0001 On August 14, 2024, Razie Mah, the blogger and author of The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion, releases an e-book, titled “Exercises in Artistic Concordism“.
Concordism is harmony between religion and science, particulary, the biblical origin stories and evolutionary history. Concordism attempts to build a bridge. But there is always a problem.
0002 According to current interpretations of these matters, either religion or science has to give.
Enter semiotics. Semiotics is the study of sign-relations. Sign-relations are triadic relations. Triadic relations? Thirdness (the triadic realm of normal contexts) brings secondness (the dyadic realm of actuality) into relation with firstness (the monadic realm of possibility).
0003 What if Genesis One is a sign of the evolutionary record?
If one reads the Creation Story through the lens of Charles Peirce’s typology of natural signs, then each day of creation offers icons, indexes and symbols of a corresponding epoch. The days, like pearls, string perfectly onto the evolutionary record. The aesthetic correspondence is beautiful to behold.
0004 What has to give?
The interpretation that the Creation Story is itself the revelation? Perhaps, Genesis One records a revelation. That means there is a visionary, which brings up the question. How do we (as the ones who will hear the words of the vision) evolve to be who we are created to be? We are created to recognize the signs of God. What does this mean?
And, what if the stance that the Creation Story is a vision gives us ways to answer these questions?
0005 What else has to give?
Our theoretical formulation of human evolution? Yes, there is more to our evolution than fossils and genetics. What if, as the Genesis text indicates, our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in? What if there is a cultural twist in recent prehistory?
0006 If one reads the awkward textual transition between the Creation Story and the stories of Adam and Eve as discontinuity, then one may wonder why all the written origins stories of the ancient Near East portray the origin of humans as a recent event. Humans are created, de novo, by differentiated gods.
Why can’t any of the civilizations of the ancient Near East see past a time horizon that an anthropologist may place, say, at the start of the Ubaid archaeological period of southern Mesopotamia?
Why can’t these ancient civilizations see the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
These queries lead to a much more inflammatory question. Why is our current Lebenswelt not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
Imagine the answer to that one!
0007 Today, civilized folk are abuzz about the coming singularity. What if it is not the first?
Uh oh, the first singularity is a scientific hypothesis that harmonizes a cultural twist in human evolution with the stories of Adam and Eve.
0008 Both religious appreciations of the text and scientific blind-spots must transform if there is to be concord.
Plus, that concord will be neither religious nor scientific.
0001 The book under examination is published by T&T Clark in New York, London and Dublin, carries an ISBN number: 978-0-5677-0635-5, and presents the full title of The Origin of Humanity and Evolution: Science and Scripture in Conversation.
This examination considers the book from the point of view of Razie Mah’s three masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define The Word “Religion”, corresponding to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the first singularity and our current Lebenswelt, respectively.
Needless to say, in this volume, Andrew Ter Ern Loke is not aware of the scientific proposals offered by Razie Mah’s masterworks. His goal is to formulate a point of view whereby the role of Adam and Eve in Augustine’s Christian tradition does not contradict the modern view of human evolution, which is surpassed by Razie Mah’s corrective.
The goal of this examination is to show that Loke intimates the proposed scientific corrective, even though he is unaware of its existence.
0002 According to the back cover, in 2022, Andrew Ter Ern Loke is an associate professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. In the acknowledgements, the author thanks scientists, philosophers, a historian of science, biblical scholars and theologians for helpful discussions. Among the list is William Lane Craig, whose recent book, The Historical Adam, is reviewed in November 2022 in Razie Mah’s blog.
Loke’s book is dedicated to a computational biologist, Joshua Swamidass, who proposes a technical solution that permits all humans to descend from one male, named “Adam”, and that one “Adam” corresponds to the one mentioned in Genesis 2.4 on.
0003 Technical solution?
There are two stories of human origins in the formerly Christian West, the Christian ones are found in Genesis and the modern Western ones concern the scientific disciplines of natural history, genetics and archaeology. So the question arises, asking, “How do these match?”
They would match if “Adam” is the first human. After all, the name, “adamah”, is ambiguous, referring to humankind, the male of the species, as well as one apparently ill-fated fellow once living on an island, in a special place called, “Eden”, near the confluence of four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates.
0004 Unfortunately, the scientific discipline of genetics rules out that option. Adam and Eve are not the first pair of humans. Contemporary human population genetics shows no sharp bottleneck that would correspond to a single pair as the first humans (as proposed by Saint Augustine, over 1600 years ago, during the twilight of the Roman Empire). This lack of correspondence opens the opportunity for other technical solutions, such as the genealogical approach by Joshua Swamidass and the approach formulated in Loke’s book. Neither Swamidass nor Loke propose that Adam and Eve are the first humans. Loke designates Adam as “God’s Image Bearer” and works from there.
0005 Here is a different way to look at the issue.
Imagine a map of the Nile, running up through Africa to the Mediterranean Sea. Now, pick up a mental pencil and relabel parts of the great river.
0006 The first chapter of Genesis is the upper reaches of the southern Nile, with the great lake, named “Victoria” (to those who speak English). Genesis 2.4-10 is like the lower reaches of the northern Nile, ending in the magnificent delta. The Mediterranean is where history begins.
Imagine that there is a great waterfall between the upper and lower reaches, instead of a series of impassable rapids. Upland from the waterfall is the time of De Nile. Downland from the waterfall is the time of DeNial. The waterfall is the first singularity.
A traveler, starting at the falls, can theoretically walk in both directions, along De Nile or along DeNial. But, there is the challenge of the descent and the ascent. Looking from the top of the falls, one cannot see the bottom. Looking from the bottom of the falls, one cannot see the top. However, at either location, the traveler knows that there must be a bottom and there must be a top.
Well, the traveler does not really know for certain.
The traveler only looks down from the top or up from the bottom and makes a guess about the other realm.
0006 As if to repeat the pattern, Loke’s book takes a turn near the middle of the text, in section five of chapter five, carrying the title, “The Image of God”.
Loke writes that Adam and Eve, labeled by God as “Image Bearers of God”, are the first human beings. This does not require them to be the first anatomically modern humans or the genetic founders of all humans. Rather, the key issue is how humans are defined.
0007 It is sort of like that imaginary waterfall.
If one stands upstream, which is highland and south, human beings are defined by the scientific scenario summarized in section 5.1.
If one stands downstream, which is lowland and north, various philosophers and religious traditions offer opinions as to what humans are. Loke mentions Plato, Aristotle, Upanishadic Hinduism, Buddhism, Marxism, existentialism, sociobiology and contemporary philosophy. Each has a unique definition of “the human”.
The waterfall is neither upstream nor downstream. The waterfall is contiguous with both.
How does this division within continuity work?
0008 The Greimas square may assist. The Greimas square is a purely relational structure that is useful for discerning a constellation of meanings that surround a particular spoken term.
A century ago, the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure proposed that spoken language consists in two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole (French for “talk”) and langue (French for “language”). One system is external. Parolecan be scientifically observed and measured. Langue is internal, only certain changes in physiological conditions can be observed and measured.
0009 So, the question arises, “How does one define any particular spoken phrase or word?”
That is the subject of Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0010 Happily, for this examination, there is method that respects the purely relational configuration posed by Saussure.
That method is the Greimas square.
0011 Here is a picture.
Figure 01
0012 The focal term goes with A.
The first contrast of A that comes to mind enters B.
Then, a term that contradicts B goes into C. The term, “contradicts”, may be transliterated into “speaks against”. So, C speaks against B. Then, one finds that C complements A.
Finally, a contrast that comes to mind with C goes into D. Then, one should find that D speaks against A and complements B.
0013 The Greimas square is a probe of the terms that are adjacent to (or metaphorically “near”) a focal term (A).
0014 The following figure applies to Loke’s discussion of Adam and Eve as the first “Image Bearers of God”.
Figure 02
0015 We are the descendants of Adam (A), so we are heir to his title, “Image Bearer of God”.
But, there is a problem. Adam falls. So do we.
In contrast, many philosophies and traditions define who we are (B) without regard to God’s original appellation.
Speaking against the philosophers and traditionalists, Adam is the first holding the title (C), which will be passed on to the rest of humanity by means that are not genetic. So, despite all other opinion, Adam is… er, at least… was… until, you know, the unfortunate incident… the first bearer of this title. I suppose he never lost the title…
…he just made a bad decision that doomed all of subsequent humanity.
In contrast, the Biblical use of adam (technically, “adamah”) is a pun which means “earth man” or “humanity” (D).
This raises the question as to whether adam as humanity (D) contradicts (A) humans labeled as the Image Bearers of Godand complements (B) “humans” defined by philosophers and other religious traditions.
I suppose that one could argue for “yes”, as well as “no”.
0016 As it turns out, the metaphor of a map of the Nile River, altered by a number 2 pencil, also fits into a Greimas square.
The concept of Adam and Eve as the “Image Bearers of God” stands at the core of this book.
Figure 39
0185 As much as the author tries to capitalize on the idea that Adam and Eve receive a title, and that this title passes to all humanity through a genetic… oh, a not genetic mechanism, Loke does not arrive at his destination, the answer to the question of the Fall.
How is Original Sin passed from Adam to us?
Why is Jesus the New Adam?
0186 Before Traducianism is challenged by the science of genetics, these questions are easy to answer.
Afterwards, Traducianism itself becomes an example of langue, the mental processing that is arbitrarily related to parole, that is, speech-alone talk.
0187 Yet, there is hope. The first singularity coincides with the fall of Adam and Eve. What is old is made new again.
Figure 40
0188 Future inquiry will extend beyond the book-ends of total depravity and the loss of original justice, into the natures of true versus false and honest versus deceptive.
0189 Who are we?
The behavior of humans in our current Lebenswelt is so different from the behavior of humans in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, that we might as well label ourselves a different species.
0190 Here is my suggestion.
We should call all humans living in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, Homo sapiens.
We should call all humans living in our current Lebenswelt, Homo boobiens.
0191 Only Homo boobiens can acquire specialized knowledge so exclusive that it makes them unbelievably stupid. In our world of unconstrained complexity, high intelligence empowers profound Dummheit. Just ask the experts. They will tell you that their recipes for disaster are utterly sensible and moral.
0192 Perhaps, in future academic controversies, the coincidence of the fall of Adam and Eve and the hypothesis of the first singularity will inspire evolutionary scientists to compete with Christian theologians in accounting for the Pascal sacrifice.
The Christian theologian says, “Christ dies for our sins.”
The scientist replies, “No, Christ dies for our stupidity.”
Sin results in death. So does stupidity.
Plus, we are never so stupid as when we play word games in order to lie to ourselves.
0193 The attraction of Loke’s theoretical framework, that Adam and Eve are the first to receive the God-given honorific, “Image Bearer of God”, is that the title is immediately spoiled in the Genesis 2.4-4 narrative, where Adam and Eve demonstrate that, while they are certainly created in the image of God, they cannot live up to the title. None of us can.
0194 There is good reason. Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. So, we cannot even live up to who we evolved to be. We are tempted to believe that our own spoken words picture or point to their referents, when they are really placeholders in systems of differences (at least, according to Ferdinand de Saussure, the founder of modern language studies). We can place a label on anything, then use those labels to manufacture a coherent network of relational elements that seems totally convincing, because every element of the relational structure is occupied by a label.
0195 Inadvertently, the author reveals this in his defense of Traducianism.
In his innocence and earnestness, Loke demonstrates how we may use spoken words to confuse ourselves. Can we label the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “intelligence” and “stupidity”? The moment that we do, some customers will demand the “intelligent” fruits and leave the “stupid” fruits for the less choosy.
Are the picky customers ahead of the game?
Or, are the less choosy correct in concluding that the fruits are all the same?
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
0196 With that said, I conclude my examination of this work, full of intelligence and stupidity, just as one expects from a descendant of Adam and Eve. My thanks go to the author. The arguments offered in this book tell me that we stand on the verge of a new age of understanding, where everything old is made new again.
0001 Loren Haarsma is an old man, a physics professor and a Christian. As a fellow of the American Science Affiliation, he has lectured on the intersection of science and faith. He is a scholarly voice in the Biologos network.
The full title of his book is When Did Sin Begin: Human Evolution and The Doctrine of Original Sin (2021, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, MI).
If one goes to the resources page for the Biologos.org website, then selects the topic, “Bible”, and the subtopic, “Adam and Eve”, one will find an extensive collection of essays on the concerns in Haarsma’s title: timing, evolution and original sin.
0002 How do these concerns fit into a category-based nested form?
Timing calls forth a normal context3. The question, “when?”, implies an event. Here, the event is a transition. For evolution, the transition is a topic of natural inquiry. For original sin, the transition is a topic for theologians.
Human evolution and original sin belong to the realm of actuality2.
The only item not mentioned is potential1. Here, the question mark applies. For human evolution2, the potential must be adaptive change1. For original sin2, the potential is the start of sin in our current Lebenswelt1.
0003 To me, these concerns yield two category-based nested forms.
Here is a picture, following the recipe in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.
Figure 01
0004 These two normal contexts exclude one another.
0005 The upper normal context3 associates to evolutionary science. The focus of attention is on natural history and genetics.
Typically, an adaptive change produces speciation. However, in human evolution, an adaptive change may be cultural. Human evolution is both biological and cultural. Since natural history and genetics do not adequately describe culture, they may not be enough to scientifically describe human evolution. Indeed, no natural science convincingly addresses cultural change.
0006 The lower normal context3 associates to theological science. The focus of attention is on special and general revelation.
Special revelation includes Genesis 1-11. Genesis 1-11 divides into two parts. In the Primeval History (chapter 2:4-11), Adam is brought to life as the first human, even though um… in the Creation Story (chapter 1-2.3), humans are already intended, created and blessed, in the framework of six days of creation.
General revelation includes Greek philosophy, among other traditions. Greek philosophy is useful for resolving contradictions. For example, some theologians resolve the contradiction inherent in the two parts of Genesis 1-11 by claiming that Adam (in Genesis 2.4-4) is the male and female “them” that God intended, created and blessed (in Genesis 1).
Say what?
In the Creation Story, God creates them, male and female. So, Adam must have had some sort of divided consciousness, one operating in his mind and the other working in his ribs.
Just kidding.
0007 Greek philosophy’s usefulness is not limited to resolving contradictions, no matter how silly the resolution may be. Greek philosophy may also be used in situations where contradictions cannot be resolved. Such a situation occurs here. Human evolution2 and original sin2 belong to a single actuality. They both pertain to one realness2.
Here is a picture.
Figure 02
0008 Two (apparently independent) category-based nested forms intersect in the realm of actuality2. The two constituting actualities cannot escape the one realness, because they constitute the one realness. Certain contradictions are accidental. Certain contradictions are essential. Greek philosophy is useful for separating the accidental from the essential. A set of essential contradictions is called “a mystery”.
0001 William Lane Craig publishes a work of erudition, titled, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration (Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI, ISBN 978-0-8028-79911-0). The bibliography contains over 250 references.
Part One discusses what is at stake.
Part Two covers the Biblical “data” concerning Adam and runs 210 pages.
Part Three covers scientific evidence about the start of humanity (broadly defined) and runs 117 pages.
0002 Overall, the first two-thirds of the book discusses the importance of the historical Adam and explores what types of stories are contained in Genesis 2.4-11. Then, the final one-third addresses the question, “If humanity descends from a single couple, then where would we locate that couple in the scientific story of human evolution?”
0003 Clearly, this professor would have been assisted by glancing at the masterworks in the Razie Mah series, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other electronic book venues.
0004 Why?
Every sentence in this book is well composed and carefully reasoned. But, Craig’s quest ends at a location that is anything but. He writes (more or less), “Adam may be plausibly identified as a member of Homo heidelbergensis, living 750,000 years ago.”
The quest ends where the book should have started.
Then, the title could have been, “What if Adam and Eve are really the first humans?”
What if, indeed.
0006 Craig’s argument presumes, all along, that Adam and Eve are the first humans.
In this examination, I do not neglect the opposing question, “What if they are not?”
0112 This is the last blog concerning this particular book. I post this blog first, because WordPress places the latest blog closest to the top for each month. Chronologically, the first blog in a series appears last on the month’s list and the last blog eventually appears first. There is a certain logic to this, which I appreciate and adjust my posts accordingly. My goal is to limit my examinations to one-month duration.
0113 I summarize.
0114 First, Part Three of Craig’s book associates to Genesis 1:26, the intention of man. The time frame corresponds to the period after the domestication of fire and before the speciation of anatomically modern humans. Our religious sensibilities evolve during this period, as discussed in the e-masterwork, The Human Niche.
0115 Second, Part Two of Craig’s book attempts to define Genesis 2:4-11 as mytho-history. The attempt turns Craig’s definition into an inquiry concerning the first singularity. The first singularity associates to the start of the Ubaid culture of southern Mesopotamia. The hypothesis of the first singularity explains why our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. The consequences of the first singularity are captured by the stories of Adam and Eve. This is a theme in the e-masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0116 Third, Part One of Craig’s book sets a path to a category-based nested form, defining3 the stories of Adam and Eve2as emerging from (and situating) Jewish covenantal history (meaning1), the ancient Near East and Genesis 1-11 (presence1), and the notion that Adam originates humanity’s tragic flaw (message1). The categorical structure of definition is introduced in the e-masterwork, How to Define the Word “Religion”.
0117 Fourth, Part One presents ten family resemblances characterizing the term, “myth”. These family resemblances associate to all the elements in a three-tier interscope. The interscope is a relational structure, presented in the e-work, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
0118 Fifth, Part Two fills in the interscope of myth with the ten family resemblances, leading to an understanding that Genesis 2:4-11 and the origin stories of the ancient Near East pertain to the same prehistoric events and processes, occurring during the Ubaid, the Uruk and the Sumerian Dynastic archaeological periods.
0119 Sixth, Part Three fails to capitalize on the fact that both the Genesis Primeval History and the origin stories of the ancient Near East portray a recent creation of humanity. This failure follows a lacuna in the modern discipline of Anthropology, which does not envision that our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
Why does modern Anthropology not register the first singularity?
Modern Anthropology self-identifies as science. Modern Anthropology belongs to the waning Age of Ideas.
The hypothesis of the first singularity belongs to the dawning Age of Triadic Relations. Peirce’s philosophy opens a new, semiotic consciousness. That consciousness calls for a postmodern Anthropology radically different from what modern intellectuals call “postmodern”.
0120 My thanks to William Lane Craig, for demonstrating the beauty of good English prose, even while missing the mark in his quest for the historical Adam.
0001 In this series of blogs, I examine John H. Walton’s book, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate, published in 2015 by Intervarsity Press. John Walton is a Professor of the Old Testament and has published other commentaries.
0002 I examine this book from the point of views of (A) natural philosophy and (B) the hypothesis of the first singularity.
0003 From the first point of view (A), what Walton calls, “archetypal”, may also be construed as “noumenal”, as opposed to “phenomenal”. According to Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, modern science construes each thing as a noumenon and its phenomena. A noumenon is the thing itself. Phenomena are its observable and measurable facets. Science models phenomena. Science cannot address the noumenon, the thing itself.
0004 So, how we recognize noumena, things themselves?
Noumena are the subject of philosophical inquiry. Aristotle’s hylomorphe is the first step in philosophical inquiry. We perceive the thing itself, directly, as a dyadic relation containing two contiguous real elements. Aristotle calls the two real elements, matter and form.
What about the contiguity?
The contiguity will be placed in brackets.
I will use another one of Aristotle’s terms for the contiguity. The term has been the subject of a lot of wooly thinking. So, the choice is rich, in more ways than one.
0005 According to Charles Peirce, the category of secondness, the realm of actuality, consists in two contiguous real elements.
According to Aristotle, the hylomorphe is (basically) matter [substantiates] form. The verb, “substantiates”, is the same as the noun, “substance”.
Here is a picture.
Figure 01
0006 Human recognition of hylomorphes is immediate and intuitively natural.
Why?
We evolved to recognize noumena, things themselves.
This is how the ancient world thinks. Greek philosophers ask, “Why are there things instead of nothing?” The answer ends up with Aristotle’s proposal. The hylomorphe is the portal to natural philosophy. Natural philosophy considers things in themselves.
0007 Today, science-lovers fixate on phenomena, such as the observable and measurable aspects of a thing, called “original sin”. Then, they they build models for how Adam could be the direct cause of this thing.
In contrast, Walton argues that the civilizations of the ancient Near East look at this issue from the noumenal side. Adam is contiguous with what is wrong with the world. Paul wrestles with this hylomorphe in his famous letters to the Corinthians and the Romans.
Figure 02
0008 From the second point of view (B), Walton’s propositions appear more and more like a noumenon whose phenomena yield a novel scientific hypothesis. This novel hypothesis is formally proposed in the masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
In 2015, John Walton and his collaborator, N.T. Wright, are not aware of this novelty. The hypothesis of the first singularity changes everything.
0009 In the conclusion, Walton states that his book demonstrates that Genesis 1 is concerned with God’s ordering of a grand sacred space with the goal of coming into relation with us. Genesis 2.4 starts with God planting humans within a sacred space, within the grand sacred space, only to find that we bite. We bite into the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Isn’t that smart?
0010 We deceive ourselves.
We introduce chaos into God’s order.
Oh, I meant to say, it is Adam’s fault.
0011 Weirdly, this sounds a lot like all the other origin stories of the ancient Near East, especially the ones recovered by archaeologists from royal libraries that burnt to the ground thousands of years ago. Cuneiform clay tablets fire into brick. The bricks retain their integrity even when buried by detritus. Then, they are excavated by modern archaeologists. Then, archaeologists miraculously find a way to read the script.
0012 Walton has the advantage of these archaeological discoveries. Walton has the advantage of new scholarship on Paul and the Jewish civilization during the Second Temple Period. Yet, he writes in the twilight of the Age of Ideas.
0013 This examination brings his propositions into the dawning Age of Triadic Relations.
Walton sets forth 21 propositions.To these, I attend.
Humans can be viewed as a distinct creation and a special creation of Ged, even if there is continuity, as far as genetics and natural history are concerned.
0188 However, there is a twist in human evolution.
The twist does not alter our genetic make-up.
The twist does not involve any phenotypic alteration.
The twist involves an immaterial change in cultural evolution.
The semiotics of speech-alone and hand-speech talk are radically different.
0189 Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0190 John Walton writes, in 2015, without knowing about Razie Mah’s three masterworks. All are available as smashwords and other e-book venues.
The Human Niche covers the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
An Archaeology of the Fall dramatically renders the first singularity.
How to Define The Word “Religion” confronts the nature of our current Lebenswelt.
0191 Every proposition in The Lost World of Adam and Eve is touched upon by these three scientific works.
Walton’s excellent book is published in the twilight of the Age of Ideas.
All the material that he covers asks to be re-articulated, in order to move into the dawning Age of Triadic Relations.
0192 My thanks to John Walton (and collaborator, N.T. Wright) for their engaging effort. The science has changed. It is time to put pen to paper, again.
0001 In the same issue as Carol Hill’s article (reviewed in this blog in Feb. 2022), philosopher Roy Clouser offers a complementary note, entitled, “Three Theological Arguments in Support of Carol Hill’s Reading of the Historicity of Genesis and Original Sin” (Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith, volume 73(3), pages 145-151).
0002 Hill makes three assertions (A-C).
(A) The stories of Adam and Eve associate to the archaeological Ubaid Period of southern Mesopotamia.
(B) The worldviews of the ancient Near East must be accounted for in this association.
(C) The association may have global implications, as indicated by the passage of a recipe for transforming copper ore into metal from the ancient Near East to all of Eurasia.
These associations cohere to the hypothesis of the first singularity. They are also consistent with a realization that the science of human evolution may be ignoring a key question. Why is our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
0003 Clouser wants to add a few theological points.
A Christian theologian goes to the doctor and asks, “What is wrong with me?”
The doctor replies, “It might be original sin. The stories of Adam and Eve don’t need to be reconciled with science. But, Augustine and science, that is your problem.”
0005 Clouser relies on an interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 appearing in Joseph Soloveitchik’s book, The Lonely Man of Faith. The title is ironic, since Soloveitchik is lonely in name only. He is one of the leading Orthodox Jewish theologians of the twentieth century.
The things that Soloveitchik writes. Some of them buttress Carol Hill’s argument.
0006 Here is the first point.
The Old Testament does not support the claim that Adam and Eve are the first humans. After all, where does Cain get his wife?
0007 Ah, that goes into the problem of Saint Augustine.
Augustine misreads Paul’s letter to the Romans. Well, actually, his Latin translation of Roman 5:12 has a crucial infidelity to the Greek text. The Latin slippage implies that we are all guilty of Adam’s sin. The Greek original suggests that we are all doomed because of Adam’s error.
The result?
The McGuffey Reader poetically waxes, “In Adam’s Fall, we sinned all.”
0008 Should Augustine have known better? Should the translator be blamed?
These questions step around an issue so tricky that everyone walks around it. Spoken words are slippery.
Augustine slips up. But, the slip serves as evidence for an important point.
0009 Adam and Eve may not be the first humans on Earth. But, they may be the first to rely on the slipperiness of spoken words to come to a conclusion that turns out to be highly problematic.
0010 Is this a theological implication of the first singularity?
