Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
You need to explain yourself more clear!y please.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Were Adam and Eve real people?
- Thread starter Katieb123
- Start date
Every man was and is born with sin after the fall of Adam and Eve. And because this is so, we humans are among the angels because in our blood flows the sin that leads us to death. But I referred to the people who overcome death and through Jesus Christ come to eternal life which Adam and Eve lost. These are above the angels.
These people will judge the angels:
Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? 1 Corinthians 6:3
The angels will serve these people:
Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? Hebrews 1:14
So man was originally above the angel. But this rank was taken by the fall of the First Men. Only when we again become what we were before sin we are again above the angels.
Last edited:
Agreed.
What??? How do we get to be among the angels? They are spirit beings....we are mortal humans. Even the perfect man Jesus was "lower than the angels". They are a higher creation with powers and abilities we do not have.
OK....You are speaking about those who go to heaven to rule with Jesus in his Kingdom....right? Yes, these are granted immortality, and are above the angels in heaven. (Angels, like humans are not immortal.....their continued existence is also dependent upon their obedience to God)
Right again. But who are these people?
Angels minister to God's human servants on earth, as well as to God. They are servants like we are, but of a higher creation. They serve in whatever capacity God sends them.
Whoa...that is all twisted. Humans were never above the angels.
You have anointed ones with a heavenly calling (Hebrews 3:1) who will be kings and priests with Jesus in heaven, (Revelation 20:6) these are above the angels, and ruling over redeemed mankind on earth. (Revelation 21:2-4)
Humans were never designed to go to heaven originally. In fact if the first humans had not disobeyed God concerning the forbidden fruit, Christ would never have come in the flesh because sin would not have overtaken them.....so his sacrifice would not have been necessary.
Not all Christians will go to heaven...only "the chosen ones". God does the choosing. Humans were never above the angels and those redeemed ones on earth never will be according to my understanding of the scriptures.
Last edited:
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
A literalistic interpretation really doesn't make sense, plus if really ignores the fine art of storytelling that the ancients so heavily relied upon. For example, who was there to know they existed in real life?
Also, the names "Adam" and "Eve" and "Eden" have specific meanings in Hebrew.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Another way of reading the A&E story is to read it from the viewpoint of God, as bad and unforgiving parenting. Here's the dad who tells his kids not to drink his beer or else. When he's gone, they have a party and drink all his good and expensive beer. He gets furious and tells them to leave the house and not come back. Overreaction. He can afford another case of beer.
Katieb123,
I believe, very strongly that the story of Adam and Eve, is truth about where we came from, and the reason for the troubles that mankind face, and the future mankind can have, if they put their trust in Jesus, and his Father, The Almighty God, whose Personal, Proper Name is Jehovah, in English.
If the story of Adam and Eve were not true, how would we know why we are in our situation, and how to act so as to get out of this situation. We would not know why we die. The Bible tells us that we were perfect at the beginning, but sinned against our creator, by which we became imperfect, leading to our death. Today, without understanding the Holy Scriptures, we seem completely lost, without hope, but the Bible gives us much information, so that, if we obey our Heavenly Father, we can live forever in a Paradise earth, and again reach perfection, just like Adam and Eve were, with the hope of living forever in a Paradise earth, the same future that Adam and Eve had, before their fall, into sin and death. How would we know these things??? Agape!!!
I think it was meant to be allegorical. The giveaway for me is how the man in the story is named "Man" and the woman is named "Woman".
Bird123,
I see no masterpiece, without the true story of Adam and Eve. We would just accept our fate, live until we die then stay forever in our grave, with no hope of living again.
The Bible tells us, with the story of Adam and Eve, how we got in the condition we are in, and no hope for anything. The Bible tells us how Adam and Eve sinned against God, their Creator, became imperfect, and started to die. We would not know how we can get out of this condition, regain perfection, and receive the same Blessings that Adam and Eve could have had, if they had obeyed. The Bible gives us a clear roadmap, that can lead us back to the close relationship with The Almighty God, whose Personal Name is Jehovah, in English.
Without the story of Adam and Eve, what hope would we have??? Genesis 3:15 tells us about the coming of The Messiah, which can, if we listen, help us to life forever, in a Paradise earth. Without this information we are completely hopeless!!!
Agape!!!
Salvador
RF's Swedenborgian
Human genetic diversity is too great for there to have ever been a human population size that consisted of less than ca. 10,000 individuals. Pairwise Sequentially Markovian Coalescent (PSMC) analysis confirms a population bottleneck in humans that consisted of no fewer than ca. 10,000 individuals. Source: ( Li, Heng, and Durbin, Richard. ) "Inference of Human Population History from Individual Whole-Genome Sequences". Nature International Weekly Journal of Science. 28 July 2001. PSMC estimate on simulated data. : Inference of human population history from individual whole-genome sequences : Nature : Nature Publishing Group
If there were the most severe population bottle-necking such as one breeding pair that is portrayed in the case of the Biblical Adam and Eve, then there would be a maximum of 4 alleles passed on by Adam and Eve to their children. Furthermore, the subsequent inbreeding would cause some loss of alleles due to genetic drifting. There would not have been genetic diversity in the small group of Adam, Eve and their children who would've had to commit incest among each other for the procreation of their inbred children. A lack of genetic diversity would have persisted for thousands of generations until genetic mutations could cause the genetic diversity of today's population. Based on the number of different alleles there are for the number of genes within the current population and the known rate of mutations per nucleotide sites in humans, geneticists can calculate the minimum number of people needed to create the current amount of genetic diversity. Numerous genetic studies suggest that there were several thousands of people more than two people during the most severe population bottleneck which ever occurred in human history.
DNA segments ( Alu repeats ) insert themselves at various chromosomal locations. There are various forms of Alu sequences and several thousand families of Alu. One well-studied family of Alu is called Ya5, which has been inserted into human chromosomes at 57 mapped locations. If we were to have descended from a single pair of ancestors such as Adam and Eve, then we all would have each of the 57 elements inserted at the same location points of our chromosomes. " However, the human population consists of groups of people who share some insertion points but not others. The multiple shared categories make it clear that although a human population bottleneck occurred, it was definitely never as small as two. In fact, this line of evidence also indicates that there were at least several thousand people when the population was at its smallest". Source: ( Venema, Dennis and Falk, Darrel ) " Does Genetics Point to a Single Primal Couple?". 5 April 2010. Does Genetics Point to a Single Primal Couple? | The BioLogos Forum
Coalescence theory analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms and linkage disequilibrium indicates the mean effective population size for hominid lineage is 100,000 individuals over the course of the last 30 million years. The effective population size estimated from linkage disequilibrium is a minimum of 10,000 followed by an expansion in the last 20,000 years." Source: ( Tenesa, Albert, Navarro, Paul, Hayes, Ben J., Duffy, David L., Clarke,Geraldine, Goodard, Mike E. and Visscher, Peter M.) " Recent Human Effective Population Size Estimated from Linkage Disequilibrium". Genome Research. 17 April 2007 Recent human effective population size estimated from linkage disequilibrium
Indeed, there is ample genetic evidence that biblical Adam and Eve never actually existed.
Subduction Zone,
To the contrary, There seems to me to be absolutely Zero evidence for evolution.
Think for a second, if all living things were evolving for millions of years, as evolutionists believe, would not all living things have distinct features of both the past entity, and the one evolving into??? So far, after finding millions of fossils, there has not been found even one, that Science could declare, that it has both the lesser and the one evolving into, so we cannot really tell which it is.
What is the reason for evolution, when we have both, after evolution, the lesser and the newer???
There is a very clear evidence, of why we do not have evolution, and that reason is recorded in the first book of the Bible. Here we are clearly told that All Kinds would reproduce, after their own Kinds, and this l
Law of God is for animals as well as vegetation, Genesis 1:11,12, 21, 24,25. In spite of mankind trying to bypass this Law, for many years, both Invivo and Invitro, it is inviolable.
Isn’t that very good, because whatever we sow, animal seed or vegetable seed, we are sure, even today, that we will have spring up the same as we planted. Imagine the problem farmers would have if the could not trust in this Law, called Prestabilism!!!
Agape!!!
Salvador
RF's Swedenborgian
Evolution is simply significant enough gene pool changes within a species changing over the course of many generations resulting in organisms having genetic traits different enough from their distant ancestors; so that there'd be no possible sexual reproduction occurring between somebody who were to have distant ancestral genetic traits with anybody living in the current population.
As I've noted elsewhere in some other discussions about Christianity, Jesus's family tree has a time span of 77 generations listed between his generation and Adam whom the Bible claims was the "first man". Reference: (Luke 3:23-38) and Eve whom the Bible claims as the mother of all the living. (Genesis 3:20)
However, the Australian aborigines have evidently been in Australia for over a thousand consecutive generations. Reference: Aboriginal Australians - Wikipedia
There have been hundreds of generations of Native Americans between the time their common ancestry migrated from Asia until the time of Christ.
Reference: Native Americans in the United States - Wikipedia
Of course, the Bible is wrong; in fact, there were people prior to the 76th generation before Christ that allegedly was spawned by Adam and Eve.
Adam as being the first man and perpetrator of original sin is an important premise of Christianity. If Adam wasn't the first man, then there isn't actually any "origin sin". Jesus supposedly died on the Cross to save humankind from "original sin". If there isn't any "original sin" from which to be saved, then Jesus Christ's death on the Cross is pretty pointless and meaningless. Evidently, there were many generations of people prior to the 76th generation before Christ whom the Bible claims was spawned by Adam. So then, Adam, Eve and original sin are mythological. There is neither any "first man" nor "original sin" throughout human evolution. Thus, Jesus Christ having died on the cross to save mankind from "original sin" is not reality but is rather mythological.
The fossil record isn't the only evidence in support of evolution. There is other collaborating evidence, such as overwhelming genetic evidence of common ancestry between humans and other great ape species.
Specific examples from comparative physiology and biochemistry:
Chromosome 2 in humans
Main article: Chromosome 2 (human)
Further information: Chimpanzee Genome Project § Genes of the Chromosome 2 fusion site
Figure 1:
Figure 1: Fusion of ancestral chromosomes left distinctive remnants of telomeres, and a vestigial centromere
Evidence for the evolution of Homo sapiens from a common ancestor with chimpanzees is found in the number of chromosomes in humans as compared to all other members of Hominidae. All hominidae have 24 pairs of chromosomes, except humans, who have only 23 pairs. Human chromosome 2 is a result of an end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes.
The evidence for this includes:
The correspondence of chromosome 2 to two ape chromosomes. The closest human relative, the common chimpanzee, has near-identical DNA sequences to human chromosome 2, but they are found in two separate chromosomes. The same is true of the more distant gorilla and orangutan.
The presence of a vestigial centromere. Normally a chromosome has just one centromere, but in chromosome 2 there are remnants of a second centromere.
The presence of vestigial telomeres. These are normally found only at the ends of a chromosome, but in chromosome 2 there are additional telomere sequences in the middle.
Chromosome 2 thus presents strong evidence in favour of the common descent of humans and other apes. According to J. W. Ijdo, "We conclude that the locus cloned in cosmids c8.1 and c29B is the relic of an ancient telomere-telomere fusion and marks the point at which two ancestral ape chromosomes fused to give rise to human chromosome 2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_o...on_descent
The first individual of the genus Homo-species could have naturally formed from a couple of Australopithecus hetero zygotes, each of whom had the same type of chromosome rearrangements formed by fusion of the whole long arms of two acrocentric chromosomes, mated together and reproduced viable and fertile offspring with 46 chromosomes.
This first generation of Homo habilis then incestuously bred with each other and reproduced the next subsequent generation of Homo habilis.
References:
- J. Tjio and A. Levan. 1956. The chromosome number of Man. Hereditas, 42( 1-2): 1-6.
- W. Ijdo et al.1991. Origin of human chromosome 2: an ancestral telomere-telomere fusión. PNAS, 88: 9051-9056.
- Meyer et al. 2012 A high-coverage genome sequence from an archaic Denisovan individual. Science, 338:222-226.; K. H. Miga. 2016. Chromosome-specific Centromere sequences provide an estímate of the Ancestral Chromosome 2 Fusion event in Hominin Genome.Journ. of Heredity. 1-8. Doi:10.1093/jhered/esw039.
Endogenous retroviruses (or ERVs) are remnant sequences in the genome left from ancient viral infections in an organism. The retroviruses (or virogenes) are always passed on to the next generation of that organism that received the infection. This leaves the virogene left in the genome. Because this event is rare and random, finding identical chromosomal positions of a virogene in two different species suggests common ancestry. Cats (Felidae) present a notable instance of virogene sequences demonstrating common descent. The standard phylogenetic tree for Felidae have smaller cats (Felis chaus, Felis silvestris, Felis nigripes, and Felis catus) diverging from larger cats such as the subfamily Pantherinae and other carnivores. The fact that small cats have an ERV where the larger cats do not suggests that the gene was inserted into the ancestor of the small cats after the larger cats had diverged. Another example of this is with humans and chimps. Humans contain numerous ERVs that comprise a considerable percentage of the genome. Sources vary, but 1% to 8% has been proposed. Humans and chimps share seven different occurrences of virogenes, while all primates share similar retroviruses congruent with phylogeny.
Figure 2:
There's plenty of evidence humans share common ancestry with other great apes.
Evidence of common descent - Wikipedia
ERVs provide the closest thing to a mathematical proof for evolution.. ERVs are the relics of ancient viral infections preserved in our DNA. The odd thing is many ERVs are located in exactly the same position on our genome and the chimpanzee genome! There are two explanations for the perfectly matched ERV locations. Either it is an unbelievable coincidence that viruses just by chance were inserted in exactly the same location in our genomes, or humans and chimps share a common ancestor. The chances that a virus was inserted at the exact same location is 1 in 3,000,000,000. Humans and chimps share 7 instances of viruses inserted at perfectly matched location. It was our common ancestor that was infected, and we both inherited the ERVs.
Johnson, Welkin E.; Coffin, John M. (1999-08-31). "Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 96(18): 10254–10260. Bibcode:1999PNAS...9610254J. doi:10.1073/pnas.96.18.10254. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 17875. PMID 10468595
Bird123,
You said that you would not stake your life on the idea that the story of Adam and Eve is a true story. The problem is , it seems to me, that you are staking your life on the story of Adam and Eve is a false story.
Without the story of Adam and Eve being true, we would not know were we came from, or where we are going. We would not know how we got into the condition we find ourselves in, or how we could ever get out of our problems.
The Bible clearly tells us what we must do to get into God’s favor again. If we obey Jesus, God’s son, we can receive the same blessings that Adam and Eve would have received, Everlasting live in a Paradise earth. Agape!!!
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I am sorry but you demonstrated that you have no idea at all as to what is and what is not evidence. Are you a Christian without fear? Are you a Christian that can be honest? If you can answer yes to those questions there is no reason at all that you would be afraid to learn what is and what is not scientific evidence.
Now as to some of your questions they are a bit poorly formed since you seem to think that there is some sort of goal to evolution, but I can tell you that the fossil record is far more complete than at Darwin's time, so much so that almost all fossils are thought to be transitional. They can be shown to be "between" two different species. But first we need to go over the basics of evidence.
Also you do not seem to understand the farmers both rely on evolution and have to combat it every year. But that is a third point we can get into.
First evidence. Are you up for it?
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
No, as a Christian the Adam and Eve story still works perfectly well as a morality tale. It fails as a literal story. It is bad theology. If you look at it honestly it paints God as being incompetent and petty. He blames others for his own failures. That is not a moral God.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
My understanding is that Philo considered most of it allegorical. Exactly what parts or why some of it was literal or not, I can't answer to that. I only understand that he considered most of it not to be literal true.
nPeace
Veteran Member
I think you asked some good questions.
I believe the Account of Adam and Eve is literal, with some symbolic usage, for the reasons mentioned on this link.
I think you are asking for the reason why humans sinned...
The first couple sinned - according to the Bible - because Eve was deceived into thinking that the Devil's offer seemed too appealing to miss out on. Why. "You mean I can make my own decisions and continue living forever?" She probably asked herself. Be her own god, actually.
Adam went along with this idea. Choosing to be his own god, and decide for himself right and wrong.
Or are you asking why we sin?
We (humans today) sin, due to the fact that we were alienated from God, by Adam's sin. So our hearts inclination is to do our own thing, which is contrary to God's standards of right and wrong.
In effect, we can say, we have the stain of sin, or we have been stained by sin.
The scriptures show though, that we can have our minds made over, by listening to God, through Christ (Ephesians 4:20-24)
In this way, we can stop sinning - that is, we don't practice sinning.
With the help of holy spirit, we can succeed, Galatians 5:22, 23
Hence the scriptures say of those anointed by holy spirit...
(1 John 3:6, 9)
8 Everyone remaining in union with him does not practice sin; no one who practices sin has either seen him or come to know him. . .
9 Everyone who has been born from God does not practice sin, for His seed remains in such one, and he cannot practice sin, for he has been born from God.
Last edited:
Its a story that fitted the believe of the bronze age authors.
The science of genetics shows it to be complete nonsence
The science of genetics shows it to be complete nonsence
Bird123
Well-Known Member
Religion has corrupted your thinking. Through their stories they have convinced you something is wrong with you. They have convinced you that you are helpless unless you follow their view and teachings. They push you to Believe because without belief, you would not need them.
Instead of allowing others to set the parameters of your life, isn't it much better to Discover what actually exists?
Religion teaches one to Accept? Why? To question is the start on the journey to Discovery and if you question too much, you will wander away from stories and beliefs.
I challenge you to examine the god they describe and it's actions. Are the actions of that god intelligent? Of course not! If you were God, would you act that way? If you would, you have much to learn.
The Real God that created all this has Great Intelligence. Look around you. Intelligence is incorporated into everything. That is why you can relax. Eternity has purpose.
God has never needed a book. God places truth and knowledge all around us. Truth and Knowledge waits to be Discovered. Perhaps, among other things it is a test of intelligence. Let's see who can Discover what.
This is what I see and what I see is that no religion really Understands God. There is too much Belief going on and not enough Discovery.
As in religion's case, if one is convinced they know it all, it is very hard to Discover anything. On the other hand, the lessons will come for us all to learn by living our lessons.