That’s because the YEC denies that there are any people before Adam. GAE removes that reason. All this talk about farming is unnecessary baggage, and any reason to suppose that Adam was the first farmer disappears once you accept GAE. Nor can I see it as an impediment to acceptance, independent of Adam being the first man.
You are being silly. You might as well argue that I could just as easily argue that Adam was the first Chiropractor or the first Gynecologist .
Your objection is not relevant to the topic or to the audience being addressed.
Logic is not your strong suit. There is no biblical statement that Adam was a chiropractor, but there is one that he’s a farmer. There is however no statement that he was the first farmer. The inference that he’s the first farmer depends on him also being the first man.
Now, how would the audience being addressed view all that? Please explain.
The audience intended would wonder why you are having so many issues on such a non-controversial aspect of Genesis.
Either that was a flippant insult or a serious response.
If it was a serious response, can you please explain what, from a YEC perspective, was wrong with what I said?
If it was a flippant insult, doesn’t that violate community standards?
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YECs automatically consider Adam the first farmer, using the word “farmer” in the most flexible and general sense of the word. It is a “given fact” in their world view.
Your attempt to micro-analyze the syntax and grammar of Genesis in order to nullify the converse - - that if there are humans before Adam, then he might not be the first farmer, wouldn’t make much sense to a YEC who seeks to embrace evolution - - because they are still quite adamantly occupying a theological stance defined by Romans 5, that sees the world in terms of original sin, and that Genesis 1 describes a population of evolved humans that has not acquired many of the traits that Adam/Eve brings to humanity.
While the lessons learned by Adam/Eve are usually framed as moral ones, there is virtually no motivation for denying any other traits or lessons that Adam & Eve may have benefited from during their “walk” with God in the controlled district of Eden. Even if we define Farmer to mean the most basic of agriculture, the former YECs would simply move the target so that Adam was the “first good farmer”, or the “first advanced farmer”.
For example, even if the Genesis 1 population of humans knew how to take grain seed and plant a field with it, there would be plenty of reasons to perceive Adam as bringing additional insights into the process - - based on what God taught him in Eden. For former-YECs who are now Christians-who-endorse-Evolutionary-Science, the exact dividing line between pre-Eden agriculture and post-Eden agriculture may be difficult to exactly define, there is no reason at all for these Christian Evolutionists to believe Adam learned nothing important from God.
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How do you know that, and why do they?
Why would farming have to be one of those traits? Are you entirely sure this is the sticking point for YECs?
Why would that something important, if they need it to be, have to have anything to do with agriculture? How many Christian Evolutionists do you know who consider Adam to be the first farmer (or whatever you like), and how do you know that?
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It’s a mystery … and a normal linguistic/psychological dilation of the few texts that describe what Adam did for God.
I am absolutely convinced that Romans 5 is a sticking point for YECs… but I suspect that if Romans 5 didn’t exist, they would find the next most similar chapter and make THAT the sticking point.
John, it is a general inclination of YECs. Adam has to be historical… and so it becomes easy to load all sorts of other aspects of Adam into their world view. Eden is a realm of perfection. Ignorance is not usually considered a perfect state - - despite the fact the phrase “perfect ignorance” is frequently bandied about.
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So you are unable to provide any sort of justification for your assertion?
What does Romans 5 have to do with farming? It has to do with the historical nature of Adam and of his sin. But there’s nothing whatsoever about farming.
Find me some evidence that YECs and/or Christian Evolutionists consider Adam as first farmer to be important and/or true. Anything. Note that here you are saying that YECs would be perfectly willing to believe that Adam was not the first man but would be unwilling to believe that he wasn’t the first farmer.
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You are wasting my time.
As you keep asking questions in your efforts to prepare a large artichoke,
you insist on decimating the very artichoke petals that are part of the reason
people enjoy them.
I cannot change your atheist bias; so I can avoid being covered in the
“tar” that you exude from your every question.
An intelligent bird who knows not the nature of artichokes
No, you’re wasting mine. And it isn’t clear what the artichoke metaphor means either.
This is paranoia.
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One interpretation of Genesis 3 is that it’s an allegory of the transition from a hunter-gather lifestyle to agriculture, or in “Christian” terms that becoming a farmer is part of Adam’s punishment. Part of Genesis 3: 19 reads “By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat” which could be read in support of that.
On the other hand, I don’t see why this should lead all YECs to insist that Adam must have been the first farmer - it’s not as if pursuit hunting or digging tubers are sweat free activities.
Not only that. Even if he is forced to become a farmer upon being expelled from the garden, nothing in the text says that the people outside the garden (assumed under GAE) were not already farming.
A line of reasoning that they might follow is that if Adam was punished by being forced to become a farmer, anyone else who was already a farmer must also be being punished, and there’s no reason for them to be punished, so they must not be farmers.
It’s not a compelling argument, but I can imagine a YEC making it. (On the other hand I don’t expect YEC opinion to be monolithic.)
Not bad. It’s the first actual argument I’ve seen. I agree that it isn’t compelling. Adam is merely being expelled from his cushy job in the garden into the real world. The other people (if you think they exist) are already there and must live as best they can.
Now THAT is a sensible paragraph.
GAE makes the space for any number of YEC conjectures… conjectures far more interesting to fellow Christians than to atheist scientists .
All: Please do not allow frustrations to derail an otherwise very good conversation.
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7 posts were split to a new topic: Complaints about moderation
Somehow a conversation about making a “good fit” between the rise of agriculture in the ANE and Genesis became a drag-out dispute over whether former YECs would insist that Adam is the first farmer.
“Former YECs” (or Christians “at risk” to become YECs) are capable of a wide array of opinions - - this is one of the reasons the GAE is not fixed on a single scenario.
The one thing we can all agree on (I hope) is that current/existing YECs do insist that Adam was the first farmer; the only thing that would mitigate this conclusion is a disagreement on when we can use the word “farmer”.
I do not see that it is a foregone conclusion that YECs should universally agree never mind insist that Adam was a farmer, and that if he was a farmer that he was the first farmer.