0029 What does Carol Hill conclude?

If Adam and Eve and their immediate descendants can be placed in the late Neolithic world of southern Mesopotamia, and if the Old Testament begins Genesis 2.4 at that time and not before, then the stories of Adam and Eve mark the start of Jewish covenant history, not human history.

0030 Well, not human history, directly.

0031 Once this conclusion is drawn, two of the three main Christian reconciliations between human evolution and original sin cannot retain their integrity.  The young-Earth and the progressive creationist paradigms depict Adam and Eve as the first humans.  Therefore, Adam and Eve stand at the start of both humanity and human history.

Oh, that is already in contradiction, since the start of humanity (200,000 years ago) does not coincide with the beginning of human history (which associates with civilization, dating less than 7800 years ago).

0032 The third reconciliation, Denis Lamoureux’s evolutionary creationist view, apparently retains scientific respectability.  But, at what cost?  Adam and Eve are not historical figures.  Maybe, they do not exist.  Or, if they do exist, how can we separate what comes from worldviews of the ancient Near East and what actually comes from history?

Ah, this question faces a twist.

The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia may mark the start of human history.  If the stories of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Abel, of Lamech, and of Noah offer an insider’s view of the history of the Ubaid and Uruk periods, and if ‘something cultural’ passes from the Ubaid to all humanity, potentiating unconstrained social complexity, then Lamoureux’s question comes with a twist.  The Ubaid potentiates human history.  Adam and Eve associate to the Ubaid.

Consider the e-article, The Inevitable Twist: Comments on Lamoureux’s Question, available at smashwords and other e-work vendors.