Of Arrow Heads and Minnie Balls

[Daniel]

This topic is for discussion of my latest blog by the same title.  If we don't assume that all military artifacts around the globe came from the same battle, why assume that all fossils came from the same event?

[Daniel]

I have.  "Found soft tissue" is a lot different from "I dissolved the stone in acid" though. :)

Jason said:

It seems that ICR had an article sometime last year about soft tissue in some dinosaur fossils that pointed toward a young age for the fossil, as the tissue would not have been present had the fossil been millions of years old.

It might be interesting to search and read that. 

[Alex Guggenheim]

sDaniel,

This may be a bit off topic or too specific but I am interested in your thoughts on Neanderthals.

[Daniel]

Since I've been accused of being one, I guess I can answer. :)  I kinda go along with CS Lewis on this one.  There may have been prior hominids, but Adam was the first Homo Divinus.  I think Neanderthals and other pre-Adam "cave men" types could be part of the "living things" that the earth produced on day 6.  I'm entirely open to Noah being "perfect in his generations" or genetics because he and his had not intermarried with any of the other non-Divinus lines.  These "others" could be where Cain found his wife, but Seth's wife would have been more "part of the family" so to speak.

Alex Guggenheim said:

sDaniel,

This may be a bit off topic or too specific but I am interested in your thoughts on Neanderthals.

[Jack]

Genesis 5:4 declares that Adam had OTHER sons and Daughters. So Cain married his sister. 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.

Daniel said:

Since I've been accused of being one, I guess I can answer. :)  I kinda go along with CS Lewis on this one.  There may have been prior hominids, but Adam was the first Homo Divinus.  I think Neanderthals and other pre-Adam "cave men" types could be part of the "living things" that the earth produced on day 6.  I'm entirely open to Noah being "perfect in his generations" or genetics because he and his had not intermarried with any of the other non-Divinus lines.  These "others" could be where Cain found his wife, but Seth's wife would have been more "part of the family" so to speak.

Alex Guggenheim said:

sDaniel,

This may be a bit off topic or too specific but I am interested in your thoughts on Neanderthals.

[Daniel]

The whole "So Cain married his sister" bit is not in the text though. It is an assumption. And it is only necessary if one assumes that if God did it, He told us about it. In other words, since we are not told of others, they didn't exist. I don't buy that assumption though. I see no reason to assume that God only made two of each kind of creature, and that includes hominids.

[Marv]

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, (Acts 17:26 ESV)

Oh, never mind. Irrelevant... 

[Marv]

Because of course, we have good reason to believe He created a whole youth group for Cain to find dates.

Daniel said:

The whole "So Cain married his sister" bit is not in the text though. 

[Daniel]

Actually, when you get into genetics, it gets interesting. There is a single male and single female that we are all descended from. But that doesn't mean that they were the only people at the time.
Marv said:

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, (Acts 17:26 ESV)

Oh, never mind. Irrelevant... 

[Daniel]

Sorry I was a bit short with my response last night.  Was doing it from my phone from bed. :)  Thought the comment deserved more attention though, so I am going to split it off as a separate topic.

Daniel said:

Actually, when you get into genetics, it gets interesting. There is a single male and single female that we are all descended from. But that doesn't mean that they were the only people at the time.
Marv said:

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, (Acts 17:26 ESV)

Oh, never mind. Irrelevant... 

[Marv]

This isn't an "assumption" exactly, but an eminently reasonable supposition, and yes, based on the text. Does the text tell us of available womenfolk? Yes, it does:

 

The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. (Genesis 5:4-5 ESV)

 

We don't know for a fact that it was his sister. It could have been a neice, of course. But at any rate this supposition, which you reject in favor of--not even an assumption--but a wholly hypothetical parallel human population. Here we have a rather pure example of what Ockham was on about: "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." Which is exactly, precisely what you do in preferring the other, unreferenced human population to the specifically referenced human population.

 

I know also that citing Ockham's razor will set you off... So go ahead...

Daniel said:

The whole "So Cain married his sister" bit is not in the text though. It is an assumption. And it is only necessary if one assumes that if God did it, He told us about it. In other words, since we are not told of others, they didn't exist. I don't buy that assumption though. I see no reason to assume that God only made two of each kind of creature, and that includes hominids.

[Jack]

Daniel; You see no reason why you should limit your assumptions. What not simply assume that God did everything that we can dream up, that He doesn't specifically deny!?

 Throughout the O.T. God usually names specific persons who are part of the account, but in the geneologies, He simply states that So and So had other sons and daughters, and he died. Abel's wife's name is not mentioned (assuming that he did marry). Cain's wife's name is not mentioned, but anyone who has not made up his mind to prove something else, accepts the natural assumption that Cain married one of his female relatives. Women's names are seldom given, unless they had a specific part in the narrative, or if its required in the geneology, as in Mary, Jesus' mother's line. Even Adam's "other" sons were not named, since they added  nothing to the narrative, or understanding. WE are the ones who complicate it!

 Personally, I'll take the side of the eye-witness, the one who was there, over the imaginations of today's Scientific priest-hood.

Marv said:

This isn't an "assumption" exactly, but an eminently reasonable supposition, and yes, based on the text. Does the text tell us of available womenfolk? Yes, it does:

 

The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. (Genesis 5:4-5 ESV)

 

We don't know for a fact that it was his sister. It could have been a neice, of course. But at any rate this supposition, which you reject in favor of--not even an assumption--but a wholly hypothetical parallel human population. Here we have a rather pure example of what Ockham was on about: "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." Which is exactly, precisely what you do in preferring the other, unreferenced human population to the specifically referenced human population.

 

I know also that citing Ockham's razor will set you off... So go ahead...

Daniel said:

The whole "So Cain married his sister" bit is not in the text though. It is an assumption. And it is only necessary if one assumes that if God did it, He told us about it. In other words, since we are not told of others, they didn't exist. I don't buy that assumption though. I see no reason to assume that God only made two of each kind of creature, and that includes hominids.

[Jack]

Daniel; If God made more than one extra pair of "Hominids"(side by side) then they weren't all represented by either Adam or Christ.

 Maybe someone should produce a completely new Bible, including every name and event not mentioned in the original? Add anything and everything that you can possibly imagine. Just think of the stories that could be derived, and, all with Biblical authority!!! Right now, I can visualize a gigantic Pit, getting deeper and wider, by the minute!

Jack said:

Daniel; You see no reason why you should limit your assumptions. What not simply assume that God did everything that we can dream up, that He doesn't specifically deny!?

 Throughout the O.T. God usually names specific persons who are part of the account, but in the geneologies, He simply states that So and So had other sons and daughters, and he died. Abel's wife's name is not mentioned (assuming that he did marry). Cain's wife's name is not mentioned, but anyone who has not made up his mind to prove something else, accepts the natural assumption that Cain married one of his female relatives. Women's names are seldom given, unless they had a specific part in the narrative, or if its required in the geneology, as in Mary, Jesus' mother's line. Even Adam's "other" sons were not named, since they added  nothing to the narrative, or understanding. WE are the ones who complicate it!

 Personally, I'll take the side of the eye-witness, the one who was there, over the imaginations of today's Scientific priest-hood.

Marv said:

This isn't an "assumption" exactly, but an eminently reasonable supposition, and yes, based on the text. Does the text tell us of available womenfolk? Yes, it does:

 

The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. (Genesis 5:4-5 ESV)

 

We don't know for a fact that it was his sister. It could have been a neice, of course. But at any rate this supposition, which you reject in favor of--not even an assumption--but a wholly hypothetical parallel human population. Here we have a rather pure example of what Ockham was on about: "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." Which is exactly, precisely what you do in preferring the other, unreferenced human population to the specifically referenced human population.

 

I know also that citing Ockham's razor will set you off... So go ahead...

Daniel said:

The whole "So Cain married his sister" bit is not in the text though. It is an assumption. And it is only necessary if one assumes that if God did it, He told us about it. In other words, since we are not told of others, they didn't exist. I don't buy that assumption though. I see no reason to assume that God only made two of each kind of creature, and that includes hominids.