The purpose was not primarily one of the necessity of convenient labeling conventions. It was about dominion. The ancient Hebrews considered the naming of something as an act of dominance over it. Ultimately, it established who was in charge.
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Equivocation. Joshua implicitly made such a claim when he changed the subject.
No, I’m trying to get people to clarify what they mean. I’m not pushing for any particular resolution.
Hey, you’re the one making the distinction: between descendants of Adam and the people (or whatever you want to call them, Homo sapiens) outside the garden.
What do you mean? How does that answer the question?
The other matters you bring up are comparatively trivial next to the question of the creation of humanity. My explanation is that Genesis 1 does indeed describe the creation of humanity. So does Genesis 2, and there are no “people outside the garden”. Genesis is not a single, consistent story but a bundling of disparate myths.
I don’t find this to be an answer.
Then where did Cain get his wife, etc.? And if Adam was intended from the beginning to interbreed with other humans, as GAE posits, why would they not be proper companions? Are you, incidentally, agreeing that Homo sapiens outside the garden were beasts and that they were presented to Adam as possible companions, but rejected?
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I didn’t say it want relevant. It said it was less relevant and there is more than on approach, giving some examples.
Yes, but in their own languages. God wanted to know what Adam would call them in his own language, which God had apparently taught him but which God had somehow forgotten.
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I thought Eve was the means by which sin entered the world. Perhaps another choice would have been better or at least no worse. Trying to make sense of this story tangles you in knots.
But you did change the subject, which strikes me as deflection. Genesis 1 was the question most directly relevant, especially if you take a sequential view as I think you do.
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So what happened when Adam exited the garden and met the “similar, though not entirely identical, intelligent beings [that] existed outside of the garden” who were already in charge? Did they adopt his nomenclature? Or he theirs? Or was there an unlikely co-incidence?
What would the differences have been?
Navels.
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I explain 3 possible views in the book and how all three could work. I don’t really make a choice, but the choice here will impact how you read Genesis 6.
Theories are made to be tested. Who is going to test all three choices? Too many choices and too many assumptions in a model begin to render it untenable and not even valued enough to be seriously considered. Just sayin
I’m not testing Genesis. I seek to understand Genesis, and make space for differences in science.
Isn’t GAE only one of those choices, and isn’t it the one you’re favoring, or advocating, or whatever you want to call it?
No that is not the case. I explain all three views and show how it doesn’t ultimately matter which path the exegete takes, because all three can work.
What is not the case? Are you saying that GAE is compatible with all three views? What are the three views?
This is not the case:
You are being so terse as to communicate very little to me. If your goal is to shut down discussion, that will probably serve.
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The GAE is not merely one of those choices. It can work with all three ways of reading Genesis 1 and 2 together: 1. Exact recaptiulation, 2. Zoomed recapitulation, and 3. Sequential.
I see each of those as having its own difficulties in explaining various aspects of the text. What does “zoomed recapitulation” mean? I’m supposing it means that the creation of humans in Genesis 1 includes but is not limited to the creation of A&E. Yes? But in that case doesn’t everyone start out with Imago Dei?
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Especially since the rise of the “creation science” Young Earth Creationist movement of the 1960’s, there has been far too much conflict over science and the Bible, especially among Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. Many false dichotomies have become set in stone (in the minds of many) and I see the writings of @swamidass concerning GAE as a welcomed effort at explaining how a variety of understandings of the early chapters of Genesis can be viewed as reasonable and not in conflict with the scientific evidence and the scriptures. Among other topics, his purposes include not pushing for one particular view of Genesis 1 and 2 but explaining that long entrenched assumptions which claim that science eviscerates a de novo Adam and Eve can no longer be defended.
That’s my take on the entire matter, even though I have yet to read the soon-to-be released book.
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