Adam and Eve and the first people

[gferrer]

Not necessarily. Humani Generis states: "For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. "

Assuming the translation conveys the intended meaning, this does not remove the possibility that Adam was the common ancestor of all “true men” and all currently existing people, but that there were inter-fertile beings who were not “true men” that still interbred with and contributed to the genetic makeup of all existing people.

Of course, unless or until the church decides to say more on this, we just have to reconcile doctrine and physical evidence as best we can, and my speculations on whether something is consistent with Humani Generis is just that, speculation.

For those interested in a deeper analysis, here are some links that develop this concept further:

nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/kemp-monogenism.pdf

tofspot.blogspot.com/2011/09/adam-and-eve-and-ted-and-alice.html

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/monkey-in-your-soul.html

 

[Dan_Daly]

Because it is not obvious.
The way I interpret this, discussions can take place regarding the biological origins of humanity, and thus the biological origins of Adam. So if it’s okay to theorize that Adam’s biological mother father was an animal, why would you be shocked at the idea that Cain’s wife could have been an animal?

You’re analysis merely illustrates many of the problems of believing Adam was conceived by animals.

The body and soul go together. Human bodies have human souls. Cat bodies have cat souls. Dog bodies have dog souls. Pumpkin bodies have pumpkin souls. Human souls are immoratl. Plant and animal souls are not. However in all cases, the soul animates the body. The idea of mixing and matching various types of bodies and souls, so that you have a human body with an ape soul is not one that I think is supportable by any examination of Catholic teaching.

Pax Christi

 

[PhilliesFan]

Evolution teaches us that when an organism mutates to something which is a different species there must be a population to sustain this mutation - or new species.

Consider a human who bubbles up by God assisted evolutionary processes. He would need to wait around until another human bubbled up from the human subspecies. Damn, that mutation was also male. So both of these guys have to wait around for a woman. Then suppose one of these males was hit by a bus, or both of them died of a disease. The world would need to wait around eons for the next humans to mutate out of the subhuman species.

Modern evolutionary thought tells us there was a chromosomal bottleneck of around 10,000 humans which are to be differentiated from non humans.

Some Catholic scientists believe this chromosomal bottleneck was a few as 6 humans - the first one is called Adam, and one of the women was called Eve. There were others, but the human race descended from these two parents, and the bible is silent on the others.

This is completely consistent with Humani Generis, which teaches us original parents (called Adam and Eve), and that they have a soul and committed a mortal sin bringing original sin into the world.

Cain married one of his Aunts or one of his sisters.

 

[PhilliesFan]

Hi gferrer - thanks for the links - they are great! Much better than my post

 

[gferrer]

Hi gferrer - thanks for the links - they are great! Much better than my post

No problem!

 

[nubo]

Doesn’t it sound rather simplistic for God to suddenly ban incest only for health reasons, wouldn’t that take us back to the dilemma that ‘God commands X only because it is good.’ It raises other questions like are God’s moral standards arbitrary that can change over time? Is it possible that God will at sometime in the future ban some common moral practice?

 

[Luvz2travel]

Hello,
I’ve got a very interesting question that I thought of. When Adam and Eve were first created, they had Cane and Abel. So if that small family of four was the first four people to inhabit the earth, that means in order to make more people there would have had to be incest or Cane and Abel performing incest to make more people? Or, since Adam and Eve lived significantly longer than we live today, perhaps they were able to have way many more children than we do today? But in either case, since they were the first people, speaking from a scientific standpoint, the gene-pool would have been very small causing problems with future children/people. Or, did God make the Genes of Adam and Eve very different from each other so that because he knew they would have to at least temporarily in-breed or reproduce have children with other family members, the gene pool would be wide and no problems would occur? It seems the only way God could have let or enabled life to continue would have been if he made the genes of the first people very different from one person to the next. like Adam’s genes would have been very different than Eve’s genes and their children would be different as well. So does this also mean that Adam and Eve’s children looked nothing like their parents which were Adam and Eve?

I sure GOD took that into account when he made Adam and Eve…that is was necessary that their children marry each other. It’s likely he created them so that at least the first generations would not experience birth defects due to that or else none of us would be here. In any case when there where enough people around it probably became taboo. Many cultures though still practiced it. The egyptians did as well the Hawaiians so at some point alonge the way to most cultures it became taboo because of the birth defect issue maybe…just guessing really. Also GOD said it was a no no at some point as well.