Early Man and Adam and Eve

[Gorgias]

Two things are being said: God literally did something. And yes, this is how God wanted marriage to be like: the two are now one flesh.

Sure. But, one of them uses one (of two) Church-sanctioned interpretations of Genesis 1-3, and the other is making a doctrinal assertion.

The fact that he’s using one of two possible interpretations doesn’t mean that the other possible interpretation is being asserted as invalid.

I appreciate that you personally don’t like the other interpretation – but it’s an allowable interpretation.

 

[edwest211]

What I like or don’t like doesn’t matter. Arcanum clearly states that Eve being made from flesh taken from Adam’s side is "…the never-interrupted doctrine… "

 

[Techno2000]

If Adam were a ‘monkey’ or a ‘sub-human’, then he wouldn’t be our first true human parent.

But…Adam and Eve did come from soulless animal creature…right?

 

[John_Martin]

His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should be the natural beginning of the human race.” The point is human marriage .

If he said THIS husband and wife he meant THIS husband and wife, Adam and Eve, not that A (any) married couple in general would be the natural beginning of the human race.
(If I were not descended from the couple(s) that sinned, then I would not have original sin, right?.. And I would be watching all your depraved babblings because you were descended of the defective human marriage.)

 

[Gorgias]

But…Adam and Eve did come from soulless animal creature…right?

Not ‘soulless’ – after all, Aquinas would assert that they had vegetative and sensitive souls, but not a rational soul. So, God infused a rational soul into Adam and Eve, as that theory goes.

If he said THIS husband and wife he meant THIS husband and wife, Adam and Eve, not that A (any) married couple in general would be the natural beginning of the human race.

Right. I’m not saying “there were no literal first two truly human parents.” We just give these two people placeholder names: ‘Adam and Eve’ (meaning “the guy from the red earth” and “the mother of all the living”).

 

[edwest211]

This is not consistent with Church teaching.

 

[Gorgias]

This is not consistent with Church teaching.

What isn’t?

Re-read Genesis 2 – God took pre-existing matter (the earth) and breathed life into it: Adam. He then created Eve from pre-existing matter, as well. Two, literal, first truly human persons, created by God from pre-existing matter, but with the divinely-given “breath of life” (which no other living being possessed).

 

[edwest211]

I see what you’re saying but science and theology don’t mix. I’ve also posted the Hebrew definition of the name Adam. He was not a generic human being among a pool of other generic human beings. When he and Eve disobeyed, there were consequences.

Romans 5:12:

New International Version
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned–

New Living Translation
When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.

English Standard Version
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

 

[Gorgias]

He was not a generic human being among a pool of other generic human beings.

Who said he was?

Now… he might have been a hominin among a pool of other hominins, but he wouldn’t be a human without a rational soul.

 

[edwest211]

I don’t buy the whole hominin or hominid thing. Who or what these creatures were has yet to be sorted out by science. Neanderthals went from cave men that were hunched over to human beings who interbred with modern humans and stood upright.

 

[Gorgias]

Neanderthals went from cave men that were hunched over

That’s an old myth.

 

[edwest211]

It’s a fact. I saw scientifically accurate drawings of Neanderthals in school. Later, they became a lot more accurate.

 

[Gorgias]

I saw scientifically accurate drawings of Neanderthals in school. Later, they became a lot more accurate.

So, I guess the drawings you saw in school were “scientifically inaccurate”?

Here’s something that seems to be telling a different story than what you learned in school.

 

[Techno2000]

Not ‘soulless’ – after all, Aquinas would assert that they had vegetative and sensitive souls, but not a rational soul. So, God infused a rational soul into Adam and Eve, as that theory goes.

And Adam and Eve were raised by these creatures ?

 

[Gorgias]

And Adam and Eve were raised by these creatures ?

Who says that they were infused with souls as children? The Bible certainly tells the story of them as full-grown adults at the time that they became human…

 

[Techno2000]

Techno2000:

And Adam and Eve were raised by these creatures ?

Who says that they were infused with souls as children? The Bible certainly tells the story of them as full-grown adults at the time that they became human…

So, they were raised by animals, and were animals as children themselves , until God give them human souls ?

 

[edwest211]

The current view of Neanderthals:

Rethinking Neanderthals | Science| Smithsonian Magazine

 

[twoangels]

Where does the caveman and his family as they call him, fit into the time line?

He doesn’t. The scientific viewpoint of the origin of humanity isn’t compatible with a literalistic interpretation of the creation account of Genesis. You either have to reject the science or look into whether you’re reading Genesis the way it was intended. Thankfully, Genesis is open to this.

Were they at the time of the dinosaurs or after

Dinosaurs existed long before humanity. There were no human beings at the time of the dinosaurs. You can’t interpret Gensis to be a literal 24 hour seven day creation account without rejecting science. It’s just not compatible. You might as well insist that the sun revolves around the earth.

how does this fit with Adam and Eve if they were the first man and woman?

The word ‘adam’ in Hebrew means man. In the first creation account, Adam is not given a proper name. It simply reads “the man” and later “he called her woman.” Only after the fall does it say that the man called her Eve because she became the mother of all the living. That is the only time the name Eve is used. In the genology, the first line is Adam and his wife, but this could very well be a place marker of “man and his wife” rather than a man named Adam and Eve.

There is a papal document from a long time ago that did forbid the notion that we didn’t come from a first set of parents, but it doesn’t go so far as to insist upon a literalistic interpretation of the account. We can consider the first creation accounts in genesis having stronger spiritual meanings than literal ones, but the spiritual meaning comes from the literal meaning.

 

[edwest211]

Adam in Hebrew means man? “The first human ever to walk the earth was named Adam. The Torah explains the name. The Hebrew word for earth is adama . God formed man from the dust of the earth, and on the simplest level, that connection with adama , earth, is the basis for man’s name. Once Adam sinned and ate the forbidden fruit, he introduced death to the world and was sentenced to once again return to the earth from which God created him.”

Humani Generis - Pope Pius XII

“23. Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church’s vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual. By means of this new exegesis of the Old Testament, which today in the Church is a sealed book, would finally be thrown open to all the faithful. By this method, they say, all difficulties vanish, difficulties which hinder only those who adhere to the literal meaning of the Scriptures.”

“37. 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 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. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.[12]”

Source: Humani Generis (August 12, 1950) | PIUS XII

 

[twoangels]

Adam in Hebrew means man?

Yep. The Hebrew word for man is אָדָם ( adam ) or אּישׁ ( ish ). When woman is named, her name derives from the latter. The “out of man” (מֵאִ֖ישׁ meish , also transliterated me’iysh ). Read Genesis. They’re not called Adam and Eve. They’re called man and woman. Tradition has us using the names “Adam and Eve.” It’s like how we get Mary’s parents’ name. The names come from the protoevangelium of James even though it’s not in the canon of scripture and their names are given no where in the canon of scripture we do have.

I am well aware of the quote from Pope Pius XII. Read Dei Verbum from the second Vatican Council about how to interpret scripture.