Zimmerman concluded that Adam and Eve were Homo sapiens.  So he placed the stories of Adam and Eve – as the first humans – before the dates of the first appearance of fossils belonging to our species.  He reviewed the results of mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA tracing to an originating population – or maybe, couple – dating to over one hundred thousand years ago.

Of course, the Genesis text indicates a couple.  After all, Adam and Eve (as a population) could not sire Seth (as an individual).

What does this imply?  Did the first genealogy cover a huge timespan, from the first humans, through the expansion of humanity to all the continents, through the dawn of civilization?  Almost unaware of the absurdity of his conclusion, Zimmerman estimated the timespan to be 200,000 years.

Zimmerman then quoted from the encyclical letter Humani Generis (Pope Pius XII, 1950):  The first eleven chapters of Genesis … have a naïve, symbolic way of speaking, well suited to the understanding of primitive people.  But they disclose important truths, upon which the attainment of our eternal salvation depends, and they also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and of the chosen people … (perhaps) the ancient authors drew some of their material from current popular stories … but in must be remembered that they did so under the impulse of divine inspiration which preserved them from all error in selecting and assessing the documents (materials) that they used.

After this quote (in Chapter 5), Zimmerman moves directly to a reading of Genesis 2:4 on.

The jump – concatenation – from the association of Adam and Eve to the evolution of our species to the Genesis 2:4 text is revealing.   The pope’s quote serves like a patch joining two garments.  The patch covers 198,000 years.  Even more amazing, Zimmerman does not try to show how the first association meets the criteria contained in the literary patch.

In the next blog, I want to examine how An Archaeology of the Fall meets – or fails to meet – the criteria formulated by Pope Pius XII in 1950.

This blog on Zimmerman’s synthesis belongs to “the science of Original Sin” theme.

In chapter 1, Zimmerman contemplates the relation between speech and revelation.  He noted that the image of Adam and Eve as speaking and monogamous puts both traits at the origin (as does An Archaeology of the Fall).  This image means that Adam and Eve were not children.  They also were not like hominids without language. They were aware of the meaning of the words that the Lord spoke.  They also did not have genitalia at the service of reason.  They were in love, whether or not they had figured out a way to consummate the desire.  And eventually, they would have performed the deed.

Zimmerman is fascinated with the idea of speech.  After all, speech, rather than monogamy (or sex, for that matter) is both medium and player in the Story of the Fall.

Zimmerman notes how language indicates an immaterial soul, how thought anchors itself in speech, and how God revealed himself through speech.  In addition, language would have been necessary to transmit the revelation inherent in the Fall.  These indications imply that Adam and Eve knew right from wrong.  They were responsible.  Just like us.

How did the human capacity for speech evolve?  Here, Zimmerman writes before the year 2012, because for him, speech and language are the same.  He does not consider the evolution of talk as different from the evolution of language.  He focuses on the evolution of the vocal tract, referring to the work of Philip Lieberman and arguing that speech had certain qualities not found in any other form of animal communication, such as the rapidity in which syllables may be transmitted.  These qualities not only gave speech an adaptive value, but also set the stage for a radical innovation, Eden, where God would give us something mind-boggling to talk about:  Revelation.

At the time of writing, 1998, the author, Anthony Zimmerman, STD, was a retired Professor of Moral Theology at Nanzan University, Nagoya.  Who knows whether he still lives at the time of this writing, 2012?

The forward claims that Adam did no harm to our natural selves and that we should not be needlessly pessimistic about our “fallen” condition.  After all, without the Fall, there would be no reason to be “re-made”.  Zimmerman quotes Pope St. Leo to this regard: “Happy, had he not fallen from how God made him.  Happier, if he manages to remain as God re-made him.”

This attitude matches the feeling of An Archaeology of the Fall.  An Archaeology has all the trappings of a horror story.  Yet, each character manages to be “re-made” closer to “how God made her.”