When Did Adam Live?

[PaulSacramento]

Looking at Genesis 1 and 2 and not adding any presuppositions, the most natural reading seems to be:
Genesis 1 is an account of the creation of the planet and all life on it in general.
Genesis 2 is a specific account of the creation of life in a specific local, The Garden in Eden and of the special creation of two individuals.
This can lead us to the view ( implied) that these were distinct from the rest of creation.

[DBowling]

Looking at Genesis 1 and 2 and not adding any presuppositions, the most natural reading seems to be:
Genesis 1 is an account of the creation of the planet and all life on it in general.
Genesis 2 is a specific account of the creation of life in a specific local, The Garden in Eden and of the special creation of two individuals.
This can lead us to the view ( implied) that these were distinct from the rest of creation.

Hi Paul,

I'd like to make sure I understand what you are really saying in the quote above, instead of interpreting your statement through the filter of my presuppositions.

It looks to me like your statement above appears to correlate to something similar that I proposed in my response to ssh a couple of posts back
1.Your statement - Genesis 1 is an account of the creation of the planet and all life on it in general.
My statement - Genesis 1:26-27 might be a reference to Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosome Adam in Africa somewhere around 150,000-200,000 BC

2. Your statement - Genesis 2 is a specific account of the creation of life in a specific local, The Garden in Eden and of the special creation of two individuals.
My statement - Genesis 2 tells the story of the historical Adam and Eve who lived in Mesopotamia somewhere around 4000-6000 BC.

Let me parse your final statement (my comments in italics) to make sure I'm understanding your conclusion correctly
"This can lead us to the view (implied) that these (the special creation of two individuals in Genesis 2) were distinct (in space and time) from the rest of creation (the creation of mankind in Genesis 1)."

Am I understanding you correctly?
Thanks

In Christ

[PaulSacramento]

Yep, pretty much.

[DBowling]

Hi Paul,

Well, I think there are still some areas where we don't quite see eye to eye yet. But it does look like we are in a position to explore the implications of an area where we do appear to be relatively close.

The historical Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 were distinct in space and time from the Genesis 1 account of the creation of mankind.

Earlier in this thread I mentioned a number of implications of this premise that I am currently struggling with.
I would welcome your comments (and the comments of others as well) concerning some of the implications that I have copied and pasted below.

3. What was the spiritual state of those humans in the rest of the world prior to the Fall?
Still struggling with that one... Ideas would be appreciated. According to Romans 5:12 mankind had not experienced sin prior to the Fall, but Genesis 3 gives us some additional insight. The tree in question was not "The Tree of the Knowledge of Evil" the tree was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". Evidently mankind prior to the Fall did not know either good or evil... Still trying to understand what that even means.
4. What happened to humans in the rest of the world at the time of the Fall?
Struggling with this one too... According to Genesis 3:7 after Adam and Eve sinned their "eyes were opened" to know good and evil. Would this "eye opening" experience have extended to all humans across the globe at the same time? Don't know
5. Original Sin.
This one's a doozie! Scripture teaches us that all humans have an inherent tendency to sin, and observations of any person or persons for any length of time validates this Scriptural teaching. Is this inherent tendency to sin in humans a result of the Fall or did it predate the Fall possibly as a natural function of human free will which contributed to the Fall? One note here... I definitely draw a distinction between an inherent tendency to sin and consciously sinning. An infant has the inherent tendency to sin, but it is not guilty of sin until at some point in its life the infant develops to a state where that inherent tendency expresses itself in willful sin.

As I mentioned in the OP I don't have all the answers here. I think I'm pretty solid both Scripturally and historically on the timeline, but I'm still working my way through the theological implications of this timeline on the Fall of Man in Genesis 3.

In Christ

[PaulSacramento]

3. What was the spiritual state of those humans in the rest of the world prior to the Fall?
Still struggling with that one... Ideas would be appreciated. According to Romans 5:12 mankind had not experienced sin prior to the Fall, but Genesis 3 gives us some additional insight. The tree in question was not "The Tree of the Knowledge of Evil" the tree was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". Evidently mankind prior to the Fall did not know either good or evil... Still trying to understand what that even means.

It is a question that all evolutionary creationists struggle with.
According to some, A&E were the first humans to receive a spirit, when they went out into the world, their decedents interbreed with those other humans and their children were given spirits and so forth.
Others simply see them as the first ones to be born with a spirit and that eventually all humans got one.
Another one is that Adam and Eve were the first fully human and spiritual beings, God offered them a place in paradise, a place that IF they remained worthy, would be offered to ALL humans.
They failed and as such all humans suffered.
In short there are a few views that try and reconcile A&E with the rest of humanity.

4. What happened to humans in the rest of the world at the time of the Fall?
Struggling with this one too... According to Genesis 3:7 after Adam and Eve sinned their "eyes were opened" to know good and evil. Would this "eye opening" experience have extended to all humans across the globe at the same time? Don't know

Some argue that, like a virus, evil spread to all humanity from A&E and their off spring.
Others suggest that it was only A&E whose eyes were open and the rest of humanity already know good and evil.

5. Original Sin.
This one's a doozie! Scripture teaches us that all humans have an inherent tendency to sin, and observations of any person or persons for any length of time validates this Scriptural teaching. Is this inherent tendency to sin in humans a result of the Fall or did it predate the Fall possibly as a natural function of human free will and actually contribute to the Fall? One note here... I definitely draw a distinction between an inherent tendency to sin and consciously sinning. An infant has the inherent tendency to sin, but it is not guilty of sin until at some point in its life the infant develops to a state where that inherent tendency expresses itself in willful sin.

Original sin is a tricky one because there is more than one view of original sin.
Some view Paul's comment on OS as simply that ALL are born mortal and sin and as such, all die because they are mortal and sin.
Humankind's tendency to sin is very interesting because, contrary to what you said, observation shows that infants CAN and DO sin on "purpose" and by sin I mean act in a way that is against their best interest, against what is naturally good for them ( case in point a baby lashing out and it's mother for example).
Children have been documented knowingly inflicting pain on each other out of spite or even inflicting pain on animals, knowing full well the impact of what they are doing.

In short humans are born with far more than just a tendency to sin, they are born with a desire to sin, a desire to hurt as an expression of displeasure, and so forth.

Where did this come from?
From man's separation from God.
Man is only truly and fully human when they are in union with God ( as A&E were in the Garden).
Separate man from God and man is in a "fallen" ( less than ideal) state, a state of sin.

[PaulSacramento]

As I mentioned in the OP I don't have all the answers here. I think I'm pretty solid both Scripturally and historically on the timeline, but I'm still working my way through the theological implications of this timeline on the Fall of Man in Genesis 3.

Can I ask you if you believe that the original intent of the writer of Genesis was to give his readers a "timeline"?

[DBowling]

As I mentioned in the OP I don't have all the answers here. I think I'm pretty solid both Scripturally and historically on the timeline, but I'm still working my way through the theological implications of this timeline on the Fall of Man in Genesis 3.

Can I ask you if you believe that the original intent of the writer of Genesis was to give his readers a "timeline"?

I happen to think that Moses' intent in putting together the Genesis narrative is far far removed from any discussions that western thinkers like myself engage in regarding the historicity and scientific accuracy of Genesis.
However I do believe that the Holy Spirit has intervened in allowing Moses to tell his story in a way that just so happens to also be consistent with both history and science.

And since I believe that Genesis is more than just a human inspired document, I do expect it's accuracy to extend beyond the scope of the author's intent. There are lots of OT prophecies concerning Jesus that I could use as examples... but I won't go down that rabbit trail.

Anyway... getting back on topic. Even though Moses didn't intend to give us a timeline, he did give us a basic sequence of events (which I think we both agree on). And we now have enough historical information to place those events within a historical context and timeline which I believe validates Moses' intended sequence of events.

So the short answer to your question is...
timeline?... no
sequence of events?... yes

In Christ

[DBowling]

3. What was the spiritual state of those humans in the rest of the world prior to the Fall?
Still struggling with that one... Ideas would be appreciated. According to Romans 5:12 mankind had not experienced sin prior to the Fall, but Genesis 3 gives us some additional insight. The tree in question was not "The Tree of the Knowledge of Evil" the tree was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". Evidently mankind prior to the Fall did not know either good or evil... Still trying to understand what that even means.

It is a question that all evolutionary creationists struggle with.
According to some, A&E were the first humans to receive a spirit, when they went out into the world, their decedents interbreed with those other humans and their children were given spirits and so forth.
Others simply see them as the first ones to be born with a spirit and that eventually all humans got one.
Another one is that Adam and Eve were the first fully human and spiritual beings, God offered them a place in paradise, a place that IF they remained worthy, would be offered to ALL humans.
They failed and as such all humans suffered.
In short there are a few views that try and reconcile A&E with the rest of humanity.

When I started researching this question I did find it interesting that theistic evolutionists appear to be the people who are investigating this issue. I am a progressive creationist, but I found myself going to books and sites of theistic evolutionists to find this topic addressed. The irony is that you do not have to be a theistic evolutionist to come to the conclusion that the whole globe was populated with honest to goodness human beings before 10,000 BC and that Scripture (and Mesopotamian history) place the events of Genesis 2-4 in the 4000 BC to 6000 BC time frame. So this is not a dilemma that is unique to theistic evolutionists.

I struggle a bit with the premise that Adam and Eve were the first humans with spirits. God creates mankind in his image in Genesis 1 before Adam and Eve appear in Genesis 2.

5. Original Sin.
This one's a doozie! Scripture teaches us that all humans have an inherent tendency to sin, and observations of any person or persons for any length of time validates this Scriptural teaching. Is this inherent tendency to sin in humans a result of the Fall or did it predate the Fall possibly as a natural function of human free will and actually contribute to the Fall? One note here... I definitely draw a distinction between an inherent tendency to sin and consciously sinning. An infant has the inherent tendency to sin, but it is not guilty of sin until at some point in its life the infant develops to a state where that inherent tendency expresses itself in willful sin.

Original sin is a tricky one because there is more than one view of original sin.
Some view Paul's comment on OS as simply that ALL are born mortal and sin and as such, all die because they are mortal and sin.
Humankind's tendency to sin is very interesting because, contrary to what you said, observation shows that infants CAN and DO sin on "purpose" and by sin I mean act in a way that is against their best interest, against what is naturally good for them ( case in point a baby lashing out and it's mother for example).
Children have been documented knowingly inflicting pain on each other out of spite or even inflicting pain on animals, knowing full well the impact of what they are doing.

In short humans are born with far more than just a tendency to sin, they are born with a desire to sin, a desire to hurt as an expression of displeasure, and so forth.

Where did this come from?
From man's separation from God.
Man is only truly and fully human when they are in union with God ( as A&E were in the Garden).

Separate man from God and man is in a "fallen" ( less than ideal) state, a state of sin.

Based on your bolded statement above, the implication would be that any human before Adam and Eve either...
a ... did not have a spirit
or
b ... was in a state of sin

Let me push back a little on that. Here are a couple of statements by Paul that would appear to have bearing on both infants and potential pre-Adamic humans.

Acts 17:29-31
29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Romans 5:12-14
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— 13 sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 14 Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.

Based on these two verses Paul appears to be indicating that certain sinful behavior is not reckoned as sin because of either human ignorance or absence of the law. I am not making this statement with any kind of confidence, I'm throwing it out there for comment. But it would appear to have some bearing on the issue of infants and the possibility of pre-Adamic humans.

BTW I fully and wholeheartedly agree with your statement
"Man is only truly and fully human when they are in union with God"

In Christ

[PaulSacramento]

Paul's comments were in regards to people believing in God, not sin.
The law was needed to point out what was a sinful act, but sin already existed before the Law.
It is quite possible that humanity simply was ignorant of sin and that the fall was needed to make them aware of what sin is and A&E were used to convey that to man at a time when God knew Man was ready to understand their state of sin.
It may explain why God only interfered AFTER sin became known to man ( the great flood) and man became corrupt ( due to the influence of bad angels) to the extreme.
They have no excuse of ignorance anymore.
BUT sin was still with humanity, even if they didn't know it until A&E.

I don't think that A&E were the first humans to receive a spirit from God, as you pointed out Genesis 1 states that humanity was made in HIS Image.
That said, there is no clear and unanimous view of what "In Our Image" means BUT it may will mean they had spirits as well.

Passages, like the expulsion of Cain, tend to imply that there were other people around besides A&E children so...

It may be the case that God decided to make a lineage of humans unique and special so that The Son could be born of that line and that is why A&E were specially created.

[RickD]

Lemme ask you guys who are either TE, or contemplating it...especially PaulS, because iirc Paul, you said that you believe Noah's flood was local.

Correct me if I'm not accurate with what I assume you believe.
If A&E weren't the first people, and others were alive before them, then I'd assume there were others all over the globe. Then fast forward to Noah. If humanity was spread out across the globe, the local flood couldn't have killed all of humanity. Then how do you explain that while keeping to scripture? The historical belief is that all of humanity was so utterly sinful, that God destroyed every human except Noah's family on the ark. How would you explain those across the globe not affected by the local flood, not being killed?

[PaulSacramento]

Lemme ask you guys who are either TE, or contemplating it...especially PaulS, because iirc Paul, you said that you believe Noah's flood was local.

Correct me if I'm not accurate with what I assume you believe.
If A&E weren't the first people, and others were alive before them, then I'd assume there were others all over the globe. Then fast forward to Noah. If humanity was spread out across the globe, the local flood couldn't have killed all of humanity. Then how do you explain that while keeping to scripture? The historical belief is that all of humanity was so utterly sinful, that God destroyed every human except Noah's family on the ark. How would you explain those across the globe not affected by the local flood, not being killed?

That is a really good question.
IMO and based on a few views that have tried to reconcile this very issue, the passages in Genesis 6 tell us that corruption happened when the Sons of God had sex with human females and their off spring caused a whole bunch of crap ( paraphrasing of course).

Now, the wording on Genesis 6 is very interesting because it says things like "God was sorry" that He created man, and that even the animals where going to be "blotted out" because o f how bad mankind had become.
Of course we know that God knew this would happen and we know that God doesn't "regret" of feel "sorry for having created" anything because God is all-knowing and would have know what was going to happen, so what does this mean?
It means the writer is trying to explain WHY God decide to destroy the areas He did, why even animals were condemned.
Of course the writer doesn't do a very good job of this ( we don't know why God decided to kill animals for example or why, if the wildness of man was the issue, why He simply didn't just kill man) for US but we assume that the readers knew more details about this ( some suggest that even the animals had been contaminated by bad angels in an attempt to corrupt mankind).

I think that the use of water was more than just a tool for God, there was a specific reason God used water and some have suggested that it was to bind the spirits of the fallen ones what would leave the bodies as they drowned ( as opposed t using fire for example, that would kill the spirits as well).

BUT, I digress.
My point is that the wording is very "human" and very much a "gray area" in regards to how God felt and why He did and why He used water, so we shouldn't take the wording of the text as concrete and literal about the actual flood either.
I believe that it was a massive local flood BUT that there were also massive floods in other parts of the world around that time.

The issue of the entire world being repopulated from the time of Noah by 8 couples/people is a very important one.
When we look at the demographics of the whole world, Noah and his decendents would have not just had to populate the ANE BUT all the planet as well, even as far as Australia, Java, Japan, Siberia, Alaska, etc, etc.

In short, I don't think the wording should be accepted at face value as meaning EXACTLY what is written since it doesn't seem to have been written that way.

[RickD]

Lemme ask you guys who are either TE, or contemplating it...especially PaulS, because iirc Paul, you said that you believe Noah's flood was local.

Correct me if I'm not accurate with what I assume you believe.
If A&E weren't the first people, and others were alive before them, then I'd assume there were others all over the globe. Then fast forward to Noah. If humanity was spread out across the globe, the local flood couldn't have killed all of humanity. Then how do you explain that while keeping to scripture? The historical belief is that all of humanity was so utterly sinful, that God destroyed every human except Noah's family on the ark. How would you explain those across the globe not affected by the local flood, not being killed?

That is a really good question.
IMO and based on a few views that have tried to reconcile this very issue, the passages in Genesis 6 tell us that corruption happened when the Sons of God had sex with human females and their off spring caused a whole bunch of crap ( paraphrasing of course).

Now, the wording on Genesis 6 is very interesting because it says things like "God was sorry" that He created man, and that even the animals where going to be "blotted out" because o f how bad mankind had become.
Of course we know that God knew this would happen and we know that God doesn't "regret" of feel "sorry for having created" anything because God is all-knowing and would have know what was going to happen, so what does this mean?
It means the writer is trying to explain WHY God decide to destroy the areas He did, why even animals were condemned.
Of course the writer doesn't do a very good job of this ( we don't know why God decided to kill animals for example or why, if the wildness of man was the issue, why He simply didn't just kill man) for US but we assume that the readers knew more details about this ( some suggest that even the animals had been contaminated by bad angels in an attempt to corrupt mankind).

I think that the use of water was more than just a tool for God, there was a specific reason God used water and some have suggested that it was to bind the spirits of the fallen ones what would leave the bodies as they drowned ( as opposed t using fire for example, that would kill the spirits as well).

BUT, I digress.
My point is that the wording is very "human" and very much a "gray area" in regards to how God felt and why He did and why He used water, so we shouldn't take the wording of the text as concrete and literal about the actual flood either.
I believe that it was a massive local flood BUT that there were also massive floods in other parts of the world around that time.

The issue of the entire world being repopulated from the time of Noah by 8 couples/people is a very important one.
When we look at the demographics of the whole world, Noah and his decendents would have not just had to populate the ANE BUT all the planet as well, even as far as Australia, Java, Japan, Siberia, Alaska, etc, etc.

In short, I don't think the wording should be accepted at face value as meaning EXACTLY what is written since it doesn't seem to have been written that way.

Wow. Pardon my bluntness, but it sounds like a whole lot of rigmarole to try to justify TE.

[PaulSacramento]

Indeed and,to be honest, anytime we try to bring the evolutionary evidence and reconcile it with the bible that is what we end up doing.
Mental gymnastics.

Of course IF we can somehow prove that mankind could have come from such a small group AND populated the whole earth in 4300 years.

[RickD]

Indeed and,to be honest, anytime we try to bring the evolutionary evidence and reconcile it with the bible that is what we end up doing.
Mental gymnastics.

Hey, I'm glad you said it, instead of me!

[PaulSacramento]

Indeed and,to be honest, anytime we try to bring the evolutionary evidence and reconcile it with the bible that is what we end up doing.
Mental gymnastics.

Hey, I'm glad you said it, instead of me!

Dude, I openly admit that the easiest reading of Genesis is from a YEC point of view, maybe an OEC.
That doesn't make them right mind you BUT certainly biblical understanding and interpretation are on their side.