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People Before Adam

Deacon

Deacon

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
I'm reading an interesting book (primarily science) called,

The Genealogical Adam and Eve, the Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry.
by S. Joshua Swimidass.
InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2019

Swimidass makes a strong scientific case for the decent us all from Adam and Eve... this while affirming that there is plenty of data to confirm a human population outside the garden (from which we also descend). BTW, the author refutes polygenesis (the origination of a race or species from a number of independent stocks).

Here is a little blurb of historical theology that the author includes about racial theory, with a bit of background on it's participant:

Isaac La Peyrère (1596–1676) was a French-born theologian, writer, and lawyer, best known as a 17th-century predecessor of the scientific racialist theory of polygenism in the form of his Pre-Adamite hypothesis, which offered a challenge to traditional understandings of the descent of the human races.

The theological challenge of antipodeans [someone who lived in or came from the opposite side of the globe] was on Isaac La Pyrere’s mind when he visited Greenland. He could not imagine any ancestral connection with the people he found there, concluding that they did not descend from Adam and Eve. Starting from this conclusion, La Pyrere proposed a theological solution; God created humans across the globe in different geographical locations with different origins. He published Prae-Adamitae in 1655, and then Men before Adam in 1656, with the subtitle, Exercise on Romans 5:12-14, from Which It Can Be Infered That Humans Existed Before Adam. He supposed each region was home to a distinct human lineage that persisted to the present day as different races. … This model of origins is the first version of polygenesis, and it was a creationist proposal. Evolution would not be proposed for another 200 years.…

LaPierre made his case primarily from Scripture, arguing that Genesis 1 and 2 were obviously sequential stories, taking place one after another. God made people across the globe in Genesis 1 in the image of God, but then specially made Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. To make sense of original sin, La Peyrere argued that Romans 5:12-14 explicitly acknowledged that there were people in the world before Adam.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.​

From this passage LaPierre argues that there were people before Adam.​

(pp 122 to 123)

Rob
 
JonC

JonC

Moderator
Moderator
I believe he misunderstands, or reads into, the passage.

Paul makes several observations.

Adam transgressed God's command.

Jews from Moses forward likewise transgressed the Law.

Those between Adam and Moses were not under the Law, therefore they did not transgress the Law. Yet they died as a result of sin.

I do not see where he gets, out of the passage, that there lived people prior to Adam (especially given the creation account).
 
P

percho

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
I do believe Adam and Eve were specific unto Christ being born of a virgin.

Seeing, then, the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself also in like manner did take part of the same, that through [the] death he might destroy him having the power of [the] death -- that is, the devil -- Heb 2:14 YLT

I also believe the devil had the power of the death before Adam was created and Eve taken from him, for purpose.

Remember before any of this had taken place the Lamb without spot and without blemish was going to die, shed it's life/soul of the flesh in the blood for redemption. Why before anything is, was there going to be a need, for redemption?

Gen 1:2 YLT the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness is on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters,

Where was the devil and the power of the death? Why was there darkness of face of the deep?
Consider 2 Cor 4:4-6 YLT in whom the god of this age did blind the minds of the unbelieving, that there doth not shine forth to them the enlightening of the good news of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God; for not ourselves do we preach, but Christ Jesus -- Lord, and ourselves your servants because of Jesus; because it is God who said, Out of darkness light is to shine, who did shine in our hearts, for the enlightening of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Eph 6:11,12 YLT put on the whole armour of God, for your being able to stand against the wiles of the devil, because we have not the wrestling with blood and flesh, but with the principalities, with the authorities, with the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, with the spiritual things of the evil in the heavenly places;
 
R

RighteousnessTemperance&

Well-Known Member
JonC said:
I believe he misunderstands, or reads into, the passage.

Paul makes several observations.

Adam transgressed God's command.

Jews from Moses forward likewise transgressed the Law.

Those between Adam and Moses were not under the Law, therefore they did not transgress the Law. Yet they died as a result of sin.

I do not see where he gets, out of the passage, that there lived people prior to Adam (especially given the creation account).
Click to expand...
Just what did you expect from a French theologian? :Wink
 
Deacon

Deacon

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
The Genealogical Adam and Eve, the Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry.
by S. Joshua Swimidass.
InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2019

This is the most groundbreaking science/theology book I’ve read in years.
The author has vetted his theory among numerous theologians in discussions and conferences and has included critical reviews in the Appendix.

~~~~~~

from the book…

Genealogical ancestry requires no scientific knowledge to explain. It traces the reproductive origin of people, matching the common use of ancestor, descendent, parent, and child. Our fathers, mother, and grandparents are our ancestors. Going back into our history, all their grandparents are our ancestors too. In this sense, genealogical ancestry matches an ordinary understanding of ancestry. p. 31​

The Genealogical Hypothesis
The genealogical hypothesis is that Adam and Eve are universal genealogical ancestors. They need not be our genetic ancestors. This is not an overly clever loophole derived from modern scientific understanding. Rather, genealogical ancestry is a return to a more traditional reading of Genesis, which cannot possibly be talking about DNA.

First, historical claims in theology are understood using ordinary meanings of words, consistent with understanding long before modern science arose. Scripture discusses ancestry, often recording genealogies, but it is entirely silent about DNA. Ancient authors make no mention of the double helix, or a genomes.

Second, all claims about DNA and Adam and Eve that arise in theology, therefore are inferences, not the direct claims of scripture. The inference that Adam and Eve are our universal genetic ancestors depends on the assumption, often tacit, that there are no people outside the Garden. The genealogical hypothesis, however starts with the opposite presumption, so the inference that Adam and Eve are our genetic ancestors is not valid. At the outset we do not know if they are genetic ancestors or not. Scripture does not tell us one way or the other.

For these two reasons, the genealogical hypothesis states that Adam and Eve are our universal genealogical ancestors, but not necessarily our universal genetic ancestors. If our purpose was to disprove the traditional account, we would gloss over the distinction between genetic and genealogical ancestry. page 41​

Rob
 
timtofly

timtofly

Well-Known Member
Deacon said:
I'm reading an interesting book (primarily science) called,

The Genealogical Adam and Eve, the Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry.
by S. Joshua Swimidass.
InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2019

Swimidass makes a strong scientific case for the decent us all from Adam and Eve... this while affirming that there is plenty of data to confirm a human population outside the garden (from which we also descend). BTW, the author refutes polygenesis (the origination of a race or species from a number of independent stocks).

Here is a little blurb of historical theology that the author includes about racial theory, with a bit of background on it's participant:

Isaac La Peyrère (1596–1676) was a French-born theologian, writer, and lawyer, best known as a 17th-century predecessor of the scientific racialist theory of polygenism in the form of his Pre-Adamite hypothesis, which offered a challenge to traditional understandings of the descent of the human races.

The theological challenge of antipodeans [someone who lived in or came from the opposite side of the globe] was on Isaac La Pyrere’s mind when he visited Greenland. He could not imagine any ancestral connection with the people he found there, concluding that they did not descend from Adam and Eve. Starting from this conclusion, La Pyrere proposed a theological solution; God created humans across the globe in different geographical locations with different origins. He published Prae-Adamitae in 1655, and then Men before Adam in 1656, with the subtitle, Exercise on Romans 5:12-14, from Which It Can Be Infered That Humans Existed Before Adam. He supposed each region was home to a distinct human lineage that persisted to the present day as different races. … This model of origins is the first version of polygenesis, and it was a creationist proposal. Evolution would not be proposed for another 200 years.…

LaPierre made his case primarily from Scripture, arguing that Genesis 1 and 2 were obviously sequential stories, taking place one after another. God made people across the globe in Genesis 1 in the image of God, but then specially made Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. To make sense of original sin, La Peyrere argued that Romans 5:12-14 explicitly acknowledged that there were people in the world before Adam.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.​
From this passage LaPierre argues that there were people before Adam.​

(pp 122 to 123)

Rob
Click to expand...
All would have been created the same way. Even at the same time. Adam was not created separately. Just a little more detail added to Adam's story. We are not given the story of all those created on the 6th day. Only Adam's story was necessary.

We are not given the story of all people in Abraham's day. Just Abraham's story is given in greater detail.

We are not given the story of all in Job's day.

We should know that each of these characters were not the only humans alive in their time periods.

Besides, we know it was at Babel, that God confounded the languages and spread out people across the earth. That happened after the Flood, not prior to the Flood.

Adam was created on the 6th day, but the Garden was planted after the Day of Adonia.
 
Deacon

Deacon

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
I was introduced to the “The Genealogical Adam and Eve” through a series of Systematic Theology texts that I have been reading [the collection is the Foundations of Evangelical Theology, the of title of the particular book is “Against God and Nature, the Doctrine of Sin” by Thomas H. McCall (John S. Feinberg, general editor). In the book’s appendix, in a section discussing “The Original Sinners”, a subsection deals with a topic I’ve never heard of, “The Hyper-Adam Proposal”. There McCall introduces S. Joshua Swamidass, writing:

“in addition to the various versions of refurbishment and the hyper-Adam proposals, another option has recently emerged, one that is well-informed by the contemporary science. S. Joshua Swamidass offers an interesting proposal. He argues that genealogical science is relevant and important in this discussion. The often overlooked, genealogical science has much to offer for our understanding of these matters. He argues that​

[m]ost are convinced that genetic and archaeological science answer the question “Do we all descend from a single couple? with an equivocal “no,” [for] it appears that [we] share common ancestors with a great apes and arise as a large population, never dipping in size to a single couple. Without contradicting the findings of genetic science, genealogical science gives a different answer to the question. There are many couples, pairs of universal genealogical ancestors, each individually from whom we all descend. These ancestors stretch from our distant past to very recently in our history. Consistent with the genetic and archaeological evidence, therefore, it is possible that God could have chosen, or specially created, one of these couples for a special role….such a couple could be among the ancestors of all those alive today.​
[snip]

This raises the possibility that there could be a historical Adam and Eve— and a historical “fall” that brought death for humans—without any rejection of the genetic (and archaeological) evidence for the large initial population thesis and a common ancestry thesis. On this proposal, one could believe in the standard evolutionary history as it is commonly told. Life develops, that is, through the common means of descent with modification, and this includes the emergence of hominids and their primate cousins. But then, at the appropriate moment, God either selects a preexisting couple (thus perhaps intersecting with the “refurbishment proposal” but now with more scientific sophistication and plausibility) or creates one de novo— first male from “the dust of the ground” and then the female from the male. This couple is in the image of God, and their lives are decisive for those who follow. They are, in the relevant sense, the first real humans. They are, then, at the “headwaters” of the human race. As Swamidass argues, nothing in this proposal forces one to reject either the common ancestry thesis or the initial large initial population thesis. As he puts it, “Nothing in the genealogical science undermines these two conclusions.” Moreover, if Adam and Eve are historical persons, then the notorious problem of intermarriage… [of] his descendants is avoided; their descendants mixed with the larger population of biologically-compatible beings. (p. 395-398)

Rob​
 
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37818

37818

Well-Known Member
Deacon said:
I was introduced to the “The Genealogical Adam and Eve” through a series of Systematic Theology texts that I have been reading [the collection is the Foundations of Evangelical Theology, the of title of the particular book is “Against God and Nature, the Doctrine of Sin” by Thomas H. McCall (John S. Feinberg, general editor). In the book’s appendix, in a section discussing “The Original Sinners”, a subsection deals with a topic I’ve never heard of, “The Hyper-Adam Proposal”. There McCall introduces S. Joshua Swamidass, writing:

“in addition to the various versions of refurbishment and the hyper-Adam proposals, another option has recently emerged, one that is well-informed by the contemporary science. S. Joshua Swamidass offers an interesting proposal. He argues that genealogical science is relevant and important in this discussion. The often overlooked, genealogical science has much to offer for our understanding of these matters. He argues that​

[m]ost are convinced that genetic and archaeological science answer the question “Do we all descend from a single couple? with an equivocal “no,” [for] it appears that [we] share common ancestors with a great apes and arise as a large population, never dipping in size to a single couple. Without contradicting the findings of genetic science, genealogical science gives a different answer to the question. There are many couples, pairs of universal genealogical ancestors, each individually from whom we all descend. These ancestors stretch from our distant past to very recently in our history. Consistent with the genetic and archaeological evidence, therefore, it is possible that God could have chosen, or specially created, one of these couples for a special role….such a couple could be among the ancestors of all those alive today.​
[snip]

This raises the possibility that there could be a historical Adam and Eve— and a historical “fall” that brought death for humans—without any rejection of the genetic (and archaeological) evidence for the large initial population thesis and a common ancestry thesis. On this proposal, one could believe in the standard evolutionary history as it is commonly told. Life develops, that is, through the common means of descent with modification, and this includes the emergence of hominids and their primate cousins. But then, at the appropriate moment, God either selects a preexisting couple (thus perhaps intersecting with the “refurbishment proposal” but now with more scientific sophistication and plausibility) or creates one de novo— first male from “the dust of the ground” and then the female from the male. This couple is in the image of God, and their lives are decisive for those who follow. They are, in the relevant sense, the first real humans. They are, then, at the “headwaters” of the human race. As Swamidass argues, nothing in this proposal forces one to reject either the common ancestry thesis or the initial large initial population thesis. As he puts it, “Nothing in the genealogical science undermines these two conclusions.” Moreover, if Adam and Eve are historical persons, then the notorious problem of intermarriage… [of] his descendants is avoided; their descendants mixed with the larger population of biologically-compatible beings. (p. 395-398)

Rob​
Click to expand...
Maybe seen as a logical necessity. But that view is effectively ignorant of God uniquely creating man (Genesis 2:7) and woman (Genesis 2:22, Genesis 1:27), God having been the originator of the DNA and the elements (John 1:3).
 
R

RighteousnessTemperance&

Well-Known Member
Deacon said:
… Moreover, if Adam and Eve are historical persons, then the notorious problem of intermarriage… [of] his descendants is avoided; their descendants mixed with the larger population of biologically-compatible beings. (p. 395-398)
Click to expand...
Regardless of the rest of the post, this one point is simply not valid. This supposed “notorious problem of intermarriage “is only so because it has been invented, imagined. It is neither scientifically nor biblically a problem at all.
 
Alan Gross

Alan Gross

Well-Known Member
Salty said:
My belief is that Adam and Eve had several children - whom would have married each other -.... Now to keep this thread on OP - go to this thread do discuss the marriage of Seth and Cain.....
Click to expand...

RighteousnessTemperance& said:
Regardless of the rest of the post, this one point is simply not valid. This supposed “notorious problem of intermarriage “is only so because it has been invented, and imagined. It is neither scientifically nor biblically a problem at all.
Click to expand...

I may have a little French theologian in me
because I'm thinking Seth and Cain
got their wives out of a tree.
 
Deacon

Deacon

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
timtofly said:
We are not given the story of all those created on the 6th day. Only Adam's story was necessary. …

… We should know that each of these characters were not the only humans alive in their time periods. …
…
Adam was created on the 6th day, but the Garden was planted after the Day of Adonia.
Click to expand...
Adoni ???

The theory presented in the book is that Genesis chapter 1 describes the creation of MAN on day 6.
Chapter 1 uses the generic name for God (Elohim). This creation occurred over a long period of time. It would have involved evolutionary development. Death was a part of their world.

Genesis chapter 2 describes the special (de novo) creation of ADAM. In chapter 2 we are introduced to Yahweh (the covenantal, personal name for God). Through Adam’s access to the Tree of Life Yahweh provided a path way for mankind to gain access to eternal life.
Instead, Adam chose the Knowledge of Good and Evil… necessitating a Second Adam, Jesus Christ.

(I shortened the author’s presentation and may have misrepresented it but this is the gist of it).

Rob
 
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