How do we explain the question of human decendants

[BR549]

I am asking from the arguement others make about the bible history maybe be 6000+ years old or more, compared to existence of human remains dating much further back? I am well aware of Genesis and Adam and Eve, I am not challenging dogma, but wish to be able to find the explanation to answer such question.

Thanks

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

I am asking from the arguement others make about the bible history maybe be 6000+ years old or more, compared to existence of human remains dating much further back? I am well aware of Genesis and Adam and Eve, I am not challenging dogma, but wish to be able to find the explanation to answer such question.

Myth is not history.
We don’t know exactly what attitude the orginal authors of the Bible had to their material, but it wasn’t that of the modern historian, and it certainly wasn’t that of the fundamentalist.

“Adam” is also Hebrew for “Man”. Eve is just “the woman”, and only acquires a name after the Fall.It is a bit like a story with a character called “Joe Public”. It says something, but not about an actual Mr J. Public.

 

[Sixtus]

I am asking from the arguement others make about the bible history maybe be 6000+ years old or more, compared to existence of human remains dating much further back? I am well aware of Genesis and Adam and Eve, I am not challenging dogma, but wish to be able to find the explanation to answer such question.

It is well known that there were established communities of people which pre-date the bible.

I cannot speak for the Church but for me, the story of Adam and Eve is allegorical.

It appears that something profound happened in the beginning. Possibly it was beyond our comprehension.

It is taught that originally man was perfect. Man fell by his OWN acts of putting his will before God’s will. I have no reason to doubt that.

 

[JimG]

I’m not sure that human history goes back much beyond 6 to 10 thousand years. Human history. Now, human anthropology can go back millions of years, and we call those people humans, but we cannot tell from their bones what spiritual attributes they had.

 

[Della]

I am asking from the arguement others make about the bible history maybe be 6000+ years old or more, compared to existence of human remains dating much further back? I am well aware of Genesis and Adam and Eve, I am not challenging dogma, but wish to be able to find the explanation to answer such question.

Thanks

The 6000 years was a calculation made by a 17th century Anglican bishop. He knew nothing of modern anthropology. Other estimates had been made before him, but his is the most well known because it is the one most Evangelicals rely on for the age of the earth.

The Church teaches that we are all descended from one man and one woman, whom the Bible calls Adam and Eve. This does not at all exclude any human development before them. Nor has the Church made any pronouncement about the age of the earth or of mankind.

The writer of Genesis was not interested in biology nor the age of the earth and other such questions. He merely wanted to tell us, in the first few chapters, that God created everything, including man, and how man came to be a fallen creature–nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Verbum]

Hi BR,

The 6000 year myth was started by an Anglican clergyman who figured he could tell the age of the world from bible data. It has no foundation.

What we have to believe about that is this :

(1) God created heaven and earth and everythng in it, including man

(2) Humans presently on earth are all descended from one couple

(3) Individual souls are created by God and cannot have evolved from earlier forms.

Most other questions on the beginnings belong to the world of science, not religion.

Verbum

 

[thistle]

It is well known that there were established communities of people which pre-date the bible.

I cannot speak for the Church but for me, the story of Adam and Eve is allegorical.

It appears that something profound happened in the beginning. Possibly it was beyond our comprehension.

It is taught that originally man was perfect. Man fell by his OWN acts of putting his will before God’s will. I have no reason to doubt that.

Which part do you think is only allegorical. The Church teaches Adam and Eve were real and we must believe it.

Extract below from Humani Generis papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12HUMAN.HTM

1. 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 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.

 

[JimG]

The earliest recorded history goes back to around 5500 BC in Egypt and Sumer. That’s why I say that 6,000 years may not be entirely off base with respect to human history. It is, of course, entirely too short to describe archeological history or the history of the earth or the universe. One cannot calculate the age of the universe from an analysis of the book of Genesis.