Dispensations and the Genealogical Adam

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I am thinking of this in the words Paul used in Acts 17. Let me quote:
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[[c]

As per Paul, Gods purpose for the nations is that they would somehow (however imperfect or ineffective) reach out to him. Whether they actually do so is not so important. What is important is they are called to do so… Just as John Lennon is… This expectation is placed by God only on Adam and his descendants.
Its not important to me whether John Lennon chose not to seek God or not.Its important whether he could be expected to, by God… That’s what makes him “human” in this context. A call to seek God and an ability to choose not to.
What bothers me about the 7K scenario is that,
1.we have people who are human in every way except for the fact that they have no soul. i.e the only difference between a descendant of Noah and someone from say America 5k years ago would be that the person from America wouldn’t have an immortal Soul. No big deal?

Whereas a 50K baseline, would come in a time where human beings had yet to develop unique charecteristics of what makes someone human, like speech, higher cognition etc. So there would be many differences between Adam and his contemprories 50k years ago. (If we are willing to believe in special creation of Adam, we might also believe in some means to create the Genetic diversity required for this in the first couple, or perhaps Adam and Eve interbreeding with advanced hominids with the offspring retaining Adams advantages).
2. there is no reason to think people 5000 years ago did not have “eternity” in their hearts.

So basically the problem IMO is with having such a distinction among modern humans.
Having a Soul or bearing the image of God is different from a vocation such as being called as an Apostle.

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I will definitely try to do that… in fact, i think i did… an earlier Adam works better! :slight_smile:

But i guess i will be i a position to share more once i get a better grip on this concept.

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This is not really a question about justice or injustice. Its a question about Gods nature.
Would God allow people who have a “sincere belief” in him to die?
This reminds me of the story of Abel and Cain… what was the difference between them?
The bible is clear in teaching that the difference is not Genealogy, but rather faith (Hebrews 11:4)…
What would Gods response be to “sincere belief”?

This is is why all this is a conundrum to me… If the new testament teaches us anything… its that God’s election does not work by Genealogy!

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@Ashwin_s keep in mind nations dont exist until maybe 6000 years ago. Also we think the people before Adam had a soul.

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The word is “ethnos” in greek… its can mean tribes, people groups etc… for example, India is one nation… but it has many “ethnos” in it… Paul also uses it to mean all “gentile” christians.

The basic point is that all the “nations” are descendants of Adam.

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That’s good… However, its important to note that most churches associate Gods breathing into Adam with the origins of the human soul.
So working out what the distinctness of Adam with respect to the rest of humanity is important. i remember your asking for time before you go into details on this. I am perfectly willing to wait.
@jongarvey : What is your position on the origins of the human soul? I am sure you have written on this somewhere, if you can point me to it, i would be greatful. i always enjoy your articles.

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One way to test condundrums is to apply them differently. All the nations are also descendants of Homo erectus, and before that of some kind of ape, and before that some primitive primate. So the same “exclusion” problem applies however far you go back…

…unless you posit some special event by which the genetic contiuum down through the species is interrupted by a saltation, such as the infusion of a specifically immortal soul, or a special creation event - oh yes, a bit like what Joshua puts into his basic model of GA.

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All these are, at least arguable: it is pretty certain that Neanderthals had speech and creativity, and possibly H erectus too. It’s just easier to accommodate seein gthem as different because we know less and it seems a long time ago. But the more we know, the more like us they seem.

But as has been argued here, and much in the theology literature (see my review on Brian Brock’s book chpater hger, for example) you’re placing “humanity” in specific capacities like cognition - and the Bible never does that. It places humanity in “creation after the image,” and it places eternal life and communion with God (together with sin) in the vocation of Adam.

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I’m sure I have written extensively on this - but it’s a different matter to find where! Here are three posts that might cast some light on it indirectly:
http://potiphar.jongarvey.co.uk/2017/08/14/what-it-means-to-be-created-human/
http://potiphar.jongarvey.co.uk/2015/12/11/humanity-evolution-and-concurrence/
http://potiphar.jongarvey.co.uk/2015/08/19/creation-and-election/

Biblically, the “soul” is simply the life of a creature, and both animals and humans have them - or more correctly, are them. The key differentiator is the kind of soul you have… which has no connotations of immortiality or spirituality in the Bible, but just whatver it is that makes you what you are.

No souls are mentioned in Gen 1 - but that’s simply a question of the mode of description. Adam in ch2 specifically “becomes a living soul” - which really means, at heart, no more than that he becomes a living Adam. You have to look at what he does to find out what kind of “soul” he is… and in some way, I suggest, he is a different kind of being from those not called into the life of the new creation in Eden.

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I agree that a saltation is called for.
However , if the saltation is only spiritual and doesn’t have a significant biological component, it is problematic because of the reasons I gave above.
Do you see the image of God as unique to Adam? Or shared with those outside?

Have you ever read Athanasius? Even in that early time, he equates the 'image of God" with logic which originated in God’s logos.
What exactly does “creation after the image” entail if no real difference can be seen between those who have the image and those who don’t? The bible doesn’t leave the image of God as a blank slate. It is associated with-

  1. The call and ability to rule creation.
  2. The wisdom of God.
  3. Jesus Christ and the glory of God as revealed in him.

So yes, humanity created in the image of God has to show some qualities such as wisdom, the ability to govern nature etc.
By the way, the Bible does not place “humanity” in the image of God. It places Adam (male and female) in the image of God. If humanity is not from Adam, then it’s not clear whether the image of God is in them. At best, the Bible is silent on the image of God being carried by those outside… it’s basically silent on the existence of these people too.

Lastly, since the Bible is silent on humans other than Adam, and Adam is a representative of all humanity… it’s not clear that Adam has a vocation among humans… Rather Adams vocation and purpose is the vocation and purpose of all humans .
I think it’s more honest to the text to ascribe Adams vocation also to humans outside the garden if Adams state of being in God’s image is shared with them.
Edit: lastly I would like to point to the relationship between the image of God and the revelation of God. As God is revealed to us, his image is strengthened j. Us and vice versa. And the image of God is the revelation of God in the case of Jesus.
A person carrying the image of God without the ability to have a relationship is a bit of a contradiction.

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Shared with those outside. Same species. Mentioned in Gen 1. But…

Indeed - I’m actually using him for daily readings this month. Probably my favourite of the Fathers. However, the Patristic assumption which he shared that “image” equates to “reason” is questionable on exegetical grounds. Good reading: Richard Middleton, “The Liberating Image.”

That said, since I accept reason as a character of non-Adamic Man, and non-Adamic man as created in the image, that’s no problem: man is the pinnacle of the first creation, created to rule the earth in, or even as, the image of God.

Where I do disagree (not with Athanasius, specifically) is with Aquinas’s argument that intellect being immaterial, the human soul is immaterial, and what is immaterial is immortal. Sounds good - but Adam’s immortality depended on access to a tree, not a soul.

Quite so - but one of the complex questions for GA (and for all modern anthropology) is terminology and definition of “man”. Josh uses “adams” for those outside the garden (based on Gen 1) but it can still be confusing.

But consider the issue for the writer of Genesis. The generic word for “human” in Hebrew is “adam”, which may well be derived from Adam, the first man of dust, for the Hebrew language is spoken only by people descended from Adam. And the whole Bible story is about Adam and his offspring, except (perhaps - I am seeking to demonstrate it from Scripture currently) for those created in ch 1, whose particular product, Adam, becomes the focus of the whole Bible’s narrative.

So what word is the author going to use for the race created in ch1, assuming he means non-Adams? And that he’s never met them and has no scientific vocabulary for them? One example I’ve used before is the word “Folk”, the word the tribe of Angles used for themselves (as in “Norfolk” and “Suffolk”), but which later became a generic term for man, because the Anglo-Saxon speaking world consisted only of “folk.”

What word is an Anglo-saxon going to use when he wants to say that the Angles (the Folk) originated from some other group of … folk?

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This is certainly an interesting question. However some clarification is easy. For example if the author had it in his mind that there were humans outside the garden, it would have shown somewhere. It’s curious there is no explicit references. Especially because Adam going out from God’s presence even after the fall should have been a big event…
There are quite a lot of implicit references tgough, mainly to Cain’s wife…people who might kill Cain, the city which Cain establishes (which incidentally refers to a guarded encampment)…
Actually Cain’s story is the best evidence in support of something like GA. Although it’s possible Adam had daughters since the genealogy does not mention daughters.

Anyway, throughout scripture the image of God has gone hand in hand with the revelation of God. Jesus, the full image of God, reveals God perfectly. Christians are transformed into the image of Christ as they behold him (by the grace of the holy spirit).
So a group of people who carry the image of God and cannot have a covent relationship with God is never mentioned in the bible… From Adam to Abraham, people did not have a relationship with God by choice. Even in Israel, a foreigner can become a full member through circumcision.

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There are a few other implicit pointers apart from Cain’s wife. But it’s supposition that Adam’s exile would be great public knowledge - still less great public knowledge that we still have access to.

However, we do have interesting pointers in the text to the family being significant, at least - Cain builds a city, which is a ruler’s job (and no population in the land of Nod mean no labourers and no city). And the Table of Nations (which I argue describes migration-infiltration - rather like the Anglo-saxons alrady mentioned) implies an influential culture, as do the pioneers of technology in Cain’s line.

As for explicit mentions, remember that the story of Adam was told to Israel to add meaning to their existence. It was not a world history - we’re looking more for the same hints of universalism we find with the call of Abraham, on Sinai, and so on.

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I am not convinced by this argument. Abraham’s call gives meaning to existence of Israelites. And they admit it by associating with him…Adams story has universal connotations. For example, Adam is called to fill the globe while Israel is confined to the promised land.

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Yes to that - but Abraham was also called to bless many nations. And Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests - and apriest mediates between God and others. And if those universalist hints weren’t present in the story of Israel itself, they’d be even more surprising in the context of Adam. As it is, both illuminate the other - both were exclusive callings made to bless the whole world - as was the New Covenant announced by the prophets to replace the abrogated Mosaic covenant.

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Actually, it can be argued that the new covenant and Adams story is relevant to the world in a far more universal sense than Abraham’s story or the old covenant. Though they did have hints of global relevance. The formal is explicit, while later is a shadow… which is why the first century Jews were so surprised when the gentiles were included in the new covenant!
Adam is a type of Jesus. So perhaps a GA story based in Jesus would be more compelling and make more sense…strangely enough there are Interesting parallels.
Except for the problem that Jesus had a message and mission for the world while Adam did not!
Besides , a fallen Adam could be replaced with another like Saul was replaced with David.

However a more biologically exceptional Adam would solve these issues…

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There are those of us who disagree! My main work at the moment is exploring the parallels between Adam, Israel and Jesus to show how there is just one story here. But I’m not alone in this: Scholars like Greg Beale, N T Wright, John Sailhamer, Seth Postell, John Walton and others are all seeing how to fit together the biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation in the light of the new creation in Christ, who is the second Adam, and the true Israel. And the root and branch of David.

So although Joshua’s main purpose has been to show how GA is scientifically rigorous and theologically orthodox, mine has been to show it both christological and biblical. Unlike me, though, he has a current book deal, and I’ve only just started writing mine.

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If I may step in, it seems to me that nobody other than Ashwin has attempted to hypothesize clearly what GA and his genealogical descendents have that other people lack, or why that whatever-it-is would pass solely through genealogical descent. Can someone at least present a set of clear hypotheses on that subject?

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The forensic evidence for it is in the complexity, unique organization of, and completely distinct as compared with other species, human neocortex. It is from here that a continuing sense of self, persisting through time, is processed and held. Human consciousness, itself, is only one manifestation of this property. An awareness of the calling to be kind, of the existence of an intricate yet indispensible morality is another, as is our predispositions towards investigating and, for some relating with, our Creator.
Adam’s distinctive was the “knowledge of good and evil,” not just a nagging sense of what’s good. Moral culpability arises from deliberately choosing to ignore God’s expressly good wishes.

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Forensic evidence for what?

If that’s the case, and that’s something God didn’t want to happen, what was the point in creating Adam and Eve? Also, why and how is moral culpability inherited?