Reconciling Evolution with Adam and Eve

[gjraf]

I like to think of Genesis as God giving us a short course in genetics which is the scientific study of hereditary. He was telling the ancients who had no writing, no science; how man came to be. Man as we know him has 46 chromosomes no other species has 46 only man. Apes have 48. Chromosomes are packets of DNA that carry the genes which actually transfers heredity. Thus all men are created equal. We all have 46 chromosomes. The only difference is man has a pair of sex chromosomes that are called XY and woman are XX. Thus all of humanity are the same. The only difference is our sex. God clled all men by the name Adam and all women by the name Eve. Thus we all are truly brothers and sisters, and we all are uniquely human no other species has our chromosomes.

Eventhough we are the same in our chromosome numbers; we are all unique individuals. Just look at your finger prints. No two are alike. In the same vain look at our DNA sequence again no two are alike.

God said in Mathew 10 verse 30 : “As for you even the hairs of your head have all been counted.” If he knows the numbrer of hairs on our heads, how much more does he know and love each one of us.

God bless.

Gordon

 

[edwest2]

No writing? No science?

You can repeat the they were too dumb to understand part endlessly, but no new knowledge has emerged that contradicts God. What has emerged is a new campaign to discredit His Word. I call it the insistence theory.

I’m done. Genesis was real history and Adam and Eve were our first parents.

God bless,
Ed

 

[SpiritMeadow]

What if God created the future first, then the past. So he started with the big crunch (just my best guess as to what the end is) and worked backwards to the big bang. Then He would have created man before he created the evolutionary process.

Since God exists outside of time, there’s no reason why not. Well actually since He exists outside of time, he doesn’t create one time before another, there is no before and after if you are beyond time. He created all times in an insant.

So if he created man’s future and man’s past and adam and apes and dinosaurs all at the same instant, that doesn’t contradict evolution as a scientific description of the earth’s timeline, but makes it easier to see that God is creator, that we didn’t come from apes from the perspective of God, because apes and dinosaurs and man all were created by God in an insant.

If I read you correctly, its a bit of a stretch but I guess it works okay. If that reconciles the creation and evolution for ya, thats great, I mean remember what the republicans looked like on stage being asked if they believed in evolution.? The creationist theory cannot but make one look rather silly it seems to me. But I’m not gonna start all over with that argument,… LOL.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

If you read the Bible without previous assumptions you will see that it is an eyewitness account.

How can it be ? Are you saying that it was the work of a Hebrew-speaking god who was around when the Creator of (presumably) everything else began work ?​

The work of creation can of its very nature have no eye-witnesses. Besides, Hebrew is not that old.

However, for various reasons, others wish to confuse the issue. I thank the earlier poster for pointing out how the Church teaches that sin came through a particular pair of individuals, Adam and Eve.

It is easy to call someone a liar but God does not lie. The dinosaurs lived but died, just as many species of animals have been wiped out in recent history. Genesis 1:5 “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” This is repeated for the second day.

What you may read here is a strange insistence for Christians to accept the word of man over the word of God. God cannot be separated from His Creation

If that were so, then creation would be necessary & not contingent​

and the sin of the first man and woman was the cause for Jesus Christ coming to earth as one of us.

Pope Benedict has made certain statements that show the Church is open to science, but that God must be part of Creation. As written, the theory of Evolution makes no allowance for God, and this cannot be. The Church does not support a mechanistic naturalism where we sprang from nothing and will die to nothing.

God bless,
Ed

I’m assuming you mean that creation is God’s work - God is not “part of” it What He creates, He creates in sovereign & unconditioned freedom, being Himself wholly conditionless.​

As for not making allowance for God - God does not need to be “allowed for”: this is “god-of-the-gaps” thinking, & its weakness is that it forgets that God is not an explanation; not for anything. It’s analogous to thinking that because God became a man, this alters the Eternal Word; which is not the case either. As the Incarnation does nothing to God - why should believing in the validity of evolutionary ideas ?

God is not spatially conditioned - & “god-of-the-gaps” thinking is subtly materialist in its ideas: for it cobnceives of the Transcendent Holy God as though He were just another object in His own creation; which is to make Him a wretched little idol & not God. This is the problem with Intelligent Design - it is at bottom idolatrous. It is evolution, remarkably enough, that by refusing to bother with Him is able as a result to fit into a Christian understanding of God as Creator

If all things in the universe could be explained, that would not affect God or faith in Him one iota.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Oy, I hit something and all my typing went away. Oh well. Let’s try again. First, the Gospel writers no doubt wanted us to see the similarities between Adam and Eve, and Jesus and Mary. Note the begining of John’s Gospel, where we have a literal 7 days counted off, and then we find Jesus and Mary in Cana. It is here where Mary tells us to dop whatever He tells us to do. Unlike Eve, who did not obey God, Mary stresses we are to obey God (Jesus). This 7 days is no accident, and it is a major reason for early Chrisitan writers referring to Jesus and Mary as the New Adam and the New Eve.

I put apes in quotes because whatever you would call Adam prior to his receiving a soul, he would not be human. Not in the Christian sense. A being without a soul is simply not a human being. Humans have souls.

As to Jesus giving credence to Adam and Eve, I would say that with God there are no coincidences. That being the case, it is not a coincidence that Jesus’ human creation, and human death occured the way they did. I cannot believe that Jesus’ choosing to die on a cross and become for us new fruit from the new tree of life, with the cross being that tree, is a coincidence. Nor his birthing of the Church in relation to Eve’s “birth”. I believe He meant to literally undo what Adam and Eve did, and I find it hard to believe that He did this despite Adam and Eve never existing. Does that make more sense?

Sure it makes some sense. And I love the parallels and the lovely way you’ve drawn them together. The pastoral aspects are wonderful…You should be a priest…I’d love to hear this kind of symbolism for a homily.

I simply don’t find the evidence in it that suggests that I should believe the creation literally. I can’t see why Jesus wasn’t sent and did what he did only if Adam and Eve had existed. Had’nt humanity become wicked enough on its own?

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Really? Let’s play the other side: I thought that they wrote decades after the fact, and got their information from people who were not eye-witnesses. Said another way, they were recording legends told by other people long after the events allegedly occurred.

That’s what the atheist will say right after he walks through the entire Bible from Genesis to Acts, and tells you why every story therein is a legend/myth/fiction just to make you feel good about believing in a God no more verifiable than Zeus.

The atheist will continue. When were the gospels written? Was it in the 50s or the 90s? If Jesus died in the early 30s, and nobody wrote anything for 40, 50, 60 years, how can you say that they got the story right? That sounds like urban legends to me. You know, people still say that Elvis is alive and that they’ve seen him alive. How are those reports different than your gospel reports? I’ll tell you how they’re different: some of us alive today actually saw Elvis and heard Elvis sing. None of us alive today saw or heard Jesus. That makes the Elvis reports more credible than your gospel reports.

And were the gospels written before or after the alleged prophesy of Jesus concerning the destruction of the Temple? If it’s after, why make it look as though Jesus was predicting something? It looks like your doctoring evidence. And who even wrote the gospels – eyewitnesses, or not? Did Luke actually go around talking with eyewitnesses like he claims in the opening verses, or not? Was Matthew an Apostle or not?

Etc etc.

Thanks Scott, I see now what your issue is…You really do see it as an all or nothing proposition and that your faith is based on it remaining intact. I’m sorry. I don’t feel that way at all. I view the Bible entirely differently than you do, yet my faith is just fine.

BTW, I didnt say that outside sources proved Jesus having lived. I said it was “evidence” and that is evidence independent of the bible, by folks who had no earthy reason to make it up certainly. Whether they are reliable historical sources is always problematic regardless of who they are. Their concept of history as subject was not at all what we would think of today.

I’m am truly sorry that these subjects raise troubling issues for you. I just have no advice to impart. My experience with people who choose to be literalists is that they are not interesting in being any different, whatever the cost.

 

[De_Maria]

Can you please explain to me, if possible, how evolution fits the Bible, beyond just saying that it does?

God bless you all for your time.

Does this make any sense?

Bible in Bold. My comments in regular.

**1 In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. **

For those who claim that Genesis does not agree with the Big Bang theory, please note the brevity and power of these words. God created heaven (or “the heavens” per the NRSV) and the earth.

God, knowing that primitive man would not long want to linger on the creation of the sun and moon and stars but would be more interested in the creation of the earth in which they dwell, as even we are, simply said, “created heaven.”

2 And the earth was void and empty,

This is precisely the description which Scientists give to the earth when it was first born. It was a void much like Venus is today.

 Quote:
                A terrestrial planet, it is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet", as the two are similar in size and bulk composition. The planet is covered with an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds and its surface cannot be seen from space in visible light, making it a subject of great speculation until some of its secrets were revealed by planetary science in the 20th century. Venus has the densest atmosphere of the terrestrial planets, consisting mostly of carbon dioxide, and the atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface is 90 times that of the Earth.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus

** and darkness was upon the face of the deep;**

And just like Venus, the earth must have been covered in mist and clouds so that no light could penetrate the surface.

** and the spirit of God moved over the waters.**

But the Spirit of Life, the Spirit which quickeneth was already over the waters. This is where science agrees, life began.

** 3 And God said: Be light made. And light was made.**

And the clouds were withdrawn.

** 4 And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. **

The void began to take form and the earth began to spin on is axis.

5 And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day.

The first day.

6 And God said: Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters: and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament, and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament, Heaven; and the evening and morning were the second day.

Interestingly enough, until the advent of modern science, no one knew that there is more water in space than there is on earth. And no one knew that there is a firmament, known as the “magnetic field” which protects the water on this earth from joining the water in space.

The second day.

 Quote:
                Mars, which has little or no magnetic field, is thought to have lost much of its former oceans and atmosphere to space. This loss was caused, at least in part, by the direct impact of the solar wind on Mars' upper atmosphere. Earth's other close planetary neighbor, Venus, has no appreciable magnetic field, either. Venus is also thought to have lost nearly all of its water to space, in large part owing to solar wind-powered ablation.

resonancepub.com/magnetosphere.htm

** 9 God also said: Let the waters that are under the heaven, be gathered together into one place: and let the dry land appear. And it was so done. 10 And God called the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.**

Self explanatory.

 Quote:
                                                                  Originally Posted by **Douay Rheims commentary**                                      
             *6 "A firmament"... By this name is here understood the whole space between the earth, and the highest stars. The lower part of which divideth the waters that are upon the earth, from those that are above in the clouds.*
                             CONT'D

 

[De_Maria]

CONT’D
11 And he said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done.

Note that this happened after the waters, which had previously been overshadowed by the Spirit of God had receded.

** 12 And the earth brought forth the green herb, and such as yieldeth seed according to its kind, and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind.**

Many creationists object that these verses make it impossible for say, a coconut tree to evolve to a different kind of tree because it says, “yield seed according to its kind.” I don’t see that. Before we get too far, I believe in Intelligent Design. Therefore, God is always in the picture.

But even so, a plant that is evolving will always “yield seed according to its kind”. If it doesn’t, it won’t be able to reproduce. The changes are miniscule and only amount to much over many eons. That is why the search for a so called “missing link” is ridiculous. There are many examples of “missing links” such as in the history of the horse, from eohippus to horse. What else do they want?

** And God saw that it was good. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. **

The third day.

14 And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: 15 To shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the earth. And it was so done.

This one is continued below, but let me interject. Although we said that the clouds had been cleared off before, science agrees that the earth was covered by mist and clouds originally. The earth was much like a sauna. It is possible that as yet, the sun, moon and stars were still not clearly visible.

16 And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars. 17 And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth. 18 And to rule the day and the night, and to divide the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and morning were the fourth day.

And that is why, in my opinion, we can say twice, that God made the lights. They were already there, but they weren’t shining brightly into the surface of the earth.

** 20 God also said: Let the waters bring forth the creeping creature having life, and the fowl that may fly over the earth under the firmament of heaven.**

This agrees with science, except for one thing. Fowl or birds weren’t created until many millions of year later than the first amphibians.

However, I remember from my youth, telling my grandmother that a whale wasn’t a fish. I couldn’t make her believe it. In the same way, would it have made any sense to tell anyone that pteradactyls and pterasaurs weren’t birds. Oh and there is no evidence that pteradactyls and pterasaurs evolved from anything. The earliest fossils show that they always flew.

 Quote:
                                                                  Originally Posted by **Douay Rheims commentary**                                      
             *16 "Two great lights"... God created on the first day, light, which being moved from east to west, by its rising and setting, made morning and evening. But on the fourth day he ordered and distributed this light, and made the sun, moon, and stars. The moon, though much less than the stars, is here called a great light, from its giving a far greater light to the earth than any of them.*
                             CONT'D

 

[De_Maria]

CONT’D
**21 And God created the great whales, and every living and moving creature, which the waters brought forth, according to their kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And he blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea: and let the birds be multiplied upon the earth. 23 And the evening and morning were the fifth day. **

The fifth day.

24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle, and every thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Again, this agrees with science.

**26 And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: **

Little did ancient man know the meaning of this plural form. “Our image”. After many centuries, Jesus came to reveal the true nature of God in the Holy Trinity. And even then, it took many more centuries for the Holy Spirit to lead the Catholic Church into the fullness of Truth concerning this mystery. And possibly the entire Truth hasn’t yet been sounded.

**
and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. 27 And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.**

Man is not simply the male person. Man is complete as man and woman. Husband and Wife united in love are a reflection of the Holy Trinity.

** 28 And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. 29 And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: 30 And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done.**

  Quote:
                                                                   Originally Posted by **Douay Rheims commentary**                                      
              *26 "Let us make man to our image"... This image of God in man, is not in the body, but in the soul; which is a spiritual substance, endued with understanding and free will. God speaketh here in the plural number, to insinuate the plurality of persons in the Deity.

28 “Increase and multiply”… This is not a precept, as some Protestant controvertists would have it, but a blessing, rendering them fruitful; for God had said the same words to the fishes, and birds, (ver. 22) who were incapable of receiving a precept.*

31 And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day.

The sixth day.

Sincerely,

De Maria

 

[SpiritMeadow]

The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations

Thanks so much Doug…Wish that it would be read by those who need to read it but alas i doubt that will happen…I will undoubtedly use the phrase “fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide”. again. I have asked folks how they can maintain this dual brain thing for so long…I would implode for sure.

 

[De_Maria]

Genesis 2 was very difficult for me to understand in comparison to Genesis 1. It seemed to contradict much of what was taught there. However, as I prayerfully studied it, God let some light shine in. Much of it, however, is my own speculation. I don’t think any of it contradicts Catholic Teaching, however.

Book Of Genesis
Chapter 2

**1 So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. 3 And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. **

The seventh day. Dr. Scott Hahn has some eye opening revelations concerning the number seven and its association with the “oath” and therefore the Sabbath, which literally means “seven” or “oath”. Therefore, our Sabbath can be considered the day of the Oath or the day of the Covenant. Covenant being a larger form of oath.

Scott Hahn’s book, “Growth by Oath”
catholiccompany.com/produ…il.cfm?ID=4946

Scott Hahn’s book, “Swear to God”
crossroadsinitiative.com/…_info/161.html

4 These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth: 5 And every plant of the field before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb of the ground before it grew: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth; and there was not a man to till the earth.

This seems to be a transitional statement. Notice how it takes you back to the beginning, before the plants were made.

 Quote:
                                                                  Originally Posted by **Douay Rheims commentary**                                      
             *2 "He rested"... That is, he ceased to make or create any new kinds of things. Though, as our Lord tells us, John 5. 17,"He still worketh", viz., by conserving and governing all things, and creating souls.*

6 But a spring rose out of the earth, watering all the surface of the earth.

Apparently, after the waters were gathered and the dry earth appeared, a spring came out of the earth and watered it.

** 7 And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.**

Note that God formed male person which we know as Adam out of the slime of the earth. Adam of course, is a play on words since it means “man” or “mankind”. Note also that Adam was formed before the plants and the animals.

** 8 And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. **

1. This statement is ambiguous. The previous few statements imply that Adam was made before the plants. However, this one implies that God had already prepared a delightful garden for Adam “from the beginning”. What does “from the beginning” mean? I don’t know. Perhaps there was a period of growing up during which time God allowed a garden to grow for Adam.

Or perhaps God created the garden simultaneously as He created Adam.

1. a. I have also considered that the “garden” is a metaphor for something. The human heart, for instance, has four chambers. This coincides with the four rivers which flow in the garden.
2. b. Similarly, it could be the human body.
3. c. Or, I thought it might be Eve. This doesn’t fit chronologically, but it does in other ways which I’ll explain when we get to Chapter 3.
4. The Temple of God.

**9 And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. **

Apparently, this garden was beautiful and full of God’s bounty.

1. Jesus Christ is Life and therefore the Tree of Life represents Jesus Christ and the fruit of it, the Eucharist.
2. Or as some have said, the Tree of Life represents God, and the fruit of it, Jesus Christ or the Eucharist.
3. Or as some have also said, the Tree of Life represents Mary and the fruit of it, Jesus Christ or the Eucharist.

We’ll get to the other tree later.

cont’d

 

[De_Maria]

**10 And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads. **

 Quote:
                                                                  Originally Posted by **Douay Rheims commentary**                                      
             *9 "The tree of life"... So called because it had that quality, that by eating of the fruit of it, man would have been preserved in a constant state of health, vigour, and strength, and would not have died at all.

9 “The tree of knowledge”… To which the deceitful serpent falsely attributed the power of imparting a superior kind of knowledge, beyond that which God was pleased to give.*

**cont’d

**11 The name of the one is Phison: that is it which compasseth all the land of Hevilath, where gold groweth. 12 And the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth all the land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river is Tigris: the same passeth along by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates. 15 And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it.

1. Still a description of the beautiful garden.
2. “Till and dress it and to keep it”. According to the experts, the Hebrew word used here to tell Adam to “work” in the garden is the same word which means “worship”. Therefore, the work of man is to worship God.
3. If then, Adam is to worship in the garden, that is why the garden represents a Temple. Adam being the Priest.

**16 And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: 17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death. **

This is the First Commandment ever. The First Law. Essentially it says, “Thou Shalt Not.”

Being as this is the Word of God, the Law represents Jesus Christ. Isn’t that interesting? Jesus Christ was all over the Garden.

Now, if we look at it conversely from the Tree of Life:

1. The Tree represents Satan and the fruit represents sin.
2. The eating of the fruit represent our indulgence in the sin.

Jesus Christ, the Word of God and the Law of God, forbids us having anything to do with Satan or with sin.

Something else that is interesting:

If we correlate this verse to this verse:
Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.

We find that Adam never ate of the Tree of Life? Wow? Why not? It was there but he chose to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Very strange.

18 And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself.

Of course, this is the part that women don’t like. The “help” of man turns out to be a woman. But what a woman.

** 19 And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name. 20 And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field: but for Adam there was not found a helper like himself.**

Adam named all the animals and thus showed his mastery over them. But found none of them satisfactory. I suggest you read the Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul the Great. He explains this part of Genesis in a manner unequaled.

Here’s a good explanation of the Theology of the Body by Christopher West:
christopherwest.com/

21 Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. 22 And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. 23 And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;

Like I said, “What a woman!” Apparently it was love at first sight!

** she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. 24 Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. 25 And they were both naked: to wit, Adam and his wife: and were not ashamed.**

And they were not ashamed. Adam and Eve were created in a state of original holiness and justice. According to Pope JPII, they could look at each other and love each other without lusting for each other. To my mind, much like children are to this day.

Sincerely,

De Maria

 

[De_Maria]

1. Who is Cain afraid of in Genesis 4:14?
   Genesis 4:14 Behold thou dost cast me out this day from the face of the earth, and I shall be hidden from thy face, and I shall be a vagabond and a fugitive on the earth: every one, therefore, that findeth me, shall kill me.
   
   Quote:
   The Douay Rheims commentary:
   Quote:
   14 “Every one, therefore, that findeth me, shall kill me”… His guilty conscience made him fear his own brothers and nephews; of whom, by this time, there might be a good number upon the earth; which had now endured near 130 years; as may be gathered from Gen. 5. 3, compared with chap. 4. 25, though in the compendious account given in the scriptures, only Cain and Abel are mentioned.
   15 “Set a mark”… The more common opinion of the interpreters of holy writ supposes this mark to have been a trembling of the body; or a horror and consternation in his countenance.

I disagree with the Douay Rheims commentary.

Throughout Scripture, God sets His people apart. In fact, the word “holy” means “set apart”. We as Christians are supposed to live in the world but we are not to be part of it.

That leads me to speculate that there was a pre-existing prehuman ape civilization from which Adam was taken and given a soul. Eve then was created (should we say, cloned?) from him. The forbidden tree of knowledge of Good and Evil could have been a “family tree”. These individuals without a soul may have been ruled by instinct and thus did not as yet recognize the existence of God.

24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle, and every thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Note that the beasts were made from the earth.

7 And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

But God made man, not from the earth directly, but from the slime of the earth.

Again, just speculating, but this “slime” so called, could be a pre-ordained, pre-human society which was ready for the next step. God saw that they had some wisdom, some knowledge and they were ready for the soul.

1. Who is Cain’s wife in Genesis 4:17?

Again, many say that it was his twin sister. The Jews believe that God made Cain and Abel with twin sisters which would be their wives and that each man was born with a twin sister to be his wife.

And as the Douay Rheims commentary says, many believe that many years had passed between the time of Cain’s birth and Abel’s death. But, there seems to be little reason to believe this from the Biblical account. At least, I don’t see it.

It seems to me that the only logical answer is that Cain married a prehuman who had no soul.

After all, remember that Cain also gave up his soul. Cain never repented of his crime. Therefore his soul was dead.

1. Who are Cain’s wife’s parents in Genesis 4:17?

I think they were pre humans.

1. In Genesis 4:17 Cain founds a city! A city? Who lived in that city?

In my opinion, pre humans.
CONT’D

 

[De_Maria]

But don’t stop there. If you read on, you will find that all of Cain’s progeny died in the flood. The only ones who survived were from the line of Seth, from which Noah and his family descended. So, it is still true that all living human beings descended from Adam and Eve. Not from Adam and Eve and some prehuman ape.

Interestingly enough, the Sons of God, which the Doauy Rheims commentary says are the Sons of Seth and Adam took wives from the daughters of men. This idea also has merit because when different bloodlines are mixed, we get more vigorous progeny. This is seen when different breeds of domestic animals are crossbred and could be the reason that suddenly giants came into being. Unfortunately, this diluted the soul in the human being and thus the line of Seth became wicked until only Noah and his family remained who were worth saving.

However, if we look at other Scriptures, we see that the Angels are called Sons of God (Job 1:6). And that leads me to another line of thought.

Genesis 6:1 And after that men began to be multiplied upon the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 The sons of God seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took to themselves wives of all which they chose. 3 And God said: My spirit shall not remain in man for ever, because he is flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. 4 Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown. 5 And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times,

We see that when the Sons of God mixed with the daughters of men mighty giants were born. These were mighty men of renown. This seems to be a good thing. Not a bad thing.

I know that in the same breath, men are said to be wicked. And that is why God destroyed them. But the Scriptures do not follow the ordinary rules of grammar. It may be that the author wanted to juxtapose the two groups. The line of Cain who had become animals and the line of Seth, whose daughters were so beautiful that they were married to Angels.

Anyway, I think it is possible that we are descended of these mighty men of renown. You see, we don’t know whose daughter is Noah’s wife.

The only problem is, does that affect the Catholic doctrine that we are all descended of Adam and Eve? I don’t see how.

Sincerely,

De Maria

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

You don’t understand the nature and function of myth. Every tradition has cosmogonic myths, ranging from the Hindu “cosmic egg” to the Hebrew “hexaemeral creation” with its talking serpent to the Native American “earth diver” story. Why should we privilege one primitive people’s cosmogonic myth over those of the approximately 100,000 other world religious traditions?

One might privilege it for Christological reasons - but, that would be a theological reason, so not much use for studying what the text itself means.​

In fact, the theological use of it within Christianity is completely irrelevant to the study of the text itself; so there is no possibility of a collision - unless one insists that the explicitly Christian meaning is that of the text. Which is ridiculous, because patently false. One cannot have a collision between two things which are not connected. So there is ample room for the properly scientific study of the text as a Hebrew creation-myth, & for its later re-interpretation in Wisdom 2.23f. & St.Paul.

But a narrative of “what happened” ? No. Serpents do not talk - not even in Hebrew. Achilles has a talking horse in book 19 of the Iliad - it’s a superstition to say that animals can talk provided they are between the covers of the Bible, but that outside it they cannot. Homer says that the horse (Xanthus by name) talked - it is “modernism” & “unbelief” to deny that this possible. (At least, that’s the cry that goes up when it’s pointed out that snakes & donkeys don’t talk. Why is it so important that they should ) Myths do not cease to be myths merely because they are in the Bible. Or are we to believe that God has a sword-fight with a sea-serpent, as in Isaiah 27 ? Of course not. Can’t people tell the difference between mythological language & the meaning such language conveys ?

Insisting on the speechifying abilities of reptiles trivialises the text

Your logic escapes me: moving from “a myth is a lie” [which it is not] to saying that “the entire Christian religion is founded upon a lie.”

I recommend you read Bessie and Brennan’s “Elements of Deductive Inference: An Introduction to Symbolic Logic,”
ISBN 0534551211

Prayerfully yours,
Petrus

And see also Copi & Cohen’s chapter on fallacies in logic ​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Scott, we may be at an impasse here, as you and I – though both Catholics – appear to come from two quite different presuppositional frameworks. As I presume you know, the Hebrew scriptures are a complex and composite historical document, with pericopes of differing forms transmitted orally at first, and then written down by different scribal hands, assembled over many centuries by different redactors into collections that grew and changed over time. Contrary to what some literalists claim, Moses did not write the Pentateuch – which includes the account of his own death in Deuteronomy 34!

He was a prophet - it should have been child’s play for him to foresee his death. No one else is said to have written Deuteronomy (despite those useless modernist anti-supernaturalist Higher Critics). Therefore, it follows that Moses wrote the whole of Deuteronomy, in & with all its parts - including all of chapter 34.​

On Fundamentalist premises, it is modernist anti-supernaturalism to deny that he wrote all (meaning all) of the Torah; as well as Psalm 90.) If the argument from the words of Christ is of any validity, this follows: for He nowhere hints that anyone else wrote even one letter of the Torah - so Moses must have. He could have foreseen the (supposedly) post-Mosaic parts of it. So let’s not have any nonsense about Moses not being the author of every single consonant and vowel of it: only anti-supernatural God-haters believe that the vowels were added between 600 & 900 AD. In reality, Moses probably received them (ultimately) from Enoch, who no doubt received them from Adam. This fits the assertions in the Bible perfectly.

To be sure, the Hebrew scriptures include material that is historical in character, but it also includes material that is mythical in nature, and material that is legendary (embroidered stories based upon a really existing ur-figure). It does not take much exegetical sophistication to recognize that Genesis 1-11 is mythical in character, like the great myths of the Egyptians and Indians and Chinese, of the Mayans and Aztecs and other indigenous Americans, of the tribes of Africa and the Amazon, of the Pacific islanders and the Arctic peoples. To privilege one cosmogonic myth from one tribe in one part of the world – and to mistake it as “history” – is not only completely to misunderstand the nature of myth, but to disrespect its universal character and the essential role it plays in all cultural development.

It also makes a ghastly mess of real history ​

It is important to understand the difference between myth, legend, history, apodictic law, cultic regulations, poetry, sermons, proverbs, parables, sayings, miracle accounts, prophecy, and other genres of writing included in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. It is also important to understand the difference between these genres and “Science” as we know it, which makes no appearance in the Bible, at last nothing parallel to the contemporary Greek natural philosophies that were attempting to understand through reason how the world works.

Prayerfully yours,
Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

On a literal interpretation of the entire Bible, either Moses or God or both of them are disgusting sadists, as testified to by any number of passages commanding or condoning murder, arson, pillage, rape, and child sacrifice.

For example:

“If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.” (Deut 22:23-24)

Interpreting the Bible as an historical document sitting in the historical context of an archaic agrarian society makes it easier to understand such awful passages.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

1. Who is Cain afraid of in Genesis 4:14?
   Genesis 4:14 Behold thou dost cast me out this day from the face of the earth, and I shall be hidden from thy face, and I shall be a vagabond and a fugitive on the earth: every one, therefore, that findeth me, shall kill me.

Quote:
The Douay Rheims commentary:
Quote:
14 “Every one, therefore, that findeth me, shall kill me”… His guilty conscience made him fear his own brothers and nephews; of whom, by this time, there might be a good number upon the earth; which had now endured near 130 years; as may be gathered from Gen. 5. 3, compared with chap. 4. 25, though in the compendious account given in the scriptures, only Cain and Abel are mentioned.
15 “Set a mark”… The more common opinion of the interpreters of holy writ supposes this mark to have been a trembling of the body; or a horror and consternation in his countenance.

I disagree with the Douay Rheims commentary.

Throughout Scripture, God sets His people apart. In fact, the word “holy” means “set apart”. We as Christians are supposed to live in the world but we are not to be part of it.

That leads me to speculate that there was a pre-existing prehuman ape civilization from which Adam was taken and given a soul. Eve then was created (should we say, cloned?) from him. The forbidden tree of knowledge of Good and Evil could have been a “family tree”. These individuals without a soul may have been ruled by instinct and thus did not as yet recognize the existence of God.

24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle, and every thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Note that the beasts were made from the earth.

7 And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

But God made man, not from the earth directly, but from the slime of the earth.

Again, just speculating, but this “slime” so called, could be a pre-ordained, pre-human society which was ready for the next step. God saw that they had some wisdom, some knowledge and they were ready for the soul.

1. Who is Cain’s wife in Genesis 4:17?

Again, many say that it was his twin sister. The Jews believe that God made Cain and Abel with twin sisters which would be their wives and that each man was born with a twin sister to be his wife.

And as the Douay Rheims commentary says, many believe that many years had passed between the time of Cain’s birth and Abel’s death. But, there seems to be little reason to believe this from the Biblical account. At least, I don’t see it.

It seems to me that the only logical answer is that Cain married a prehuman who had no soul.

After all, remember that Cain also gave up his soul. Cain never repented of his crime. Therefore his soul was dead.

1. Who are Cain’s wife’s parents in Genesis 4:17?

I think they were pre humans.

1. In Genesis 4:17 Cain founds a city! A city? Who lived in that city?

In my opinion, pre humans.
CONT’D

But, this implies incest and bestiality - and, implies that it was once entirely OK to commit incest. Which is just the kind of relativism that gets people so worked up. ​

It’s far less morally problematic to treat Cain (and his wife) as not historical but mythical; it raises far fewer headaches for the explanation of the text. OTOH, that will be unacceptable to quite a few people too.

 

[Benadam]

On a literal interpretation of the entire Bible, either Moses or God or both of them are disgusting sadists, as testified to by any number of passages commanding or condoning murder, arson, pillage, rape, and child sacrifice.

For example:

“If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.” (Deut 22:23-24)

Interpreting the Bible as an historical document sitting in the historical context of an archaic agrarian society makes it easier to understand such awful passages.

Moses allowed divorce, Jesus called divorce adultery. Jesus didn’t say Moses was wrong about what was good. Moral decisions must include the circumstances and the conditions of all involved including the condition of their souls in order to detrermine what is good.

 

[drpmjhess]

On a doggedly literal interpretation of the Bible as word of God dictated to the hand of Moses, there is no denying that either Moses or God becomes a heinously sadistic person. Read the Bible closely and you might be shocked at some of its frightful prescriptions!