0017 Carol Hill suggests that Adam and Eve associate to the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.  To me, they represent the start of the Ubaid, as it coalesces on the edge of the rising waters of the Persian Gulf.

0018 This raises questions.

Why does God place Adam and Eve at the start of the Ubaid?

If Adam and Eve are not the first human pair, then why would Genesis describe God fashioning humans out of earth and rib?

Certainly, humans appear as images of God in the Creation Story, which has the character of an evolutionary drama.  Why do the stories of Adam and Eve present a creation weirdly disconnected from the prior Creation Story?  I say “weird”, because our current Lebenswelt is obviously not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Plus, all other origin stories of the ancient Near East depict a recent creation of humans.  It is as if our species passed through some sci-fi singularity.

Why does God bless Adam and Eve with Seth, at a time when men call upon the name of the Lord?  Had they previously forgotten the name?  Or was the name of God gestured, rather than spoken? The line of Seth eventually gives rise to the line of Abraham.  So, the line of Seth belongs to the comprehensive history of the Jews, not the world.  Yet, Genesis implies that all humanity is somehow entangled with what happened in the Garden of Eden.

0019 The mystery deepens when Noah is not a figure in a pan-Eurasian and pan-African flood, dating prior to the Paleolithic migrations starting over 50,000 years ago.  No, Noah is a figure in the Uruk period.  Other origin stories of the ancient Near East testify to a great flood in southern Mesopotamia.  The king lists record the disruption.

0020 These questions come to the fore in Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome.

0021 Copper catches Carol Hill’s eye.  She is a geologist.  She knows that, once the trick of cooking copper ore and getting copper metal is discovered, then it should spread on the wings of mimicry.  Do we have a potential date for the discovery?  How about 7250 years ago?  This is 550 years after the Ubaid begins and 1250 years before the start of the Uruk period.

0022 Hill mentions Otzi the Iceman.  5250 years ago, Otzi lives in the mountainous region between Italy and Austria.  He falls to his death while crossing a glacier.

Lucky for us, I suppose.  Modern archaeologists recover his body, well preserved by the ice, along with all his traveling gear, including a copper axe.

0023 What does this suggest?

In 2000 years, the recipe for transforming copper ore into metal passes from southwest Asia through northern Italy.

By current standards, this is a slow transmission of cultural information.

By the standards of the Paleolithic, this is a rapid transmission.

0024 The key is the one-wayness of the transmission.  Once those who have the recipe make copper metal, there is no going back.  The cultural change is irreversible.

Otzi has a copper axe.  His great-great-…-great grandson will have one made of bronze.

0025 Why is the previous hypothetical important?

Er… what is the previous hypothetical?

If the ancient recipe for transforming copper ore into copper metal starts in the Ubaid and if the recipe ends up making Otzi the Iceman’s axe, 2000 years later, in northern Italy, then this recipe is an indicator that irreversible cultural changesspread from the Ubaid to all of Eurasia.

0026 Are there other cultural productions that spread from the Ubaid to all Eurasia?

I am sure there is.

And, they are far more significant than the alchemic transformation of copper ore.

0027 Hill mentions that southern Mesopotamia is the location of one of the world’s first civilizations.

How about that?

0028 Does ‘something cultural’ potentiate the formation of civilization in southern Mesopotamia, then spread outwards to the rest of the world?  Does this ‘cultural something’ then potentiate the formation of civilizations in nearby Nile and Indus river valleys?

I bet it does.

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.

0033 Adam and Eve are fairy tale figures.

The early Genesis stories are fairy tales about a real, historical event.

This real historical event entangles all humanity.

0034 These are the statements that Carol Hill is on her way to isolate.

The stories of Adam and Eve mark the start of Jewish covenant history, which proceeds directly, through descent, to the fulfillment of all that goes before, that is, Jesus Christ.

The real event that Adam and Eve represent is the start of the Ubaid, the initiation of unconstrained social complexity in southern Mesopotamia, directly, and in the entire world, indirectly.

0035 Jewish covenant history is real and theological.

A hypothesis linking the Ubaid to the initiation of unconstrained social complexity throughout the world is real and scientific.

Shades of Saint Augustine of Hippo!  There are two movements, one theological and one scientific.

0036 Plus, the scientific movement is the one under consideration.

Is there such a hypothesis?

Yes, there is.

But, obviously, Hill is not currently aware of it.

0043 Carol Hill offers a worldview approach.  In order to understand the historicity of Adam and Noah, one must take into account the worldview of the Ubaid and Uruk periods of southern Mesopotamia.

Such an approach makes sense, if Adam and Noah are fairy-tale figures.

0044 Fairy tale figures are real, at least to mothers and their children.  They are so real that the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Lamech and Noah retain their integrity for thousands of years, propagated by the descendants of Seth and later, the descendants of Abraham.

0045 Similarly, the Patriarchs are real figures, wrapped in a mantle of epic narrative.  Greece has bards.  So does Israel.

0046 These issues are discussed in the blog posted in January 2022, Looking at Mark Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil”.

0047 Carol Hill’s worldview approach encourages me to imagine the genres of Genesis 2:4-11 as fairy tales, then as a mix, and then as epics.

0048 The identification of genre is crucial since the historical processes that coincide with the stories in Genesis are both real and impossible to isolate from the Biblical text alone.

Something outside the scriptures is needed.  The scriptures tell the story from the inside.  Archaeology tells the story from the outside.

0049 With this lesson in mind, Hill returns to her struggle with the doctrine of original sin.

0050 In the last sections of her article, Carol Hill wrestles with the issue that Saint Augustine’s doctrine is part theological and part scientific.

The incredible duality comes from Saint Paul, who compares Christ, as the one who is to come, and Adam, as the one who is fallen.  Paul makes two assertions.  One, Jesus literally descends from Adam.  Two, Adam’s sin entangles all humanity.

If Adam stands at the start of the history of the Jewish covenant, then that is one point.

If Adam stands at the start of the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, then that is a second point.

A scientific question arises concerning the Ubaid.  How does the Ubaid entangle all humanity?

0051 What does Paul say in his letter to the Romans?  

Paul connects Jesus to the salvation for all humanity.

This connection is theological and diagnostic.

Augustine of Hippo develops the connection.  He is honored for centuries for these developments.

0052 Today, Augustine’s theological propositions on the nature of original sin surpasses the current modern social sciences, which still reduce the human condition to manifestations of stimulus-response.  Augustine’s diagnosis is unparalleled.  Even if humans are animals behaving according to the dictates of stimulus-response, our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  So, our evolved responses operate in a world that no longer reflects our um… evolution.

As for the current social sciences, if one reads two of E. Michael Jones’ books, Libido Dominandi and Degenerate Moderns, then one can see how the personal lives of the founders of various social sciences pay tribute to Augustine’s theological diagnosis of the human condition.  Their personal lives are testimonials to original sin.

0053 Today, Augustine’s scientific proposition on the nature of transmission of original sin has been thoroughly debunked by modern genetics.

But, that does not mean that today’s humanity is not entangled in original sin.

Rather, it means that we are faced with a very curious problem in human evolution.

Why is our current Lebenswelt not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

0054 Carol Hill does not have an answer to the scientific question concerning the transmission of original sin from Adam and Eve to the rest of humanity.

However, she does have the intelligence to intimate that the problem is with science, rather than theology.

0055 Well, it is a problem with theology, in so far as many theologians cannot imagine that Augustine’s scientific proposition is now debunked.  All humanity is not literally descended from Adam and Eve.

0056 The new scientific question, posed by Augustine’s failed hypothesis, and transformed by Hill’s careful framing, asks, “How does the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia potentiate our current Lebenswelt?”

0057 One answer is called, “the hypothesis of the first singularity”.

The first singularity?

The first singularity is a technical term for the fact that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0058 The Ubaid starts the first singularity.

How so?

The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the first culture on Earth to practice speech-alone talk.  At the time that the Ubaid emerges, all contemporary cultures practice hand-speech talk.  Hand-speech talk is associated with the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0059 Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.  The last significant cultures practicing hand-speech talk, the Australian aborigines and the North American Plains Indians, have been mortally compromised by external civilizations.  The first singularity comes to a close in our own time.

0060 The hypothesis is plainly spelled out in the e-work, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace.

The founding of the hypothesis is dramatically presented in the e-book, An Archaeology of the Fall.Both works are available at smashwords and other e-work venues.

0061 The doctrine of original sin is inspired by Saint Augustine’s interpretation of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  Adam is of the type who is fallen.  Jesus is of the type who is risen.  Jesus descends from Adam.  Adam connects to all humanity.  Through this, Jesus connects to all humanity.

0062 How does Adam connect to all humanity?

One answer is offered by the Genesis text.  God makes the earth-man and the rib-woman.  The rest is history.  But, is that the history of the Jewish covenant or the history of our current Lebenswelt?  Or both?

0063 Hill tries to resolve the confounding, saying, “Adam and Eve are the parents of those in the covenant line of Adam leading to Christ.”

Technically, she is correct.

However, she does not capitalize on the other idea, clearly articulated in her article, saying (more or less), “Adam and Eve associate to the Ubaid period of southern Mesopotamia.”

0064 She cannot capitalize on this idea, because she has not encountered the concept of the first singularity, nor wondered about its implications.

Consider Comments on Original Sin and Original Death: Romans 5:12-19, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other electronic book vendors.

If the Ubaid initiates our current Lebenswelt, and if the Ubaid breaks with the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, then there is a replacement to Augustine’s failed scientific proposal.

0065 Hill’s vignette about copper production, a highly specialized alchemic process, tells me that she senses that ‘something cultural’ comes out of the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia and spreads to all the world.  Her intuition is already fulfilled.

0066 The Ubaid is the first Neolithic culture to practice speech-alone talk.  Speech-alone talk has dramatically different semiotic qualities than hand-speech talk, the way of talking practiced since the time that humans evolved.  The semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk favor unconstrained social complexity.  Unconstrained social complexity leads to greater wealth and power.  Labor specialization increases wealth.  Social specialization yields power.

No wonder every hand-speech talking culture in the world ends up dropping the hand-talk component of their hand-speech talk.  It is so easy to do.  Plus, the consequences are not readily apparent.  Over generations, labor specializes and society stratifies.  The world gets more and more complicated.  The old ways are derided.  Then, they are forgotten.  A village becomes a town.  A town becomes a city.  In the city, there are rumors of people who remember.  And what do they remember?  History begins with the start of civilization.

0067 Meanwhile, the people in unconstrained social complexity become more and more disoriented, until evil is in their hearts, continually.

Our spoken words mean whatever we want them to mean.  If our spoken words can lie for us, then why not live the lies?  Doesn’t that fit Augustine’s theology of original sin?

Yes, the transmission of our current Lebenswelt, from the Ubaid to the entire world, does not come from descent.  Rather, it comes from the fact that we all practice speech-alone talk.  Before the Ubaid, humans practice hand-speech talk.  Today, humans practice speech-alone talk.  The semiotic differences between hand-speech and speech-alone talk account for why civilization never forms before the Ubaid and why civilization is potentiated within the Ubaid.

0068 Perhaps, an expanded theology of original sin comes from the realization that Adam associates to the Ubaid and the Ubaid associates to the first singularity. Augustine’s theology is a good place to start.  I am fallen.  Concupiscence calls me.  I am tempted to project my own meanings, presences and messages into my speech-alone words.  My spoken words can lie for me.  I can accuse others, using made-up words, and so on.  The only way for me to get to my feet is to be baptized, in a sacrament, just like Jesus is baptized by John.  The water of baptism gives me the grace to be honest.