WATCH MY YOUTUBE VIDEOS

You may want to view my YouTube videos: (Type in YouTube the exact title and look for the tile to come up for clicking on.)

    1. Biblical Genealogies Show Two Human Origins

    2. The Book of Genesis Assumes an Old Earth

    3. Was Adam the First Man According to Romans 5

    4. Creation Days Were Long Ages According to Genesis

    5. A Discovery in the Hebrew Language Reveals a Dual Human Origin

    6. Genesis 2 and 5 Do Not Contradict My Dual Origin Creation Thesis

    7. Outline of Genesis Reveals That God Used Two Methods of Creation

    8. Does 1 Corinthians 15 verse 45 Teach That Adam Was the First Man

    9. In 1 Corinthians 15 Verse 47 Who Is the First Man

    10. How Do You Harmonize the Bible and Science

    11. Can You Believe in Evolution and Be a Christian

12. The Descendants of Noah Who Were Scattered from Babel Were Able to Conquer Others


WELCOME

I hope you will have a pleasant visit to my blog. Please choose an article from the right column or scroll down below; Almost every article requires that you click on "Read more" to continue. My blog shows that, according to the Bible, God created mankind at two different times in two different manners. This understanding makes it possible to harmonize science and the Bible.

NEW 2020 EDITION OF MY BOOK IS OUT:

In December of 2020, I updated my book to the publisher. Please be sure your supplier provides this edition. AuthorHouse will always provide the latest edition. You may also email me for a book; this will assure a current edition is sent to you. See my profile for email address. The 2020 edition is now available on Amazon Kindle and as an ebook at AuthorHouse.

HALF OF MY BOOK IS ON ACADEMIA.EDU. To access it, please go to academia.edu and type in the search box my name "Gary T. Mayer." Go down to the title "New Evidence for Two Human Origins" and click. Then for best results, DOWNLOAD the article (half of my book). This portion of my book on Academia.edu includes mathematical proof of a dual origins creation of the human race. Also it includes a new two-page chart that further shows what transpired with the decreasing life spans.

New Evidence for Two Human Origins

Are you interested in THE AGE OF THE EARTH, DARWINISM, THE HUMAN GENOME, BIBLICAL GENEALOGIES, HARMONIZING SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE? If so, here are some articles that might interest you. I have written a book on this subject entitled "New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science." I hope you enjoy this blog which is meant to help us understand ourselves and God's Word. Please return to find new posts. Your comments and emails would be greatly appreciated.

Monday, October 6, 2014

INTRODUCTION TO MY BOOK: NEW EVIDENCE FOR TWO HUMAN ORIGINS





                                                           *********

                               He who gives an answer before he hears,
                                                It is folly and shame to him. (Prov. 18:13)

Espousing a Secular View of Life

For centuries the Western World had a universal belief that God was active in His creation and concerned about the affairs of men. Many believed His will for mankind was contained in the Scriptures. Then came the Renaissance. Bruce L. Shelley defines this movement: “The word [Renaissance] means ‘rebirth’ and refers to the recovery of the values of classical Greek and Roman civilization expressed in literature, politics and the arts.”[i] Since the beliefs of these early writers were based upon man’s philosophies rather than upon God’s revelation, people began to look to their own powers of thought rather than to God’s revelation. This movement received its momentum

through the founding of universities in Germany. Twelve were established in the ninety-seven years between 1409 and 1506. Renaissance thought began in the University of Paris and spread to the German universities.

            A new concept of the universe, spurred on by the discoveries made by men engaged in mathematics and science, began to emerge alongside the philosophies of the Renaissance. We know these men today by their discoveries: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) that the sun rather than the earth, is the center of the solar system; Johann Kepler (1471-1630), that the sun holds the planets in their paths; and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), that the acceleration of falling bodies is the same for all types of objects at the surface of the earth. But it was Isaac Newton (1642-1727) who took all the discoveries and presented them in his unified law of gravitation, which he set forth in his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687. From these scientific discoveries a new concept emerged; according to it, our environment is controlled by natural laws rather than by an involved Creator God. Many people began to feel that God was far away and uninvolved with life on earth. If our lives are to experience understanding and fulfillment, they thought, we must discover them through our own reason.

            People ceased to view their environment as though it were under the immediate volitional control of the hand of God; they began, instead, to see the universe as though it were solely under the control of natural laws. They believed that if they could find and grasp these laws, they could control their own destiny. Shelley describes the spirit of the Age of Reason in the following words: “The spirit of the Age of Reason was nothing less than an intellectual revolution, a whole new way of looking at God, the world, and oneself. It was the birth of secularism.”[ii] The new perspectives of the Age of Reason were not left to themselves to multiply, but rather were propagated through the writings of those who are called the philosophes. This movement began in Paris. Rather than completely denying a “Supreme Being,” they ridiculed anyone who believed this Deity had revealed Himself through the Bible or through miracles. The most influential propagandist for deism was Voltaire (1694-1778), who personified the skepticism of the French Enlightenment.

Sir Charles Lyell’s influential work Principles of Geology published in 1830, was written to prove that the earth’s surface is the result of the effect of natural causes operating over a vast period of time. Into such a secular mindset, in 1859 Charles Darwin published his Origin of the Species. Charles Darwin presented his thesis as standing totally upon natural laws without any regard for the Creator God. Darwin had a problem with reconciling the evil he saw in the world with the popular concept of the Christian God. Since Darwin attempted to explain life based totally upon natural law, many concluded that the world could be explained without reference to a Creator God.

The new science gave evidence that the earth was much older than 6,000 years. In this philosophical frame of mind, it became fashionable to deny the inspiration of the Bible. Those who came to this conclusion either held to forms of Christianity that deny the inspiration of the Book upon which their belief is based, or they rejected Christianity including its sacred Book. Even though the Bible was under attack, some held to a strong faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and to the divine origin of the Bible.

            This book presents a scenario that will harmonize the teachings of the Bible and the truth as discovered by science, thus freeing our minds from contradictions. The secular view of life began before the time of Darwin, before the time of Charles Lyell, and even before the aggressive foe of Christianity Voltaire; this new view of life began with the Renaissance when some intellectuals substituted human philosophies for Divine Revelation.

An example of those who began to espouse this new philosophy was Nicholas of Cues (1401-1464), a churchman, whose view has been summarized by Walker: “[He] saw God as the infinite unity of all contrasts of the universe and he conceived of the universe as an infinite process…His philosophical universalism led him to inquire for the unity of faith in the diversity of religions…”[iii] Please notice that Nicholas of Cues combined divinely revealed truth and opposing error into one; he departed from God’s revelation and took up human philosophies. Such was the basis for self-deception and error. As long as a person believes that he can find the ultimate truth apart from believing in the divine revelation, the Bible, and the divine Revealer, the Lord Jesus Christ, he will never know the Truth. Only Jesus could say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me” (John 14:6). Knowledge of God, of truth, and of forgiveness of sins through the Lord Jesus Christ was revealed by God to man in the Bible. It is the Bible that contains the truth concerning God’s person, His ways, and His will.

Many people today, young and old, feel that if they accept what they believe has been established by science, they cannot also accept the Bible as God’s Word without creating in their minds a logical contradiction. But if we cannot accept the revelation of God, how can we come to the knowledge of the Truth? This book is an attempt to show that God’s revelation through the Bible stands. No conflict exists between the Bible and true science. We can then embrace the Scripture and the One who gave it.

A Word about the View of Divine Accommodation

            After I published my first edition, I received comments from some that it is not necessary to harmonize the Bible and science because God’s revelation of Himself and His will is given in the context of whatever worldview is accepted at that time; if their world of the cosmos is incorrect, they say, this erroneous cosmology will be taught in the Scriptures along with the truth of God’s revelation. Those of this view would say that Genesis 1 presents a concept of the cosmos that believes the earth is covered with a large metal dome, above which a large amount of water is stored. Windows in this dome release water to the clouds that pour it down upon the earth. They believe that the author of Genesis 1 weaved this popular cosmology with God’s revelation of Himself into the Genesis 1 creation story. The result was a false presentation of the structure of the earth and heavens, but a true revelation of God. I shall explain why I think a correct understanding of Genesis 1 reveals that the author of Genesis is not teaching this common view of the cosmos, but rather narrates our present view of the atmosphere and clouds. My defense of this view is presented in appendix N.

Alleged Conflicts between Science and the Bible

            Jesus Christ believed in the impeccable truthfulness of God’s Word. It is easy to see that a discrepancy between what the Bible teaches and what science believes can be troubling to the serious Christian; it could become a stumbling block for someone searching for spiritual truth. This is why it is important to discover the truth concerning our origins.

Science teaches that the world was created 4.6 billion years ago. The Bible teaches that Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day of creation. If the creation days were twenty-four-hour solar days, and if the first parents of the human race were Adam and Eve, God would have created mankind essentially at the time He created the world. The Bible gives us the account of the creation of Adam and Eve and then lists genealogies that bring us from about 6,000 years ago down to historic times. Even if we were to assume that there were enough gaps in the genealogies that the creation of Adam and Eve could be placed at 10,000 years ago, this would still be insignificant in comparison to the scientists’ 4.6 billion years.

            Science tells us that modern man originated in Africa through a process of naturalistic evolution from an archaic species and that mankind has essentially remained unchanged for 100,000 to 200,000 years. The biblical scenario sounds much different. Since the biblical genealogies give us the patriarchs’ ages at the birth of their sons (assuming there are no gaps in the genealogies), we can calculate the birth dates of each patriarch back to Adam. When we do this, beginning with the birth of Jacob at approximately 2005 BC, we find that Adam and Eve were created about 4200 BC (according to a new chronology to be discussed 5200 BC). Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God created Adam out of the dust of the ground and Eve from Adam’s rib. According to Genesis, this couple began their lives in the Garden of Eden, which was located in what is now modern Iraq rather than in Africa, as science has concluded. Considering the new discoveries of science and making a careful study of the Holy Bible, we shall attempt to discover what actually happened. It appears to me that the Bible contains evidence that mankind actually has two origins; this approach will lead us to a satisfying harmony of science and the Bible.

My Approach

            The questions concern (1) the age of the universe including the earth, (2) the age of man and his place of origin, and (3) the origin of man. Did God create man directly from the dust or did man descend from previous hominids or both?

            First, my approach to solving the apparent contradiction in regard to the age of the earth is fairly common in Christian circles. According to the Scriptures, man was created near the end of the sixth day. Therefore, if the days of creation were quite long, the beginning of the creation of the universe could have been extremely long ago. We shall examine the Hebrew text which indicates that the days of creation should be understood as long days.

Second, we must address the discrepancy between the age of mankind upon the earth from science and the age of mankind upon the earth calculated from biblical genealogies of Adam’s descendants. My approach reveals evidence from the Bible that both these teachings may be correct. From a study of the life spans given in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 and from a thorough study of the Scriptures, I have found biblical evidence that people inhabited the earth before the creation of Adam and Eve. We shall analyze each patriarch’s life span to show that the decrease in longevity was the direct result of intermarriages between pre-Adamic people and Adam’s descendants. This analysis will show that the first chapter of Genesis narrates God’s creation of a pre-Adamic race, whose time of creation dates long before the creation of Adam and Eve.

Third, my interpretation of the Bible indicates that a race of humans existed before Adam and Eve. In 1655, Frenchman Isaac de La Peyrere (Peyrerius) (1594-1676), wrote a book, now translated into English, entitled A Theological Systeme Upon The Presupposition, That Men Were Before Adam, which conveyed the view that men lived before Adam and Eve. Approximately 350 years ago, 1656, he published another book with the English title Men Before Adam: Or, a Discourse upon the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Verses of the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, by Which Are Prov’d That the First Men Were Created before Adam. Others have also held this view, but it was never widely accepted. Robert Jamieson, whose negative critique of this view we discuss in appendix A, made a wise comment in A Commentary Critical, Experimental, and Practical on the Old and New Testaments. He wrote, “Therefore, until some stronger evidence shall be adduced than what the world has yet seen, to prove that mankind is not all descended from one pair, the theory…must be rejected.”[iv] We shall present new evidence for a dual origin of man. We shall also show that the Bible supports an old-earth view that the teaching of the Bible better harmonizes with the view that mankind has existed for much longer than 6000 years. We shall take a fresh look at the Scriptures to see if they give us an indication of how God went about to create the pre-Adamic race.

The dual-origin thesis I am about to set forth at first may seem to many readers to be impossible and unthinkable, but I have compiled biblical and scientific data to support it. Here is my thesis:

Some time before the creation of Adam and Eve, God created the human race through a divinely created process of descent from “the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 2:4). Six thousand years ago God created Adam and Eve by forming Adam supernaturally from the dust of the ground and by forming Eve from Adam’s rib in a short period of time. In time Adam and Eve’s descendants began to marry into the pre-Adamic races. This mixing of the races began a process of diluting the Adamic gene pool until Adam’s descendants not only lost their longevity, but their gene pool was greatly diluted as a result of this mixing so that today the human race has become quite genetically homogeneous.

In chart 1, I have shown my view of the relative order of some of the major historical occurrences of the past. It shows that the universe began to form first by a creative act of God. After the earth was created, God prepared it for the animals and mankind. God created the pre-Adamic race during the six days of creation, but He created Adam and Eve supernaturally directly from the ground after the six days of creation had passed. Intermarriage between the descendants of Adam and the descendants of the pre-Adamites began before Noah’s flood. If any of Adam and Eve’s descendants, besides Noah and his family, were living at the time of the flood, they were destroyed in the flood. Noah and his family were saved through the flood and blessed with many descendants, who populated the broad stretches of land around the eastern Mediterranean. Eventually, the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, was born into a line of descendants who were a mixture of Noah’s descendants and descendants of the pre-Adamites. Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ human ancestry goes back to Adam and Eve and also to the first pre-Adamites.

            Geneticists tell us there has been much intermarrying between groups of people. This means that just about every person living today can trace his ancestry back to Adam and Eve as well as back to the pure pre-Adamic race. Steve Olson, a veteran science journalist, wrote, “One need go back only a couple of millennia to connect everyone alive today to a common pool of ancestors.”[v] He goes on to add, “Being descended from someone doesn’t necessarily mean that you have any DNA from that person…The amount of DNA each of us gets from any one of our 1,024 ancestors ten generations back is minuscule—and we might not get any DNA from that person, given the way the chromosomes rearrange themselves every generation.”[vi]

That the Bible teaches God created a pre-Adamic race will appear as a difficult concept to accept for many readers; that the Bible teaches this race

CHART 1: THE RELATIVE ORDER OF EVENTS RELEVANT TO THE THESIS

1.  Creation of the universe

2.  Creation of the earth

3.  Creation of pre-Adamites

4.  End of six days of creation

5.  Creation of Adam and Eve

6.  Adam’s descendants intermarry with the pre-Adamites.

7.  Noah marries into a mixed race.

8.  God sends Noah’s flood and destroys the mixed race.

9.  Noah’s descendants try to hold their longevity at Babel.

10. God confounds their languages at Babel and they are scattered into the earth.

11. Mary conceives Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

12. The Lord Jesus is resurrected; after forty days He ascends into Heaven.

 descended from a species of pre-humans will also seem incredible to many. I can understand that there are those who are surprised by this thesis. I am constrained, however, to present this new understanding of the Bible since I want to help people feel they can embrace God’s revealed truths and His salvation, which comes from accepting the Bible’s Divine Author, the Lord Jesus Christ.

            At this point many readers will probably wonder how this thesis can be harmonized with certain verses in the New Testament that seem to declare Adam to be the first man. Subsequent pages explain why none of these passages teaches that Adam was the first man of the whole human race. It is my belief that this thesis does not contradict any biblical teaching.

 The Purposes of This Book

The main purpose of this book is to harmonize science and the Bible so that (1) unbelievers can know that the Bible is truly God’s infallible revelation, which is “able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15); (2) those who have believed can feel secure in their faith in Christ; (3) Christians, who have not been convinced that the Bible was given by the inspiration of God, will realize the validity of this doctrine; and (4) Christians may be assisted in their efforts as they defend the Christian faith.

            This thesis confirms the truthfulness of the Bible right where it is under its heaviest criticism. The Bible is criticized for contradicting science in regard to the age of the earth and the length of time mankind has inhabited it; it is criticized for contradicting science with regard to the alleged teaching that all of mankind has descended from a couple who were created directly from the hand of God; and it is criticized for specifying over 900-year life spans for the early patriarchs. The next few chapters present mathematical evidence for these long life spans and for a dual-origin thesis.

Alternate Dating of Old Testament Events

            Since the first edition of this book, a new biblical chronology has come to my attention that bears upon the dates as given in this book. The new chronology adds on a thousand years to all the biblical dates that specify events before the period of the judges. This means, of course, that the new chronology sees all the events of the Bible before the judges as having occurred 1,000 years earlier than the traditionally accepted dates. Gerald E. Aardsma has been advancing this new chronology on his website http://www.biblicalchronologist.org, where a number of his articles and books are available for purchase. He defends the new chronology by showing that it fits the biblical record better and that archaeological data supports it. He acknowledges that in order for one to espouse this new chronology, he must admit to a scribal error in the date given in 1 Kings 6:1. I have added the new chronological dates some places along with the traditional dates in this new edition. These alternate dates will be preceded by NC. We shall discuss this new chronology further in chapter 12, noting how it impacts ones view of Noah’s flood.





Introduction and Thesis
[i] Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, 2nd ed. (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1995), 312.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959), 291-292.
[iv] Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary Critical, Experimental, and Practical on the Old and New Testaments, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1946, reprinted 1990), vol. 1, part 1:88.
[v] Steve Olson, Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, c. 2002, first Mariner Books ed. 2003), 47.
[vi] Ibid.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I welcome your comments. Feel free. However, I have set this blog so that I may see comments before I appprove them for publication.