0028 To me, the message₁ underlying the stories of Adam and Eve₂ brings together a tragic flaw of humanity (originating with Adam) and the theme (T1) that humankind tends to destroy what God has made good.

Meaning₁ encompasses Jewish covenantal history and the theme (T2) of God delivering humankind from the consequences of their sins.

These two themes show what is at stake with the historical Adam.

0029 The historical Adam, as the originator of humanity’s tragic flaw and as the starting point of Jewish covenantal history, resides in the presence₁ underlying the stories of Adam and Eve₂.  The drama of the primeval history (Genesis 2:4-11) associates to the most ancient of ancient Near East mythology.

0030 This makes me wonder, “What are the earliest cultures of southern Mesopotamia? What cultures precede and develop into the first civilization, the Sumerian Dynastic?”

The archaeological periods are named the Ubaid (starting around 7800 years ago) and the Uruk (developing out of the Ubaid by 6000 years ago).  The Sumerian Dynastic emerges from the Uruk (around 5000 years ago). 

0031 At the end of Part 1, Craig considers nonbiblical written mythologies of the ancient Near East and Egypt.

We do not know these mythologies from living traditions.  Rather, Westerners cobble together these mythologies from lucky finds in archaeological excavations.  Miraculously, the ancient Sumerians write on clay tablets.  This practice continues in subsequent civilizations.  Capital cities throughout the Fertile Crescent archive these tablets in royal libraries.  When a capital city burns to the ground, the clay tablets harden into brick.  The brick tablets lay in ruins that are covered over by plant growth, dirt and later settlements.  These tablets lay buried for thousands of years in dusty hills in the Near East.  Then, they are excavated.

The entire story of the discovery and translation of cuneiform tablets is amazing.

0032 Even more amazing, distorted versions of stories in the Primeval History appear on several cuneiform tablets.  On top of that, biblical names are found in the mythologies of Egypt.

In other words, the (recovered) literature of the ancient Near East contains the same genres and storylines as Genesis 2.4-11.

One would imagine that the historical Adam associates with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.  Noah associates with a spectacular flood (producing a break in a Sumerian king list) that occurs during the Uruk period. Writing is invented during the Uruk.

0033 As such, the Ubaid should provide the background for a quest for the historical Adam.

0034 However, unbeknownst to the reader, Craig silently harbors an alternate to the potential₁ that defines₃ the stories of Adam and Eve₂.

0035 There is a difference between the following two statements.

Adam originates humanity’s tragic flaw (original-). 

Adam originates humanity itself (alternative-).

0036 Each statement bonds to T1.  T1 is the Biblical trend, where humanity tends to destroy what God has made good.

Craig’s message in Part 1 is org-T1.

Craig’s silent message in Part 3 is alt-T1.

0037 Here is a picture of Craig’s alternate potential.

0038 The difference between org-T1 and alt-T1 is subtle.  In org-T1, the Fall takes precedence.  In alt-T1, the creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden takes precedence.

Craig attempts to locate Adam and Eve at the start of humanity itself, leading to a pyrrhic victory in Part 3.  Following the science, a single couple can be the parents of all humanity (broadly defined), sometime before 500,000 years ago.

Yes, Craig locates Adam and Eve several hundred thousand years after the domestication of fire and several hundred thousand years before the earliest appearance of anatomically modern humans.

0039 If that is the case, then why do all the origin stories of the ancient Near East depict a recent creation of humanity?

Hmmm.  That is a very interesting question.

Why do all the origin stories of the ancient Near East agree on this one detail?

0040 Craig’s argument presumes, all along, that Adam and Eve are the first human beings.

In this examination, I consider the opposing question, “What if they are not?”

What if Adam and Eve represent the first humans for all the origin stories of the ancient Near East?

What if Adam and Eve originate humanity’s tragic flaw at the start of Ubaid?

0041 Then, what about Part 3 of Craig’s book?

My suggestion to the Professor follows.

Consider the masterwork, The Human Niche, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Also, consider Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1994) The Prehistoric Mind.

0042 Part 3 is an excellent summary hominin evolution, after hand-talk becomes similar to a team activity.

Say what?  

From the start of the Homo lineage, hand talk is confined to team activities.  It is not a team activity in itself.  Nevertheless, it becomes more and more linguistic, because word-gestures become more and more routine. The domestication of fire changes all that.  Talking around the fire becomes an activity in itself.  The niche of conversationopens up, encouraging a general grammar.  Once general grammar evolves, then nonsensical propositions can be made.  Once grammatically correct nonsensical statements can be made, then social construction follows.  Social construction is highly adaptive.

0043 Part 3 may be re-purposed for a work on a complementarity between the Genesis Creation Story and human evolution.  Part 3 associates with Gen. 1:26, telling of God’s intention to make man.

0044 Does the prior blog indicate that I dismiss all of Part 3?

The answer is, “Yes, it does, even though Craig spends a lot of time and effort, including questioning scientific researchers, constructing the argument that Homo heidelbergensis may be the ancestor to anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans.”

Why?

Craig imagines that they may be the first human beings.

The problem?

Adam and Eve are not the first human beings.  Rather, they originate humanity’s tragic flaw.

0045 This thesis corresponds to the message₁ that underlies the actuality of the stories of Adam and Eve₂, within the normal context of definition₃.

0046 Part Two of Craig’s book addresses Biblical witness.  Clearly, the stories of Adam and Eve concern a relatively recent prehistoric event, occurring in southern Mesopotamia, at the start of the Ubaid archaeological period.

0047 What is the nature of that event?

0048 This question associates to the presence₁ underlying the stories of Adam and Eve₂, including the ancient Near East and the text of Genesis 2.4-11.

This question also associates to the message₁, combining a claim and a trend.  The claim is that Adam and Eve originate humanity’s tragic flaw.  The trend is humanity’s tendency to destroy what God has made good. 

Both presence₁ and message₁ are couched in myth.  What is myth?  Myth both memorializes and veils the historical events tied to Adam’s deeds.  The historical Adam associates to a real event that is wrapped in myth.

0049 Ah, is that not the nature of history?

Even so-called “modern histories” contain real events wrapped in myths.

0050 In Part Two, Craig refines the presence₁ and message₁ underlying the stories of Adam and Eve.

0051 Part Two consists of six chapters, arranged into an A:B:C:C’:B’:A’ semitic textual structure.

A:A’, chapters 2 and 7, pair the nature of myth with Adam in the New Testament.  In the New Testament, Adam is treated as a real person associated with something that really happened.  The New Testament is a historical document. But, the stories of Adam and Eve are myths, according to ten criteria proposed by experts on folklore.

B:B’, chapters 3 and 6, pair the first six criteria that characterize myth with the question, “Are myths believed to be true?”

C:C’, chapters 4 and 5, pair the four remaining criteria that characterizes myth with the question, “Is Genesis 1-11 mytho-history?”

0052 According to An Instructor’s Guide to An Archaeology of The Fall, the semitic textual structure asks the reader to recognize a possibility.  That possibility should be apparent by the pairings.  The possibility is a myth, arising in history,while at the same time, veiling the historical events or processes giving rise to the myth.

0053 A mytho-history is more than a myth in history.

A mytho-history tells of something that really happened.

But, we cannot figure out what that something is, without independent information.

0054 I start with A:A’.

The initiation and culmination of the question, “Who is Adam?”, bookends the combined Old and New Testaments.  Even more curious, in the middle, Adam and Eve are rarely mentioned, while the lessons of the preceding Creation Story are frequently celebrated.

One answer to that riddle is found in the January 2022 blog, Looking at Mark Smith’s Book (2019) The Genesis of Good and Evil.

0055 In the beginning (A), Adam coheres to the meaning underlying Genesis 2.4-11.  Adam is the first in the line of the Jewish covenant.  The covenant manifests God saving His people from their difficulties and… yes… transgressions (T2).

0056 In the end (A’), Adam associates to the presence and message underlying Genesis 2.4-11.

0056 For presence, the stories of Adam and Eve are set in the very ancient world of the Wet Neolithic Period of southwestern Asia.  This is the same time when the Ubaid culture gels on the edge of the infilling Persian Gulf.  Four rivers flow into the expanding Persian Gulf.  Two are the Tigris and the Euphrates.  The other two are now dry wadis.

These points are discussed in the February 2022 blog, Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021)”Original Sin with Respect to Science”, at www.raziemah.com.

On top of that, Genesis 1-11 reads like a text written on a cuneiform tablet, buried in the ruins of a royal library, and excavated and translated by an enterprising archaeologist.

0057 For message, the stories of Adam and Eve memorialize an apparently historical incident or process in the manner of myth.  Adam and Eve open the door to sin and death.  The door opens further with the stories of Cain and Abel.  The door is wide open with Lamech.  Lamech, who has two wives, kills a fellow, who has no wife.  The door is off its hinges as elitist sons of gods pluck the daughters of men for their desires.  God laments the course of human events.  Then, comes Noah’s flood.

0058 Surely, after Adam, humankind tends to destroy what God has made good (T1).

But, “humankind” is not all humanity.

“Humankind” consists of those doomed to humanity’s tragic flaw.

Genesis 2:4-11 tells of the Ubaid, the Uruk and the Sumerian Dynastic of southern Mesopotamia.

Humanity’s tragic flaw starts with the Ubaid, then spreads across the planet, on the wings of mimicry.

No one can figure out what really happened in the stories of Adam and Eve, without using independent information from archaeology and other disciplines.

0059 Such is the drama of the masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0060 In the beginning of the Bible, Adam associates with myth (A).

In the end of the Bible, Adam associates to history (A’).

0061 What is the nature of myth?

Myth characterizes the presence₁ underlying the actuality of the stories of Adam and Eve₂.

What does the “literature” of the ancient Near East and the stories of Genesis 2.4-11 have in common?

They are both mythologies.

0062 Many very well educated know-it-alls have thought long and hard on the nature of myth.  There is no precise definition.

Craig lists ten “family resemblances” or “characteristics” (M1-M10).  Each of these characteristics can be associated to one of Peirce’s categories.  Thirdness is the realm of normal contexts. Secondness is the realm of actuality.  Firstness is the realm of possibility.

0063 Here is a picture of the first four family resemblances (M1-M4).

0064 Not so surprisingly, the first four family resemblances congeal into a category-based nested form.

0065 Here is a picture.

A sacred normal context₃ brings traditional narratives, handed down for generations₂, into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘objects of belief’₁.

0066 Other family resemblances also associate to elements in the category-based nested form.  Here is the next match.

Myths associate to rituals (M8).  M8 fits the normal context of ritual₃.

Deities are characters in myths (M6).  M6 associates to actuality₂.  Deities are real characters, not imaginary ones.

Myths anchor present realities in primeval times (M7).  M7 matches potential.  Primeval times (as possibilities) anchor the present.

0067 Here is a picture.

The normal context of ritual association₃ brings the actualities of dieties₂ into relation with the potential of anchoring present realities in primeval times₁.

0068 The remaining three family resemblances also constitute a category-based nested form.

Myths are located in a primeval age or another realm (M5).

Myths express correspondences between nature and deities (M9).

Myths contain fantastical elements that are not troubled by logical contradiction or incoherence (M10).

0069 Here is the nested form.

The normal context of a primeval age₃ brings the actuality of correspondences between nature and divine₂ into relation with the possibilities inherent in fantastical elements that defy logical contradiction or coherence₁.

0070 The three nested forms of family resemblances constitute a nested form.

0071 A nested form?

An interscope is a nested form composed of nested forms.

The three-level interscope is introduced in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.

A perspective level (M1-M4) brings a situation level (M6-M8) into relation with the potential of a content level (M5, M9-M10).

0072 Why is this interscope important?

According to Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us?, the three-level interscope is a way to picture langue between conversational partners. 

Langue?

According to Ferdinand de Saussure, spoken language consists in two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole(speech) and langue (what goes on in our minds when we talk).

When two people are in conversation, the discourse tends to fill in the empty-slots of a three-level interscope.  Here, Craig reports on the conversations of folklorists, language specialists, anthropologists and theologians, who agree that myths share ten family resemblances.

0073 Neither Craig nor those who he reports on know that these ten items associate to the nine empty-slots of a three-level interscope.

When a three-level interscope is fully manifest, as it is here, an inquirer gains satisfaction.

We can have an enriching conversation about myth if we cover all the elements in the interscope pictured above.

0074 Once again, here is the myth interscope.

0075 Now, I enter the topic of human evolution.

In our current Lebenswelt, speech-alone talk is fully symbolic.  We can discuss all the elements in the above figurebecause we can attach purely symbolic labels to each one.  We call the process, “abstraction” (or better, “explicit abstraction”).

In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, hand and hand-speech talk words picture and point to their referents.  Even though symbolic operations undergird fully linguistic hand talk, the sign-qualities of icons and indexes characterize each manual-brachial word-gesture.  Consequently, explicit abstraction is constrained in hand-talk and hand-speech talk.

0076 Looking at the above figure, I suspect that I can convey stories that fill in the content and situation level elements, using fully linguistic manual-brachial word-gestures.  In other words, I can tell stories of the divine, just as the North American Plains Indians and the Australian Aborigines do with their hand-talk.  I can fill in the content and situation levels.  Plus, I can fill-in the perspective level through implicit abstraction.

0077 But, I cannot explicitly abstract any of the elements of the above interscope.

Why?

Explicit abstraction requires purely symbolic words.  Hand talk and hand-speech talk words are icons and indexes (in addition to being symbols).  They are not purely symbolic.

In conclusion, in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, I cannot picture or point to the elements in the above interscope.

But, I can fill in the content and situation levels with hand-talk.  I can implicitly abstract the perspective level.  I can live the perspective level.

In our current Lebenswelt, I can label all the elements of the interscope with purely symbolic spoken words.

This is the missing ingredient that Craig does not realize as of 2021.

Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0078 Hand-talk is the milieu in which language evolves.  In hand-talk, the relation between parole (the gestural utterance) and langue (the meaning, presence and message underlying the utterance) is motivated by the natural sign-qualities of icons (images) and indexes (indicators).

Yes, hand-talk pictures and points to its referents.  It does not label them, as happens in speech-alone talk.

0079 Before the first singularity, humans and their ancestors have no gestural-words corresponding to the spoken words, “sacred”, “tradition”, “narratives”, “objects” or “belief”.

These words are explicit abstractions, requiring speech-alone talk.

In hand talk, what is there to picture or point to?

Yet, at the same time, we somehow lived all these words.  Implicit abstractions are built into our bones.

0080 One of the great failures of evolutionary science has been a failure to recognize that Peirce’s concept of natural signs applies to talk, as opposed to language.  Talk is not the same as language.  Language consists in the symbolic operations underlying talk.  Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk.  Hand talk solves the problem of reference. Icons and indexes are recognizable natural signs.

The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language.

0081 Yes, a few evolutionary biologists argue that hand-talk is the medium in which language evolves.

0082 Yet, they face a huge problem.

Today, everyone practices speech-alone talk.

We have done so as long as anyone can remember.We have done so since the time of Adam and Eve.

0083 Can the myth interscope be used to express a link between the civilizations of the ancient Near East and Genesis 2:4-11?

Yes, Craig spends two chapters (B and C) discussing each criterion for myth (M1-M10) and showing how each applies to the Primeval History, as well as to the origin myths of ancient Mesopotamia.

0084 Craig writes beautiful prose.  Every sentence is well constructed.  Part Two exhibits the semitic textual style.  Here, the pattern is A, B, C, C’, B’, A’.

Chapter 2 covers the nature of myth (A).

Chapter 3 addresses the perspective and situation levels of the interscope of myth (B).

Chapter 4 moves to the content level (C).

Chapter 5 asks whether the term, “mytho-history”, applies to Genesis 1-11 (C’).

Chapter 6 asks whether myths are believed to be true (B’).

Chapter 7 addresses how the New Testament regards Adam as historic (A’).

0085 The first movement (A-C) asks the reader to recognize the possibility that Genesis 2:4-11 has all the family resemblances of myth.

In particular, Genesis 2:4-11 bears a family resemblance to origin myths of the ancient Near East.

The next movement (C’-A’) is crucial.  The origin myths of the ancient Near East are, from a Western point of view, historical, in so far as the cuneiform tablets bearing this literature come from archaeological sites.

Thus, the stories of Adam and Eve, along with the origin myths of the ancient Near East, may be labeled, “mytho-historical”.

0086 These myths are associated with certain periods in the archaeology of southern Mesopotamia, the Ubaid (7800-6000 years ago), the Uruk (6000-5000 years ago) and the Sumerian Dynastic (starting 5000 years ago).

Perhaps, the term, “mytho-archaeological”, is more accurate.