When did Adam/Eve Live?

[PhilVaz]

Spin off on the evolution poll thread. I am a theistic evolutionist in case you didn’t know.

I’ve discussed this in other threads. I think there are some conflicts since the Catholic Church teaches

(1) Adam/Eve were historical (see for example all the references to them in the Catechism paragraphs 385-421), that we literally trace our humanity back to these 2 human parents who were fully human, i.e. they had immortal souls, and they passed the “original sin” on to us

(2) evolution is probably true (see Catechism paragraphs 283-284)

The second point we can dispute as to the status of (macro)evolution in the Church, but I would rather discuss the first point (1).

Lately, I’ve been trying to p(name removed by moderator)oint when Adam/Eve would have lived, if we take (assume) Genesis as a historical account. There are many different views, depending how you define humanity. I’ve mentioned Hugh Ross (The Genesis Question, dates Adam/Eve at 50000-70000 BC), and Glenn Morton (Adam, Apes, and Anthropology, dates Adam/Eve to around 1-2 million years ago based on creatures that “acted” the same way humans do). These are my main sources, I don’t have Catholic sources as yet that discuss these questions in detail (Fr. Stanley Jaki might have a book on the question, but I haven’t located it).

One evangelical article from a Scientific Christian organization (In Search of Historical Adam, two parts by Dick Fischer) suggests 4000-5000 BC based on the Genesis geneologies (chapter 5 and 11) with few gaps, and especially by the references to livestock raising and farming (Genesis 4:2), sophisticated musical instruments (the harp and the flute, Genesis 4:21) and metal working (at least bronze and iron, Genesis 4:22). This would seem to definitively put them AFTER the Stone Age (c. 10000 BC or earlier where only stone tools and weapons existed), and during the Bronze Age (c. about 5000 BC or so).

The problem is we know humanity (homo sapiens sapiens) goes back 100,000 years or more. We have Cro-Magnon skulls (e.g. the “cave man” which are also considered our species homo sapiens) dated at least 30,000-40,000 years ago.

Knowing and accepting this anthropological data, the above article by Fischer suggests Adam/Eve were inserted by God into (already existing) humanity as special creations (so at this point God “bypassed” evolution and we invoke a physical miracle). I don’t like that since I would rather try to reconcile with standard evolutionary science and paleoanthropology (which is what Glenn Morton tries to do in his book).

Anyone care to comment? Can we take Genesis as historical, and do I have the above right? That Adam/Eve must be after the Stone Age based on the references to livestock/farming and metal working in Genesis chapter 4, which did not exist in the Stone Age. And how do you explain humanity (our species homo sapiens) existing before Adam/Eve?

I know, a can of worms. Feel free to nail me if I have my Bible or dating wrong.

Phil Porvaznik

 

[JimG]

PhilVaz:

Knowing and accepting this anthropological data, the above article by Fischer suggests Adam/Eve were inserted by God into (already existing) humanity as special creations (so at this point God “bypassed” evolution and we invoke a physical miracle). I don’t like that since I would rather try to reconcile with standard evolutionary science and paleoanthropology (which is what Glenn Morton tries to do in his book).

Anyone care to comment? Can we take Genesis as historical, and do I have the above right? That Adam/Eve must be after the Stone Age based on the references to livestock/farming and metal working in Genesis chapter 4, which did not exist in the Stone Age. And how do you explain humanity (our species homo sapiens) existing before Adam/Eve?

I don’t know the answer to the question of when Adam & Eve existed. But I think it might be useful to make a distinction between what scientists call the species of homo sapiens and what philosophy and theology calls human beings.

Of course God would have had to intervene in evolution to create our first parents. Because their predecessors, no matter how similar in anatomy, did not have immortal souls. That must be created directly by God.

So if you wish to use evolutionary theory to explain the development of homo sapiens, there is still the necessity for God at some point to infuse a soul into our first parents, thereby creating for the first time human beings, and also beginning human history. Human beings from Adam and Eve forward would have been qualitatively different from any preceeding species they may have resembled. I doubt that there is any way the existence of the soul can be inferred from the archeological data.

JimG

 

[PhilVaz]

Thanks for the comment, I’m wondering if my references in Genesis 4 (farming and metal working) are relevant and can definitively p(name removed by moderator)oint the date and put Adam/Eve after the Stone Age? That is, they were not the first homo sapiens (physically) to exist, even though Genesis (taken as historical) implies they were?

But point taken about God inserting the soul at some point, that would make us human (made in God’s image) with soul and body. And that cannot be “detected” by science. Although Glenn Morton in the above book suggests it can be detected by anthropology: the behavior of some of these very early hominids (1-2 million years ago) implies they had a soul/spirit as well. Another difficult question, how to define what is “truly human.”

Phil P

 

[JimG]

PhilVaz:

One evangelical article from a Scientific Christian organization (In Search of Historical Adam, two parts by Dick Fischer) suggests 4000-5000 BC based on the Genesis geneologies (chapter 5 and 11) with few gaps, and especially by the references to livestock raising and farming (Genesis 4:2), sophisticated musical instruments (the harp and the flute, Genesis 4:21) and metal working (at least bronze and iron, Genesis 4:22). This would seem to definitively put them AFTER the Stone Age (c. 10000 BC or earlier where only stone tools and weapons existed), and during the Bronze Age (c. about 5000 BC or so)

I think that these comments in your original post with regard to placing our first parents after the Stone Age do have some merit. People who farm, raise livestock, do metalwork, and use musical instruments do seem to fit our conceptions of humanity.

JimG

 

[Ken]

JimG:

I think that these comments in your original post with regard to placing our first parents after the Stone Age do have some merit. People who farm, raise livestock, do metalwork, and use musical instruments do seem to fit our conceptions of humanity.

JimG

The notion that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve is a bit more subtle than often assumed.

I have eight great grandparents. Let’s say Tom and Mary are two of them. I can say I am descended from Tom and Mary. It’s also true that I am descended from a host of other folks, but I can still simply state that I am descended from Tom and Mary.

So, if we drop Adam and Eve into any human society in the past, it is possible that over time and as genes mixed we are now in a situation where all people have Adam and Eve in their ancestry.

Now, we all might have Og and Zook in our ancestry, too. So, we can also say that all humans are descended from Og and Zook.

What I have never heard is that Adam and Eve are the only ancestors common to all humans. This leaves a huge amount of wiggle room.

 

[Ghosty]

What I have never heard is that Adam and Eve are the only ancestors common to all humans. This leaves a huge amount of wiggle room.

Bingo. I would add that all people with souls descended from Adam and Eve, and all humans today have souls. This theory also fixes the problem of where Caine’s wife came from, as she is an unamed figure that pops up out of nowhere. She could easily be one of the remaining humanoid creatures that was completely biologically compatible with true humans, but lacked the spark of Divine Image, a soul.

 

[Steve_M]

PhilVaz:

I’ve mentioned Hugh Ross (The Genesis Question, dates Adam/Eve at 50000-70000 BC),

One evangelical article from a Scientific Christian organization (In Search of Historical Adam, two parts by Dick Fischer) suggests 4000-5000 BC based on the Genesis geneologies
Phil Porvaznik

If you’ve read The Genesis Question, a very interesting book by the way, then you know the 4000-5000 BC is out of the question, since several societies can date themselves older than that.

 

[JimG]

Cain’s wife was Zook??

 

[PhilVaz]

SteveM << then you know the 4000-5000 BC is out of the question, since several societies can date themselves older than that >>

I have the Hugh Ross book, but I need to go through it. The guy who proposes the 4000-5000 BC date (see Dick Fischer article linked above) asserts that Adam/Eve were not the first human beings, but that God “inserted” Adam/Eve at a certain point (around 4000-5000 BC) by special creation. He admits that homo sapiens physically go back around 100,000 years.

“Why force something that isn’t there? If we believe paleontologists, anatomically modern humans go back some 100,000 years; archaic Homo sapiens first appeared about 300,000 years ago; and hominids of some description can be traced back 2.5 million years with precursors to 4 million years ago. And if we trust the biblical text, Adam fits best at about 5000 to 4000 BC… These creatures either died out, leaving the world devoid of humanity until Adam was created, or else they left progeny who were busy populating the earth when Adam arrived on the scene. Adam either evolved or was nonexistent - notions the Bible rejects - or else he was inserted, so to speak, into the train of humanity. This is the solution we will explore.”

A very interesting two-part article by Dick Fischer, and like Hugh Ross and Glenn Morton he accepts the scientific data. That’s what I want to see, folks who deal with the science as well as Genesis.

The “clue” in the biblical text he sees is the reference in Genesis 4 to metal working (bronze tools, etc) and farming/agriculture, which does not date before the Bronze Ages (c. 5000 BC) and definitely after the Stone Ages (c. > 10000 BC), although the dates vary and there is early, middle, and late periods. So taking Genesis as strictly historical, you do seem to come up with the 4000-5000 BC date for Adam/Eve and their immediate descendants (Genesis 4).

I need to see how Hugh Ross deals with that (the Genesis 4 “bronze” and “farming” references), and Glenn Morton’s book appears to be even more thorough. But I just got these and haven’t studied them carefully yet.

Phil P

 

[marciadietrich]

Ken:

What I have never heard is that Adam and Eve are the only ancestors common to all humans. This leaves a huge amount of wiggle room.

Hello Ken,

I’m not sure if you are Catholic or not. But the Catechism section on original sin and Pius XII in Humani Generis section 37 are pretty clear that Adam and Eve are the only ancestors common to all humans. So there is not the wiggle room that you’d like to have there for just dropping Adam and Eve among a group of other ancestors.

Even if they did evolve, according to Catholic teaching Adam was the father, and Eve the mother, of all who were people from that point on.
Humani Generis:

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.12]

Catechism:

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.

There could not have been generations of people after Adam who were not directly descended from Adam.

Anyhow, this seems to be a very sticky issue in reconciling standard evolutionary thought with Catholic doctrine, even if we’re allowed to believe it … still haven’t heard a good explanation to fit this other than just plain divine intervention which science wouldn’t adhere to that.

This issue Phil has brought up of how long ago Adam and Eve lived seems to be another add on to the same problem. If it was more recent, would seem hard to have only Adam and Eve as parents to all because people were already scattered wide by that time.

Marcia

 

[marciadietrich]

Phil,

Although Adam and Eve are to be taken as literal first parents, and only direct parents, to all humans … not all the Genesis text has to be taken literally, including dating around the children/grandchildren named. It certainly doesn’t have to be literal that all metal workers descend from one guy and musicians from another, those items in Gen 4 might be - in a non-literal view of the geneology - just briefs on what mankind attains at a later date in terms of technology and civilization.

Of course, when Adam and Eve are to be literal people, it is harder to take their children and grandchildren as merely representations… and to reconcile with standard evolutionary science I’m not sure descent from a single pair will match up with that ever, because of evolution in populations and the problems of populations that are not genetically diverse.

Marcia

 

[Contarini]

Phil, I don’t take the early chapters of Genesis as “strictly historical,” so I’d pose the problems a bit differently. It seems to me (though you may see this as too liberal a position) that the OT genealogical narratives frequently collapse the stories of individuals with the stories of nations and clans, and that they often tell the story of a tribe or civilization as if it were the story of an individual. Obviously if this was pushed to the extent of (say) denying that Abraham was a real person, then it would be heretical, but that’s not what I’m saying. I see no reason to think that Genesis 4 is a literal narrative of events that followed within one generation of the events narrated in chap. 3. So I have no problem with the idea that the Fall occurred back at the beginning of the Old Stone Age, while chap. 4 is essentially a summary of the Neolithic period and the early Bronze Age, linking the development of civilization with the further outworking of human sinfulness.

I see that marcadietrich has said many of the same things I’m saying. I will just add in closing that I’m not disputing that Genesis refers to events that really happened (such as a choice to disobey God made by the first pair of human beings); I’m just suggesting that the way in which these events are narrated is not that of literal history.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[PhilVaz]

Thanks for the comments Marcia and Edwin, I need to get myself some commentaries on Genesis to see what the “experts” say.

Have you ever heard of Denis Lamoureux? He is an evangelical Christian who debated Phillip E. Johnson in the book Darwinism Defeated? The Johnson-Lamoureux Debate on Biological Origins. Excellent book, Johnson basically gives up since his opponent (Ph.D.'s in theology and biology) makes such a strong case for God using evolution in the creation process. Calls himself an “evolutionary creationist.” Plus there are several essays by prominent evangelical and “intelligent design” folks (Michael Behe, Keith Miller, Jonathan Wells, Howard Van Till, etc with a forward by J. I. Packer).

Lamoureux has an excellent Quicktime presentation on the creation-evolution issue. Though he doesn’t address the Adam/Eve question specifically, he insists the writers of Genesis/OT believed not only in a geocentric universe (stationary earth), but that the earth was flat. They had an “ancient science” along with an “ancient poetry.” So I assume he interprets Adam/Eve as more “symbolical” as well, not an option it seems to me for a Catholic.

I should find some Catholic books since all the sources I’ve been getting are evangelical or Protestant.

Another book The Origins Solution by this same guy Dick Fischer mentioned above claims to have “solved” the creation-evolution debate.

Phil P

 

[marciadietrich]

PhilVaz:

Thanks for the comments Marcia and Edwin, I need to get myself some commentaries on Genesis to see what the “experts” say.

…
Plus there are several essays by prominent evangelical and “intelligent design” folks (Michael Behe, Keith Miller, Jonathan Wells, Howard Van Till, etc with a forward by J. I. Packer).

Hi Phil,

I am getting the Well’s book Icons of Evolution to see what that says… will check out Lemoureux. Though if he doesn’t address a literal take on Adam and Eve might not be much help.

I should find some Catholic books since all the sources I’ve been getting are evangelical or Protestant.

I have a couple of other books to drudge through first, but have heard a Catholic philosopher (?) wrote a book called “Origin of the Human Species” and does address the issues of Adam and Eve and original sin with support of evolution. I believe the author is Donald Bounette but might be wrong first name on that. It is available via amazon.com … if you get it let me know what you think of it.

Another book The Origins Solution by this same guy Dick Fischer mentioned above claims to have “solved” the creation-evolution debate.

Well, I wish that were true, lol. Can’t hurt to check it out I guess.

Marcia

 

[George789]

Jesus didn’t mention anything about evolving from apes, if it was important he would have stated so.

If we evolved from apes than why are they still here? Shouldn’t they have died off (natural selection)?
I still don’t get the missing link part either?

 

[PhilVaz]

George << If we evolved from apes than why are they still here? Shouldn’t they have died off (natural selection)? >>

If fish evolved into amphibians, why still fish? If amphibs into reptiles, why still amphibs? If reptiles into mammals, why still reptiles?

The answer is some evolved, the rest find their ecological niches. The same answer to the question, if American people came from the Europeans, why are there still Europeans? Some stayed behind. No problem. Not everyone left for America.

But we didn’t evolve from “modern apes”, but modern apes, modern chimps, and modern humans (homo sapiens) had a “common ancestor” several million years ago where we diverged in our evolution. Also know this: 99% of all species that have ever lived on planet earth have gone extinct. We are part of the 1% of species who survived. And although science can’t tell us this, I think therefore God had us in mind.

George << I still don’t get the missing link part either? >>

Science got it all pretty well figured out. There are several missing links, although that’s an old terminology. There are still many gaps in the fossil record, but the transitionals are there, just need to sort them out.

The Hominid-Human Transitionals

The Vertebrate Transitionals

The Whale Transitionals

The Bird Transitionals

Phil P

 

[marciadietrich]

George789:

Jesus didn’t mention anything about evolving from apes, if it was important he would have stated so.

George,

There were a lot of things Jesus didn’t mention. I’m not sure how that alone precludes evolution as a possible tool in the creation of mankind. Jesus did mention Adam specifically, it is doctrine that he is the parent to all mankind … how he got here is what we’re looking at. Was it literal from the dust, or was it a process that started with dust and through eons to mankind?

If we evolved from apes than why are they still here? Shouldn’t they have died off (natural selection)?

We didn’t evolve from apes. Not to be down on you, but the evolution crowd will blow you off if you lead with that idea - it is a strawman. We (technically a great ape) along with other great apes (chimpanzee, gorilla and orangutan) all evolved from a common ancestor (granted something ape-like in itself, but not the same as modern great apes). Just because there was seperation doesn’t mean the others had to die off… or else why are there chimpanzees, gorillas and orangs? They are all different but related species. Just as various big cats are different but related species.

I still don’t get the missing link part either?

There were many other ape-like creatures which seem to have lived and died before us … those creatures being considered the links between the past and the present. Creature not fully human but not quite ape either. With cranial sizes between us and the other apes. With transitions in the posture from semi- upright to upright.

Now, I empathize in wanting to be sure we don’t undermine faith. I am willing to say this is all in appearances and possibly mankind was specially created from nothing and was created with the genetic relationship to other great apes. Still there is something there that can’t be ignored. You don’t understand the basics of evolutionary theory, and you are arguing against something that is not the same as what evolution really says.

Marcia

 

[PhilVaz]

marcia << I am getting the Well’s book Icons of Evolution to see what that says… will check out Lemoureux. >>

I didn’t buy the book, but have flipped through it. I don’t like Wells, his book has been pretty well demolished by TalkOrigins and the NCSE. He is a Moonie (Unification Church) who has admitted his reason for getting a 2nd Ph.D. in biology was to "destroy Darwinism." So he is not objective, not to say all scientists are of course.

I also have him in a 2002 debate with Michael Ruse (philosopher of science, now with Florida State) and Bruce Tiffney (paleobotanist), and though it was a friendly debate, he doesn’t do a good job “explaining away” the evidence for evolution presented. Plus he doesn’t have any alternative to offer.

That’s why I like Denis Lamoureux, he too knows his science, but accepts evolution, and offers a solution how to reconcile with Christian faith (though not specifically the Adam/Eve question).

Wells has little to say to refute human evolution (his last Icon) in his book, he basically accepts the hominid evidence.

Phil P

 

[Ahimsa]

marciadietrich:

We didn’t evolve from apes. Not to be down on you, but the evolution crowd will blow you off if you lead with that idea - it is a strawman. We (technically a great ape) along with other great apes (chimpanzee, gorilla and orangutan) all evolved from a common ancestor (granted something ape-like in itself, but not the same as modern great apes). Marcia

The evolution crowd certainly will blow you off if you claim that humans evolved from chimps, or gorillas, or any of the modern great apes. But the current evolutionary model does propose that humans evolved from some species of great ape some 5 to 7 million years ago. It’s just that the particular species of great ape from which humans evolved has become extinct, while great apes like the chimps continue to exist.

I just think that some members of the pro-evolution crowd don’t want people to start saying the humans evolved from chimps. Whereas, if you really think about it, the great ape species from which humans evolved – though not a chimp – was probably not all that different from a chimp. I would hazard a guess that if that ancestral species were alive today, few would notice any differences between it and the average chimpsky.

Ahimsa

 

[marciadietrich]

Ahimsa:

I just think that some members of the pro-evolution crowd don’t want people to start saying the humans evolved from chimps.

It is totally wrong is why they don’t want it said. But they will honestly say we are evolved from something that people would take as being ape-like have some resemblence to modern great apes.

Whereas, if you really think about it, the great ape species from which humans evolved – though not a chimp – was probably not all that different from a chimp. I would hazard a guess that if that ancestral species were alive today, few would notice any differences between it and the average chimpsky.

Few would notice any differences? But why do you choose the chimp? … why not a gorilla or an orangutan or a gibbon for what that ancestor looked like? You feel people somehow couldn’t tell that ancestor from a chimp, yet people can **easily **indentify those various modern great apes as being quite different from each other? I’m sure the average person could tell the difference. Just as they can easily identify a gorilla as being different than an orangutan. Given a little information they could tell the difference between a male orangutan from Borneo (narrower face) or Sumatra (wide cheek flaps).

The chimp is closer to us -our closest relative genetically, and probably further evolved away from the common ancestor than the other great apes. Chimps appeal to us more because they are genetically closer, we can see more of ourselves in them because of the genetic similarities. But it is a mistake to claim evolution says we evolved FROM chimpanzees or any other modern great ape.

Marcia