ORIGINS Genesis 2-11 Session 10: Humans Part 1

Transcription

1 ORIGINS Genesis 2-11 Session 10: Humans Part 1 James River Community Church David Curfman February May 2013

2 Humans: The Human Body Annual Review of Anthropology (2010) There is little fossil evidence for the divergence of the gorilla, chimpanzee and hominin lineages. Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species (1859), did not address the question of human evolution, saying only that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history". Cell machines: Richard Dawkins Atheist, Evolutionary Biologist, Professor emeritus of New College, Oxford, UK. His website Mission Our mission is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and human suffering

3 Outline 1. Genesis 1-11 (Introduction) 2. Genesis 1:1-31 (Universe Part 1) Big Bang Model 3. Genesis 1:1-31 (Universe Part 2) Old and Young Earth Models 4. Genesis 1: 1-19 (Earth) Days 1 to 4 5. Genesis 1: 1-19 (Earth) Formation and Age 6. Genesis 1:20-24 (Life) Origin of Plants and Animals 7. Genesis 1:13-25 (Evolution Part 1) Fossils and Dinosaurs 8. Genesis 2:4b 10:1b (Evolution Part 2) Fossils and Flood 9. Genesis 6-9 (Creation) Flood 10.Genesis 1-11 (Humans) Creation, Races, and Languages 11. Genesis 5 and 11 (Humans) Genealogy & Summary On-line at

4 Humans: Objectives Understand the Naturalistic theories for the origins of: Humans Races Languages Personality, Morality, Spirituality Understand the Biblical explanation for the origins: Humans Races Languages Personality, Morality, Spirituality

5 Humans: Evolutionary theory 6 Mya In Africa, the chimpanzee lineage and our own (homonid) split. The early hominid lineage gave rise to many other (now extinct) hominids. Fossils (assumed dates) and DNA (assumed similarities) are used to construct the hominid tree 4 Mya The hominid Australopithecus anamensis walked around what is now Kenya on its hind legs. 3 Mya Australopithecus afarensis ( Lucy ) lived in Africa. 2.5 Mya Some hominids made tools by chipping stones to form a cutting edge. There were perhaps four or more species of hominid living in Africa. 2 Mya The first members of the Homo clade, with their relatively large brains, lived in Africa. 1.5 Mya Hand axes were used. Also, hominids had spread out of Africa and into much of Asia and Europe. These hominids included the ancestors of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) in Europe and Homo erectus (Turkana Boy) 100,000 years ago Human brains reached the current range of sizes. Early Homo sapiens lived in Africa. At the same time, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo erectus lived in other parts of the Old World. 50,000 years ago Human cultures produced cave paintings and body adornment, and elaborate burials. Also, some groups of modern humans extended their range beyond Africa. 25,000 years ago Other Homo species had gone extinct, leaving only modern humans, Homo sapiens, spread throughout the Old World.

6 Humans: Evolution* Where are the missing nodes? Where are the extinct chimps? Why aren t some around today? * From UC Berkeley

7 Humans: Evolutionary theory *PBS.org Note that there is no real connection between groups

8 Male adult human brain volume = 1274 cc, ranging from cc Female adult human brain volume = 1130 cc, ranging cc

9 Humans: Evolutionary theory Recent African Origin (RAO) model: 60,000 years ago early humans left Africa and populated the rest of the planet. Ultimately surviving all earlier hominids that had journeyed out of Africa previously (limited by possibly 8 ice ages that cut off vital resources & turned 1/2 the land between tropics into desert) 12,000 years ago the last ice age was drawing to an end (temperatures rose, vegetation returned and animals spread into the former wastelands). Humans developed farming RAO model was speculative until the 1980s (polygenesis was the norm), when it was corroborated by a study of present-day mitochondrial DNA (passed down by the mother), combined with evidence based on physical anthropology of archaic specimens. The Levant (or rising ) in modern day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestine Where 10,000 years ago these once migratory small groups of humans had advanced their agriculture sufficiently to allow them to remain in one location permanently. Around 8000 BC, the world's first known town, Jericho, appeared in the Levant and was surrounded by a stone wall and contained a population of people and a massive stone tower (secular dating).

10 Humans: Evolutionary Theory From Journal Nature (2000) The time of origin of modern humans is not well known but may have been about 200,000 (130, ,000) years ago. The hypothesis is that the place of origin was sub-saharan Africa and that the dispersal from Africa occurred within the past 100,000 years.

11 Humans: Fossils ( one example: Turkana Boy) Nearly complete 1.6 Mya (?) skeleton, found near Lake Turkana, Kenya, in 1984 belonged to an 8 year-old boy. The fossil is more than 5 ft. tall and much more fully developed than a modern 8 year-old. Yet analysis of the teeth and bones indicates the boy was still growing and probably would have reached at least six feet as an adult. Apparently, the bones and teeth survived long enough to be covered by sediments that protected them from the scavengers. Overtime, minerals from the sediments seeped in and replaced their decaying organic materials until they turned to stone and became the fossils About 70 fragments of skull bones in addition to teeth, and 80 fragments of other bones belonging to a single early human skeleton, as well as numerous animal bones, were found and reassembled with glue, much as one would mend broken china.

12 Humans: Turkana Boy The region had active volcanoes whose deposits were dated using K/Ar method. The age of the fossils sandwiched between the rock layers is inferred The skeleton was found in a scatter of broken bird and mammal bones together with some remains of fish and aquatic reptiles. The teeth were clustered in a hollow about 10 feet away from the main concentration of bones. Almost all the bones are broken, but they are not weathered. This context suggests that when the boy died, his corpse either fell or was washed into a marsh, where it floated face down decomposing for a time. It was trampled by large animals and, when only a few bones were still connected by ligaments, the remains were washed into a concentration in the shallows, where they became embedded in mud and remained until they began to erode out 1.5 million years later. Despite his great antiquity, his body, apart from his skull, is surprisingly like our own and shows that early humans had already reached our size 1.5 million years ago. A paleoanthropologist has even quipped that, if suitably dressed, the Turkana Boy could pass unnoticed in a commuter crowd, provided he concealed his low forehead and large brow ridges under a cap University of Western Cape, South Africa. Most human fossils are of single bones or bone/skull fragments

13 Humans: Population challenges Where are all the people? Evolutionist propose that human population was 25,000 people 1.2 million years ago Population bottlenecks Most recent was Toba catastrophe (volcanic eruption in Indonesia 50,000 years ago) when human population decreased to ,000 people. Such events are able to reduce the variation in the gene pool of a population drastically Founder effect The loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. Until the development of agriculture around the 11th millennium BC, it is estimated that the world population stabilized at about one million people, whose subsistence entailed hunting and foraging wikipedia.com.

14 Humans: Population

15 Humans: Population

16 Humans: Races (two views from NOVA) Loring Brace, University of Michigan: There is no biological entity that warrants the term race There is nothing wrong with using geographic labels to designate people (Western European, Eastern African, Southeast Asian, and so forth carry no unintentional baggage). In contrast, terms such as "Negroid," "Caucasoid," and "Mongoloid" create more problems than they solve. Those very terms reflect a mix of narrow regional, specific ethnic, and descriptive physical components with an assumption that such separate dimensions have some kind of common tie. Biologically, such terms are worse than useless George Gill, University of Wyoming: The bony traits of the nose, mouth, femur, and cranium are just as revealing as skin color, hair form, nose form, and lips to the perceptive observer of living humanity. I have been able to prove, in actual legal cases, that I am more accurate at assessing race from skeletal remains than from looking at living people standing before me.

17 Humans: Races George Gill, University of Wyoming (continued): Blood-factor analysis, for instance, shows many traits that cut across racial boundaries in a purely clinal (gradient) fashion with very few if any "breaks" along racial boundaries. Morphological characteristics, however, like skin color, hair form, bone traits, eyes, and lips tend to follow geographic boundaries coinciding often with climatic zones Those who believe that the concept of race is valid do not discredit the notion of clines, however. Yet those with the clinal perspective who believe that races are not real do try to discredit the evidence of skeletal biology Why this bias from the "race denial" faction? This bias seems to stem largely from socio-political motivation and not science at all. For the time being at least, the people in "race denial" are in "reality denial" as well. Their motivation (a positive one) is that they have come to believe that the race concept is socially dangerous. In other words, they have convinced themselves that race promotes racism. Therefore, they have pushed the politically correct agenda that human races are not biologically real, no matter what the evidence

18 Humans: Languages Origin of languages - The most intensively studied, yet still the most recalcitrant, problem of historical linguistics Scientific American (AUG 2012), Recently, many linguists assume a single origin of language (based on single origin of homo sapiens) and therefore a single ancestral language, a Proto- World, whether or not re-constructable from modern data Oxford Handbook of Evolution of Languages (2011) SIL Ethnologue There 143 language families, 83 language isolates, 137 Deaf sign languages, 93 creoles, 17 pidgins, 23 mixed languages, 1 constructed language and 65 unclassified languages (~562 families in 7105 languages 850 in Papau New Guinea alone) Indo-European Languages (50% of the world, e.g. English, Russian and Hindi) can trace their roots back more than 8,000 years to Anatolia (Turkey) based on similarity of words using geography-based computer modeling used by epidemiologists to track the spread of disease Scientific American (Aug 2012)

19 Humans: Personality, Morality, Spirituality Robert Sapolsky, a primatologist, commencement address at Stanford University (2009) : Humans possess Theory of Mind understanding that others have thoughts different than our own. Humans alone have secondary theory of mind allowing appreciation of complex interactions. Humans understand the Golden Rule and engage in treating others as we want to be treated. There are examples in the animal kingdom. But humans understand others may not want the same things we do. Empathy is demonstrated by others in the animal kingdom, but humans have extended capacity to apply empathy. We can extend empathy across species, across time and apply to abstract areas. Humans also have the unique ability to participate in delayed gratification and postponement of reward. Humans even demonstrate goal-directed behavior for abstract after-life rewards.

20 Humans: Biblical Explanation At creation, God created man uniquely: 26 Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock (mammals) and all (every) the wild animals, and over all (every) the creatures that move along the ground (reptiles). 28 God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it ( kabash ). Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every(all) living creature that moves on the ground. Genesis 1:26-28 At creation, God breathes life (spirit) into man: 7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed (Ez. 37:9) into his nostrils (or face ) the breath of life (Job 32:8 and 33:4), and the man became a living being ( nephesh or soul, but same word as Gen 1:20,21 and 24) Genesis 2:7 Is Man just one of the animals? Man was created in Our (God s) image Man has a role to rule over (dominion, tread down, prevail against) all the other created living things Man was directed to fill the earth and subdue it God specially breathed life (or a soul) into Adam God created the female specially from Adam s rib. That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved. Matthew Henry

21 Creation: Purpose of Plants and Animals Before the Fall and Flood, Man and animals were vegetarians for 1500 years: 29 Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground everything that has the breath of life in it I give every green plant for food. (so plants could die). And it was so. Genesis 1:29-30 After the Flood, God allowed man to eat meat: 2 The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. 4 But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. Genesis 9: 2-4 (1000 years later, narrowed to only clean) After the Flood, God holds man and animals accountable for murder of humans: 5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. Genesis 9:5 (Note capital punishment established, blood for blood)

22 Creation: Biblical Explanation Man and woman are unique creations of God: 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good Genesis 1:31 5 This is the written account of Adam s family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God Genesis 5:1 4 Haven t you read, Jesus replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female Matthew 19:4 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands Acts 7:26. Man is the only creation in the image and likeness of God: Personality and individuality Spiritual Moral (original righteousness/perfect and immortality) and thus, in man s case, accountable to the creator God. We are charged to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness Ephesians 4:24.