Genesis and Evolution - Tom Larkin

I have just written this short book that I feel align scripture and evolution, and I would like to get comments from this team. I am more interested in getting the information out and improving it with comments than I am interested in selling books (although it is available on Amazon). If you request a copy I will e-mail the manuscript (it is a short book) Edited by Tom Larkin, : No reason given.Edited by Tom Larkin, : No reason given.

Are you just playing the game where you:

• assume that the Bible must be saying something that is correct
• refuse to go against current scientific understandings
• spin and twist either or both what the Bible says and what science says, so that you can:
• smoosh together superfluous meaning from the two and claim that they align

Is that what your book is about?

No, no smooshing. I am just presenting a simple Biblical argument that states the events that occur in Genesis 1 happen before the events of Chapter 2. Men and women were created in Chapter 1 and Adam and Eve were created in chapter 2. If you accept this simple biblical logic, this coincides with recent findings that all men alive are genetically descended from a single man, and all women are descended from a single women. Other men and women were existing at the time of this common descendant (Y chrome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve), which is what the Bible says.Men and women, I believe through natural mens lived prior to Adam and Eve. This eliminate the conflict between evolution and Genesis.

Well, one does come before two... but are you saying that there were two creation events, then?Do you know that according to history Chapter 2 was written before Chapter 1? They're different accounts of the same event that cover different aspects and details of a singular creation. It's not one event happening after the other. Wrong. Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve were not contemporaries - that is, they lived at very different time periods. They couldn't be the Adam and Eve of the Bible. Okay, but Adam is literally the "first man". Not really, but there's no need to do that.

As I pointed out in the other thread. Message 307
The existence of a Y-chromosomal "Adam" and a Mitochondrial "Eve" is to be expected. There is no scientific way to connect them to the Bible stories at all. Even if the Bible stories were entirely true we could only use the Flood story to identify Noah as "Adam" - and the evidence is that they are not entirely true, so even that identification cannot be made by science.The only scientific conclusions that could help are the dates. However.
Message 310"Adam" apparently lived long before "Eve" who lived long before the explosion of agriculture in the Neolithic period, which you seem to think happened at the same time as the "Adam" . (While there is much uncertainty in the dates for "Adam" and "Eve" the dating of the Neolithic Revolution is more secure and has never been thought to overlap with either)

The dates associated with the MRCA's is not important, what is important is that a Most Recent Common Ancestor existed while other men and women existed. This is only a coincidental argument and not my primary argument.The dates for the MRCA have changed significantly over the last 5 years and they will continue to do so in the near future.

What we are saying is that if there was no real biblical Adam and Eve there would still be a mitochondrial Even and a Y-chromosome Adam. Any sexually reproducing population will have these two MRCA's. There is a set of these Adams and Eves for chimps, bears, bats, and so on. They are simply a product of pedigree collapse, where maternal and paternal lines tend to end which leaves just one line remaining.

You aren't looking at the MRCAs though. And even if you were their existence would still be of no real importance to your argument. There is nothing that connects them to the Biblical story.

My main argument is Biblical. If you don't accept the Bible and Adam and Eve than you already have no conflict with evolution, then you don't need to read further.My Biblical argument is men and women were created in Chapter 1, Adam, Eve and the garden were created in Chapter 2. The earth and the rest of the universe already existing prior to the events of Chapter 2. The descendants of Adam and Eve were described as the "Sons of God" in Chapter 6 (see Luke 3:38 among many other passages), the descendent of the men and women in Chapter 1 are described as the "daughters of men". It was important that Noah was "perfect in his generation" which said he was a direct descendent of Adam and Eve.Throughout Genesis, in all genealogies, the line not leading to Jesus is always given first, every time. This is a continuation of that pattern.

So where does the science part come in, with respect to Evolution?

It is impossible to prove MRCA to an individual, all that is part of my "coincidental" argument is that MRCA exist when other men and women existed. Ancestry.com only goes back to Methuselah.

Do you have a valid scientific source that links pedigree collapse to MRCA?

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It is impossible to prove MRCA to an individual, all that is part of my "coincidental" argument is that MRCA exist when other men and women existed

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If you wanted to support your point - even simply from the perspective of refuting the usual interpretation of the Adam and Eve story - you would do better to deal with arguments from effective population size. I don't have time to track down the reference right now but human population has never been as low as two individuals - or eight.Arguing that unidentifiable people lived at the same time as others is of no significance. As I have pointed out earlier, if the Flood really killed everyone but the eight in the Ark, Noah would be the Y-Chromosomal "Adam". Does it really help your argument to say that Noah lived alongside other men and women ? Edited by PaulK, : Spelling

Okay: Adam literally means the first man.There were no men before Adam.So your argument that there was is wrong. That smells like a cop-out....The Garden of Eden myth is not supposed to be a historical event that literally happened in the real world. It is folk lore. Yes, you've explained that. It is wrong. Adam was the first man.

It is not that hard of a concept to understand. Take my brother-in-law as an example. He has 4 brothers and no sisters. This means that his mother's mitDNA line ended with her. Any father who has no children or only daughters will have his Y-chromosome lineage stop.