Adam & Eve

[Laudate_Dominum]

Just looking for book recommendations, preferably post-19th-century theology. I have a lot of cognitive dissonance with respect to monogenism due to the modern evolutionary synthesis, population genetics, and related fields. I am not aware of many books that deeply explore the topic.

Thanks!

[Jaime]

I have absolutely nothing to add to this thread except that I love it when you use big words

[dells_of_bittersweet]

There was a great episode of NOVA on PBS where they did DNA analysis of the human race which showed that we all originated from a small group in Africa. I think that would lend credibility to monogenism.

[MithLuin]

Yes. Current evolutionary research does *not* support the idea that humans arose independently in multiple places.

It is, however, difficult to relate some of that research to the story of Adam and Eve. Because, naturally, all humans had ancestors. So, what is the break-off point where what came before is an ape-like animal, and what came after is human?

From a Christian perspective, the question would be...when did humans aquire a soul? And so the Adam and Eve story, of God breathing life into his new creation, rather supports that interpretation of what it means to be made in the image of God.

But of course evolution isn't concerned with souls, but rather with the development of the brain, walking upright, acquiring language, etc. Of becoming genetically distinct enough to be called a seperate species. Towards that end, the merging of the two chromosomes to give humans the distinctive 23 pairs while other apes have 24 would be a definitive break - no interbreeding could occur after that point. But that doesn't mean that we were 'human' when that happened.

It's also true that in tracing the ancestry of modern humans, scientists will use terms like 'mitochondrial Eve' or 'Y-chromosome Adam' to show where everyone would be traced back to. But such research has not been nearly comprehensive enough to be overly meaningful, and does not identify the last common ancestors of the human race. Merging history with these traces will take a lot more work and an increased understanding of migration patterns.

According to the Biblical account, we're all descended from Adam...but we're also all descended from Noah, as well. Finding the moment of creation in the historic record (when humans became...human) is not necessarily as straightforward as identifying common ancestry.

I don't have any resources to suggest, sorry.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='dells_of_bittersweet' timestamp='1314846236' post='2298451']
There was a great episode of NOVA on PBS where they did DNA analysis of the human race which showed that we all originated from a small group in Africa. I think that would lend credibility to monogenism.
[/quote]
I don't see how a bottleneck resulting in thousands of individuals lends credibility to the idea of a single breeding pair.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1314903624' post='2298740']
Yes. Current evolutionary research does *not* support the idea that humans arose independently in multiple places.

It is, however, difficult to relate some of that research to the story of Adam and Eve. Because, naturally, all humans had ancestors. So, what is the break-off point where what came before is an ape-like animal, and what came after is human?

From a Christian perspective, the question would be...when did humans aquire a soul? And so the Adam and Eve story, of God breathing life into his new creation, rather supports that interpretation of what it means to be made in the image of God.

But of course evolution isn't concerned with souls, but rather with the development of the brain, walking upright, acquiring language, etc. Of becoming genetically distinct enough to be called a seperate species. Towards that end, the merging of the two chromosomes to give humans the distinctive 23 pairs while other apes have 24 would be a definitive break - no interbreeding could occur after that point. But that doesn't mean that we were 'human' when that happened.

It's also true that in tracing the ancestry of modern humans, scientists will use terms like 'mitochondrial Eve' or 'Y-chromosome Adam' to show where everyone would be traced back to. But such research has not been nearly comprehensive enough to be overly meaningful, and does not identify the last common ancestors of the human race. Merging history with these traces will take a lot more work and an increased understanding of migration patterns.

According to the Biblical account, we're all descended from Adam...but we're also all descended from Noah, as well. Finding the moment of creation in the historic record (when humans became...human) is not necessarily as straightforward as identifying common ancestry.

I don't have any resources to suggest, sorry.
[/quote]
My understanding of the science is such that strict monogenism is simply an untenable position.

Here's a little summary of some of the issues: [url="http://biologos.org/blog/does-genetics-point-to-a-single-primal-couple/"]Does Genetics Point to a Single Primal Couple?[/url]

I'm actually not interested in debating science on phatmass; my interest here is purely on the theological side. I've read contradictory things about the interpretation and doctrinal status of the teachings pertaining the Adam & Eve and the like. The apparent lack of literature on the subject is disheartening atm.

[Laudate_Dominum]

This kind of stuff (which I posted elsewhere) is in keeping with the intended topic.

[url="http://jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2006/10/monogenism_scie.html"]Jimmy Akin: Monogenism & Science[/url]
[url="http://jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2006/10/monogenism_scie.html"]Jimmy Akin: Adam, Eve, & Inbreeding[/url]

[indent]"Pius XII did not say that monogenism is a dogma of the faith ("de fide"). What he said was that Catholics did not have the liberty to discuss the idea that polygenism is true because it is "in no way apparent" how it could be reconciled with the sources of faith (HG 37). I also pointed out that the Holy See has gone silent on this aspect of Pius XII's teaching on evolution, while maintaining the other elements of it, which may indicate that it is being rethought."[/indent]



[url="http://www.catholicreview.org/subpages/selectedstory.aspx?action=10522"]The Catholic Review: Catholic Church has evolving answer on reality of Adam and Eve[/url]

[indent]“The 1993 instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on ‘The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church’ calls the historical-critical method ‘essential’ and rejects explicitly a fundamentalist reading of Scripture.”

When such an approach is applied to the Bible, he said, “Catholic scholars, along with mainstream Protestant scholars, see in the primal stories of Genesis not literal history but symbolic, metaphoric stories which express basic truths about the human condition and humans. The unity of the human race (and all of creation for that matter) derives theologically from the fact that all things and people are created in Christ and for Christ. Christology is at the center, not biology.”

He added that “the question of biological origins is a scientific one; and, if science shows that there is no evidence of monogenism and there is lots of evidence for polygenism, then a Catholic need have no problem accepting that.” [/indent]



[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/Theology/SINEVOL.HTM"]The Credo of Paul VI: Theology of Original Sin and the Scientific Theory of Evolution[/url]
[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP961022.HTM"]Pope John Paul II: Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution[/url]


[url="http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Human-Species-Dennis-Bonnette/dp/1932589007/"]Dennis Bonnette, [i]Origin of the Human Species[/i][/url]
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Catholic-Understanding-Ressourcement-Retrieval/dp/0802841066/"]Joseph Ratzinger, [i]In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall[/i][/url]
[url="http://www.amazon.com/Creation-Evolution-Conference-Benedict-Gandolfo/dp/1586172344/"]Pope Benedict, et al., [i]Creation and Evolution: A Conference with Pope Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo[/i][/url]

[Mr.Cat]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1314903624' post='2298740']It's also true that in tracing the ancestry of modern humans, scientists will use terms like 'mitochondrial Eve' or 'Y-chromosome Adam' to show where everyone would be traced back to. But such research has not been nearly comprehensive enough to be overly meaningful, and does not identify the last common ancestors of the human race. Merging history with these traces will take a lot more work and an increased understanding of migration patterns.[/quote]To avoid confusion, the mitochondrial eve hypothesis does not support or elude to the story of genesis character named "Eve". A wiki article discusses some of the common misconceptions of this hypothesis:[quote][b][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve#Common_fallacies"]Common fallacies[/url][/b]

[b]Not the only woman[/b]
One of the misconceptions of mitochondrial Eve is that since all women alive today descended in a [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilineal"]direct unbroken female line[/url] from her that she was the only woman alive at the time. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_DNA"]Nuclear DNA[/url] studies indicate that the size of the ancient human population never dropped below tens of thousands. There may be many other women around at Eve's time with descendants alive today, but sometime in the past, those lines of descent included at least one male, who do not pass on their mother's mitochondrial DNA, thereby breaking the line of descent. By contrast, Eve's lines of descent to each person alive today includes precisely one purely [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilineal"]matrilineal[/url] line.

[b]Not a contemporary of "Adam"[/b]

Sometimes mitochondrial Eve is assumed to have lived at the same time as [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam"]Y-chromosomal Adam[/url], perhaps even meeting and mating with him. Like mitochondrial "Eve", Y-chromosomal "Adam" probably lived in Africa; however, this "Eve" lived much earlier than this "Adam" – perhaps some 50,000 to 80,000 years earlier.

[b]Not the most recent ancestor shared by all humans[/b]
Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common [i][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilineality"]matrilineal[/url][/i] ancestor, not the [i]most recent common ancestor[/i] ([url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor"]MRCA[/url]). Since the mtDNA is inherited maternally and recombination is either rare or absent, it is relatively easy to track the ancestry of the lineages back to a MRCA; however this MRCA is valid only when discussing mitochondrial DNA. An approximate sequence from newest to oldest can list various important points in the ancestry of modern human populations:[list]
[*][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor"]The Human MRCA[/url]. All humans alive today share a surprisingly recent common ancestor, perhaps even within the last 5,000 years, even for people born on different continents.
[*]The [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point"]Identical ancestors point[/url]. Just a few thousand years before the most recent single ancestor shared by all living humans was the time at which all humans who were then alive either left no descendants alive today or were common ancestors to all humans alive today. In other words, "each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors" alive at the "Identical ancestors point" in time. This is far more recent than Mitochondrial Eve.
[*]"[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-Chromosomal_Adam"]Y-Chromosomal Adam[/url]", the most recent male-line common ancestor of all living men, was much more recent than Mitochondrial Eve, but is also likely to have been long before the Identical ancestors point.
[*]Mitochondrial Eve, the most recent female-line common ancestor of all living people.[/quote]
[/list]

Edited September 2, 2011 by Mr.Cat

[Laudate_Dominum]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I just want to recommend (yet again) Nicholas Wade's book, [i][url="http://www.amazon.com/Before-Dawn-Recovering-History-Ancestors/dp/1594200793"]Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors[/url],[/i] as an excellent layman's read on the science of human origins and our prehistory. It is particularly strong in its presentation of the genetic evidence compared to other books of its kind.

[MithLuin]

Have you read Pope John Paul II's 'Theology of the Body'? It deals with the book of Genesis, and may be helpful for you.

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB1.HTM"]Introduction[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB2.HTM"]Biblical Account of Creation[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB4.HTM"]Original Innocence[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB6.HTM"]Personal Awareness[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB7.HTM"]Definition of Man[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB8.HTM"]Original Unity[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB9.HTM"]Communion of Persons[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB10.HTM"]Marriage in Genesis[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB11.HTM"]Original Human Experiences[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB12.HTM"]Shame[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB13.HTM"]Creation as Gift[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB14.HTM"]Person as Gift[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB15.HTM"]Original Innocence[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB16.HTM"]Man and Woman: Mutual Gift[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB17.HTM"]Man's Historical State[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB18.HTM"]Man as Subject[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB19.HTM"]Knowledge and Procreation[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB20.HTM"]Motherhood[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB21.HTM"]Death[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TB22.HTM"]Marriage[/url]

Etc. These aren't the best translations, but they are available and free online.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1315426206' post='2301724']
Have you read Pope John Paul II's 'Theology of the Body'? It deals with the book of Genesis, and may be helpful for you.
[/quote]
That's a good idea. Thanks. I read it around 2004 but I have a different perspective now and I hear the translation has been much improved. Peace.

[sixpence]

my lame-o thoughts on the topic:
*ahem*..
so the big thing that people get hung up on is "original sin" and that in order for that concept to work we all have to be descended from those first two humans with souls and original sin...adam/eve ..whatever... science says humans descended from a Population (our genetics show no bottleneck of a single pair). This seems not to fit together at all, but supposed the genetic makeup for potential humans went along evolving just like those crazy scientists say and one day God decides ... its time to put a soul and freewill and all that jazz into two of these babies... and all the decedents of that pair. There are still soul-less humanoid ape-like people roaming about within the same gene flow as the humans.. and today we would even say they were the same species since the two kinds can produce viable offspring...but there is something super special about the one type and its decedents!

apologies if that made no sense

[MithLuin]

No, that makes plenty of sense. If anything, the 'mark of Cain' being necessary to protect him from 'other people'...means that even the Bible strongly implies that there was a human population [i]outside[/i] the garden:

Then the L[size="1"]ORD[/size] said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?"
And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"
He said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth."
Cain said to the L[size="1"]ORD[/size], "My punishment is too great to bear! Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and [b]whoever finds me will kill me[/b]."
So the L[size="1"]ORD[/size] said to him, "Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold." And the L[size="1"]ORD[/size] appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him.
Then Cain went out from the presence of the L[size="1"]ORD[/size], and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son.

Genesis 4:9-17

In fact, the language of Genesis 4 strongly implies different groups of people who provide for themselves in different ways - farmers, herdsmen, metalworkers, etc. It's still dealing with origins, but the origins of groups of peoples, suggesting that we've very quickly moved on from the first couple.


The main issue with what you've proposed, [b]sixpence[/b], is that humans with souls are clearly intermarrying with humanoid creatures without souls. If you were...human...you'd certainly recognize the creatures as non-human, and there would be a huge taboo about interbreeding (I would think). The Genesis story requires some sort of taboo, or a less-than-unique experience for Adam and Eve. If they are the first couple (and there are no other humans), then it would seem that incest or interbreeding with nonhuman animals are the only options for their children. If there are other humans with souls around, then that is avoided, but their experience is not unique.


Making a mythological story literally work is probably not the way to read it, though. What is important about the story is what truths it teaches us about the experience of the first humans. What is original innocence? What is the fall? What did Adam see in Eve to identify her as just like him? And...the idea that [i]all[/i] humans alive today are descendants of Adam and Eve, and thus part of the same human family. We can't point to a group and say they aren't human like we are (though of course, as fallen human beings, we often do.....)

[Aloysius]

I think to avoid polygenism, we must recognize Adam and Eve as the only true ancestors of man, but allow for the possibility of sibling species along the way who were not true men (for true men are only descendents of Adam and Eve) and thus only participated in the fall in the way that all creation participated in the fall--that is, they were fallen because we were fallen, just as animals and plants are fallen because we are fallen.

As an example I'd like to point out Neanderthals--I think there can be little question that they had immortal souls. Indeed, they were kinder people than our ancestors that were contemporaneous with them, as they cared for their sick and even saved flower petals to leave on graves even during the winter (suggesting an afterlife belief). Perhaps they were kinder because they were not direct descendents of the Fall of Man, though they were indeed inheritors of its effects as was all creation.

If we apply this logic, I think we can view, at a certain point, a subset of humanity that was indeed true men, and around them perhaps numbering in the thousands or so from a local population, there were others on a similar, indeed nearly identical, evolutionary stage physically as them--and they were indeed ensouled and able to interbreed with Adam and Eve's descendents, but their story is quite different from the story of man. Adam and Eve were a sort of biological Israel, the chosen ones among a group of ensouled creatures, from whom we have descended.

I think I'm sounding dangerously close to the polygenism condemned by Pius XII, but I think what saves me is that I adamently insist that the other ensouled creatures are not "true men"--they are not part of salvation history, they had their own relationship with their creator and were dealt with in a wholly different way than the race of men--indeed, perhaps they themselves were not even destined for the beatific vision, perhaps they were destined for a type of afterlife that was a wholly different kind of paradise. Who knows what wonders God had in store for them, but they are likely different wonders--because the race of man is unique in all creation, the only race in which God Himself incarnated to redeem the whole world. It was the sin of mankind that brought death into the world (in principle, of course it wasn't a temporal cause-effect relationship wherein nothing died until Adam and Eve existed, or else you'd have immortal dinosaurs) and it was the redemption of mankind that brings the possibility of eternal life to all life in the world. If along the way we had sibling species like Neanderthals, and perhaps like the ensouled hominid creatures who surrounded Adam and Eve, then their place in the eschatalogical world is unknown to us (but it's fun to speculate) for they are not true men and their relation to original sin is like the relation of plants and animals to original sin, it is only for the race of man to bear it as we do, all other life is affected by it but does not bear it.

and thinking of this, it's hard not to turn ones thoughts to extraterrestrials --for the ponderings I make about ensouled sibling species on earth would also apply to ensouled extraterrestrial species.

[Aloysius]

I am not ascribing a specific time period or hominid species to my theory of contemporaneous sibling species, as I remain undecided as to when hominids were ensouled.

I have had it in my mind to do a fictional work some time exploring a character that is an ensouled hominid not of the race of men who lives at the same time as Adam lived. perhaps I could do another one of a Neanderthal.