Adam and adams, not Adamites

Romans 5:13
“To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.“

Now that’s a pretty interesting statement, right?

So even before God commanded Adam not to eat the fruit, there was sin in the world! I think this pretty much smacks down all this talk about perfection prior to Adam’s transgression.

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Oh on the framework I am definitely an ally, but there are many things I cannot help him with. I hope I can help with the difficult task of explaining how the text of scripture really should be re-interpreted to teaching his framework. That doesn’t matter to as many as it should- most denominations seem more concerned about how to square it with their church doctrines and position papers than the actual text of scripture itself. Yet however small the utility of this task may be, its where I can help.

When I say we share the same “framework” I mean that the man Adam was not the first human being, there were others outside the garden. Further, and he had not even gotten there yet when I came here but the model for the flood figures in this as well. The flood was regional or even “local” and it did not extinct all of the human race or animal life, just the sons of Adam. The target was the line destined to produce Messiah. It was a purification of God’s chosen people, not wiping out pagans. So there were human survivors of the flood besides Noah and his family. This is what I mean by a “framework”.

They shouldn’t be, because it is not what the scriptures teach, it does not point to Christ theologically, and Joshua’s work has falsified the Hugh Ross framework scientifically. Most of them are still happy with their model but they won’t be long. Really, Ross at some point has an obligation to adjust his model with the new evidence from ancient DNA.

Besides, I am me, an individual. I was not satisfied with the answers coming from that camp for some of the same reasons I shared in the video. It sounds like you are trying to say I should get back with my own group. I have no group. I am just me. Ultimately we all are.

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@anon46279830:

I will count you as an ally on the issue of refuting the Global Flood. We can use plenty of help on that topic.

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Is more of an ally than merely that. Though @anon46279830 is more in the “OEC” camp, he is also refrained from defining himself as opposed to evolution. He has not been caught up in making silly arguments against evolutionary science. If more OEC and YEC leaders were like him, we would be in a much more healthy place.

Even if evolution is wrong, it is not worth it to make bad arguments against it. Even if evolution is true, Jesus is greater.

I have a good relationship with Hugh Ross and AJ Roberts. It is on the books now, too, to be a visiting scholar for a week this year. It will be interesting to see how the conversations go. Maybe they will adjust. Both @Guy_Coe and @anon46279830 might be able to make headway there with them. You should keep engaging with them.

Okay; it seems clear that common descent is a bit of a limus test, here --and frankly, I have no objection to that because of the cogency and coherence of the evolutionary explanation for physical origins. It’s just rarer for me to hear those in the TE crowd still “allowing for” (sic.) non-material inputs by God, influencing the physical, in a manner consistent with the rubric of intelligent design. Hardly anyone ever gets into the nuts and bolts about the ways in which God might carry this action out. Here’s hoping our dialogue together continues in such creative and ground-breaking collaboration. Ultimately, what matters is the truth. It’s a pleasure to be part of this group, working to discover that together. Cheers!

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Glad to have you heard too.

Common descent is a litmus test for mainstream science, but not for participation here. @J.E.S is a YEC for goodness sakes.

For example, I wrote…

The key point is that this simultaneously (1) possible, (2) undetectable, and (3) important. Such things can happen, as they would have here if God did actually inspire mutations. We cannot know for sure though. Science is silent about God and Scripture is silent about DNA. All we can do is affirm that God providentially governs all things, including evolution.

I agree. Glad to have you here @Guy_Coe. You got a shout-out in my last blog post too.

I tend to agree, but I am still thinking about it.

It does conclude before Adam sins and falls. The end, or morning, of the sixth day is a literal morning where things on earth are just where he wants them and heaven and earth are at last lined up in one accord. Creation is finished and the plan to bring it into perfect fellowship with its creator has begun. That’s why it is the only one of the creation days which has “it was so” and “God saw that it was (very) good” right next to each other. Notice the other days are not like that.

Nor do any of the other days have a definite article. Only day six. There is a specific point in time where heaven and earth line up. And that was it. Things were very good, and about to get better. Then the fall happens.

Notice that day seven doesn’t have either an evening or a morning mentioned. That’s because it was speaking of the future (on earth, in heaven God had settled it). The evening of the seventh day is the fall of Adam and the morning of the seventh day is the resurrection. It all fits together so incredibly well that it takes less faith to believe it is divinely inspired than it does to disbelieve, but you have to dig into the text to get the treasure. And again as a side bonus the YEC are actually standing in the way of God’s message by trying to force all of these days to be 24 hours in length.
@Guy_Coe I want to tag you in this one too since it elaborates a bit on what we were discussing before.

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Cool. Then that settles it. “Man” went from being non-image-bearing (Gen. 1:26) to fully human and image-bearing (1:27), before (well before, actually) the story of Adam and Eve begins in 2:5 ff. Let’s be clear that that’s what the text requires. I keep scratching my head over why this scenario requires a bottleneck of a single couple EVER. That effort arises from the vestige of an archaic understanding. Adam is related to us all genealogically, and that’s enough. Cheers! (Written with no particular concern towards bridge-building to what, in this view, amounts to interpretive errors. I can be more diplomatic at other junctures.)

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That’s not quite what the text requires, nor what I am saying. I think I have said it before many times, written about it again in this thread, and posted videos describing it many times, but patience is a fruit of the spirit and so I will say it again. God had a plan to “make” (a process) man in His own image. To do that He started with a template in heaven, which is the pre-incarnate Christ. Christ and the Church in the heavens. The two as one flesh. This is “THE Man” in the first part of 1:27. The echo of that on earth is Adam, who bears the image so long as he is in unbroken fellowship with God. Then there are men and women generally.

The goal is, and always was, to take male and female, who have the capacity to bear the Image but not the fellowship necessary to do so, and “make” them into Christ and the Church. Adam was the earthly initiation of this process.

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@Guy_Coe

What?

The evolved “adams” were Image-Bearing. How do you create a transition from verse 26 to verse 27?

Gen 1:26
And God said, Let us make man [humanity] in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

[and so he did]

Gen 1:27
So God created man [humanity] in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Well, unless you’re the kind of person who insists on a strict materialism, or that God only acts through natural processes, the Hebrew verb ‘bara’ here indicates a creative act of God which goes well beyond what natural forces, acting alone, can produce.
The Genesis 1:27 version has been invested by God with something that renders them completely new (“de novo”) and though physically derivative of earlier hominids, ontologically discontinous with them. It’s “one small step for adams, and one giant leap for humankind, both male and female.”
Clear enough? : )

I’m not sure I’m seeing a difference here. If the “adams” are the result of evolution, obviously there are lots of hominids who are not made in the image of God.

Since Genesis 1:26-27 is discussing a new kind of life form, “humanity in the image of God”, this would be the point at which hominids became Homo sapiens. [[ I can understand why some would want to include Neanderthal, but it really isn’t necessary to make that part of the Bible work. There is always a “first”! And that “first” could be in Neanderthal’s population or in Homo sapien’s population.]]

The thing that separates the evolved population from the de novo Adam & Eve is that they do not yet have God’s revealed morality.

The “de novo” Humanity from Genesis 1:27 and ff. long PRECEDED Adam and Eve. I’m not particularly invested in the Neanderthal / Cro-Magnon / Denisovan / etc. versions being human or not, biblically, but the evidence from their material cultures does have a bearing on those questions. Obviously, the first humans could speak and understand language, as well as relate to God, in a new way, or Genesis 1:27 and ff. is meaningless or exaggerated, neither of which I’ll accept. Cheers!

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@Guy_Coe

I’m not sure you are currently discussing what I was discussing.

This is the sentence that you wrote above, and which doesn’t look consistent with the Biblical text.
Verse 26 says let’s make humanity in the image of God.
Verse 27 says God goes ahead and does so.

It’s pretty clear to me. Hominid(s) go from being non-human to being fully human in the space of these two sentences; it could have been immediate, or it could have been slower than that, yet still in a “paleoanthropological instant.” The Hebrew allows for either, but attributes the startling qualitative difference to God’s work, not simply to chance and necessity.

[quote=“gbrooks9, post:61, topic:119”]
The thing that separates the evolved population from the de novo Adam & Eve is that they do not yet have God’s revealed morality
[/quote] This is your quote, which shows the unwitting conflation of Adam and Eve with the first full humans from the previous chapter, who were around WELL BEFORE Adam and Eve… I.e., Adam and Eve were NOT the first humans ever.

@Guy_Coe

Okay, I see what you are saying. I think you take a risk trying to indicate two groups of hominids in a single sentence. There will be those, like me, who mistakenly think you are saying something else.

Pre-300,000 years ago (time frame varies with source) Non-Human Hominids… long evolution.

Crica 300,000 (time frame varies with source) Human Hominids… in the image of God … created by God-Guided Evolution.

6000 years ago - God makes de novo Adam and Eve.

I’m on your band-wagon now.

I believe in human common descent from Adam and Eve…Does that count? :wink:

@J.E.S in my view, that’s not really the issue.

Common Descent is a reference to speciation of rmore than one population … all sharing common ancestry… a common ancestral population.