Adam and Eve: Genealogical Ancestors of What Fraction of Humanity?

This is a question about Genealogical Adam and Eve that may well be answered in the book (I confess I haven’t read it yet). So please feel free to reply with “This has already been addressed in the book.” I plan to read it this Christmas break when I have a free few days.

The question is this:

Adam and Eve may be the genealogical ancestors for all of humanity today, but they couldn’t have been the ancestors of all of humanity when they were alive. How many generations on average would it take before Adam and Eve were genealogical ancestors of all humans?

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For GAE to be theologically relevant to Christians, GAE would need to be the ancestors of all human alive at the time of Jesus’ birth. The global population estimate 2000 years ago was 25 million spread over six continents and inhabited islands. So the question to ask is how many generations would it take for Adam and Eve to be genealogical ancestors of all humans 2000 years ago. I do think this pushes back GAE to before the dawn of agriculture in the area of Eden which would be problematic with the story told in Genesis.

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@Patrick

Computer simulations using conservative migration assumption have produced times of about 2000 years.

In other words, they become universal ancestors if Adam and Eve entered the mix around 2000 BCE… assuming no global flood.

For those Christians who insist on a Global Flood, Adam and Eve become universal ancestors immediately after the Flood, because of the Flood.

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What do you mean by “area of Eden”? Do you know where Eden is (or was)?

Wouldn’t this create a new problem? Noah’s family would be the genealogical and genetic ancestors of all humans, and it seems this scenario would run into serious problems with the genetic evidence.

Could you provide a reference for these simulations?

@Paul.B.Rimmer

I’m not sure I know what you mean by “run into serious problems with the genetic evidence.”
Within the context of a Global Flood scenario, the three wives of Noah’s sons could be from the Pre-Adamite population (introduced in Genesis 1) - - the same can be said for Noah’s wife.

Noah’s lineage comes directly from Adam & Eve introduced in Genesis 2.

I’ll see what I can find on those computer simulations!

This is answered in the book with an immense amount of detail in both evidential support and discussion of the caveats and limitations.

The short story is that it would like be a few thousand years. With 25 years per generation, we are talking about 100 to 150 generations.

Also it depends how we define humanity. If we mean Adam and Eve and their descendents , they are parents of all humanity from the outset.

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@Paul.B.Rimmer (cc: @swamidass )

Joshua has responded to your question.

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Are there simulations?

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There is reference to the rivers that are in the area of the Middle East. In fact the whole bible is set in a small area of the Middle East. For GAE to have any theological credibility, it has to align with both the Biblical Stories and the scientific and historical records of the region.

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The global flood and the reduction of humanity to 8 individuals is a key part of the Genesis story.

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@Patrick

Absolutely.

But the kind of Creationist who would be willing to consider an evolved population of Pre-Adamite humans may very well be the kind of Evangelical who doesn’t invest a lot of attention on the purported global flood.

My personal view is that Noah’s Flood is the most obvious of the borrowings from pagan culture by the Jewish priestly circles to provide the masses with a Judaized version of that story.

@sfmatheson

I tried to post a GAE thread that discussed the simulations… and it was taken down.
Maybe that discussion is not good enough?
I don’t know what the problem is, but I’m not going to fight city hall.

Somewhere SOMEBODY has a discussion of the computer simulations.

I asked if there are simulations. I didn’t ask about a post. You wrote that “Computer simulations using conservative migration assumption have produced times of about 2000 years.” Was that in the book?

Yes, but that reference is self-contradictory and can’t be identified with anything real. There is no common source of multiple rivers, let alone the Euphrates and the Nile.

The bible doesn’t align with the scientific and historical records.

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of course it doesn’t. So Genesis is a fictitious story. And even a miraculous GAE can’t fix it.

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Well, it fixes some of it. Apparently, the part it fixes is the only part @swamidass is concerned about.

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@sfmatheson

Yes, Joshua speaks to that in the book.

He writes, about studies of human ancestry 2000 years BC, “Computer simulations using conservative migration assumption have produced times of about 2000 years”? Are you sure?

So, here is the paper for clarity:

The key study it references:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02842

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