Thesis #2: Death Existed Before the Fall

There is strain of theology which teaches that God made the initial creation perfect. That is both morally perfect and without sin and without physical death, even of animals. In this view, long associated with young earth theology, there was no death, no decay, and no sin on earth before the fall of Adam. In this view, before the fall of the man lions laid down with lambs. There was no predation. Even the laws of thermodynamics were different so that what we consider the “natural” process of decay was absent.

This is what I call "theology that is not in the Bible". In this writing I shall examine the Old Testament scriptures used to promote this error and show how they are being misunderstood or wrenched out of context. I address the New Testament scriptures such as Romans chapter five separately. This article is largely an excerpt from the book "Early Genesis, The Revealed Cosmology". In this book I present evidence to support each of my "Twenty-Five Theses Where the Church is Getting Early Genesis Wrong." This article speaks to my second thesis.

To support this idea, some believers cite the many instances in Genesis chapter one in which God describes His work as “good.” They combine that with questions like “is death something God would describe as “good?”

As we discussed in the section on the days of creation, the Hebrew word for “good” in Genesis chapter one is towb. It does not mean moral perfection. Indeed it couldn’t because the sixth day is described as “very good.” If “good” means “sinless perfection” then what does “very good” mean? How can one get better than sinless perfection? In addition, in chapter two God describes Adam being alone as “not good”, so something can be “not good” even before the fall.

Clearly creation was not perfect in some moral or absolute sense. God made the world suitable and beautiful for His purposes and that is the sense of “good” conveyed by towb. This world was never meant to be perfect, or even permanent. It was meant to be a place between heaven and hell, a place of choice between two eternities. It is the spinning coin- a temporary state with the question being on which side will it land?

The same word, towb, is translated as “fair” in Genesis 6:2 where it says that the sons of the Elohim saw that the daughters of Adam were “fair”. Does that mean that the females from the line of Adam were in a state of sinless perfection?

If God had wanted to convey the idea of “perfect” to describe His creation He might have inspired Moses to use the word tamiym which is translated “perfect.” It is used in places like Genesis 17:1 where God tells Abraham to walk before Him and be “perfect”. Abraham was only able to do on the basis of faith (just like us).

Others take God’s statement in Genesis 1:29-30 as further evidence that there was no human or animal death before the fall since the text only mentions plants as being authorized for “meat” for man and beast. These are probably the strongest two verses of scripture they have to support their view of the original condition of creation, since all of the New Testament verses they use are wrenched badly out of context. To put those two verses in context, I am going to start with the previous and connected verse:

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

It is reasonable to believe from this verse that God wanted humanity and wild animals which live on the land to be vegetarian. I get that. It is fair to say that was God’s intention. On the other hand, the text does not say that animals did not eat meat. It says that plants are what God established for animals to eat- it announces God’s intentions. It doesn’t say that predation never happened, only that the provision of plants for food (for land animals) did happen. Every parent understands the difference between what you provide your children to eat, what you wish they ate, and what they actually eat. There is a difference between your stated goals for their diet and their actual diet.

If God saying He has given plants for animals to eat somehow means that all animals ate only plants then why isn’t God saying He has provided a means of salvation to everyone evidence that all are saved? As we shall see with more detail and clarity in a bit, it is a mistake to confuse what God says He has provided as a statement about what His creation is actually doing.

Beyond all that, proponents of this view also use this passage to say that there was no physical death of any kind before the fall (some concede there might be the death of plants). The passage does not say that. It doesn’t even really say that animals never ate meat before the fall of man, much less that they never died. It is a huge leap from the idea that God’s original intention or goal for creation was for wild animals and humans to eat only plants to saying that there was no physical death before the fall. The passage doesn’t even say that sharks, fish, whales and other animals which live in the water were to eat only plants for food.

This idea that there was no predation on earth before the fall is more theology that is not actually in the Bible. It is only inferred from something that the Bible says viewed through the lens of misunderstandings about the initial conditions of creation. It is a misunderstanding founded on previous misunderstandings.

The root misunderstanding is about what this earth was supposed to be. Before the fall of man, there was the fall of Lucifer. Sin was in the universe prior to the fall of man. The Garden of Eden was a special place on the earth where God fellowshipped with Adam. It was not indicative of the condition of the world as a whole, though perhaps the world could have been lifted up to be like Eden had Adam not fallen.

Even in Eden the serpent was there, challenging God’s integrity. The Devil dares not do that in Heaven, it is only recorded that he challenges our integrity, accusing the brethren night and day. There is no reason to believe that the rest of the world, outside of the Garden of Eden, was in any better shape and every reason to suppose that it was worse.

From this evidence it is clear that God did not create the world as a place of sinless perfection without physical death or decay. He did not create the world as a place where His will must be done at all times: That is, He did not initially create the earth as an extension of heaven. Nor did He create it as a place where His will is excluded, as an extension of hell. Rather, the world was created to be the battle ground between heaven and hell where an argument is being played out between God and the Devil. The question is whether faith in God or faith in self produces true freedom.

The answer to the question becomes ever clearer to the angels: Hell lost at the cross. Its defeat is made manifest through the body of Christ, which is the church. But in vengeful rage Hell will, just before History’s end, form a compulsory collective of the great mass of mankind in mimicry and mockery of the body of Christ. But that my friends, is another journey, for another time.

So Earth was created as a place where His will can increasingly be done, not a place where it is automatically done each moment (though in the end it still will be). If those whose faith is in Him have their way, it will look more and more like heaven. If those who disregard Him have their way, it will look more and more like hell. Are we in “evening”, a “twisting away from the light”, or “morning”, a turning toward it?

Creation (minus the fallen angels) was in a state of innocence, which is not the same thing as a state of obedience to God’s will. My small children do things that would, for you or me, be sin, but they don’t see the sin in it. They are selfish without the capacity to see their selfishness. They parade around naked without seeing the shame of their nakedness. They eat candy when I want them to eat vegetables.

When animals or toddlers take from others, we don’t think of it as stealing. When a lion kills a zebra we don’t think that the lion is committing a sin. They are not morally accountable for those actions because of their state of innocence. Sin is not counted where there is no law (Rom 5:12).

The Bible defines sin in Romans 14:23. It says “Whatever is not of faith is sin.” When Adam and Eve took the forbidden fruit, it was an act of unbelief. They did not have faith in what God said. Not only in that instance of disobedience, but in the desire to be able to decide right and wrong for themselves rather than trusting God on decisions about what is right and wrong.

The text implies that they had wandered around naked in front of God before the fall, but had never considered that it might be something to be ashamed of. The action was there before the fall, but the awareness of right and wrong was not present. Man was in a state of innocence, not sinless perfection.

Going back to the passage in Genesis, what it says in verse thirty should be taken in the context of what is said in verse twenty-eight. That is, the provision of plants as food for fowls, creeping things, and “beasts of the earth” is in the context of humanity being given a mandate to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over the animals.

The word translated “subdue” is kabash, and it means “to tread down” or “to conquer, subjugate, violate:—bring into bondage, force, keep under, subdue, bring into subjection.” The word translated “dominion” is from the Hebrew ra-dah and it means “to tread down, i.e. subjugate; specifically, to crumble off:—(come to, make to) have dominion, prevail against, reign, (bear, make to) rule,(-r, over), take.” In both cases these meanings are taken from the famous “Strong’s Concordance”, online version.

I note here that some of those who hold to a young and perfect earth try to skirt around the harshness of these terms by saying that man was only told to subdue the earth, not the animals. They say man was only told to “have dominion” over the animals. Then they give a very soft definition of “dominion” which does not convey the full meaning of the word in the original.

These are shady tactics. If humankind is to subdue the earth, surely the “beasts of the earth” are a part of it. Regardless, the proper definition of the word used for “dominion” also includes subjugation. They both confer a sense of “treading down”. The meaning of both of those words is very evocative of Christ giving His disciples the power to tread on serpents and scorpions. I invite you to get to a concordance and read for yourself who is giving you the most accurate and complete meaning of these Hebrew words.

The use of both of these words implies that the world was not in a state of sinless perfection, or even general obedience, to God. Rather, with the creation of the human race, things were finally in place where God could through humanity begin the process of making the earth more like heaven rather than the middle ground it was created as.

God’s plan was unfolding. Earth began formless and void, a place of darkness and confusion. That was the original state of creation. With each intervention of God into the physical world, it became more illuminated and orderly. His crowning work was the introduction of man, made in His own likeness and with the potential to share His own image, into the world. Humanity was there to complete the task of subduing it, of subjecting it, and of exercising dominion over it.

Verse thirty of Genesis One is not describing what wild beasts and fowls and creeping things ate prior to the fall of man, it is describing what God intends them to eat and established for them to eat when man finally exercises his authority according to the will of God. It is the desired outcome when mankind subdues the earth and assumes godly dominion over the creatures in it. This declaration of God will come to be reality in the Messianic age, such as is foretold in Isaiah 11:17 and again in chapter 65 where it says that “the lion will eat straw like an ox.” It will happen once man, in subjection to Christ, rules the earth according to the will of God instead of his own will.

As further evidence that this view of the matter is correct, compare the list of creatures created on the sixth day with the list that God said He provided vegetation for food. “Creeping things”, such as lizards, snakes, and small animals which scurry about on the ground, are on both lists. “Beasts of the earth”, which are considered to be wild animals, are on both lists. Fowls are only on the list of creatures for which plants have been given for food, because they were created on the fifth “day”, not the sixth. Finally, cattle (the word is behemah and in the form used here means large domestic-type quadrupeds) in all its kinds are created on the sixth day, but they are not on the list of animals to whom plants are given for food!

That last should be a giant red flag that the no predation/no death view has it wrong. Many wild animals, lizards, and fowls are known to be predators, but they are on the list that God wants to be vegetarians. Cattle and animals of that class are known to be vegetarians but they are the only category of land creature which is not on the list of things which God wants to be vegetarians.

A reasonable explanation is that cattle and such did not need to be on the list because they were already plant eaters. The other categories were rife with predators, rife with carnivores. That they were on the list of animals that God had provided plants for was not a statement of initial conditions, it was a statement of the desired goal for man whom had just been given dominion over these creatures!

Man was to set about making the earth into the kind of earth God intends for the millennial kingdom to be. We are simply ridiculous failures at it in our own strength. On our own, we can’t even fully understand the instructions, much less carry them out. We can’t do God’s will without a continuous vital connection with God.

   

Flat Earth, Young Earth, and Christian Virtue Signalling

It looks to me like the "Flat Earth" believers are beating certain "Young Earth" believers at their own game of spiritual one-upmanship. Having said that, let me be very clear that I am not impugning the motives of all Young Earth Creationists over and above my own. I understand that as a fallen man my motives, even my best ones, are always to some degree mixed- just like theirs and those of the rest of sinful humanity. People are complicated and its usually a mistake to put even members of a given class into one box- unless the box is labeled "people who need more Jesus." Still, within categories there are finer categories which apply to that set. This is why the Classification System of Linnaeus works.

With that said, there is a class of Young Earth Creationists which share something in common with those who maintain the Earth is flat. For a while I actually thought that the flat-earthers might even be a spoof of Young Earth Creationists. Then my wife pointed out an acquaintance who was a flat-earther. He was obviously sincere and what he believed was a logical outcome of how he had been raised to think about scripture and truth. I began to understand that a large number of people who claimed to be flat-earthers were sincere, and their reasoning mirrored that of a prominent segment of Young Earth Creationists. In fact, those flat-earthers were one-upping the Young Earth Creationists at their own game of spiritual one-upmanship!

In this group I am writing of there is a common thread. They wear their beliefs not just as a badge of honor, but as a symbol of some sort of superiority of faith over those who do not hold them. It goes beyond the idea that they know a truth which you do not recognize, but in some sense that holding it makes them better than you, or more faithful than you. This is true of the group at issue whether the point of pride is the age of the earth or its flatness. I have watched with amusement as the latter group turned the arguments and accusations of the young-earthers who did not agree with a flat earth against them. The very words that the Young-Eathers used against people who believe the scriptures allow for, or even indicate, that the earth is ancient are used by the flat earth crowd against them! "You don't believe God's word is literally true"; "You either believe the Bible or you don't. Your soul is in danger due to your lack of faith!"

So I think some Young Earthers are sincere on every level about the age of the earth, others are not really interested in the age of the earth as much as they are interested in having some point of pride by which they can consider themselves "more spiritual" or "more faithful" than most of the rest of Christendom. In order to separate them out from those who are sincere on every level about the age of the earth, I will call this group the "P-Young-Earthers". The "P" stands for "pride" since this belief forms the basis of their view that only those who see the scriptures as they do on this subject are true believers of God and His word. Others lack the "faith to believe what God says" as if honest disagreements about scripture are not possible on this subject.

While many P-Young-Earthers will debate evidence from the natural universe on the question of the age of the earth, it has been my experience that as a rule they are less willing to debate the scriptural evidence which speaks to the question. I have killed a number of threads by writing on an alternative view of what a certain passage is saying.

If the meaning of God's Word was really the point you would think that they would jump all over a chance to make it about the scriptures. But for these people its not really about the scriptures. It's about "virtue-signalling" in exactly the same sense that the PC-left crowd does it. They are not trying to find the truth, or solve a problem. They are trying to demonstrate that they are one of the "good people" by calling out, often in the most uncharitable terms, the "bad people" who refuse to say the right things. Their interest is in showing they are the "good people".  As a group, they really don't have a lot of interest in the nitty-gritty of the text of the Bible. They will go to a lot of work to try and prove that the best view of scripture is one that requires little work- little work in delving into the actual text and context of the Word!

I think that most of the church in America is badly misreading early Genesis. Like Martin Luther posted his 95 theses which advanced propositions where he thought that the church had it wrong, I have posted twenty-five theses about Early Genesis (and other passages) where I think the church is getting it wrong. I go into great detail addressing these ideas and exploring in length the scriptures related to these issues in the book "Early Genesis, The Revealed Cosmology." If you have access to an Amazon Prime account, the E-book version can be downloaded for no charge. And yes, the book takes some effort to sort through. If we want to think of ourselves as more noble in a way that is approved in scripture, let's be like the "more noble" ones in Acts 17:11, who "examined the scriptures daily to see if these things were so."

                             

My Twenty-Five Theses On Early Genesis

The church recently celebrated (or perhaps mourned on the Catholic side, though I should think anyone who does not relish paying for indulgences should at least be happy for the pressure to reform brought about by his effort) the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his ninety-five thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. This act by a relative nobody kicked off the Reformation.

My disagreements with most churches over how to view early Genesis is not nearly so big a deal, nor so serious, as all of that. I am not counting myself as another Martin Luther, though I can be inspired by what he did that day to do something on a much smaller area. So here it is: I think that the church is getting Early Genesis very wrong. These errors are inducing some people, especially young people, to question their faith. Others never even consider that the Bible could be true because of what I view as the errors of the church in what they are teaching about early Genesis. But my most fundamental objection is that what they are teaching about the text is not what God wants them to teach about it. They are putting words in His mouth that He did not say. 

When they are not ignoring early Genesis, they are taking a very Jewish view of the it. This cannot be correct because the key to understanding the accounts is to view them through the lens of Christ. In the Middle Ages the church defended the view of the solar system advanced by Pagan Greek Philosophers. They also took a skewed view of certain scriptures to support this incorrect idea. This misplaced confidence caused the church much trouble. I see the something similar going on today with Early Genesis.

The 95 theses of Martin Luther did not try to prove all of his points in the text of the document. It was more like a series of propositions that he advanced for debate. I will take a similar view here, though the supporting scriptural evidence for all of my theses is laid out in the book "Early Genesis, the Revealed Cosmology". Some of you may think that you know of scriptures which disprove some of these theses below. I once thought so too. The book addresses them in detail. I have linked to excerpts from the book on five of the twenty-five theses so that you may evaluate whether what I say is so. With that said, here are my twenty-five theses on Early Genesis....

1. Scripture does not teach that Adam was the progenitor of the entire human race, rather his role is to serve as a shadow of Christ, and through his wife Eve begin the Messianic line. (video one, video two)

2. Scripture does not teach that creation was in a state of sinless perfection before the fall of Adam. Creation was subjected to futility (the capacity to, for a period of time, disagree with or operate in the absence of God) in the beginning with the hopes that some portion of humanity might, by the grace of God, become fit for eternity with Him in a sinless creation. (LINK) (LINK TWO)

3. Other humans existed with and likely before Adam, and they were not in a state of sinless perfection, but a state of innocence because no law with a penalty for sin had been given. (LINK)

4. Scripture does not teach that inheritance from Adam was the mechanism by which sin passed to the whole human race, but that rather the human race will always spiral deeper into sin unless connected to God. Scripture teaches that sin was always a latent condition in nature and in human hearts but was not animated prior to Adam because there was no law given to man. It is the sin of each and all individual persons rather than inheritance from Adam, which puts men under sin. (LINK)

5.  Early Genesis was neither the work of much later scribes nor written from scratch by Moses, rather Moses edited material from the heirlooms of his people- tablets of accounts from many early patriarchs in scripture. Only very minor notes were later added for clarification by those who preserved the word. What I am proposing is that a modified version of "The Tablet Theory" best explains early Genesis. The material is best understood as the accounts of the patriarchs of the Bible reporting on what they say of the generation before them. (video)

6. Whether or not the modern mind cares to accept it, the first chapter of Genesis is meant to be the account of Creation Itself. It is best understood as the Heavens (including High Heaven or the Supernatural Realm) and the Earth communicating to Adam their account of God's work within them, culminating with Man.

7. The heavens and the earth were created by God before the start of the first "day" an unknown period of time before the first day begins. The first day does not begin until Genesis 1:3. (LINK)

8. Each of the days of Creation is a "work day" for creation, not a solar day. The day begins when a Word from God enters creation, bringing illumination and reversing the trend which would otherwise occur of creation descending into darkness and chaos without His Word to order and sustain it. The days end when "it is so" in the heavenly realm and God pronounces things in the natural universe "good" (which means 'suitable' not perfect).

9. Time itself passes differently in High Heaven as compared to the natural universe. Events which seemed to have already occurred there have not yet manifested in this realm. The realm above responds to God's Word quickly, perfectly, and completely. Down here, its a process. The "days" of Genesis chapter one are not 24-hour days, in particular not on this earth because events rapidly accomplished in heaven took a long time to work themselves out here. (video)

10. The most "literal" reading of the days of Genesis chapter one would not even be 24 hour days, but twelve hour nights! That most literally describes the time between "evening and morning". What we think of as their "literal" meaning is not their truest or most literal meaning at all, because the spiritual world is more real and literal than our own world. The process I described in thesis #8 therefore applies and is more "literal" in the truest sense than a "24 hour solar day". (LINK)

11. The text of Genesis chapter one is describing each day of creation on two levels. The text is both describing  what is happening in the world we see and the world we do not see. In the realm above when God speaks a command it becomes reality quickly, and perfectly ('it was so'). In this realm, it is a process and God sometimes has to perform some additional act to make the land below on a suitable ('it was good') track to mirror what "is so" already in the realm above. (video)

12. Genesis 1:27 is not solely about the creation of Adam and Eve. The text should read "God created the Man in His own image" and this portion is referring to the uncreated Logos fusing with created humanity in the timeless heavenly realm. It is not a coincidence that Yahweh Elohim does not appear until after Genesis 1:27 for this reflects that God the Son has become incarnated, though not in corruptible flesh but as Christ is now. Therefore the incarnation was not God's back-up plan which He resorted to when things failed to go as He anticipated, rather it was His plan from "the beginning"and it was initiated in Heaven in the beginning as recorded in Genesis chapter one. (Video)

13. Scripture teaches that God the Father is not visible to men - only God can see God the Father. Therefore all of the recorded instances in scripture where "Yahweh" or "Yahweh Elohim" is seen by men were in fact God the Son coming down from heaven. The term "Theophany" or "Christophany" which refers to an appearance by God in human form prior to the Advent are all this same Person, the Heavenly Man, created in Genesis 1:27 (though the Logos was not created). God did not hop in and out of human form numerous time in the Old Testament for these appearances, but rather it happened once "in the beginning" and The Man in heaven, the Image of the Father, made these appearances. (same video as in #12)

14. The seventh day of creation spoken of in Genesis chapter one was not the seventh solar day in the life of Adam. The scriptures teach that the true Sabbath day did not even begin until after the crucifixion. The Sabbath day was blessed because in it God redeemed His creation which He had made, and this is the rest referred to. (LINK)

15. Genesis chapter two (after verse six) is not a retelling of the same account as chapter one. Rather it is a different but related account. One might be considered like "The Rise of the Roman Empire" and the other "The Life of Julius Caesar."  For example, a much more limited set of animals is created in chapter two than in chapter one. These animals are meant to be "helpers" to Adam on his mission and are thus different from wilder versions of similar creatures created in chapter one.

16. Adam and Eve were not created as immortals. The plan for those who walk with God was not physical immortality in our present bodies on this earth but rather translation into the next realm prior to death. This life is preparation for the real one, in the land above, though ultimately the two realms can be merged. Physical death existed before the fall of Adam. (Link)

17. Scripture assumes that the reader understands that there were other human beings around besides Adam and his family. The account of Cain's exile as well as other scriptures indicate that other families of humans were walking the earth, not just the family of Adam. In addition, the fairest view of the evidence is that Adam came along later, after mankind had gone astray from God's purposes for them. Adam was created to bring an already-errant mankind back toward God.

18. The "sons of God" referred to in Genesis chapter six are not angles or some other form of non-human Divine Being, or even the offspring of Cain, but rather the households of the other sons of God besides the house of Adam. Adam's offspring called themselves by the name of Yahweh, indicating they had a special and personal relationship with God in a way the other houses of men did not. Even still, those other houses of men were also "sons of God". (video)

19. The genealogies in early Genesis do not contain "gaps" as some would have it, but it is likely that the dates proposed by Bishop Usher are miscalculations.  I believe that the long-lived (because they spent time in the presence of Yahweh not because human lifespans were longer in general) patriarchs were used like calendars. Unless the text makes it clear that the next generation is a direct son, then the proper counting of the years is from birth of the patriarch to his death, at which point one of his near descendants became the reference patriarch. This method of counting would put the creation of Adam at the key period (for the rise of civilization) of around 13,100-13,600 years ago. (LINK)

20. The flood was not global in extent, but would have been global in consequences if not for God's plan to save Noah and those with him on the ark. That is, the line leading to Messiah would have been cut off and the whole world would have gone to ruin. (video)

21. Though the Divine Name and the term "Elohim" can be used more or less interchangeably to refer to either God the Father or God the Son later in scripture, in early Genesis Yahweh refers to God the Son and Elohim refers to God the Father. In the Garden they are in unity of will but it is God the son acting. Very much like during the incarnation, though they share one nature after the fall of Adam they have separate wills, which the Son must align with the Father through a process. Early Genesis is very Trinitarian. Thus in the account of the flood it is important to note whether the Father or the Son is doing the speaking to truly sort through what is happening. (Link)

22. The Ark did not contain every type of animal God created in Genesis chapter one, rather a close reading shows that it contained only animals from the more limited set of creatures Yahweh-Elohim made for Adam in Genesis chapter two. There were no Pandas or Kangaroos or even Tigers or giraffes on the ark. These were stock from the "help" animals God created especially for Adam, which were not spread over the earth but concentrated among the sons of Adam. If the house of Adam was obliterated, these special domesticates would be endangered as well. (video)

23. The place in the flood account which records that all the high hills were covered is not God the Father speaking, nor God the Son speaking, but is rather the record of Shem, Ham, and Japheth reporting what they saw. Thus the Holy Spirit is not testifying that all the mountains of the earth were covered, but rather that Shem, Ham, and Japheth reported them as covered. (video from thesis 21)

24. God was setting up His covenant using what happened to Noah. This is why God chose to bring a flood to wash away the wickedness of His chosen people the Adamites, preserving only the faithful. The answer to "why didn't God just have Noah and the animals migrate if it was not a global flood?" is that God was painting a picture of baptism. Baptism is not where the outside world is destroyed but it is where the unbelief in a believer is destroyed. A believer preserves that which is faithful in him through water in obedience to God. God could have called for migration, or a plague, or brought fire from heaven. He did all those things to cleanse wickedness from His people in the Old Testament, but none of those methods were a shadow of baptism.

25. The table of nations in Genesis chapter ten says that the nations were divided by the descendants of Noah, not that they were the direct ancestors of every member of those nations. The great bulk of humanity survived the flood, and indeed most did not even personally experience the flood because it was about judging God's special people, the line destined to bring Messiah. Indeed a close look at the text of the account of Babel (which occurred before and set up the dividing into nations in chapter ten), make it pretty clear that when the clan of Noah came down from the hills sometime after the flood they found other people in Shinar (Mesopotamia). They were the natural nobility of the indigenous people. Abraham, Issac, and Esau gathered huge personal households around them consisting mostly of non-family members.  So did Noah's more immediate descendants. These households became the core of new nations. (video)

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Every one of the theses above and more is discussed in detail in this book. If you have access to an Kindle Unlimited account then it can be downloaded in Ebook form for no charge, though I think the paper version is a better reading experience. And remember, you can be wrong about Early Genesis but right about Christ. Every Christian is a person who has admitted "I was wrong", that's essential to repentance. So there is nothing unchristian about changing your views on what the Scripture says, so long as Christ is still the point, and so long as He is still God made flesh.

Walk Like a Mesopotamian Egyptian

See here where it says ancient Egyptians were from the Middle East. This is consistent with the Table of Nations in Genesis chapter ten where the near descendant of Noah, Mizraim, is associated with Egypt. It is contradictory to what they expected to find- that ancient Egyptians were more sub-Saharan African. This is yet another data point which aligns with the view of Genesis laid out in "Early Genesis: the Revealed Cosmology."

This Christ-centered view of the text does not see Adam as the progenitor of all of humanity but rather his role was as a shadow of Christ. The role of the Adamic line was not to people the earth but to produce the Messiah who would redeem the people of the earth. The flood of Noah then was not global in extent (though it seemed like it to Shem, Ham, and Japeth who first recorded the account) but it would have been global in effect if the line leading to Messiah had perished.  It would have left the world to go to ruin.

The nations described in Genesis ten are not completely peopled by the descendants of Noah, but they are divided by them. That is to say they were a natural nobility that acquired large personal households (much like the later Patriarchs) which became the cores of these nations.

While the "Young Earth" traditional Jewish view of the text is getting harder to defend by the day the Christ-centered view of the text is being confirmed day after day. Click below for the book....

Anthropologists Discuss Findings Consistent With Early Genesis Book's Claims

Click on picture for a larger view

The discussion on this blogpost on the Eurogenes blog lays out more detail about the picture above. The above graphic was adopted from the one on the thread by one of the anthropology guys in the comments. The story behind the graphic is an interesting one for those of us who are fascinated by the events described in early Genesis.

Basically the blog moderator was describing how two "lobes" of Y-DNA (passed down from father to son) were highly successful and spread out over large areas starting just before or near the beginning of the Early Bronze Age. The northern lobe was the Y-haplogroup R1a. It spread into the regions in the red circle and the red arrows. It is associated with people who kept herds and were mobile. It completely dominated the area within the red circle and was a major component of the population in places shown by the red arrows.

According to most scientists today, this represents the last of the three major population groups which make up modern Europeans. The first group was the original inhabitants of Europe after the ice age, which were often Y-haplogroup I. Around eight or nine thousand years ago, the second group came from Anatolia (central Turkey) and introduced farming to Europe. They were Y-haplogroup G. Then came the Y-haplogroup R folks from eastern Europe and the Russian Steppe.

The other Y-haplogroup (black oval above) was not as dominant as R1a was over its territory, but it also expanded rapidly over a large area. This was Y-haplogroup J. The expansion area rich in this Y-haplogroup is shown above in black. These groups are known as agriculturalists, and civilization and monument builders. They were an advanced group.

The red area is an area of language dominance by Indo-European languages. The black area wound up not having a dominant language group even though there was genetic expansion. Part of the thread I linked to above had some anthropology guys wondering why genetic dominance was not matched by language dominance like in the red area.

The reason I mention all this is because it fits in so very well with what I see early Genesis is saying. This is very much the anthropological view laid out in "Early Genesis The Revealed Cosmology". Under this view of the text, Adam was not the progenitor of the entire human race. He was a type of Christ, not a type of God the Father. The reason why the text of early Genesis reads like there were other people around is because there were other people around.

The red northern lobe and the earlier expansion of the G-rich farmers from Anatolia into Europe was prompted by the "daughters of Adam" being taken as brides by chieftains of the surrounding tribes. They brought with them secrets of agriculture, domesticated livestock, and other aspects of civilization. Thus they spread rapidly. Some time later the Sons of Adam were destroyed by the flood of Noah's day. Despite how the text reads in most English translations, this was a regional flood aimed at purifying the line destined to produce the Redeemer, not a global flood which destroyed the entire human race. I know that is hard to see looking at the English translations, but the book goes into great detail showing what the original text is actually getting at.

When the descendants of Noah come out of the mountains, they find a Mesopotamia that is already somewhat civilized. They take it to greater heights until the dispersion described in Genesis chapters ten and eleven. The black oval on the picture above is actually saying the same thing that Genesis chapter ten is saying- its the table of nations graphically. It is the descendants of Noah becoming the dividers of the peoples into the nations of the near east. The early bible patriarchs were great men who picked up households of servants numbering in the hundreds. These would be the core of new nations as they spread. The spread of Y-haplogroup J at this time (Early Bronze Age) is what is described in Genesis chapter ten. The lack of "language dominance" from this group which puzzled the archaeologists on the above thread is touched on in the account of the tower of Babel. That account is also about a dominant ethnic group losing language dominance.

Length of Days in the Creation Week

                                               

     

Getting Started

This blog is dedicated to exploring themes connected to the book "Early Genesis: The Revealed Cosmology". I may write books that sell more copies, but I don't think I will ever write a more important book than this one.