God did not want to keep them around, but it’s entirely possible they were not evil so much as a threat to the supremacy of human beings since they apparently shared common traits but may have seen humans as a threat to their survival.
.Genesis 6: 12 When God saw how corrupt the earth had become, since all mortals had corrupted their ways on earth, 13 God said to Noah: I see that the end of all mortals has come, for the earth is full of lawlessness because of them. So I am going to destroy them with the earth.
Side by side with the question of venial sin/mortal sin, you also need to evaluate whether as a good Catholic, you have any real choice at all to take it figuratively rather than literally? This is because a literal Adam and Eve (A&E) is intricately connected to the doctrine of “Original Sin (OS), 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” (Humanis Generis para 37). The doctrine of OS is so central to the deposit of faith that without it, the whole edifice crumbles. Hence to call oneself a Catholic whilst at the same time holding out from believing in a literal A&E would be an absurdity. That’s why I said earlier, its a hard choice: one between the devil and the deep sea.
So would you say that His Eminence Roman Catholic Cardinal Pell is speaking absurdly when he describes Adam and Eve as a myth? Most people would consider His Eminence Cardinal Pell to be a good Catholic, despite what you imply in your first sentence?Side by side with the question of venial sin/mortal sin, you also need to evaluate whether as a good Catholic, you have any real choice at all to take it figuratively rather than literally? This is because a literal Adam and Eve (A&E) is intricately connected to the doctrine of “Original Sin (OS), 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” (Humanis Generis para 37). The doctrine of OS is so central to the deposit of faith that without it, the whole edifice crumbles. Hence to call oneself a Catholic whilst at the same time holding out from believing in a literal A&E would be an absurdity. That’s why I said earlier, its a hard choice: one between the devil and the deep sea.
People today have Neanderthal genes, so there had to be people with those genes on the arc who were saved.
So you think the flood occurred before Neanderthal extinction?
Adam and Eve might well have been after have been after Neanderthal - Homo Sapiens interbreeding,
If traces of the Neaderthals cease to be found after 40,000 B.C. (suggesting their extinction by then) it’s doubtful they were around long enough to be on the ark, as an ark of the magnitude described in Genesis probably could not have been crafted 40,000 years ago.
Smithsonian magazine wrote: “Before Neanderthals went extinct some 30,000 years ago, they interbred with our human ancestors…”
I seriously doubt that the building of mammoth sized ships could be so far advanced that long ago.
I doubt that there is any scientific evidence in terms of sediment layers to demonstrate that there was ever a world wide flood. So it is more likely that the story of Noah is just that, a story.
I don’t base my belief of scripture on scientific studies.
Exactly, their descendants were on the arc since their descendants are with us today.
The chronology for this does not work. The DNA evidence indicates that the mixing between Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis took place after the former left Africa about 60,000 years ago. But Y-chromosome haplogroups B and C had already branched off from Haplogroup A in Africa before this around 80,000 and then 70,000 years ago. But according to Genesis, all the men in the ark were Noah and his sons and they would all have belonged to the same Y-chromosome haplogroup. So the only way that everyone in the world today could be descended from Noah and his sons would be if Noah belonged to the oldest African origin haplogroup, haplogroup A and the flood took place before 80,000 years ago. But if that were the case, he would not have had any Neanderthal DNA to pass down to his modern descendants.
A regional flood being the basis for the story is quite possible, as when the Mediterranean broke through the Bosporus Straits and flooded the Black Sea basin, or the Snake River Gorge in the US. On the other hand, there is no evidence of World wide, large W flooding ever having occurred.
The remark appears in the 29th minute of an hour-long TV debate with an atheist (for the information of readers who would like to look it up). The atheist is quick to counter with a question on what it (Adam and Eve as myth) means for the doctrine of Original Sin, but the topic gets diverted. Has anybody seen any clarification from His Eminence or any other church authority on this point?