Acts 17:26

[Daniel]

On another topic, I had suggested that Adam and Eve were not the only humans.  As the conversation around those ramifications progressed, Marv brought up Acts 17:26.  "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place."  I think other translations put it more in the context of all nations being of the same blood.  But what are your thoughts?  Is this clear revelation that Cain had to marry his sister because the only humans were his parents and siblings?

[Rey Reynoso]

• Genesis 2:20 and Gen 3:20 state something.
• Acts 17:26 repeats the point: all peoples came from one man and that man (says Genesis) is Adam.
• Genesis 2:20 plus Gen 3:20 gives us Gen 4:1.
• Gen 4:1 doesn't stand alone. We have Gen 5:3 that ignores both Cain and Abel, starts with Seth and mentions the birth of other sons and daughters.
• Genesis 4:13 tells us that Cain was afraid of retribution by those finding him.
• Gen 4:17 has Cain making love and eventually giving birth to people groups as well.
• (T) The textual evidence is clear that Adam is indeed the father of all people groups.
• Options: (1) Paul was wrong in Acts 17:26 reading from Genesis 2:20 and 3:20 and 4:1 that Adam was the father of all people groups—there were alternate people groups and Acts really records Paul's error; AND (2) the Genesis account is wrong that Adam was the Father of these people groups—there were alternate people groups or there were alternate non-people groups that were just as suitable for intermarriage as helpers—supported by Cain's family actually being productive in the work they do; AND (3) God was purposefully deceitful in showing only animals to Adam and/or he showed these other people groups to Adam and Adam saw them as suitable; or (4) there was intermarriage of Adam's children going on.

 

(4)  is possible, plausible, has less accounting for other details, powerfully supports the evidence, is not ruled out of court by the evidence and addresses the broadest spectrum of evidence without being so contrived. So (4) is not a mere assumption, it is a very likely thesis.

 

If (T) is God's revelation then (4) seems to be the best explanation of what (T) states. If (T) is not God's revelation then (4) is only the best explanation of what (T) states.

 

 

 

[Daniel]

I'll elaborate a bit here what I initially posted.  Even if this verse is speaking of genetics, it doesn't have to be speaking of Adam and Eve.  It could, for example, be speaking of Noah and his wife.  Or it could be speaking of something else entirely. On another group I am on, there are some geneticists and this topic came up.  Turns out there is what is referred to as a "genetic Adam" that all males ultimately can trace their Y chromosome back to, and a Mitochondrial Eve that all women can trace their mitochondrial DNA back to.  But that doesn't mean that they were a couple, that they even lived at the same time, and to the point of the OP, it doesn't mean that there were no other couples/people at the time.  In fact our genetic diversity indicates that there was a GROUP of early humans (several thousand) that we are descendant from.  That was real confusing to me.  How can we be from a group, yet also share a single ancestor.  So the smart guys had to explain it to me.  The point though is that even if this verse is literally talking about genetics, there are ways for it to be true other than Adam and Eve being the only two humans before they had kids.

That isn't the only way to take the verse though.  There is no reason to expect that Paul, speaking to the folks in Athens, understood genetics.  Fertility and pregnancy myths abounded until modern science figured out what was going on.  The "from one blood" or "from one man" phrase doesn't have to be "direct issue" though.  The context is that there is one God and He made all of us.  He gives all of us breath and everything else.  We are all the same in that regard.  Just as Eve is "from" Adam and Adam is "from" God, "from" doesn't have to mean traditional genetic lineage.  You also get into the whole topic of "If Paul believed it, does that make it valid science".  Paul is reflecting common belief of the day.  But just because it is true from a theological perspective in this theological context (it isn't a biology class), does that mean that it also has to be true in a genetics sense?  I'd say no.  You see him do the same kind of thing in 1 Corinthians 15:39 where he says that animals and people and birds and fish have a different kind of flesh.  Just as he accepted the biology and history and astronomy of the day doesn't mean that the point that he's trying to get across is that GOD says that Cain married his sister (or mother or niece).  

And while we are on the topic of Adam and Eve being the only humans at the time (or not), let me explain why I don't believe Adam and Eve were flying solo, as it were.  In Genesis 1, we are told of a lot of creative activity.  The air was swarming and the seas were teaming.  If we are going to take this chapter as the creation of the WORLD, then there is no reason to assume that when God created fish, he only created two "fish kind" and turned them loose in the ocean and only to "bird kind" for the air.  I think, in many ways, we take the idea of all living things being descendant of a single pair of each kind on the ark and take that same idea back to the creation.  But I see nothing at all in Genesis 1 that suggests that God only made 2 of everything.  Later, we see him bringing the animals to Adam for naming.  But those that want to shorten all the stuff that most believe the text indicates happened on Day Six are quick to point out that it wasn't necessarily all of the animals.  It was just the birds and the beasts of the field or livestock.  But the point is that there were a LOT of other animals other than these types, and there is no reason to assume that since Adam named "cows" and "pigs" that he had to see every single pig on the planet in order to know what a pig was or that pigs had mates but he didn't.  

We are specifically told how God made Adam and Eve, but that is to be expected.  This is the story of them and their descendants.  We are not told where Cain found enough people for a city.  There is nothing in the text to indicate that he fathered this city.  There is nothing there that says that when he was expelled that he took brothers and sisters with him.  God sent him away, presumably away from his family, yet had to mark him lest others find him and kill him.  We just can't pretend that since only Adam's family is the only one discussed that they are only peoples that existed.  If sheep not going extinct when God killed one of them for Adam's sacrifice, that indicates more than one breeding pair.  Just because God established a covenant with Adam, why assume that he's the only breeding pair?  We see the same thing with Noah.  At that time, he and his are the only one we are told about.  And God gave him commands parallel to what He gave Adam and established a covenant with him as well.  But we know that other bronze age civilizations existed at the time and all the folks descendant from them are not descendants of Noah.  So why assume the same from Adam?

Finally, I wanted to address something Jack said.  "We don't have to dream up a creature that was almost like Adam, to solve that problem. Marriage within the family wasn't forbidden until after Abraham's time."  Now I have already addressed the assumptions of this comment, but I wanted to say something about the logic behind it.  Frequently in arguments, we will see it presented that X didn't happen until it was first mentioned.  For example, we are told that before the flood, all animals were vegetarians because God didn't tell man until after the flood that they could eat meat.  There are some problems with this though.  First, just because something isn't recorded until Noah (like rainbows or whatever) doesn't mean that it didn't exist until then.  Specifically, as it relates to diet directives, God planted a GARDEN, placed Adam in HIS garden, and then gave Adam permission to eat of any of the trees except one.  That doesn't mean that it is all Adam ate.  And it doesn't apply to the animals at all.  Animal diets are not even mentioned.  But the biggest problem is the idea that X happened because it wasn't prohibited until later.  If we are going to use that logic, why not just assume that Cain and Seth slept with Eve?  Incest wasn't prohibited until later.  I guess there is a bit of logic in assuming that if X wasn't happening, then it would not be addressed with a prohibition of it, but it is a leap to then go from "X was likely occurring" to "Cain did X".  Could Cain have slept with his sister?  Maybe.  But I don't think we should automatically assume so when the text indicates things like enough people to build a city in the land that Cain traveled to.

[Alex Guggenheim]

Genesis records the inauguration of mankind and his history. It is not necessarily the history of the earth and any orevious agea. Neanderhal has not been shown to exist simultaneously with humans (though a few claums exist). I suggest they served the purpose of a previous age undisclosed to us seeing it is not relevant but tied to the Angelic Conflict and the appeal process of Satan (of his earlier judgment and sentence) with his arguments and God's rebuttals (see Reformed Teacher Barnhouse's work on the topic).

[Daniel]

Let me ask you a hypothetical, Rey.  If Genesis 3 or 4 talked about an established people group in China, would you still interpret Eve being the "mother of all living things" to be from her?  Or would you see ways to reconcile those verses where there is no conflict?  Christians are great a reconciling possible conflicts from one book to another or one author to another.  We do it all the time.  And we do it because we accept that A and B are both truth.  We recognize that A might have different interpretations and the only one that is right is the one that lines up with other true evidence.  But we are not consistent in that process.  If fact B actually comes from some source outside the Bible (genetics, historical record, artifacts, logic, whatever), we assume it is wrong.  It doesn't agree with "the Bible".  But it is fallacious to (1) assume something outside the Bible is wrong just because it disagrees with out interpretation of Verse A and (2) re-evaluate verse A and reconcile it with other truths only if they are written truths in the Bible.  When the ancients wrote of cosmology and geography, we know better now and don't take that as teaching an invalid and out-dated view of the universe.  What makes genetics so special that we can't do the same?

Rey Reynoso said:

• Genesis 2:20 and Gen 3:20 state something.
• Acts 17:26 repeats the point: all peoples came from one man and that man (says Genesis) is Adam.
• Genesis 2:20 plus Gen 3:20 gives us Gen 4:1.
• Gen 4:1 doesn't stand alone. We have Gen 5:3 that ignores both Cain and Abel, starts with Seth and mentions the birth of other sons and daughters.
• Genesis 4:13 tells us that Cain was afraid of retribution by those finding him.
• Gen 4:17 has Cain making love and eventually giving birth to people groups as well.
• (T) The textual evidence is clear that Adam is indeed the father of all people groups.
• Options: (1) Paul was wrong in Acts 17:26 reading from Genesis 2:20 and 3:20 and 4:1 that Adam was the father of all people groups—there were alternate people groups and Acts really records Paul's error; AND (2) the Genesis account is wrong that Adam was the Father of these people groups—there were alternate people groups or there were alternate non-people groups that were just as suitable for intermarriage as helpers—supported by Cain's family actually being productive in the work they do; AND (3) God was purposefully deceitful in showing only animals to Adam and/or he showed these other people groups to Adam and Adam saw them as suitable; or (4) there was intermarriage of Adam's children going on.

 

(4)  is possible, plausible, has less accounting for other details, powerfully supports the evidence, is not ruled out of court by the evidence and addresses the broadest spectrum of evidence without being so contrived. So (4) is not a mere assumption, it is a very likely thesis.

 

If (T) is God's revelation then (4) seems to be the best explanation of what (T) states. If (T) is not God's revelation then (4) is only the best explanation of what (T) states.

 

 

 

[Marv]

EDIT: This was written before I read Daniel's post just above.

 

Okay, but read what Rey brought up:

Gen. 2:20:  "The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him."

 

This is about as explicit as you can imagine that at least here Adam is indeed solo. Else would be have Eve made from his own rib? 

 

And 3:20:

 

The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

 

Which strikes me as reasonably explicit that Eve at least is the single initial female anecestor of all human beings.

 

Frankly, that fairly explicitly rules out any women not descended from Eve who could have been Cain's wife. Therefore it was a woman descended from Eve, i.e. Cain's sister or niece or some other relative.

 

Unless, of course, one just blows off the statements of Scripture.

 

Over to Daniel, to do just that.
  
  

[Rey Reynoso]

I crossed out all that stuff that  ignored the text and my actual comment to respond to the hypothetical.

 

In this alternate world where the text says that Eve is the Mother of All Living Things and then goes on to speak about an established people group in China (now I have to round off your statement by adding) that didn't descend from her AND it doesn't posit any other information to figure out what is meant by Mother of All Things then I would assume that not only is there a conflict in the text, the earlier statement about her being mother of All Living Things is wrong.

 

Now, in this actual world where the text says what it does why is it that decide against the text while trying to find allowance in the text? In other words, why not just outright say "the text is wrong" or "the text isn't God's revelation" or "the text is only concerned with theology not with history"?

Daniel said:

Let me ask you a hypothetical, Rey.  If Genesis 3 or 4 talked about an established people group in China, would you still interpret Eve being the "mother of all living things" to be from her?  Or would you see ways to reconcile those verses where there is no conflict?

[Marv]

Wow, Daniel. If you don't right here acknowledge--at least--that given the data of the text, the author's laconic reference to Cain's wife is best understood as one of these other female descendants of Adam and Eve (and certainly this is what the author was most likely to have expected us to imagine)...

 

...then you hereby proclaim yourself bereft of logic and reason.

 

No two ways about it...

[Daniel]

Loved that last line.  If I don't read it the way you do, I'm allegedly "blowing it off"?   LOL  

If I look at a bunch of lifestock and birds (what we are told was brought before him) and "see" that they have mates and ask "where's mine", does that mean that I've seen every living thing on the planet?  No.  And, if CS Lewis and others are right that Adam was the first Homo Divinus and image bearer of God, it doesn't preclude other living things that were not given that distinction.  My point is that even if one believes Adam and Eve to be the first and only couple and God never created any others, it doesn't mean that Acts 17 is a slam-dunk proof text for whom Cain married.  For all we know, Paul could be speaking of Noah and all the current nations of the world coming from him.  If I suggest that it's Noah and not Adam, how is that "blowing it off"?  Or he could be speaking in the context of "we are all one blood" without having a clue about the Y chromosome and teaching us that Adam was the first and only one with it.  I just don't believe the context is genetics.

As far as Eve being made from his rib goes, that proves nothing about what was going on outside the garden in which Adam was placed.  

In our other discussion, you indicated that you didn't believe that all the fossils were from a single event.  If I'm wrong about that, please correct me.  If that is the case, and I believe that to be the case, then animal life covered the globe.  If we are not going to assume that they all died in the same event, why assume they all trace their ancestry back to a single pair in or around the garden?  When the earth produced living things, however that happened, why assume it only happened in one spot?  And why assume that just because the Bible only tells us of this one line that no other lines existed?  That seems illogical to me?  I just don't buy the idea that unless the Bible mentions it, it didn't happen, that it didn't occur until the Bible mentions it, and that all the other evidence of other civilizations are just fabricated because Paul or Noah or Moses didn't know about them or mention them.  The Bible may be 100% inspired and accurately present the statements and beliefs of ancient people with 100% accuracy, and it may even be preserved with 100% precision, but that doesn't mean that we can assume that it is 100% all-encompassing in what it covers and that  Paul is speaking of Adam and since he believed that, thus saith the Lord.  

Marv said:

EDIT: This was written before I read Daniel's post just above.

 

Okay, but read what Rey brought up:

Gen. 2:20:  "The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him."

 

This is about as explicit as you can imagine that at least here Adam is indeed solo. Else would be have Eve made from his own rib? 

 

And 3:20:

 

The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

 

Which strikes me as reasonably explicit that Eve at least is the single initial female anecestor of all human beings.

 

Frankly, that fairly explicitly rules out any women not descended from Eve who could have been Cain's wife. Therefore it was a woman descended from Eve, i.e. Cain's sister or niece or some other relative.

 

Unless, of course, one just blows off the statements of Scripture.

 

Over to Daniel, to do just that.
  
  

[Jason]

Wow!

This brings us back to the issue of presuppositions.

Paul must bow to science. So, too, must inspired Scripture- the Word of God.

That's why we never truly get anywhere in these arguments.

This isn't even about Daniel's logic, or his lack thereof. It is about how we view the authority of the Scripture.
We have just seen the plain truth before our eyes that Scripture is trumped by science.

And some of wondered why I spent so much time on the inerrancy issue...

[Marv]

Thanks for your proclamation...

 

So using your best logic... you think it is likely that when the author referred to Cain's wife, he intends his readers to infer other humans not descended from A&E.

Daniel said:

Loved that last line.  If I don't read it the way you do, I'm allegedly "blowing it off"?   LOL  

If I look at a bunch of lifestock and birds (what we are told was brought before him) and "see" that they have mates and ask "where's mine", does that mean that I've seen every living thing on the planet?  No.  And, if CS Lewis and others are right that Adam was the first Homo Divinus and image bearer of God, it doesn't preclude other living things that were not given that distinction.  My point is that even if one believes Adam and Eve to be the first and only couple and God never created any others, it doesn't mean that Acts 17 is a slam-dunk proof text for whom Cain married.  For all we know, Paul could be speaking of Noah and all the current nations of the world coming from him.  If I suggest that it's Noah and not Adam, how is that "blowing it off"?  Or he could be speaking in the context of "we are all one blood" without having a clue about the Y chromosome and teaching us that Adam was the first and only one with it.  I just don't believe the context is genetics.

As far as Eve being made from his rib goes, that proves nothing about what was going on outside the garden in which Adam was placed.  

In our other discussion, you indicated that you didn't believe that all the fossils were from a single event.  If I'm wrong about that, please correct me.  If that is the case, and I believe that to be the case, then animal life covered the globe.  If we are not going to assume that they all died in the same event, why assume they all trace their ancestry back to a single pair in or around the garden?  When the earth produced living things, however that happened, why assume it only happened in one spot?  And why assume that just because the Bible only tells us of this one line that no other lines existed?  That seems illogical to me?  I just don't buy the idea that unless the Bible mentions it, it didn't happen, that it didn't occur until the Bible mentions it, and that all the other evidence of other civilizations are just fabricated because Paul or Noah or Moses didn't know about them or mention them.  The Bible may be 100% inspired and accurately present the statements and beliefs of ancient people with 100% accuracy, and it may even be preserved with 100% precision, but that doesn't mean that we can assume that it is 100% all-encompassing in what it covers and that  Paul is speaking of Adam and since he believed that, thus saith the Lord.  

Marv said:

EDIT: This was written before I read Daniel's post just above.

 

Okay, but read what Rey brought up:

Gen. 2:20:  "The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him."

 

This is about as explicit as you can imagine that at least here Adam is indeed solo. Else would be have Eve made from his own rib? 

 

And 3:20:

 

The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

 

Which strikes me as reasonably explicit that Eve at least is the single initial female anecestor of all human beings.

 

Frankly, that fairly explicitly rules out any women not descended from Eve who could have been Cain's wife. Therefore it was a woman descended from Eve, i.e. Cain's sister or niece or some other relative.

 

Unless, of course, one just blows off the statements of Scripture.

 

Over to Daniel, to do just that.
  
  

[Daniel]

And I guess you'd find it equally offensive if I suggest that you are an idiot if you don't agree with me?  My point is that we can cherry-pick verses to make a point, it it is only a valid point if we take ALL the evidence into account.  I could drop the references to Adam from your list and only present the verses that speak of Noah and his family and it would look like Paul is speaking of Noah.  Doesn't make it right.  There ARE different ways to understand this.  I'll agree that your way is the most historical way to understand it, but that doesn't mean that it is right.  Nor does it mean that I am "bereft of logic and reason" or "blowing off Scripture" for actually using logic and reason to point out alternative understandings of the text.  This is SUPPOSED to be an irenic discussion.  And we can't have one unless we are honest and accept that, while they each have their own strengths and weaknesses, there ARE other ways to read this verse.  Recent suggestions that one doesn't believe the Bible or is without reasonable faculties unless they agree with us ISN'T an irenic discussion.  We need to lay off the rhetoric a bit if we are going to set an example of what an objective and irenic discussion looks like.

You suggest that this is a "laconic reference to Cain's wife".  It could be.  But it could equally be to Noah, couldn't it?  If one believed that everyone is descendant both Adam and Noah, which of these "one man" or "one blood" is being referred to?  We'd actually be descendant from TWO men.  By definition, that makes it AT LEAST "two ways about it".  But this doesn't mean that Paul knew about the civilizations in China and elsewhere that go back to before Noah's flood.  And it doesn't mean that one is "bereft of logic and reason" to believe, considering that truth, that Paul's point in this chapter isn't to teach genetics any more than Joshua's point in saying the sun stopped circling the earth is to teach cosmology.  "All nations are of one blood" is just open to too many different interpretations, particularly given the context, to assume that one is unbalanced if they don't see it is clearly speaking of human genetics.

Marv said:

Wow, Daniel. If you don't right here acknowledge--at least--that given the data of the text, the author's laconic reference to Cain's wife is best understood as one of these other female descendants of Adam and Eve (and certainly this is what the author was most likely to have expected us to imagine)...

 

...then you hereby proclaim yourself bereft of logic and reason.

 

No two ways about it...

[Marv]

Daniel, I'm not calling you anything. Certainly not being unirenic. I'm not even saying that one position is true. Only that given the data, any reasonable person would conclude that within the story being told, through Gen. 4, the intended inference is that this wife referred to is a descendant of A&E.

 

You may ultimately be right that she was a local Nod girl, but that remains a much, much less logical inference to draw. I'm asserting that if you cannot agree to that assessment of logical reasoning from the data of the text then you are tipping your hand a bit...

 

And the "laconic" reference I mean is:

 

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. (Genesis 4:17 ESV)

 

Surely you don't think the author thought there were other people in Nod... of China....