Adam and Eve weren't historical people.

Neanderthals were a separate human species.

Humans are apes.

All sapiens originated in Africa.

Sapiens evolved after the breakup of Pangaea.

We're really good at walking and building boats.

Either one of the Genesis accounts were not meant to be scientific explanations of the creation of the universe. Who created it all? Yes. The mechanism/science behind it? No.

well this thread was resolved fairly quickly. great job, everyone.

craigernaught said:

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With boats I was thinking more about the pacific islands, but yeah we're good at following food and opportunity anywhere including across land bridges in an ice age.

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I always figured people kept trying to get away from other people until eventually there was no escape

ramblin_ag02 said:

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craigernaught said:

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With boats I was thinking more about the pacific islands, but yeah we're good at following food and opportunity anywhere including across land bridges in an ice age.

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I always figured people kept trying to get away from other people until eventually there was no escape

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I think leaving Africa was almost certainly an early attempt to get away from the in laws

Quote:

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Adam and Eve weren't historical people.

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We're pretty sure from studying the Y chromosome that all mankind has a common male ancestor. He's referred to as genetic Adam. From mitochondrial DNA, we can say the same about a common female ancestor. Initially, the calculations had these two people living thousands of years apart, but recent studies have shown they may have lived around the same time.

https://www.nature.com/news/genetic-adam-and-eve-did-not-live-too-far-apart-in-time-1.13478

Now let's get weird. First, ss far back as Origen, one interpretation of the Fall had Adam and Eve gain human bodies. Origen speculated that Adam and Eve were spirits and only gained flesh when cast out of Eden. Second, there are two different accounts for the creations of humans in Genesis and they don't match. Genesis 1 has men created on day 6, but Genesis 2 had Adam created before plants. Plants were created on day 3. Another old interpretation of this discrepency is that normal people were created on day 6, but Adam was created before as something unique and different. To put these all together, that would mean and Adam and Eve weren't really human as we know it until after the fall. So Adam and Eve were spiritual beings or differently physical beings, sinned, Fell, and we shoved into proto-human bodies becoming the first real humans. I like this because it also solves a few other issues, such as the spouses of Eve's children and the whole thing with Nephilim.

I believe a God fully capable of creating DNA, eyeballs, stars, physical laws, microscopic organisms, music, light, emotions, etc is also capable of giving the physical appearance of age. I don't lose sleep about whether the Earth is 10k years or 4 billion years old. Means nothing to me. Doesn't affect my faith one iota.

You might want to sit down...

"Word" in John isn't referring to the text of the Bible.

Even if it did, there's no reason that it necessitates a literal translation.

The big problem with this is that those things absolutely did not happen. And when the evidence in front of you shows that they didn't, your faith forces you to become illogical and to deny evidence in order to remain faithful.

At this point, what does it matter if God lies, if facts and reason don't matter?

That doesn't address anything I said.

Could you at least recognize that a literal translation is not necessary, and that one can interpret those texts differently while also affirming their faith in the Word?

The fact that you think this is an adequate response indicates that this isn't going to be a fruitful conversation.

You completely ignored my first post. You have not answered why you think a literal interpretation is necessary. You made an honest but clear mistake in your misinterpretation of word/logos and you haven't addressed it which is odd given that it seems to be the basis of your whole "liar" argument which you keep using. After you make a positive claim for which you don't provide evidence, you demand evidence of others who dispute it.

What exactly do you want me to do? Open up my textbooks from seminary and walk you through the evidence and the issues with a historical interpretation of Exodus right after you just plain ignored what I wrote previously and stick to a obviously incorrect interpretation of John 1? Why would I do that?