tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1373152433565591514.post8459357714637090608..comments2023-10-02T01:11:04.783-07:00Comments on Mahound's <br>Paradise: Was Adam an Ape Man?Oakes Spaldinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08078500142758654392noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1373152433565591514.post-12068086338186647662018-05-23T13:38:14.310-07:002018-05-23T13:38:14.310-07:00Thank you for your comments!
There's a lot to...Thank you for your comments!<br /><br />There's a lot to unpack, but I think your attempt is as good as any I've heard. Unfortunately, to me it seems subject to some of the same problems as the others. Here are three:<br /><br />1. It seems very ad hoc. COULD all of this have happened? I suppose so, but there's no real evidence for it of any kind - textual, theological or empirical/scientific. It (and I say this with respect) seems almost to have a Rube Goldberg-like character. And thus,<br /><br />2. Why would God/Moses/some other author of Genesis have written the creation account the way that He/they did such that it would be misinterpreted for 3000 years until empirical discoveries would first seem to disprove it when what really happened has some quite complex explanation that goes way beyond either the text or the empirical evidence? I mean, why didn't the author of Genesis just tell us this in the first place?<br /><br />3. Not to sound like a broken record but, unless I missed it, what happened to the other non-ensouled beings? Are you suggesting that they might have been mates to some of the ensouled beings with the "soul" gene, as it were, being dominant? Again, that just sounds so bizarre and ad hoc.<br /><br />But again, I don't mean to sound too critical. I asked for an explanation and you gave a good one.<br /><br />Sorry, one more point. I'm not personally against a literal Tree of Life or, say, Eve being literally formed out of Adam's rib per se. If I sounded sarcastic about those sorts of things, it's because it seems sort of arbitrary to me to take THOSE claims literally while saying that other claims - Adam being created from the dust of the earth, etc. - figuratively. Certainly the text itself gives us no warrant to do this.<br /><br />Again, thank you, and apologies if I misunderstood any of your points. Oakes Spaldinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08078500142758654392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1373152433565591514.post-22117112620999092412018-05-23T10:59:46.593-07:002018-05-23T10:59:46.593-07:00The Manner in which Adam is the Father of the enti...The Manner in which Adam is the Father of the entire human race: There are several ways that Adam and Eve can be the ancestors of all men. One is that they are the exclusive ancestors of currently existing people. This doesn’t really match up with the genetic evidence, which doesn’t seem to indicate that narrow of a genetic bottleneck. <br /><br />Another possibility is that capacity for ensoulment passes to the child if even the child has only one ensouled parent. It will be enough if a child has some of Adam and Eves’ DNA. On this account, Adam’s descendants could take anatomically human wives and husbands and still produce ensouled offspring. This would save them from incest, although I suppose semi-bestiality could be an issue.<br /><br />Such a view would allow Adam’s paternity to diffuse itself through the population gradually, and is more compatible with the observed genetic evidence. So how far back do you have to go to find a single contributing ancestor for the entire human race? I saw a popular science article that placed the most recent one around the time of Aristotle—and presumably there were many more before him. On this account, you could even grant miraculous extraordinary life spans to the antediluvian patriarchs, since such lifespans of a tiny percentage of the population would be effectively invisible to the archaeological record. <br /><br />For another interesting take, see The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate by John H. Walton and The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by the same author.<br /><br />So those are my thoughts, best of luck on formulating your view.<br />Adelphushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13867017280171370706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1373152433565591514.post-72333378433006255292018-05-23T10:59:08.108-07:002018-05-23T10:59:08.108-07:00Moses saw God pass by on Mt. Sinai as he hid amid ...Moses saw God pass by on Mt. Sinai as he hid amid the rocks. So I see no reason that Adam couldn’t see God pass by in the same way in Eden. I’ve heard it claimed that both anthropomorphic apparitions were a pre-appearance of the incarnate Christ (resembling the terrifying risen Christ of Revelation), but I don’t think there’s any official teaching to that effect. In any case we needn’t suppose Adam’s encounter with God was fiction.<br /><br />Regarding pain in childbearing: One possibility might be that the initial ensoulment overcame these problems in anatomically modern humans due to the greater obedience to the body to the soul prior to the fall. Since, the fall occurred almost immediately so this ensouled-but-not-yet-weakened-by-sin state left no trace on the archaeological record. Adelphushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13867017280171370706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1373152433565591514.post-80984765573178194022018-05-23T10:58:45.188-07:002018-05-23T10:58:45.188-07:00Regarding Adam’s rib being the source of Eve and t...Regarding Adam’s rib being the source of Eve and the possibility of it representing a division of soul material: Flesh is generally contrasted with soul, and soul is generally considered indivisible. Let me propose some alternative readings. One possible reading is that the rib thing is a euphemism for being Adam’s daughter. God puts Adam into a deep sleep, (i.e. removes his rationality) and has him sire a daughter who being his descendant is also capable of bearing a soul. That gives Adam the taint of incest—but on the traditional understanding, his children would have all been guilty of that anyway. Another possible reading is that God miraculously clones a woman out of Adams flesh, presumably from around the rib. It wouldn’t be that miraculous; we could almost do that today with modern cloning techniques. Anyway, that would make Eve Adam’s genetic sister, so I’m not sure we’ve saved them from incest. But, oh well. <br /><br />The best explanation I’ve seen of the embarrassment about nudity is that, before the fall, Adam’s rationality was strong enough to perfectly rule over his sex drive, so nudity was not a problem. After the fall, nudity is a temptation for Adam to lust after Eve and for Eve to exploit Adam’s sex drive. So the pudenda become a matter for temptation and embarrassment. Before the ensoulment, of course, it wouldn’t be an issue because no moral choices can be made by anatomically modern humans.<br />Adelphushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13867017280171370706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1373152433565591514.post-90135764455611667282018-05-23T10:58:00.902-07:002018-05-23T10:58:00.902-07:00As to Adam naming the Animals, naming is a sign of...As to Adam naming the Animals, naming is a sign of authority; it also gives mission and hence completes the act of creation. God names the elements and genera during creation. That Adam names the creatures makes him (in a very attenuated sense, a co-creator with God). Naming also gives Adam authority over the animals. Think of how it is in our world, parents name their children. The church gives saints names to us at baptism. In a more abusive way, the Pharoah Necho II renamed King Eliakim as Jehoiachim—the message being, “I made you who you are; obey me”.<br /><br />I suppose there are too many species for Adam to have literally named them all, but he presumably named some subset with rights to name the rest granted to him and his descendants. Or, since he is in the midst of a mystical vision with extra powers, perhaps he did name them all. I seem to remember that St. Ignatius of Loyola had a vision, lasting merely a moment, during which he said he learned more than in the rest of his life put together. So who knows how many animals Adam might have named in a moment.Adelphushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13867017280171370706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1373152433565591514.post-62858324535069348012018-05-23T10:57:00.753-07:002018-05-23T10:57:00.753-07:00Hi MP,
I’ll try to outline a view by responding t...Hi MP,<br /><br />I’ll try to outline a view by responding to your points. It’s just an attempted model and not proposed for belief. I’ll have to do this in several comments due to space considerations.<br /><br />The ensoulment of Adam would presumably correspond to the distinction between the archaeologically observed difference between anatomically modern humans and behaviorally modern humans. <br /><br />Given that the sun danced and Fatima and Moses saw a burning bush, I don’t see why we couldn’t have a literal Tree of Life. The story would go something like this: Anatomically-modern Adam climbed the mountain, the Shekhinah descended on the mountain, Adam was ensouled and awoke to find himself in a mystical garden—just as Moses when he entered the cloud and had the vision of the temple. In fact, it’s useful to remember, the Garden of Eden is a temple. This temple at Eden has two sacraments—the sacrament of the Tree of Knowledge and the Sacrament of the Tree of life. Because Adam is in a heightened pre-original-sin state, the effects of these sacraments will be immediate and visible. A spiritual reality(such as Lucifer in the form of a serpent) could also manifest itself in this vision/apparition for Adams testing.Adelphushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13867017280171370706noreply@blogger.com