OEC and redemptive history

[secretfire6]

Wow this discussion is great! I definately lean towards an OEC view and have never run into any real problems with it, But the biblical account of Adam and Eve has allways kept me in great thought and speculation. My thoughts right now about it are that I just don't know when they were created exactly or who they were, but I do know when they were not created and who they weren't.
I'd like to inject some information that we do know about them from the Bible.
1) location: Eden, which was fed by four rivers listed by name. Two of those still exist today (tigris and Euphrates) and flow through Mesopotamia and into the persian gulf. This is the most likely location for where these people lived.
2) technologies/practices: In Eden, Adam and Eve walked around naked and ate randomly picked fruits from the plants and trees. After the fall they wore coverings, first of leaves, then of animal skins. One of the curses was that they would get their food by hard work and "sweat of your brow" maybe as hunter-gatherers or the very most primitive attempt to raise their own crops. Two of their children, Caine and Abel, would be farmers and shepherds respectivly. Shem would be the first to build a permanent settlement named it after his son Enoch.
3) spiritual: Before the fall there was definately knowledge and understanding of God. They had seemingly direct contact with God, walking and talking with him regularly. After the fall there was knowledge and contact with God, but also the knowledge of sin and evil (or just the knowledge that you could do something you weren't supposed to).

A few of my personal beliefs are that all animals, including early humans, have a soul. It states many times in the Bible that everything that swims in the sea, flies in the skies or walks on the ground are "living souls". The difference between man and animal is that our soul was made in the image and likeness of God. So where is the line between humans who had living souls and humans that have a living soul like God's? Well, for me, it's any peoples that made their own clothing, made jewelry, created art, made functional AND beautiful tools AND kept them, but most importantly peoples who ritually buried their dead. When did this happen? I don't know. Genetic palentology can trace modern human male DNA back to about 60K years ago, but can trace modern human female DNA to about 160K years ago. The Neanderthal man, who displays many, if not all of the characteristics I listed above, is said to be traced back to at least 1.5M years ago.
I know for sure that Adam and Eve were not created in 4004 BC because this would put Noah's flood(2340 BC) right smack in the middle of the building of the great pyramids at Giza (2700-2160 BC) and would put the tower of Babel between 2244 and 2005 BC, which is long after the races of the world, their tounges and written history were established.
Again, I don't know who Adam and Eve are supposed to be or when they showed up. Their story is one that still has science, history, culture and the Bible bumping heads. Somewhere there has to be a key that fits it all together.

[joejmz]

Definitely and interesting conversation. However, I think we need to analyze the assumptions being made. For example, how sure are we of the processes being used to date the appearance of humanity? A few months ago we found out that radiometric dating may not be as reliable as thought since some unknown force seems to be affecting radioactive decay in a measurable way for at least the last five years http://www.projectworldawareness.com/20 ... ng-matter/but we have no way of knowing how many other times and to what extent this event has occurred throughout history. Events like Mt St. Helen's erruption have shown that stratification can occur in a matter of weeks not millenia, and the way in which strata solidify may not be as simple as bottom up http://sites.google.com/site/scientific ... tion-Do-No. Therefore, unless we can verify that our dating methods do not rely on any of these processes as part of their foundational assumptions, we cannot be certain of the results we get.

[Canuckster1127]

joejmz, that might be true if we were limited in our methodologies to just those two and if the differentiation in time spans affected were of great enough scope to bring YEC into play. However there's multiple disciplines and methodologies at work of which the proponderance of the physical evidence points to the results, even with large margins of error allowed for, as incompatable with anything but an old earth.

[joejmz]

joejmz, that might be true if we were limited in our methodologies to just those two and if the differentiation in time spans affected were of great enough scope to bring YEC into play. However there's multiple disciplines and methodologies at work of which the proponderance of the physical evidence points to the results, even with large margins of error allowed for, as incompatable with anything but an old earth.

I think that may have come across wrong. I am not arguing from a YEC/OEC standpoint. I am convinced we are looking at a universe which is significantly older than 6-10K, I was referring specifically to the dating methods used to calculate the appearance of mankind. For example, the recent finding in Israel, does anyone know what dating methods were used and do these methods rely in any way on radioactive decay or stratification?

[Canuckster1127]

got it

thanks for clarifying

[Gman]

GMan, not to disagree with you too much, but there is more to this. As I said above, do a word search for Jew in the OT and look at the root, and then do the same for the NT. The 12 tribes, when they went into banishment, intermingled with the locals, and the features we see on the Jews of today are mainly that of the Khazars, which were the main group to return to the Israel area. (Read the craniology study on that). Some genetic evidence now seem to show exactly that, that the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and some Levites, which returned to the area around modern Israel, share a lot of genetic similarities with the Palestines. The Hasmonean conversions also added some bloodlines from outside into the equation. There simply is no "clean" genetic line for the modern-day Jews. I think, based on that, that we simply don't know what Adam or Abraham looked like, based on what we see today, and the genetic history.

John, I'm not too sure if I agree with this no "clean" line... Although it is not as strict as today, Jews typically are very strict on intermarriage Deut. 7:3 and trace their genealogies very well Matthew 1:1-16.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_intermarriage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_view_of_marriage

Although I wouldn't say that anyone who says they are Jew are automatically Jewish. But there does appear to be a genetic line that scientists have recently uncovered..

"Autosomal studies have shown that Jewish populations share a common Middle Eastern ancestry and that over their history they have undergone varying degrees of admixture with non-Jewish populations. Jewish populations in general are as genetically close to each other as fourth or fifth cousins, and Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardi Jews in particular are genetically close.[2][3] In addition to this common middle eastern origin there is at least for Ashkenazim a close proximity with Tuscans and Italians generally."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews

[secretfire6]

havent heard the latest in radiometric dating discoveries. I do know there are outside variables that can change the decay rate of elements, but they are extreme, few and far between. I am intrigued by the sun study, but there are so many unkowns still. from what i read though, dating of early human artifacts should be unaltered if this phenomenon only happens at solar maximums. It is also unknown whether this phenomenon can effect objects already burried or if it's only for exposed matter. Need more input LOL
yes, the strata and layers in the geological record is not nearly as black and white, cut and dry as many think. There are many processes in making them and solidifying them and many variables go into whether it was relatively fast or slow. I think its possible that the last of the dinosaurs could have survived long enough to live in a somwhat close timescale to the first of the megafauna, but all the evidence offered by the study about humans living with dinosaurs and the dating of the collagen of the dinosaur bones has since been proven false.