Bats and dolphins both use echo-location, albeit one in the water and the other in the air. Still, not many other creatures share such a trait, and scientists wondered, out of the hundreds of special genes required to produce this special feature, how many of them were similar in both types of animals?
In a way it was a crazy question to ask if macro-evolution is true. After all, they are not closely related. They are about as far apart as they can be and still be in the same class of organism. As the article concedes, these two groups would have evolved echo-location independently of one another, so what would the odds be if they used more than a few of the same genes to do it?
The vast number of genome regions which have to change together to successfully acquire the ability to echo-locate is problem enough for the macro-evolutionary hypothesis. The results of their study astounded them and made the macro-evolutionary hypothesis even harder for thinking people to accept. It turns out almost 200 genomic regions were virtually identical in the two groups of organisms. "We had expected to find identical changes in maybe a dozen or so genes but to see nearly 200 is incredible," explains Dr Joe Parker, from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences.
They chalk it all up to the power of evolution of course, because they have an "evolution of the gaps" bias. Whenever they see something that "astounded" them, as this did, they chalk it up to the power of evolution via some undefined pathway. They called this an example of "evolutionary convergence". Honestly though, a finding like this gives a lot more support for the Intelligent Design Theory. That is, two vastly dissimilar organisms can share the same genes because they had a common Designer, who used a similar idea for a similar function in the same genes of the two groups. Under that scenario, it is not necessary for the two groups to have had a common ancestor in order to wind up with the same genes.
Evolutionary convergence used to mean animals which were not related had a similar form due to performing similar functions. The classic example is sharks and dolphins. Their physical forms were shaped in a similar way by a common function. Evolutionists are trying to shoe-horn this idea into the exciting findings they are making in genetics. But it doesn't fit. There is no reason to expect that the same genes would be adapted in both species for such a novel function as echo-location. It is basically describing "conservation" of individual genes that were not inherited from a common ancestor, which of course goes against the very definition of conserved genes.
Example: If I build a grandfather clock from metal shards, and a man in China does the same, the faces of our clocks may look alike, but there is no reason to expect that a specific part from my clock would even exist, much less fit, in his clock. Evolution shapes the end result, but the means to get to that result are supposed to be random, chance changes being selected for or against by the environment. When the means are the same, it is a mark against the hypothesis, or would be if they were not trying to rig the terms of the debate so that no matter what the evidence shows, "evolution did it". That's an "evolution of the gaps."
It is just a way of saying that whatever happened, evolution did it. If sharks and dolphins look similar but have different genes to breath, why evolution produced the differences, while if dolphins and bats use the same genes for echo-location, why, evolution did that to. It makes the idea impossible to falsify via the scientific method. Which of course, means that it is no longer science at all.
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This article is not directly related to the Christ-centered model for early Genesis as described in my book. Still, I ask you to get the book...
The evidence shows a massive loss in male diversity around the world starting around 10,000 years ago until around 5,000 years ago when diversity recovers. Click for larger view.
"11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." - Genesis chapter six
The Christ-Centered model for early Genesis is a different take about what the text is saying from the traditional view that the church inherited from Judaism. Adam doesn't have his traditional, but non-biblical, role of "sole male progenitor of the human race". Instead he has his New Testament role of "figure of Christ" (Rom. 5:14). He is only the first man in the sense that Christ is the second, or last man (1st Cor. 15). That is, in God's plan to reconcile humanity to Himself. There was a population of "Adam", IOW humans, outside the garden and the LORD God formed Adam and Eve inside it. Some of you reading this may think that you know of other scriptures which contradict what I have written above. I once thought I did too, but I was wrong about what I thought they meant.
Jesus said in John 5:46 that Moses was talking about Him. If we don't see the text as pointing to Him, then we don't have the view of the text that He has. The Christ-centered view of the text does that, the traditional, non-New Testament, view of Adam does not.
The Christ-centered model has Adam introduced up to 12,500 years ago (but perhaps somewhat less, the key is that Ussher's accounting gives dates which are too young) along with "helper" animals and plants which gave mankind a "leg-up" in shifting from hunter-gatherers to agricultural and animal pastoral lifestyles. Ground zero for plant and animal domestication fits very well with the Christ-centered model for Adam.
All of that brings me to the graph pictured above from this report in "Nature". Astoundingly, the evidence suggests that there was a massive plunge in Y-haplogroup diversity, passed from fathers to sons, starting about eleven thousand years ago but accelerating steeply until perhaps five to seven thousand years ago, and then a radical recovery. Many of the surviving Y-haplogroups saw a burst in diversity from seven to five thousand years ago, indicating that the conditions which produced the plunge in diversity were mitigated. The diversity of females, as shown by mtDNA, did not take a corresponding plunge. This would be what the data looked like if females outnumbered men, at least in terms of genetic diversity, seventeen to one! It is an astounding period as this happened globally, albeit with a slight lag in Africa.
The most reasonable explanation for the vast drop in male diversity suggested by the paper is that clans of related males wiped out competitors and took their women. In other words, a surge of violence. Though I don't give exact dates for the fall, a point at which everyone's eyes are opened to their own sinfulness and innocence is lost, the range fits extremely well with the date range shown in the graph above where diversity first starts taking a dip (due presumably to an increase in violence). My proposed date range for the flood of Noah (which did a reset- not on all life on earth but only the more limited set of living things formed in chapter two including the line of Adam) fits very well with the point at which diversity begins to increase again- from five to seven thousand years ago.
The paper speculates as to why diversity decreased and why it started up again once city-states came along. I don't dispute those claims. I just think they go hand-in-hand with the scriptural account. People became aware of their own sinfulness, and there will always be those who, when faced with the reality of their own nature, embrace it and go even worse. It is true that with agriculture and herds and flocks there was more to fight over, but Adam had a role in that too. And despite their attempts to draw some comparisons to other much smaller events, this period seems unparalleled in scale and degree.
Look, the world today is full of those who "deny the truth in unrighteousness". Remarkable correlations such as the ones shown in this piece won't move them, because they will simply deny the evidence means anything. Deny. Deny. Deny. That's what they do. And we shouldn't be surprised by this, but we should understand the reason for it. It's not that the evidence is lacking, but that the conditions of their hearts to receive it are lacking. They are unwilling to receive for whatever reason, evidence which points to the truth of God and His Word. Someone who is able to receive can look at the same evidence, as I have, and be astounded at how strongly the signal matches up with the account in scripture once rightly understood. In the same time frame that scripture reports that the earth was full of violence, scientists find strong evidence of violence to a degree which has not been equaled globally before or since. It ends about the time of the flood which scripture says God used to wipe out those who were leading the earth astray. The unbelieving heart is hard to it all, and well able to dismiss it all with the waive of a hand. We should pray that their eyes become opened so that they may see what is, without letting it get us down. Rather, let us wonder and glory at the truth of His Word displayed in our natural world.
So I am still trying to sort things out on the flood of Noah. I think Adam's line lived in the area of the Aras or Araxes river near the border of Turkey and Armenia. I simply can't find good information about continuity of occupation of this river valley during the period I am interested in, other than a cryptic note in one paper claiming a "sharp discontinuity" between the previous culture and the Kura-Araxes culture which came after it in the 4th Millennium B.C. (i.e. from 3,000 B.C. to 4,000 B.C.). That was promising because it was consistent with the scenario I proposed that the flood was aimed at the line of Adam, whose habitations were centered around the Aras river valley, roughly 4,000 B.C. or even a bit earlier. A sharp discontinuity fit with a scenario where they were wiped out, and others came later and occupied their former territory.
But that was just a note. It seems the river valley to the north of the Aras, the Kura, has gotten a lot more attention. On page five section 2.5 of this paper there is another interesting paragraph shows up:
"This attractive region was occupied by
communities who took up farming and herding towards the end of
the 7th mill. BCE at the latest (Lyonnet, 2007). Subsequent to this first
period of settlement, during the 6th mill. BCE, several transformations affected both settlement patterns and lifestyles. For unknown reasons, archaeological sites dated to the 5th and 4th mill. BCE
are barely visible in the archaeological record. At the beginning of the
4thmill. BCE, new types ofmonuments, such as visible burialmounds
or Kurgans, appear"
So it was occupied by people advanced enough to be farming and herding from at least 6,000 B.C., and therefore quite probably earlier. This is surely one of the first agrarian and pastoral societies in the history of the earth. Is this the line of Adam? Some of their near-neighbors who had learned some of their advanced ways? Then the paper makes a vague reference to transformations affecting settlement patterns and lifestyles in the 6th millennium B.C. An increase in violence and corruption perhaps? They don't say. Then for a good chunk of the next two thousand years archaeological sites are "barely visible" in the record. When steady habitation re-appears in the 4th millennium B.C. it is a different culture- the Kura-Araxes culture. That sounds consistent with a flood wiping out settlements on the surface sometime between 3,000 B.C. and 4,999 B.C. Then being replaced by others because the original inhabitants were gone. That fits my timeline quite well.
Maybe I have the wrong valley, maybe the line of Adam was in the Kura valley rather than the Araxes which was just on the other side of the South Caucuses. Maybe they were in both and other places besides and those places will also show a "sharp discontinuity" in habitation. I am at the mercy of the archaeological community which is not oriented to look at things like this!
This article is pretty much speculation. I am not convinced of any of it, but recent discoveries do open some possibilities, and I am musing over them here. Recent Denisovan admixture? Let's start with a quote from an expert in the field...
Not everyone is convinced by the late dates Cox proposes. “There are definitely multiple Denisovan populations, but the claim that they interbred 15,000 to 30,000 years ago is extraordinary,” population geneticist Benjamin Vernot of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, told Science.
“I’m skeptical,” added Cosimo Posth of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. He suggests the hints of a late mating could reflect an encounter of previously isolated modern populations rather than of moderns and Denisovans. In this scenario, modern humans mated with Denisovans, then the modern populations diverged, with each branch retaining a different set of Denisovan genes. The moderns then reconnected, mixing the two sets of Denisovan DNA together again."
The above is a quote from an article about a purported introgression of Denisovan DNA into a modern human population in Papua only 15-30K ago. Posth proposes an alternative explanation. That is that this wasn't a true admixture of modern humans and Denisovans in the relatively recent past, but rather two groups of modern humans- each with their own genes from a much earlier admixture event, produced this effect. It doesn't mean he is right. There were some odd hominins walking around apparently even in the fairly recent past over in Asia. But it does mean that there is starting to be a little push-back and a pro is appealing to the same sort of alternative explanations I have.
This is very similar to what I proposed in my article explaining why I believe that Eurasians don't have 1.5% of their genes from Neanderthals. I think the actual amount directly obtained from Neanderthals is zero. Rather than take a super-broad view of the word "human" I take a narrow one. Human's aren't anything that walks upright with a big brain and makes tools. We have other traits, like recursive thought and speech, we make art for its own sake, and have true empathy along with a desire to connect to something bigger than ourselves- culminating in religion. If the other hominins didn't have that then we would not have much to say to each other, even if they could talk.
So I propose that around 50K ago a special group of hominins came to be. I think created by a Divine Act, but we can argue about that later. I call them "Adamics" since the word "human" has been mis-appropriated to mean any hominin. They entered a world with a "zoo" of creatures which looked a lot like us on the outside but not the inside. Some of these would be classified as "Archaic Homo Sapiens" but they were not our ancestors. Perhaps early on our ancestors had limited inbreeding with them, but not directly with Neanderthals and Denisovans. If these Archaic Homo Sapiens had ancestors which interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans then our ancestors could have picked up some segments indirectly from limited interbreeding with them. This is much like the way Posth is describing the supposed recent introgression of Denisovan genes.
Most of the genes from this admixture won't stick out, and many more have been lost. But a few do stick out, and we interpret that as stretches where we interbred with Neanderthals or Denisovans. What may have happened instead was that Adamics did a limited amount of interbreeding with "other" Homo Sapiens that were either more like these creatures genetically to start, or had interbred with them and had stretches of their DNA which they passed to some of our ancestors.
IOW words I am offering an explanation (and this is an alternative explanation, not my current actual view which aligns more with Dr. Amos referenced below) very much like the one Cosimo Posth gives for the supposed signal of "recent Denisovan admixture" and applying it to all instances of supposed admixture. The "limited admixture" scientists are detecting would then be with things that would be classified as "Archaic Homo Sapiens" or perhaps even modern humans, but they lacked those traits I mentioned earlier. Still, it wasn't as big a jump as they think, and once the Adamics got their feet under them even that introgression completely or almost completely ended.
That's why there is no sign of any admixture between living Europeans and Neanderthals once we got to Europe despite the thousands of years they supposedly lived side-by-side. The party line requires introgression with them 50K ago that was so significant that it is still easily detectable in all Eurasians today. Yet somehow there is no genetic trace in living Europeans of any more such intermixing from 40K ago or 30K ago. My explanation for the disparity is simple. The Adamics didn't mix with Neanderthals 55K ago either, but did to a very limited extent with lines of Archaic Homo Sapiens in the Near East who had some genes that were much closer to Neanderthals. The reason we can't detect any introgression from later in Europe in living Europeans is because there were few to no "other" H. Sapiens to be had there- just Neanderthals. Adamics had no interest in Neanderthals. They may have viewed them like trolls.
So then why are Eurasians less diverse than Africans except for Neanderthal/Denisovan genes? The same thing happened in Africa, but the "others" the Adamics in Africa intermixed with were not in the same environment with Neanderthals and Denisovans so their genetic input didn't look like what the Eurasian Adamics got. It could be part of the explanation for increased African diversity however. IOW some of the Eurasian diversity looks like the genes of other hominins we know about, so we call it such. The African diversity may be the result of something that we don't know about, so we think they have been around for 200K years diversifying.
We don't have hominin suspects for the increased African diversity, so we just say they were more diverse before any introgression. But maybe that's not so. Fact is, sub-Saharan Africans get most of their greater diversity from a few small populations, like Pygmies and San. Take away the few hot spots of extra diversity and Sub-Saharan Africans aren't so much more diverse than the rest of us. Maybe there was one recent (50-70Kyears ago) population of H. Sapiens that had the traits I described above that made them "Adamics". They started in NE Africa and the Mid-east. From there one group went south and another east and another north. Each of them had some limited admixture with the "other" Homo Sapiens who were already in decline. The reason that the most human genetic diversity is at the edge of the range- south Africa, far west Africa, and in far east Asia with Denisovan-like genes, is that the genetic signature of the "others" has not yet been so swamped at the extreme ends of our range as it was in the middle.
Others, albeit not under their real name, have advanced an idea like I am suggesting. See this article and plug in "Adamics" for what he calls "Afrasians" and the "other Homo Sapiens" for what he calls "Paleoafricans" and its pretty much the same idea. See also here. The only difference is he thinks the "Afrasians" who went to Eurasia had limited mixing with the more distant Neanderthals and Denisovans while the outlier Afrasian group in Africa had limited mixing with "other" H. Sapiens which he calls "Paleoafricans". I am suggesting that both groups of Afrasians/Adamics had limited mixing with "other" H. Sapiens. The ones that lived in Eurasia just looked genetically a whole lot more like the other hominins there.
I love science, that is why I taught it in public school for twelve years. I love it for what it is, not for what it isn't. Science is a process by which we discover things about the natural universe. It operates by assuming that all events have natural causes. This is called "methodological naturalism". This doesn't mean that all events are really explainable by natural causes, this is just the only kind of cause that the Scientific Method can investigate regarding phenomena in the natural universe.
********************** Update and disclaimer - I don't mind offending those who are actively resisting the knowledge of God, because they need to come out of it and if directly confronting them on what they are doing will accomplish that then I will take the abuse necessary in the role of "bad cop." But I am not writing this to offend honest scientists whom I greatly respect. Most of the people I say are "hiding" behind science" are not themselves professional scientists. They may not even really love science, except in concept as the excuse to avoid the knowledge of God. That is why this scene works as "art". And to clarify my position on the science, while the reversal on the Dark Matter evidence discussed below is shocking, there is something out there preventing gravity from collapsing the universe, and maybe it is dark energy in a much smaller quantity than they thought. Or maybe it is just light pressure, or maybe gravity has a maximum range. Doesn't change the point of the article, which is not aimed at professional scientists but layman using "science" as an excuse to hide from the knowledge of God.
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Some people I've interacted with have turned a methodology into a philosophy. Philosophical naturalism proposes that only natural phenomena exist and that there is nothing outside of nature. They frequently speak in the name of "Science", even though what they say doesn't make a lot of sense. For example, science can neither prove or disprove the existence of God, since science is only capable by definition of discovering things about the natural universe. It can find the laws, but it can't determine by itself the existence of the Lawgiver. You have to think beyond the tool you are using to determine that. So elevating the method of naturalism into a philosophy is problematic.
Anyway, yesterday, January 6th, in the Year of Our Lord 2020, was a bad day for those hiding from the knowledge of God behind claims of "Science". It was a day reports came out which illustrated that we don't know nearly as much as we claim we do about the natural universe. This report came out that shows the main evidence supporting the idea that our universe is mostly a mysterious thing called "dark energy" is in error. This overturns decades of scientific belief about the ultimate nature, structure, and perhaps even fate, of our universe. It turns out the galaxies may not be flying away from each other at increasingly fantastic speeds after all. Therefore there is no need to postulate that most of the universe is composed of an energy which is propelling them against the pull of gravity at those fantastical speeds.
I've had to listen to a couple of unbelievers recently earnestly insist that arguments for the fine-tuning of our universe to support beings like us (the Anthropic Principle) is not really evidence for the existence of God. Their support for this claim is the alleged existence of a vast array of other universes which some esoteric mathematical models predict could exist. IOW, the fine-tuning of our universe is an illusion because if enough universes are out there by chance one of them could happen to have the right balance of forces necessary for the structure we see- even if the odds of it happening in any one universe are mindbogglingly remote.
Well, excuse me if I don't have a lot of confidence in your appeals to a vast number of supposed universes we can't see based on some hypothetical mathematical model. Especially when the same scientific community can make such a titanic mistake for so long when it comes to measuring the properties of the one universe we can in fact detect. It sounds to me like you are resorting to desperate escapism to avoid the knowledge of God. Your belief that these universes exist is on pretty shaky ground- and the existence of multiple universes in itself doesn't rule out the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God anyway, those universes would also have to have certain properties and not others). If we can't detect God scientifically at least we have evidence of His existence by other means, which is not the case with your hypothetical other universes!
It is small-potatoes next to the Dark Energy May Be Wrong story, but last month it was discovered that a supposed ground-breaking fossil of a spider with evolutionary traits which made it a missing link with other arthropods was in fact a badly preserved crayfish with legs painted on it by forgers! And the original finding was in a journal, so the fraud passed peer-review with flying colors!
Meanwhile most papers can't even get looked at, particularly ones with politically incorrect conclusions. That's one reason why many, including many scientists, are suggesting that the peer-review process is broken. Check that, it works great for preserving the status quo. If your paper supports the existing paradigm, it can get peer reviewed even if your underlying evidence is painted-on-"crab"-legs. But papers that challenge the status quo languish. They simply don't make it through the gauntlet. This PC gate-keeping is impeding our progress in understanding the natural world- IE science. I've seen plenty of science people even in informal settings decline to discuss or evaluate papers with controversial conclusions even from well-qualified researchers on the basis that it hasn't been peer-reviewed yet. It has become more of an excuse to hide behind than a successful sorting mechanism.
But it gets worse for science-worshippers. It turns out that most scientists can't replicate studies by their peers. This goes to the very heart of why scientific finding should be accepted as true. If they can't be replicated, then claims should be evaluated on the same basis as claims that information was received by Divine Revelation! Whether this lack of replication is due to poor documentation of methods, deliberate fraud, or a falling standard of professionalism in those attempting to replicate findings, it's a problem which threatens to undermine the rational basis on which we give heed to scientific truth claims.
I have warned in my book about the danger to science when it becomes captured operationally by the state. A premium is put on conclusions which support the state's objectives, not on those which are sound or repeatable. Thus glorious science is demoted to mere propaganda. The state definitely has a history of trying this with theistic religion too, not just the "religion" of science. So we should be cautious. We should love science for what it is, and be wary of those people and forces who would try to make it into something that it is not.
Genesis 1:27 as I say it should be properly translated. The first segment is referring to a specific man, not the human race as a whole. A definite article is before the first "man". See for yourself in the interlinear of this verse. The "ha" in front of Adam is properly translated "the" or sometimes "of". This verse is a list of three things God did to fulfill His stated intent in verse twenty-six, not the same thing repeated three times with slightly different phraseology.
I used to spend a lot of time on the Peaceful Science forum. For months I had maintained that this verse has been mis-translated. For months they had said a real Hebrew scholar would demonstrate this belief to be in error. I had called for one repeatedly. Finally on this thread at the "Peaceful Science" forum on of them was kind enough to engage me, reluctantly at the first. While he started out assuring me I was wrong, by the end of it he could only say that there "could be" a good reason for the traditional translation- not that he had one at the moment. I reproduce the dialogue here with my words in black and his in blue, with narration in yellow highlight. When we cite each other, the quotes we have of each other are in a blue-shaded box with our symbol and screen name in front of it. Please ignore the large black arrows. Each new comment is separated by a row of asterisks. So don't pay attention to the brown space between squares of dialogue. The comments are separated by asterisks. The conversation is easier to follow here because a couple of others were jumping in and out and disrupting the flow.
I’m an OT/Hebrew Professor. You’re mistaken about the necessary reference of the singular pronoun in v. 27. As you note the antecedent (‘adam) is a collective noun (thus always grammaticlly singular, whether referring to an individual or group). If it’s is meant to be a group, then a subsequent pronoun could either be singular (to show grammatical congruity) or plural (to show conceptual congruity). Both are legit in Hebrew…only larger context can decide.
Also, be careful not to make too much of the article in v. 27. Though Hebrew is closer to Greek in the use of articulation, they are not identical. The article could simply be a reference back to the ‘adam in v. 26 (I.e., this ‘adam).
deuteroKJ: You’re mistaken about the necessary reference of the singular pronoun in v. 27. As you note the antecedent (‘adam) is a collective noun (thus always grammaticlly singular, whether referring to an individual or group)
Well Professor I am glad to see you here. I do hope to pick your brain a bit about this and other passages.
Now when I speak of a collective noun I am referring to verse 1:26*. That is a collective noun. I should think that the antecedent to the “o-tow” in the second segment of verse 27 is the ha-adam in the first segment of verse 27. After all the verb is different in verses 26 and 27. His intention is to make (asah) in verse 26. What He does to bring that intention to reality is create (bara) in verse 27.
So is the antecedent to the “o-tow” in the second segment of verse 27 the “ha-adam” in the immediately preceding first segment of verse 27 or is it the “adam” back in verse 26?
*with the caveat that the Body of Christ is also collective and it too can be described with a singular pronoun. I do in fact think that’s what its saying here and in 1:27 but it is my guess that this is not what you meant when you were tying o-tow to a collective noun.
The pronoun goes back to 27a, but I’m suggesting that ha-adam in 27a need not be distinct from adam in 26. In fact I don’t see a good reason to separate them-neither by the change of verbs (the two do overlap semantically quite a bit) or the presence of the article in 27a.
Btw I’ve enjoyed much of what you’ve written on this site (I’m one of those lurkers). Sorry for the first correspondence was on a point of disagreement.
Let me back up a bit and be more specific. We do speak loosely and say “this is a collective noun” but “Adam” is not a true collective noun. Examples of true collective nouns are things like “bunch”, “board”, “herd” etc. Collective nouns like that refer to a group of things and yet still have a plural form, while at the same time they always refer to a group of whatever is in the collective.
This is not the case at all with a-dam. Rather this is just a noun which has the same form whether singular or plural. It is a case of an irregular noun where the single and plural forms are unchanging, like (the example I think I gave in the book) deer.
So then I can say “In four days we can legally hunt deer” and this refers to the entire species. It is collective in that sense, just as 1:26 is referring to a collective.
But should I say “Last year I got an award for the deer I shot” then the presence of the definite article “the” indicates that it is referring to a specific deer or (because singular and plural form is the same) a group of deer. The article clarifies that I was not claiming to have eradicated the entire species. Notice that my prior reference to the species deer (“we can legally hunt deer”) and my use of the definite article (“the deer I shot”) does in a sense refer back to deer as a concept or the whole group of them but it is wrong to say that this reference means the deer specified by the definite article is equal to the entire species of deer or even the concept of deer.
Now it may still be unclear whether I have taken a single animal or a group of them, owning to the identical form of the noun in singular or plural. So if I follow on with this statement and say “He had the biggest antlers of any taken that year” then you know that I am referring to a single deer because I followed the reference to the deer I had taken with a singular pronoun.
Now you are the expert in Hebrew, and therefore I accept that what you say is possible in Hebrew, but considering what I have written above, your point about what is possible in Hebrew sounds extremely awkward when you lay it all out in English.
26: “Let us make Man in Our own image, and let them…” note a plural pronoun. Though I don’t think its in the Hebrew the context of the plural reference to God and 27c sort of demands it. That’s why the vast majority of translations give it a plural pronoun, though a few don’t use a pronoun here. The only one I can find that uses a singular pronoun is the
Douay-Rheims Bible. Now you are aware that I don’t take translations as binding when they translate the Hebrew inconsistently, but here the use of the plural seems justified.
deuteroKJ:
27a. “So God created THE man in His Own image.” The article IS there. You are one of the few people on this board confident in your understanding enough to see what is there. Now you have suggested that the singular pronoun be “this” as in referring to the noun He spoke of creating in 26. That is, man as “mankind” or humanity. Consider how that reads. “So God created this mankind in his own image”.
Is there another mankind out there that we might think He was referring to? Indeed, verse 26 is not even strictly the same object as that in 27a, even if it is a collective because 26 describes the idea of mankind. Until 27a there is no actual and extant mankind to refer back to.
So while I understand that definite articles can be used to refer back to an already given example of something, this isn’t quite that. So one might say “King David went out to battle. THE king ordered his army to surround Moab.” Yes, in that case the definite article refers us back to David. But that’s because A) David was not the only king in creation so an article to make the ordering king more specific adds clarity to the text and B) There was already a David there to refer back to. He actually existed. Did Mankind already exist in 1:26? Does the article add any clarity to the text if it is only referring to humanity as a whole in this situation?
The vast majority of translators (with good reason that’s the key) assign a plural pronoun to the adam in verse 26. The Hebrew explicitly pairs both a definite article and a singular pronoun with the adam in 27a-b. It is not until you get to 27c that the pronoun switches up to plural again, matching what is implied in 26.
Look, you are the expert in Hebrew, and so if you say its possible, if one threads the needle just so, that I am mis-interpreting the passage then I accept that it is possible, if one threads the needle just so, that I am mis-interpreting the passage. But isn’t it also at least as likely that I am getting it right? That 27a and b refers to a single individual and 26 and 27c refer to multiple individuals? The grammar, as you are describing what it could be, sounds awkward and as forced as it can be in English.
As you note, there are two types of collective nouns. I use the example “flock of sheep”–flock is the group collective; sheep is the other type (what you call irregular). Terminology isn’t the issue; it seems we basically see this the same way.
Revealed_Cosmology:
Yes, that’s what happens in translation. As the old saying goes, “Translation is treason.” There is always a trade-off, a fudging that must take place from one the patient language to the target language. In this case, the use of the definite article is not exact between Hebrew and English (though it’s pretty close). The same goes for resumptive pronouns (i.e., a pronoun that refers back to an antecedent).
Revealed_Cosmology:
Actually the verb “let them have have dominion” is plural in the Hebrew. (And there it is)
Revealed_Cosmology:
I’m suggesting the article in 27a naturally refers back to the adam just mentioned in 26 (I used “this” as shorthand for “the one just mentioned”). There’s no need to force an awkward Engllsh translation. Assuming it is the same adam, the English translations are right to translate with “humanity/humankind” and not translate the definite article.
Revealed_Cosmology:
This seems off base. A definite article doesn’t necessarily mean your choosing one of many. Even in English we can say “the universe,” “the earth,” “the sun,” “the messiah,” “the church,” etc. Still, a Hebrew definite article need not be translated with “the” or anything (see above). Besides, you have the something similar (concerning the article, not singular/plural) in Gen 2:5-7 – "there was no adam [no article; perhaps fits your “idea”?] to work the ground…“the LORD God formed the man [with article].”
Your idea vs. object is too abstract for the Hebrew mindset (especially for it to show up in its grammar). It’s the general pattern in the creation days in Gen 1 for God to make a statement about intent to create (e.g., “let there be”), and then the description fulfilling that intent. Why break this consistency in the creation of adam? (I grant there are other discontinuities with adam in Day 6, but I don’t this as one of them.)
Revealed_Cosmology:
No, not likely. The grammar could be construed this way theoretically (or maybe I should say hypothetically, since we’re on a science blog), but its not the most natural reading to me. Thus, I would need strong warrant from other clues to consider it as a live option. But every angle I consider says otherwise–the general pattern in Gen 1; the poetic parallelism in v. 27; the later references to image in the Bible (against the ANE backdrop); the consistent translation and interpretation in the guild (and maybe church history, but I don’t know that); etc.
I don’t know what the rabbis did with this, but it’s the kind of thing up their alley. You might find some support among them.
Revealed_Cosmology:
I hope I’ve cleared this up above. I was explaining the function of the article, not how the English should be translated. Our present translations are just fine.
And now I must get back to other things. Thanks for the iron sharpening!
(I consider this the high-water-mark of his case against my view of the text. From here on out, it all goes my way, as he is good enough to recognize.)
Thank you for pointing that out. This appears to strongly confirm the interpretation I am giving for these verses. You say it may be that ha-adam in 27a is only referring back to the adam in 26, but if so why is that adam is paired with a plural verb in 26 and the ha-adam in 27a is paired with a singular pronoun in 27b?
Translation may be treason but that’s an awkward fit in any tongue. A much better fit is that 27 is a list of three things done to fulfill God’s intent in 26.
That is just what I am saying is happening too. As I see it you are going “He said He was going to do X and then it says He did X”. I am saying “He said He was going to do X and then it says the things He did in order to do X”. I see that as what the other days do as well. If there is any difference its that in the previous circumstances He ordered some part of creation to do something and then helped. With man, He did it Himself.
That’s too bad. I guess I will have to find another Hebrew scholar who can continue this where we left off, because this conversation is by no means completed on my end. As for our present translations- they are getting better. For example most of them shifted from the old translating ha-adam in chapter two as “Adam” to the more correct translation of “the man”. They just haven’t made that final step yet and moved to consistency by extending that to the ha-adam in chapter one.
(He then reports back that he just meant for today and he would love to continue the discussion later. I have not included that exchange. Note the change on his return as far as how valid he considers the idea.)
Good question. Assuming my position for now, one could argue that it’s simply stylistic (i.e., the narrator liked variety, and this would form a chiasm of plural [26], singular [27a], singular [27b], plural [27c]). Or, one could add a theological nuance: Taking advantage of the collective noun, the narrator wants to emphasize that image of God applied individually and corporately (counter-intuitively, the plural focuses on individuals; the singular focuses on corporate). This is done elsewhere. One thinks of the “seed” (another collective noun) in Gen 3:15 and 22:17-18 (though this example may help your case), or in another vein the David’s “son” in the Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7), which refers both to a succession of sons (i.e., dynasty) and to the greater Son. My own work in Deuteronomy shows the tension in the alternation of the singular “you” vs. the plural “y’all” (perhaps the only time Southern English is helpful!). The point is there could be a good explanation for the phenomenon within the traditional reading.
Revealed_Cosmology:
I’d have to think about this more on whether there’s a real distinction intended. It’s also possible different phrases are being used without too much distinction (though, I admit, it’s possible depending on authorial intent). The main differences with Day 6B (humans) that I see are: more time/text spent on it; divine deliberation (“Let us”); the lacking “according to their kinds”; the status as image of God; the added “very good” which is also delayed as a reflection on all 6 Days and not just Day Six (though “good” lacking in Day 2 since, as Waltke quips, God hates Mondays too!); and the use of the definite article “the sixth” (it also appears on “the seventh” in 2:3, but not Days 1-5; though I’m not quite sure the significance of it; I wonder what this does to our previous discussion of the article).
I do think it helps my case. As I suppose you know, Galatians 3:16 throws that collective noun thing out the window and says that because it says “seed” instead of “seeds” in Genesis 22 that it is referring to Christ and not all the physical offspring of Abraham. And that’s fine too because we know that the true sons of Abraham are those who have the faith of Abraham- the body of Christ is a collective even if Christ is singular. The spiritual reality of what is happening goes to the edge of what human language is able to convey, and perhaps beyond it.
Genesis 3:15 helps my case too, for the same reasons. And as a bonus, it negates the claim that 3:20 is evidence against an adamic race before the man Adam. “Mother of all the living” is a strange thing to say about someone who had just gotten them both killed. But it makes sense if Yahweh-Elohim told them that the 2nd Adam would come, God’s only begotten son, through the seed of a woman and redeem mankind. All “in Christ” are the living. The Christ-centered model makes sense of what otherwise does not, either in context of the passage or bounced against the evidence from the natural world that there were people before the time period Adam must have lived in if the text is accurate.
So we do see a pattern here in Genesis where the ambiguity in nouns being collective or singular are later discovered to point to Christ and Christ is both singular as the man and collective as in the believers which comprise His body. This is of course like the idea of the person of a king standing in to represent his nation. So really 1:26-27 fits into the same pattern.
Have you a link? I’d like to read it, both for itself but especially to figure out if it says anything about the Christ-centered model.
(Notice that he has gone from telling me that my interpretation is wrong to saying that there "could be a good explanation within the traditional reading- while not having one to offer at the moment)
Isn’t the real traditional reading the way that the Jewish rabbis would see it over thousands of years? I should think they would not have a problem with what I am saying about “the man” and the verbs and pronouns. They would be fine with the idea that “man” in 26 is a plural thinking ahead to the race as a concept while 27a and 27b were singular (Adam). That’s what they believed anyway. Of course where I take it from there is not something they would approve of, but I just mean structurally and what the words are saying. The “traditional” reading from 1611 to today may be different but I suspect if one goes before that it would not be. You are in a much better position to say than I of course.
No need to get side-tracked by these jewels hidden in the word here and it takes a long time to build the case where it all fits beautifully together, but I do think I have been shown the significance of these things and write about it in the book 1
That’s a cheeky thing Paul does there He took advantage of the difference between Hebrew and Greek grammar to make his theological point (since Greek sperma can take a plural form). His point about Christ as the ultimate seed is a good Christological reading (already nestled in the ambiguity of the Hebrew text). This does not discount the original meaning, which also includes a plural referent.
This helps me see better how you’re arriving at your position on 1:26-27. I’m OK with a sound Christological reading (especially when a NT author employs it!), but I myself am a bit cautious to start finding things in a text without warrant, nor do I want a Christological reading to dismiss/discount earlier layers. Perhaps we have different hermeneutical grids at play here. I prefer Christotelic to Christological, though I’ve shifted in the past couple of years to think more Christologically.
The issue then I suppose is the metric one uses to decide how many dots have to line up before something is “warranted”. I don’t discount the earlier layers. I am one of those here that does NOT ascribe to a straight-up sequential reading of Genesis. I am thus keeping more of the original layer and view than most here. There was an historical Adam and Eve and that is a part of what this text is talking about here. But Christ is also there in the text, as are the adamites outside the garden which makes the parallels between Christ and Adam stronger than it would be were his role the father of humanity.
As for the different grids, we are many members but one body. I think we can each emphasize the thing that we do while still seeing and proclaiming value in the part that the other emphasizes.
Well it is an indication that he valued the Septuagint relative to what would be the Masoretic text more than we do today. It is useful to consider both. This is the kind of thing I think an apostle can do that I can’t! That and the Gal. 4 comparison of the two women as two covenants being “what the law really says.” Still, if those are authoritative examples of how far the text can be stretched to insert Christ (while not denying the reality of the underlying events) then what I am doing is well within the bounds of sound handling of the word. Indeed it explains things that even an expert like you have some difficulty coming up with a better explanation for.
I thought you might know offhand of a link but I’ll give it a look. Thanks for your link.
I am suggesting that this period saw the word translated from Greek and Hebrew to the King’s English and other European languages around this time so that the translation of the text went through the hands of a very small number of people who had only a fraction of the knowledge and documents we have available today. And these people were connected to one another in thought and culture so that if they got something a little off then it would be copied and repeated until it gained momentum as “tradition”. This would be so even if the underlying case from the text was not so strong as the tradition which supported it. This is, in my view, exactly what happened with the tradition to translate “ha-adam” as “Adam” in chapter two, as the King James and other early versions have done. It stood that way for centuries even though those with the right training knew what it literally said was “the man”. Finally, in the last 70 years or so the reality of what was in the text of chapter two overcame the tradition about how it was supposed to be interpreted. Most of the most recent translations properly translate it “the man” now. This momentum has not extended to 1:27…yet.
(Which left me with nothing else to do than to see if I could find some support within historical Judaism for the translation "THE Man"...)
PS- as near as I could tell no side in the debate at the time (5th century), Christian or Jewish, took 1:27a to refer to more than a single man (or maybe a single couple).
