bible. But, why not simply say that evolution developed naturally under the guidance of God. In that manner you can have a more reasonable argument with those that say the Adam and Eve story is allegoric.
Christian scientist and biologists cannot back up Adam and Eve with scientific data. The observed racial divergence cannot be explained in a few thousand years which is less than the blink of an eye in terms of Earth history.
I don't need or care to have a 'more reasonable' argument with those that say the story is allegorical. It's not, and it's what I believe. I'm not trying to convince anyone, I'm stating my belief.
As far as racial divergence, I believe that Noah and his family were probably of the same skin color. But it IS possible that the wives of his sons were a bit different. Who knows? There are changes in our genetic structure from time to time. Nothing major, but things like skin color etc., change from generation to generation. If we consider what I believe as fact; that the atmosphere and climate of the earth changed drastically after the flood, I have no reason to doubt the possibility that as the human race then distributed itself around the world, that the genetics of skin color and other things may have developed differently, and quite quickly at that. The antediluvian human was no doubt a much genetically stronger group of people, and since Noah and his family totaled 8, and the longevity of the post deluvians decreased quickly, it is reasonable to think that the genetic structure of humans had weakened after the Flood, and humans would have been more susceptible to genetic failure with interbreeding in the years right after the Flood. Scientists, for the most part, don't consider these possibilities, so they can't take them into account. Science is not a lock. These things are disputed all the time. I'd much rather believe the words of Jesus, a REAL historical person, that was seen by over 500 people ascending to heaven with a unified testimony, than I would ever believe wholeheartedly a scientists 'facts'. Jesus talked of Noah and his time factually. Remember the old saying..."statistics never lie, but liars use statistics."
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