wikipedia.org
neandertal-man
Reconstruction of the head of the Shanidar 1 fossil, a Neanderthal male.
CMI article caption.
Posted on 07/20/2016 7:57:38 AM PDT by fishtank
Neandertal-Human Hybrids: Old earth apologetics gone real bad
by Fred Butler
Published: 19 July 2016 (GMT+10)
Recently on Twitter, I had a back and forth with a Reasons to Believe apologist. Our exchange began after I tweeted the following comment in response to another apologetic tweet, “Let’s talk about Hugh Ross & his pre-Adamic man theory. You apologetic folks ignore its problems.”
The next day, the Reasons to Believe apologist tweeted to me the following response, “Brother at RTB we do not believe in PreAdamic humans. Adam was the 1st human & specially created.”
Now in fairness, he is absolutely correct. I had mis-tweeted, as it were. Technically, Ross, and RTB apologists, argue that there were soulless hominids that pre-dated the creation of Adam. Those hominids were a lot like modern man, but they lacked the image of God that Adam and all his descendants have. They were animals, much like a higher functioning version of the great apes.
None the less, I responded by asking him the following question, “Are Neanderthals human beings, then?”
A little bit of background is in order to explain my question.
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
wikipedia.org
neandertal-man
Reconstruction of the head of the Shanidar 1 fossil, a Neanderthal male.
CMI article caption.
Here’s my takeaway from the article and from personal experience:
Avoid Hugh Ross and his organization RTB (Reasons to Believe).
more drivelous balderdash
"The box of wine is cold, the water warm, and I promise you won't get pregnant!"
I will worry about that when I have absolutely nothing else to worry about.
My personal theory is that the antediluvians were a lot more advanced than we probably know and the neantherdals and other hominids were probahly human-ape hybrids in an attempt to engineer stronger humans.
The use of interbreeding to define the boundaries of species is convenient but does have its problems.
For example, you can have a breeding “cline” of, say, populations A, B, C, D, E, F, where organisms of adjacent groups can interbreed (A&B, B&C, C&D, etc.) but A & F cannot.
And failure to interbreed is not always genetic. Populations might be able to interbreed successfully in terms of genetics, but are prevented for reasons that are geographical, behavioral, or even anatomical.
I’m not clear how you argue that “God sets a genetic boundary” if, for example, He allows the genetics to work out ok but offers an anatomical impediment to interbreeding.
There are only 200 fossil sets of neanderthal bones and very few of them are complete. Nebraska man was built on one tooth that turned out to be a pig tooth. I am going to wait a while for more evidence.
A better title: “Young Earthers Go Ape Over Hominids”
Someone watching the creation of species at this time, probably wouldn’t have expected a crowning creation to be a variation on what we now call hominids. Surely it would have to be something physically strong like a Tyrannosaurus, or that flew high like an Eagle, or that could dig deep like a Badger. And then when God said “none of the above” and created something like an ape, they would say “God, are You nuts?” But this ape like being would have the capability of wisdom like no other animal.
More garbage from the short-bus people. Good grief, I hope these creationist idiots have someone monitoring their meds.
What is that?
Also, the whole context of Genesis 2 and on is very Mesopotamian (the Tigris and Euphrates, the word "Eden" itself), and Neolithic (farming, herding, Cain building a city). If that's right, and we assume the scientific timetable, then we can't really talk about "man" in the theological sense 40,000 years ago.
Theological "man" was likely created in the Mesopotamian Neolithic, ca. 7000-5000 B.C. Whatever happened before then was not part of man's story as laid out in Genesis.
I wouldn’t rag like that, but I think the divinely bestowed grandeur of the story, that we know in both creation and redemption, is being missed.
“God created variations of animals” isn’t at ALL the same thing as “Animals evolved.” The most staunch old earth theologians (and certainly Dr. Ross) will point out painstakingly that you can’t get meaningful evolution with the earthly resources we know. If you were told to purchase Donald Trump’s empire, it would make no practical difference whether the only money you had was a penny, or whether it was a dime.
It might be that man knew about these creatures. Breeding would not have succeeded between them. They may have died out prior to the Flood (their habitat might have been overrun by man who could vastly out-think them), thereby having no place on the Ark.
That is an interesting theory. I have also held that the antediluvians were much more advanced than modern man (man has been de-evolving since the first man, Adam, and a 900 year healthy lifespan added to their capabilities); and that there must have been some pretty 'bad stuff' going on that caused God to wipe out all but 8 people from the earth. As well as all land animals, besides the ones on the Ark. What it all was, I don't know, but your theory is plausible.
I still think that the Neanderthals, though, were human - just towards the Offensive Lineman scale of human builds.
Ross has, I believe, pointed out a significant genetic difference between the two physical lines. They might have been tempting fornication partners but wouldn’t have resulted in any offspring.
Thanks for the background info.
The bible doesn’t tell us a lot about the details of the antediluvian wickedness. Consorting with Neandertals could have been in the picture. Demon incarnations are commonly believed possible, which could further blur the genetic picture. We might not have been told about the wickedness because it might seem so infernally charming now.
Probably so. God doesn't tell us the details for a reason The meaning of 'Sons of God cavorting with the daughters of men' have been speculated over many times; the level of violence; the meaning of 'giants' (literal or figurative?), are left hazy for a reason.
We are curious lot, and we often speculate, but God tells us what we need to know - Salvation is through Jesus Christ alone.
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