Adam was not the only man

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by alanMolstad

The bible tells us that the first "man" was called adam.
The bible also tells us that mankind was made outside the garden.

The Bible does not talk about other men left outside the garden when Adam was taken and placed inside it.

While there is room to say that there could have been millions of people left outside the garden at that moment, there is no story in the Text about it.
Thus it would be a guess...right or wrong we dont know, but still always a guess

Exactly. The problems arise when people start interpreting things according to the needs of their particular beliefs. And, as you can see anywhere in this forum, there's a lot of that going on!

[mark fr]

The need I have for my belief is for it to actually be true. I have become convinced that the Jewish man Jesus is the word of God.
In the natural world a son looks similar to his father. I believe we were made this way so as to help us to understand that the man Jesus is an exact representation of his father, so to me he is God.
I'm trying to clarify that in my faith, the man Jesus is the full and complete word of God. He is God's full expression. I certainly do not believe there is a book such as a "bible" that can be defined in the same way.

[Dusty Rhodes]

Originally Posted by ESFP

People sometimes try to discredit the Holy Bible by picking the story of Cain's wife as an example of a writing flaw. Where did she come from? 1 Corinthians 15:45 says "And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being..." However, in 1938Pierre Teihard de Chardan wrote (translated) The Phenomenon of Man suggesting that human life may have been created at several places simultaneously, which would explain different races, and where Cain's wife came from. Adam was the first, but God also "created" humans all over the world, and they procreated as they met each other later, which would avoid inbreeding. I find this very profound. Any thoughts?

sounds more like an afterthough as the folks writing the book tried to gloss over their more obvious mistakes.

[Mercury Cougar]

Originally Posted by elizabeth7

The bible is quite clear that Adam was the first man....in one of the Gospels Jesus' ancestry is traced back to "Adam, son of God". Cain's wife was simply his one of his many sisters...human beings were created perfect and although Adam passed on sickness and death through his disobedience to God, they were still very much able to procreate without any of the inherent problems that gradually came and which we find today. Jesus is also called "the last Adam" as it was his perfect life (that Adam and Eve once had) that was given as a ransome for al people. I recommend Answers in Genisis....a website that will throw clear light on many questions along this line and others...

Inconceivably ludicrous.

[Credo]

Originally Posted by MontanaGuy

There's no way in the world that I could come to believe that a full grown man was created out of dust and then lived to be over 900 years old and his wife was made out of part of his rib cage. Then add to that the extended family apparently creates the human race by incest between brothers and sisters. I know that many of my friends here believe that to be the case but I just can't accept such a story as being factual.

This is where it gets a little confusing for me. We were taught to believe the Bible - yet many people I know who I consider quite religious do not believe in Adam and Eve. I always did but question everything now. Are we to believe the Bible or can we pick and choose? HELP.

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by freedom

Carbon dating: used to date plants, animals, and humans...is only able to measure subjects 5700 yrs or younger +or -, so how can you say that humans were here hundreds of thousands of yrs. ago?

godspeed,

freedom

Well, it's really quite easy, freedom. Are you "up" on all the various ways of radiometric dating? C14 dating has it's limitations. No-one uses it to date beyond about 50k years. That's where the other 50 or so now-conclusively proven techniques take up the slack.

Your lack of hi-tech education is excusable, but then don't make erroneous statements based on ignorance of a topic (on that particular note: C14 is able to go waaaayyyyy beyond 5000 years. You dropped a zero.).

Read this:

" Those with the futile agenda of proving that the earth has aged only a few thousand years will often point out the uncertainty of how much of the forming isotope was present at the rock’s conception. This much is seemingly true.

However, when you consider that every measured radioactive rock just happens to contain the exact isotope arising as a result of the long-term decay of its parent compound, it’s only logical to conclude that the secondary byproduct wasn’t there at the rock’s formation.

While some external factors may interfere in a few isolated cases, there are foolproof methods of measuring isolated samples to correct any variance created by such influencing conditions. The only alternative left for young earth believers is to make the desperately absurd claim that God created the rocks thousands of years ago to make them look billions of years old in order to mislead anyone who went searching for truth outside of the Bible.

As ridiculous as this hypothesis may seem, I must admit that the scenario wouldn’t be too far removed from God’s motives based on what we’ll study in the upcoming chapters.

Using a procedure analogous to the radiometric dating of rocks, we can determine which radioactive elements are still present on and above the earth. If our planet is truly billions of years old, we should expect elements with short half-lives to be absent from the list of those still present in nature, while elements with long half-lives should be the ones to comprise that very list.

In other words, elements that transform at a relatively rapid rate should have disappeared, but elements with lengthier survivals should still be naturally observable. We cannot consider any element with a replenishing source for inclusion in the list because its continuous production will always yield a fresh supply of the element. Unsurprisingly, we find that all eighteen criterion-meeting radioactive elements with a half-life in excess of eighty million years are still found in nature, while all others have disappeared.

Thus, we can reasonably conclude that any radioactive material with a half-life less than eighty million years has been present for such a long period that we can’t find it naturally unless some chemical reaction is currently producing it. After twenty half-lives, these elements were in such low quantities that they were virtually undetectable when researchers first performed this experiment many years ago. If the earth’s elements had a starting point 1.6 billion years in the past, we would witness the exact scenario I just described.

This discovery opened the door for scientists to place increasingly accurate estimations on the age of the earth, currently believed to be 4.3 billion years. Incidentally, the odds that all these elements would line up in this manner by chance are greater than half a billion to one."

from:

An Introduction to Biblical Nonsense


Then, come back and refute it. BTW, there's literally scores of far more technical discussions I can provide you if/when you become interested in the real truth.

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by elizabeth7

I recommend Answers in Genesis....a website that will throw clear light on many questions along this line and others...

Only if you accept their proven lies and fabrications, their intentional deflective and straw arguments, and their relentless mis-quoting or reversals of actual scientific studies. "Clear" light? Not hardly.

But... if that's OK with you, then yep; go there. But be assured; if you come back with one of their spurious quotes, we'll demolish it for the obvious and patent lying they always represent.

(Q: why would someone purposefully use such a desperately inaccurate website to support their arguments? I really thought avowed Christians professed some sort of intellectual and personal honesty... guess not.)

[cncracer]

Originally Posted by ESFP

People sometimes try to discredit the Holy Bible by picking the story of Cain's wife as an example of a writing flaw. Where did she come from? 1 Corinthians 15:45 says "And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being..." However, in 1938Pierre Teihard de Chardan wrote (translated) The Phenomenon of Man suggesting that human life may have been created at several places simultaneously, which would explain different races, and where Cain's wife came from. Adam was the first, but God also "created" humans all over the world, and they procreated as they met each other later, which would avoid inbreeding. I find this very profound. Any thoughts?

I thought your religious rules did not allow changing of the Bible, and in fact was one of your major sins. Seems to me, if it is translated to correct a problem in 1938, than that would fit the description of changing the Bible, and thus by your rules be a sin.
I know the church has had no problems changing the bible in the past so it may be not make any difference at this point, but it sure needs to be pointed out by one of your Christian members and not an atheist like me.

[mark fr]

Originally Posted by rifleman

Only if you accept their proven lies and fabrications, their intentional deflective and straw arguments, and their relentless mis-quoting or reversals of actual scientific studies. "Clear" light? Not hardly.

But... if that's OK with you, then yep; go there. But be assured; if you come back with one of their spurious quotes, we'll demolish it for the obvious and patent lying they always represent.

(Q: why would someone purposefully use such a desperately inaccurate website to support their arguments? I really thought avowed Christians professed some sort of intellectual and personal honesty... guess not.)

According to something written somewhere in what is called the new testament a little leaven leavens the whole lump. I believe it was speaking of eating of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. There is a way the Jewish bible (commonly known as the old testament) story goes when the children of Isreal left slavery in Egypt they were to eat unleavened bread that morning they walked out. They were able to leave unscathed with the blood of the Lamb over their doorways, but they were to only eat the unleavened bread they made quickly that morning.
If they were to eat leavened bread I understand they would have had to make it they day before because you have to let it stand overnight. That would mean eating the same stuff from the slavery days. The slavery is to sin, so it should be no surprise that those who cannot walk free through the blood of Jesus cannot keep from lying.
The concept that a little leaven leavens the whole lump explains why those that continue to refer to the bible as the word of God instead of the man Jesus get into dishonesty in such a wholesale way. I hope this answers your question.
It takes one to know one, and I once practiced a similar fundimental bible pushing myself. Once I gained some understanding about Jesus, I eventually realized I could no longer do that and be honest.
Incidentally, the way I understand the real christian faith, we do not have a defined bible, only some general information towards recognizing the man Jesus. The concept decribed in Genesis of a man being defined as made in the image of God, as leaving his father and mother and clinging to his wife, to me is a legitimate one. We naturally owe our life to this practice. That is how I understand Adam and Eve. As I was trying to explain in an earlier post, I do believe they came about naturally, so the scientifific evidence for evolution makes enourmous sense.