Adam and Eve in a world of so many races?

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I apologise if this has already been asked or if this is question was posted in the wrong area but for lack of time i thought i would just seem what the teaching is.
The church teaches that genesis expresses figurative language and that the time period of genesis may not be literal i.e the earth is billions of years old. however the one thing that the church teaches is Fact that Adam and Eve are “real people” and that god did not create other people beside these two and their natural offspring.

**I was wondering, since the church teaches that Adam and Eve are “real people” then how does the church reconcile the observable diversity of race, skin colour etc? **its just something that i find hard to fathom.
 
I had some study in ethnicity when I was doing my MA, and one of the things that was brought out was that you cound mate any man-and-woman couple on earth, and within 25 generations you would have all the variation that we see now.
 
I think the exposure of Adam & Eve to earth environment (specially when they used to live for over 950 years) could have affected our genes somehow, which led later on through their descendants to have new races,different skin colours, and different ages, etc.
 
I remember reading one time, a science article on extending the human life span. They said because of physical reasons a human could live up to, and no more then 1000-1500 years of age. I think it had to do with mitochondria, not sure though but I remember thinking how long people lived in genesis and thought “hmm that’s close to how long Adam and Eve lived”
 
james_neville said:
I apologise if this has already been asked or if this is question was posted in the wrong area but for lack of time i thought i would just seem what the teaching is.
The church teaches that genesis expresses figurative language and that the time period of genesis may not be literal i.e the earth is billions of years old. however the one thing that the church teaches is Fact that Adam and Eve are “real people” and that god did not create other people beside these two and their natural offspring.

**I was wondering, since the church teaches that Adam and Eve are “real people” then how does the church reconcile the observable diversity of race, skin colour etc? **its just something that i find hard to fathom.
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As you noted, the Church has no problem with the scientific explanation. We are not required to believe that Adam and Eve were Middle Eastern.

Genetically, all people have been traced to a small group in Africa. Mitochondrial DNA specifically points to a single person called “Mitochondrial Eve”; a single common female ancestor of everyone on Earth. The Y Chromosome specifically points points to a single common male ancestor called “Y Chromosome Adam”. (IMHO, he should really be called “Y Chromosome Noah” as long as we’re going with Biblical references - there was some divergence before the Flood wiped out all other male lines. The wives of Noah and his sons may well have come from different families so it wouldn’t make sense to call the common female ancestor “Mitochondrial Mrs Noah” 🤓 )
 
“Genetically, all people have been traced to a small group in Africa.”

You beat me! Great short synopsis.
 
james_neville said:
I apologise if this has already been asked or if this is question was posted in the wrong area but for lack of time i thought i would just seem what the teaching is.
The church teaches that genesis expresses figurative language and that the time period of genesis may not be literal i.e the earth is billions of years old. however the one thing that the church teaches is Fact that Adam and Eve are “real people” and that god did not create other people beside these two and their natural offspring.

**I was wondering, since the church teaches that Adam and Eve are “real people” then how does the church reconcile the observable diversity of race, skin colour etc? **its just something that i find hard to fathom.
Click to expand...
Well, the pure materialist Evolutionary explanation hold the same thing. There is a hominid they call Eve b/c she is genetically the ancestor of all humans.

The answer would be mutation and natural selection. As people lived in differing climates, and environments different feature would be favored, e.g. fair skin to absord more vitamin D from the sun in Artic climes, and the populations drifted.

God Bless
 
Saw this years ago on Discovery Channel and it is now free to watch on YouTube. Had some good stuff that explains how different races formed, and how we all came from one woman, etc.

youtube.com/watch?v=oAXt2AUwPm0
 
It’s worth mentioning that, genetically, there is no such thing as race. There are adapted characteristics (such as dark skin in areas with lots of sun exposure) that people from the same geographical region tend to exhibit. We’re all the same animal, despite our observable surface differences (just like cocker spaniels and great danes are).
 
bilop said:
Well, the pure materialist Evolutionary explanation hold the same thing. There is a hominid they call Eve b/c she is genetically the ancestor of all humans.

The answer would be mutation and natural selection. As people lived in differing climates, and environments different feature would be favored, e.g. fair skin to absord more vitamin D from the sun in Artic climes, and the populations drifted.

God Bless
Click to expand...
That famous “Mitochondrial Eve” was one of many archaic beings in a large population of breeding pairs. She was not the real Eve who with Adam founded the human species.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve Scroll down to common fallacies, not the only woman, etc.

Please note that in the material/physical domain of scientists, the term Homo (man) does not have the same definition for human nature that Catholicism uses.

You are correct that the descendants of the real Eve and Adam did migrate and thus adapted to various environments.
 
Adaptations in later population happen all the time. Believe it or not, all forms of house dogs we have today belong to a single species, be they poodles or Great Danes. Appearances can change greatly over time. Granted, much of the dog changes were intentional through human-controlled breeding.
 
james_neville said:
I apologise if this has already been asked or if this is question was posted in the wrong area but for lack of time i thought i would just seem what the teaching is.
The church teaches that genesis expresses figurative language and that the time period of genesis may not be literal i.e the earth is billions of years old. however the one thing that the church teaches is Fact that Adam and Eve are “real people” and that god did not create other people beside these two and their natural offspring.

**I was wondering, since the church teaches that Adam and Eve are “real people” then how does the church reconcile the observable diversity of race, skin colour etc? **its just something that i find hard to fathom.
Click to expand...
Point 1: The Church allows us to take the eary chapters of Genesis figuratively but does not teach that we must. Until recently the Church was quite adamant that evolution was a false belief. As late as 1950 Pope Pius XII taught that we are not allowed to believe that mankind arose multiple times. There could only be one original set of human parents.

Point 2: Many anthropologists believe there is no such thing as race. Take a white population and relocate them to Africa and they will become dark skinned in a few generations. Granted this is a relatively new viewpoint. It was just coming on the scene in the early 70s when I was studying anthropology in college.
 
"Real History

"The argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.

"Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still records God’s work—things God really did.

"The Catechism explains that “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337), but “nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun” (CCC 338).

"It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

I don’t know about your point 2. There have many whites in South Africa for some generations. Can you point me to an article that discusses a relatively rapid change in skin color?

Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
"Real History

"The argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.

"Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still records God’s work—things God really did.

"The Catechism explains that “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337), but “nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun” (CCC 338).

"It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

I don’t know about your point 2. There have many whites in South Africa for some generations. Can you point me to an article that discusses a relatively rapid change in skin color?

Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
Point 2 sounds like a very broad generalization of the work of Milford Wolpoff, one of the great anthropologists, who insisted on the unity of humankind. Interestingly, Dr. Wolpoff pointed out that in 1512, the Catholic Church declared that the
just-discovered Aboriginal Indigenous Americans were true humans. The source for this tidbit is the book Race and Human Evolution by Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari.

In my humble opinion, the reality of Adam and Eve can solve some of the social problems in our world.
 
edwest2 said:
"Real History

"The argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.

"Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still records God’s work—things God really did.

"The Catechism explains that “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337), but “nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun” (CCC 338).

"It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

I don’t know about your point 2. There have many whites in South Africa for some generations. Can you point me to an article that discusses a relatively rapid change in skin color?

Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
I understand that the CCC does teach a figurative meaning for the early chapters of Genesis. I believe it is in error on that point. Keep in mind that not everything in the CCC represents doctrine which must be believed. As I pointed out, the Church used to be quite adamant that Gen 1-11 is just as literal history as Gen 12-50.

The Church allows for an other-than-literal interpretation of the text if the context demands it. Several times in this forum I have asked what it is about Gen 1-11 that indicates it should be taken as non-literal and I have never received an answer. If Gen 1-11 is not history, than how can we accept the rest of Genesis or the rest of the Bible as history?

The problem is that the Church has lately been functioning under the assumption that the theory of evolution is hard and fast science. It is not. More and more biochemists are starting to see that evolution cannot explain the workings of a cell, even the most simple. An honest paleontologist will admit that the gaps in the fossil record are as massive today as they were in Darwin’s day when he called them the strongest evidence that he was wrong. In addition the Pre-Cambrian Explosion remains unexplainable apart from a creationist model.

You make a good point about whites in South Africa. I was thinking equatorial Africa when I made my original comment and should have been more specific.
 
grannymh said:
Point 2 sounds like a very broad generalization of the work of Milford Wolpoff, one of the great anthropologists, who insisted on the unity of humankind. Interestingly, Dr. Wolpoff pointed out that in 1512, the Catholic Church declared that the
just-discovered Aboriginal Indigenous Americans were true humans. The source for this tidbit is the book Race and Human Evolution by Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari.

In my humble opinion, the reality of Adam and Eve can solve some of the social problems in our world.
Click to expand...
I’m not exactly sure of the relevance of the 1512 declaration. This was only 20 years after the discovery of the western hemisphere and its inhabitants. Some people wanted to justify mistreatment of the indigenous peoples by claiming they were less than human and the Church said “No.” It’s not like they reversed a previous decision.

Physical anthropology was not my emphasis in college so I didn’t follow the discussion over whether or not races actually existed very closely. I don’t remember names but the idea seemed to be gaining popularity.
 
garysibio said:
I understand that the CCC does teach a figurative meaning for the early chapters of Genesis. I believe it is in error on that point. Keep in mind that not everything in the CCC represents doctrine which must be believed. As I pointed out, the Church used to be quite adamant that Gen 1-11 is just as literal history as Gen 12-50.

The Church allows for an other-than-literal interpretation of the text if the context demands it. Several times in this forum I have asked what it is about Gen 1-11 that indicates it should be taken as non-literal and I have never received an answer. If Gen 1-11 is not history, than how can we accept the rest of Genesis or the rest of the Bible as history?
Click to expand...
My area of interest is the reality of Adam and Eve. Right off the bat, the important break in Genesis comes at Chapter three. This is why you are not getting a sound answer to the issue of history in chapters 1 -11 as a whole.

Those who wish to tumble Catholicism know full well that the vulnerable point is human origin per se. Weaken the Catholic position on human nature origin and there is a straight shot to the heart of Catholicism which is the salvific mission of Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, many, not all Catholics have learned about Adam and Original Sin from the cutesy children’s books which picture a smiling couple peeking out between branches with lots of leaves. Thus, they are unaware of the Catholic doctrines which flow from the first three chapters of Genesis. Literally, they do not know how to deal with the real historical events in these chapters.

My humble suggestion is to frame your questions in the confines of the first three chapters of Genesis. Chapters four to eleven are simply not on the same level as the first three.
 
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