HAVE YOU ANSWERED THE QUESTION OF HUMAN ORIGINS?

This tract is a summary of a recently published book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science by Gary T. Mayer. See the end of this tract for details.

Some people do not seriously consider the truth of Christianity because they believe the Bible is contradicted by science in the matter of human origins and the age of the earth. This serious error rests on misinterpretations of a number of Bible passages. Here are some reasons why a better understanding of the Bible confirms its truthfulness and diminishes the assumed contradictions between science and the Bible.

The First Modern Men to Inhabit the World

The Bible does not teach that Adam and Eve were the first modern men to inhabit the world. Therefore, the Bible’s placing the creation of Adam and Eve upon the earth only approximately 6,000 years ago is not in conflict with scientists’ opinion that modern humans have been here for at least 100,000 years. The creation of these first modern people is recorded in the Bible in Genesis 1, whereas the creation of Adam and Eve is recorded in Genesis 2. The Bible does not set any time at which God created this first race whose creation was recorded in Genesis 1. These people were pre-Adamites who spread from Africa over all the earth.

Fast Drop in Life Spans Proves Pre-Adamic Man

Genesis chapters 5 and 11 list the life spans of the patriarchs who were descendants of Adam and Eve. They cover the approximate time window from about 6000 years ago to about 4300 years ago. The early descendants of Adam and Eve lived to be an average of 929 years. We can show mathematically that there were modern humans upon the earth before Adam and Eve’s creation by observing how the life spans given
 in the first book of the Bible decrease (or even increased) as time passed. Realizing that our life span depends upon over 7,000 genes, I concluded that if two races that differed greatly in their average life spans intermarried, the offspring from these first generation marriages would be the average of the two life spans of the two races. With this knowledge, I combined the average life span of the descendants of Adam (about 929 years obtained from the biblical genealogies) with an average life span of 60 years for the pre-Adamic race. The result was 494.50 years. To find the various life spans that might have been on the earth in the next generation, I combined this value with 60 and 929 years to obtain two more life spans. The possible life spans at this time would have been 929, 711.75, 494.50, 277.25, and 60 years. I made similar calculation for two more generations. From these possible life spans I obtained a number of possible life spans for Shem, Noah’s son. I discovered that Shem’s actual life span was quite near one of Shem’s most probable theoretical life spans.

I then calculated the most probable life spans for each of the patriarch’s life spans and compared each of these life spans with the life spans given in the Bible. In each case, the actual life span was close to one of the most probable life spans. I made bar graphs of these results. A graph (chart 16) summarizing these data exhibited by these bar graphs is shown at the my website; please link to this page and scroll down to chart 16 to see this chart. The chart shows a continuous line connecting the actual life spans of the patriarchs; the short lines show the most probable life spans of the patriarchs who lived from about 2700 BC to 2000 BC. Please observe that each of these patriarchs’ actual life spans lies very close to one of the most probable theoretical life spans. But since these most probable life spans were calculated based upon the thesis that Adam’s descendants married into an existing human race, the evidence for such a dual origin thesis is very convincing. What is more, since Adam and Eve appeared suddenly approximately 6,000 years ago, having potential genetic life spans of over 900 years, this data is very strong in support of God’s immediate creation of Adam and Eve; it also defends the trustworthiness of the Bible.

The Bible Teaches Pre-Adamites Descended from the Heavens and the Earth

If you look at the description of the surroundings in Genesis 1, you discover that it is at a time when people were scavengers, eating from the trees and bushes but not planting and harvesting their crops. In contrast, Genesis 2-4 describes Adam and his sons as farmers who plant and harvest crops or tend herds. A thorough study of the description of Adam’s responsibilities in the Garden of Eden will reveal a land watered by irrigation. This describes the agriculture of Mesopotamia at the time of Adam and Eve. We cannot place the time of Adam and Eve thousands of years in advance of this age.

Genesis 2:4 is a very misunderstood verse which becomes a key to properly interpreting the Bible. It says, “These are the generations [Lit. rendering from NASB notes] of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heavens.” [1] To whom does this verse refer? Does it make reference to Genesis 1 or to Genesis 2, which describes the creation of Adam and Eve? In my book I defend a rule of Hebrew syntax which states, “If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula refers backward.” In all other places in Genesis where the Hebrew word generation is used it refers to people and means descendants. A paraphrase of Genesis 2:4 would then be: “These people, whose creation we have just described, are the descendants of the heavens and the earth….” Does this verse indicate that God did not create the people of Genesis 1 directly from the soil as He created Adam and Eve (Genesis 2), but rather He created them through some other method of descent? Let us now look at a passage that may cause us to answer this question in the affirmative.

Another group of verses which are often misinterpreted is Genesis 6:1-2: “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them. The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.” The extent of “the land” in this verse is not the whole world, but only the area in Mesopotamia where the descendants of Adam and Eve were living. The context of Genesis 6 determines the identity of “the sons of God.” This verse follows the chapter which lists the descendants of Adam. We know that Adam and Eve were created by God. Therefore, in chapter 6 the author calls them “the sons” [meaning “the descendants”] of God.

It may sometimes be overlooked that the subject of this passage is not the sons of God, but rather the “men” who multiplied on the land. Context also shows us that these “men” were the people who were created as recorded in Genesis 1:27. In both verses, the literal translation of the Hebrew collective noun for these “men” would be “the man.” This passage tells us that the descendants of Adam and Eve saw the daughters of this pre-Adamic race and took wives for themselves. It is important to note that the author distinguishes these two groups based upon their origins. The girls were referred to as “the daughters of men”; whereas the origin of “the sons of God” was directly from God’s hand. Since the author makes a distinction between these two groups based upon origins, the evidence points to two methods of creation—one through descent and the other through direct creation of their ancestors Adam and Eve.

Genesis 6:3-4 continues, “Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” Verse 4 is definitely a positive statement indicating the grace and goodness of God was given to these people. It would be very unlikely that the other result of these mixed marriages would be a negative. As a result, we can conclude that the statement “his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” is also a positive statement. Apparently, the mixing of these two races would cause the pre-Adamites to live twice their normal 60 years. God was being very gracious to these people to raise their life spans from 60 to 120 years. However, He makes the comment: “My Spirit shall not strive with man….” God wants them to be careful not to jump to the conclusion that He was going to tolerate their sinning because He blessed them so dramatically. They continued sinning in spite of God’s grace; the narrative next informs us that God decided to send the great flood of Noah’s day.

The longevity of the mixture of races would at first drop. But, if the mixing occurred at a relatively slow rate, the average life span of the mixture would level off at about 120 years. This is because the rate of reproduction of the people with 120-year to 240-year life spans would no doubt be greater than those whose life spans were shorter. This brings us to the question: Why did God scatter the descendants of Noah after the flood? It must have been mainly so that the life spans of the whole world would not be raised to an average of 120 years. His forcing them to be scattered quickly caused a rapid dilution of their genome making this impossible.

It is commonly known that science teaches that all life descended from a single cell. Theistic evolution believes that life descended into its present state, but its descent was dependent upon the creative work of God. Genesis 2:4 (previously quoted partly form NASB notes), which calls the pre-Adamites “the generations” [better translated “descendants”] of the heavens and the earth, seems to teach us that God used a method of descent to create the pre-Adamites. Years after this, he created Adam and Eve directly out of the ground. If this interpretation of the Bible is accurate, this greatly serves to harmonize the Bible and science. The scientific evidence for theistic evolution is mounting every day. One example, the evidence for the evolution of the whale from a four-footed land animal is immense. The transitional variations from land animal to the modern whale can be observed quite well, so well that Stephen J. Gould wrote, “but if you had given me both a blank sheet of paper and a blank check, I could not have drawn you a theoretical intermediate any better or more convincing than Ambulocetus.” [2] In the whale’s development, changes occurred, not only in the mammal’s skeleton, but also in its communication system, lungs, eyes, ears, skin, fins, tongue, nostril location, specially fitted mouth, and nipples. The implication in support for the descent of animals from our study of the alleged descent of the whale is staggering. If the whale descended from a tetrapod, as the evidence points, the mechanisms which produced change through descent must have been designed by God to have the capacity to produce great transformation in all aspects of an organism—in short, macroevolution.

A genetic mutation is a variation in genetic material. The GLO (L-gulono-gamma-lactone oxidase) pseudogenes in primates and humans share many of the same mutations. That these similar mutations should form independently is very unlikely. Scientists sight this as another evidence for evolution. The very existence of hominid fossils, such as the Neanderthal, the Homo erectus, or the Homo habilis, makes one wonder if there may be a progression from lower forms to modern humans. If this were the case, then we know what the Bible means when it speaks in Genesis 2:4 about those who descended from the heavens and the earth. This made it possible for the author of Genesis to make a distinction between “the daughters of men” and the “sons of God” based upon their contrasting origins.

In order for us to see the wonder of God’s creative genius, we do not need to see sudden appearances of new species from inanimate materials; a look further back in God’s creative process will reveal the wonder of creation because we see the forces of nature, the structure of atoms, and the particles which compose the nucleus of the atoms were all designed so that the universe could sustain life. This aspect of creation is called the anthropic principle.

But you may argue that the Bible teaches a young earth which was created about six to ten thousand years ago. Evolutionary development takes millions of years; so how could it be? The idea that the Bible teaches a young earth is based on a misinterpretation of the Bible that sees the days of creation as 24-hour solar days. Genesis 1:3-5 relates that God created the day-night cycle; it closes this first creation day saying, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” Context demands that “evening” and “morning” must be taken here literally, but it often goes unnoticed that it does not say “day one” or “the first day” as one would have expected; rather, it employs a phrase used to define, i.e, “one day.” Even though light was defined as “day” and darkness as “night” earlier in this verse, the author proceeds to define another day, a creation day. He defines it by saying, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” It should be understood that the Hebrews ended their 24-hour day in the evening, rather than in the morning. Since the text does not say, "And there was morning and there was evening, one day," but rather moves on to include the night to the next morning, "one day" must be a creation day, rather than a solar day.

It has been brought out that there appears to be a discrepancy in the order of creation between the Bible and science. Science tells us that the creatures of the sea appeared before life on land came forth. The Bible places the creation of vegetation on day three and the creation of the sea creatures on day five—the reverse order. But a further study of the Bible will reveal that the author of Genesis 1 did not intend to give the creation account in exact chronological order. Actually, one of Moses’ purposes in writing this creation account was to cause the reader to be thankful to God for the everyday cycles of life originally prepared by God. Therefore, the creation account has a homiletic or sermonizing purpose to it. He structured his presentation of God’s acts of creation in such a way as to emphasize that God prepared the earth for its dwellers. To accomplish this, he sets the stage for the dwellers in the first three days of creation and then describes God’s creation of the earth dwellers in the last three days. Please notice the following things about the narrative: Moses personifies the sun and the moon, which permits them to fit the idea of earth dwellers and places them on day four in the second triad of days. To make his two triads of days symmetrical, he places one aspect of creation on each of days one and two and days four and five, but places two aspects of creation on days three and six. To accomplish this he combines the creation of sea animals and birds into one aspect of creation on day five. His result: a creation story that emphasizes God’s great provision for his created “beings” that move—in particular, the heavenly bodies, the birds, the sea creatures, the land animals, and mankind. We who read Genesis 1 must not interpret it to be teaching a strict chronological order.

Was Adam the First Man?

One may ask, “But doesn’t Romans 5:12-13 inform us that Adam was the first man of the human race when it states, ‘Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law’?” No, unfortunately this verse when translated into English becomes difficult to understand. Paul’s point here is that Adam was the first man to sin against a direct command (or law) of God. For this reason, all men die. According to the Bible, all men are sinners and need the Savior. This is true whether men lived before or after Adam. Adam was created to be a test of mankind to show to the entire universe that man is sinful and needs the salvation which is in Jesus Christ. God put Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden with animals which had been created anew especially for them, but they still fell into temptation and sinned against God’s command. Adam’s descendants were permitted to marry into the pre-Adamic race, but this mixed race filled the world with violence; God felt compelled to destroy it. But, He preserved Noah and his family through the flood to carry down to us the story of Adam and Eve’s test, which illustrates how people lack proper faith in their Creator and devotion to Him. Noah’s descendants at Babel attempted to maintain their life spans of 440 years, but God thwarted this attempt by scattering them quickly over the world. Man’s sin remained, but the Bible says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

In conclusion, we find that man experiences death and evil in this world due to his rebellious nature. God must punish sin, but if we will repent of our sins and come to the Lord Jesus Christ, God will receive us as His true children. [3]
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[1] Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 9172, 1973, 1975, 1977, by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
[2] Stephen Jay Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History (New York: Harmony Books, a division of Crown Publishers, 1995), 364.
[3] For further discussion of these evidences for a dual origin thesis and for explanations explaining why this thesis does not contradict other passages in the Bible, please see Gary T. Mayer’s book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN, Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouseTM, 2009). To schedule a seminar or to purchase a book or more tracts, please visit the author’s website at http://www.garytmayer.com/or e-mail him at garytmayer@gmail.com.

© 2009 Gary T. Mayer