Co-existance: Did "Cavemen" have Souls?

  • Thread starter Thread starter menofstjoseph
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

menofstjoseph

Guest
I have actually posted a similar question quite some time ago, but wasn’t as direct as I should have been so I didn’t get a satisfactory answer. I thought I would reintroduce it.

Recent scientific data has been unearthed which strongly indicates, if not flat out proves, that modern man and Neanderthals shared the Earth at the same time - they coexisted.

Neanderthals were not our ancestor, but they did predate us. By most accounts these were not a lower-human species, but a separate, possibly equal, manner of man. By most accounts they were rational beings - capable of many of the same thoughts and emotions we have - though they may not have been the intellectual equals of modern man. However, I don’t think IQ score is the prime prerequisite for a soul ownership…which leads me to the point of this thread.

So, what does it mean if these two seperate human species coexisted during the time of the Genisis story.

To underscore the possible co-existence during Genesis (and therefore the possible cohabitation of the “Garden of Eden”), a NY Times article indicates these two species possibly even lived in close proximity to one another in what is not referred to as the Holy Land.“Recent excavations in Israel suggest that Neanderthals and modern humans might have overlapped there as early as 100,000 years ago. Their stone tools and bones have been found in caves only a few miles apart. Whether the two human groups were exact contemporaries in the region, or moved in and out without meeting, has not been determined. Nor is it possible to determine what their relations were with each other, if they did share the place at the same time.” LINK

So, for the sake of this discussion, ASSUME that it is a FACT, they lived side-by-side with us, would these rational beings been bystanders to the Fall of Man and its effects on Salvation history (just as a dog, chicken or porcupine would have been) or were they equals to us in their ability to receive God’s graces?

Did they have souls?
 
menofstjoseph said:
I have actually posted a similar question quite some time ago, but wasn’t as direct as I should have been so I didn’t get a satisfactory answer. I thought I would reintroduce it.

Recent scientific data has been unearthed which strongly indicates, if not flat out proves, that modern man and Neanderthals shared the Earth at the same time - they coexisted.

Neanderthals were not our ancestor, but they did predate us. By most accounts these were not a lower-human species, but a separate, possibly equal, manner of man. By most accounts they were rational beings - capable of many of the same thoughts and emotions we have - though they may not have been the intellectual equals of modern man. However, I don’t think IQ score is the prime prerequisite for a soul ownership…which leads me to the point of this thread.

So, what does it mean if these two seperate human species coexisted during the time of the Genisis story.

To underscore the possible co-existence during Genesis (and therefore the possible cohabitation of the “Garden of Eden”), a NY Times article indicates these two species possibly even lived in close proximity to one another in what is not referred to as the Holy Land.“Recent excavations in Israel suggest that Neanderthals and modern humans might have overlapped there as early as 100,000 years ago. Their stone tools and bones have been found in caves only a few miles apart. Whether the two human groups were exact contemporaries in the region, or moved in and out without meeting, has not been determined. Nor is it possible to determine what their relations were with each other, if they did share the place at the same time.” LINK

So, for the sake of this discussion, ASSUME that it is a FACT, they lived side-by-side with us, would these rational beings been bystanders to the Fall of Man and its effects on Salvation history (just as a dog, chicken or porcupine would have been) or were they equals to us in their ability to receive God’s graces?

Did they have souls?
Click to expand...
Not this evolutionary nonsense again, for that is what you are proposing here above menofstjoseph. Now once the word ‘souls’ comes into it, you apply this nonsense to Catholic teaching. So, you will get two answers to this, an incoherent one from theistic evolutionists and the other from the likes of me, scholastics who adhere to the traditional teaching of the Church. After the Fall, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden into the world to fend for themselves. They had children who had children and they lived in caves, huts, built cities, towns, just like some men today who still live in caves, jungles and igloos. From the beginning they were created with human, spiritual souls. There were no men without human souls. There are monkeys and men, animals and man, from the beginning, nothing in between…
 
cassini said:
Not this evolutionary nonsense again.
Click to expand...
:confused:

Nonsense? There is quite a bit of scientific proof for evolution…Is gravity also nonsense? Is the fact that the universe is expanding nonsense? Is the fact that the Earth is not in the center of the universe nonsense? Are plate tectonics nonsense?
 
cassini said:
Not this evolutionary nonsense again, for that is what you are proposing here above menofstjoseph. Now once the word ‘souls’ comes into it, you apply this nonsense to Catholic teaching. So, you will get two answers to this, an incoherent one from theistic evolutionists and the other from the likes of me, scholastics who adhere to the traditional teaching of the Church. After the Fall, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden into the world to fend for themselves. They had children who had children and they lived in caves, huts, built cities, towns, just like some men today who still live in caves, jungles and igloos. From the beginning they were created with human, spiritual souls. There were no men without human souls. There are monkeys and men, animals and man, from the beginning, nothing in between…
Click to expand...
Evolution is not contridictory to Catholic teaching, HOWEVER…COLOR=“Black”]B].my question has nothing (at all) to do with evolution, and do not care to discuss evolution. this is about co-exisitance of semi-equal species. Please re-read.

Thanks!!🙂
 
All living material creatures have souls. It’s what distinguishes living matter from dead matter.

So yes, neaderthals had souls.

As to weither they had the spiritual, immortal souls that humans do, or the temporal souls of animals would require a determination on if they possesed the spiritual power of Reason.
 
cassini said:
Not this evolutionary nonsense again, for that is what you are proposing here above menofstjoseph. Now once the word ‘souls’ comes into it, you apply this nonsense to Catholic teaching. So, you will get two answers to this, an incoherent one from theistic evolutionists and the other from the likes of me, scholastics who adhere to the traditional teaching of the Church. After the Fall, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden into the world to fend for themselves. They had children who had children and they lived in caves, huts, built cities, towns, just like some men today who still live in caves, jungles and igloos. From the beginning they were created with human, spiritual souls. There were no men without human souls. There are monkeys and men, animals and man, from the beginning, nothing in between…
Click to expand...
Also, as noted in my earlier post Neanderthals were NOT our ancestors. So again, evolution is non-issue to this discussion.
 
Brendan said:
All living material creatures have souls. It’s what distinguishes living matter from dead matter.

So yes, neaderthals had souls.

As to weither they had the spiritual, immortal souls that humans do, or the temporal souls of animals would require a determination on if they possesed the spiritual power of Reason.
Click to expand...
Well, they created art (as indicated on cave paintings), and they were advance tool makers on par with the “modern man” of that time. Also, there is some indication that modern man may have also interbred with this wholly SEPERATE species. So, one would assume there was a high level of communication and ability to think abstractly…which requires reason.

But again we are talking here about a seperate speicies of humans, *not an ancestor. *

Where were they when Eve was eating the apple?
 
It’s an interesting question.

I’ll have to do some reading up on what’s been uncovered about Neanderthals. Apparently the genome project has determined they are not our human “evolutionary” ancestors as was always assumed.

However, I saw in the google search that Neanderthals and humans did apparently mate and produce offspring.

Great stuff.
 
Barbkw said:
It’s an interesting question.

I’ll have to do some reading up on what’s been uncovered about Neanderthals. Apparently the genome project has determined they are not our human “evolutionary” ancestors as was always assumed.

However, I saw in the google search that Neanderthals and humans did apparently mate and produce offspring.

Great stuff.
Click to expand...
Yes, very interesting stuff. I have often wondered who Adam and Eve’s children mated with. Is this part of the answer (in addition to the unavoidable answer of incest)?

Of course, there is no direct mention of them in the Bible, so it adds to the mystery.
 
Most recent scientific data from DNA research indicates they WERE a seperate species and NOT an ancestor to man.
 
No sir, they maybe my ancestor and your ancestor but they would NOT have been Adam and Eve’s ancestor…and yet they existed before modern man.
 
menofstjoseph said:
Yes, very interesting stuff. I have often wondered who Adam and Eve’s children mated with. Is this part of the answer (in addition to the unavoidable answer of incest)?

Of course, there is no direct mention of them in the Bible, so it adds to the mystery.
Click to expand...
People shouldn’t be embarassed to believe that brothers and sisters married. It was neccessity and it was culture.

In Egypt, 3,300 years ago, King Tut’s mother was a sister to Tut’s father, the pharaoh Akenhaten.
 
There is a good article in my original post above, but you should not have trouble finding anything on it via a decent Google search.
 
They only mated with some of our ancestors. Neanderthals never penetrated into Africa so those of us of purely African descent have no Neanderthal DNA. When H. sapiens moved out of Africa some mated with H. neanderthalensis so those of us of non-African descent have up to 4% or so Neanderthal DNA.

The original H. sapiens in Africa did not descend from Neanderthals which is why only the population that left Africa has the small percentage of Neanderthal DNA…

See Study: Neanderthal DNA Lives On in Modern Humans for more details.

rossum
 
menofstjoseph said:
Well, they created art (as indicated on cave paintings), and they were advance tool makers on par with the “modern man” of that time. Also, there is some indication that modern man may have also interbred with this wholly SEPERATE species. So, one would assume there was a high level of communication and ability to think abstractly…which requires reason.

But again we are talking here about a seperate speicies of humans, *not an ancestor. *

Where were they when Eve was eating the apple?
Click to expand...
Please look up the definition of species. Humans and Neanderthals did interbreed. Two different species can not. Caucasions, Negroids and Orientals have some differences, especially in cranial shape, but they are all humans.

Neanderthal was another type of human being just as Negroids and Orientals are another type of human being. We are all human.

Peace,
Ed
 
rossum said:
They only mated with some of our ancestors. Neanderthals never penetrated into Africa so those of us of purely African descent have no Neanderthal DNA. When H. sapiens moved out of Africa some mated with H. neanderthalensis so those of us of non-African descent have up to 4% or so Neanderthal DNA.

The original H. sapiens in Africa did not descend from Neanderthals which is why only the population that left Africa has the small percentage of Neanderthal DNA…

See Study: Neanderthal DNA Lives On in Modern Humans for more details.

rossum
Click to expand...
Yes, so again, let’s assume (from a Catholic/Christian/Judeo perspective) that these being were existing at the time of creation of the first two fully moderns (Adam and Eve).

It leads to a whole series of interesting questions:

Did they have a hidden role in the Genisis story?
Did they have souls equal to our own?
 
edwest2 said:
Please look up the definition of species. Humans and Neanderthals did interbreed. Two different species can not. Caucasions, Negroids and Orientals have some differences, especially in cranial shape, but they are all humans.

Neanderthal was another type of human being just as Negroids and Orientals are another type of human being. We are all human.

Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
**So if Neanderthals were equals in “humanity” to moderns but also pre-dates them, then doesn’t that mean that a rational “human” group equal to us came before Adam and Eve???

And the older Neanderthals had souls, then Adam and Eve were not first beings to have souls.**
 
edwest2 said:
Please look up the definition of species. Humans and Neanderthals did interbreed. Two different species can not.
Click to expand...
Which is one of the largest question marks about the horizontal theory of evolution, that all existing species originated out of prehistoric adaptation.

Modern cows don’t reproduce with horses, nor whales with sharks, nor seals with porpoise, etc.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top