Part VI: The Emergence and Significance of the Universe and of Humanity (, in the Biblical perspective)
The creation account, the age of the universe, emergence of life, the evolution and significance of humanity.
Chapter 22: : Genesis, Tradition, History, and Science
Note: This chapter is intended for those readers who are interested in the issue of the supposed conflict between scientific and traditional readings of Genesis. 7 pages
The Creation and Eden Accounts: An examination of the cultural context of biblical text, its relationship with scientific theory, and the type of meaning we attribute to the creation and Eden accounts in our discussions.
Chapter 23: Quantum Randomness and Teleology: Due to quantum randomness, anything can happen, and therefore the emergence of free-willed moral beings is not guaranteed. This will have implications which turn the Eden account into an extension of the creation account, shedding new light on their relationship to each other. 2.5 pages
Appendix Appendix: Quantum physics and random development(probabilities) 1/2 page
The impossibility of guaranteeing that a moral stage develop from any given big bang. 1/2 page
Chapter 24: Human Significance: Many have derided the role of humans in the cosmos. Are humans truly insignificant? 1 page
Chapter 25: The First Moral Beings on Earth: Humans are late developers in the universe, nevertheless from what we have seen until this chapter, they are quite significant. When did morally aware beings first arise on Earth? Who was Adam, and what does it mean to say that he was the first human? 2.5 pages
Chapter 26: The Evolution of Adam: Modern evolutionary genetics and the creation account show some interesting parallels. 3 pages
Chapter 27: Adam: An individual or a Race: Does the creation account refer to the creation of an individual human or of an entire race? What would be the characteristic feature of this race, and what is the meaning of the Eden account in this context? 6 pages
PROPOSED: Put most of this into an Appendix
Appendix: Adam as Mutation Vs. Adam as Genius 1/2 page
Appendix: Sources indicating that Adam was a mutation and not merely a genius with the same genes as his contemporaries:
Appenidix: Ha'adam: 'Man' the Species vs. 'the man', an Individual 1/2 page
Appendix: Scientific Monogenesis 1.5 pages
Chapter 28: The Age of the Universe: Defining the age of the universe is not a trivial matter. There are difficulties in the concepts involved, and in the practical meanings of the terms. It turns out that the universe has many ages, depending on the context. 4 1/3 pages
Chapter 29: 8 pages: God As Quantum Observer: Quantum metaphysics points a finger at God, and generously accepts God's role as creator, but in its own terms.
Includes sections:
The Universe of the Spiritual Forms and Man's Free Will
Man's Free Will as Catalyst of Creation: Traditional Jewish Sources
Transcendant Realms
chapter 30: The Anthropic Principle and the Maximization of Existence: We turn to the anthropic principle and Maimonides' "Guide to the Perplexed" to find out why should there be so many species, what is man's role among the myriad life forms and the inanimate universe, and a possible reason why God might create a big bang which gave rise to a garden of Eden and so much else rather than just creating a garden of Eden by itself. 4 pages
Chapter 30b: The Evolution of Life from Amoeba to Adam: The emergence of life and its evolution thereafter from the perspectives of science and of the Bible. 2 pages
Chapter 22 : Genesis, Tradition, History, and Science
Note: This chapter is intended for those readers who are interested in the issue of the supposed conflict between scientific and traditional readings of Genesis.
It is quite interesting that only 60 links in the chain of Tradition are required to connect Moses, who lived about 3,500 years ago, with a child studying Bible today. In Traditional communities many a child learns from an adult, teacher or grandparent who is 60 years or so older than they are. Sixty links of sixty years gives 3,600 years!
Those who accept the Bible as a divinely revealed text most often do so not due to claims or proofs in the text itself, but rather as a result of a chain of tradition which claims to reach back to the time the Bible was given. One's grandparents relate how their grandparents related...etc ....back along the links in the chain to the time 3,400 years ago that according to tradition the Bible was revealed to man.
Indeed, the Bible does not make outright claims about itself, as a complete book. It does not open with a statement such as "I, God of the universe, am giving the following book to man" or even "These are the words of God as revealed to Moses..". Instead it opens, without introduction, without revealing the identity of the narrator, or even the source of the information supplied. Simply "In the beginning God created the heavens and earth....".
Much later on the book relates that God told Moses to write various things down and present it to the people of Israel, however we are not told explicitly and unambiguously in the text what it was that Moses was told to include in the text. There is also no mention in the text of an intention by God to give an inviolable text to the Jewish people which would contain a creation account, a history of the patriarchs and so on.
Should there not have been some written record of the seminal event of the giving of the entire text of the torah to the people, accompanied by a discussion of the meaning of the text, reasons for giving it, and so on?
Of course one could reason that since a description of the giving of the text must of necessity be composed after the giving itself, it cannot be included in the given text. However, the text does describe the death of Moses, which must have occurred after the giving of the text, if it was Moses who gave the text to the people.
According to tradition it was indeed Moses who gave this book to the Jewish people, and this part of the text was written either by Moses in prophecy, or by Joshua. Similarly, it would not be impossible for the giving of the text to have been mentioned in the text itself - written either by Moses via prophecy, or by Joshua. Nevertheless these seminal events and all-important information about the text were not included.
How is it that the book does not itself relate to its readers what its intended purpose is, and that the author of he book is God? Perhaps because even were the text to make claims about itself, such as “this book was written by God”, these claims would not be accepted simply on the basis of the textual statement itself. And so, the text must in any case be accompanied by an oral tradition in order to be complete. Therefore there is perhaps no logical necessity in including the claims itself in the text. And so the text makes few claims about itself; most of the claims regarding the text are made by the oral tradition accompanying the text.
Instead, the oral tradition can tell us all about the book - where and when it originated, why it was written, even how it is to be understood. For example, the Bible does not specify if it is meant as poetry, history, science, theology, myth, moral homily or literature - this must be left to the oral tradition accompanying it. In some instances a written text by itself without an accompanying oral tradition about it is an orphan, incomplete.
The Bible has been transmitted from generation to generation, in a tradition thousands of years old. Those who transmitted it included a framework within which it was to be understood. The oral framework to the written text, the oral tradition, include not only insight into the purpose and source of the text but also interpretations of the material in the text. It is the framework provided by the oral tradition which gives legitimacy to the written text, not vice versa. Again, the written text is a part of the oral tradition. As such, the traditional understanding of the Bible as understood within this framework - if it has been correctly transmitted to form the present day - has more authenticity than possessed by a seemingly more objectively accurate literal 'translation' of the written text.
Traditional (“Orthodox”) Jews believe in what the tradition says, and believe in the Bible because the Tradition tells them to. It is very important to understand this, that for traditional Jews Judaism is built on the tradition and not on the the Torah. Therfore the meaning of the Torah as a whole and of particular segments, is determined by Tradition, for example as recorded in the Talmud, rather than by philological analysis o f the Torah text itself. To a traditionalist, it is not relevant whther or not a literal translation of the Bible conflicts with something she holds to be true, since the literal apparent meaning is not canonical (religiously accepted) .
The Bible and Science
The Bible is written in the Hebrew language. The words of the Bible can therefore only be properly understood within the context of the cultural-linguistic context of those Hebrew-speaking people to whom it was first given, and within its own internal context. Any translation is necessarily an interpretation, especially translations composed long after the Bible was originally written.
Even an understanding of the text as written in the original Hebrew is an interpretation because the words may have different meanings now than when it was written. And given a text, even if the language is familiar, to understand it properly one must understand the intent of the writer to determine whether it is to be understood as poetry or as science. Scientific texts are meant as literal and complete accounts of the contents they speak of, however this is not necessarily the case with poetry, or other types of texts. For these and all other texts, one must look into the text itself and to the oral tradition accompanying it to decide how it was meant to be understood.
If the Bible is indeed interpreted as a purely literal and complete surface-meaning description of actual physical events, then clearly the Bible and science conflict. However, since from the Traditional perspective the Bible is meaningless without the context provided by its accompanying oral tradition we will interpret it according to the tradition within which it is embedded, rather than as a science text book, or via a translation into English or even modern Hebrew.
Those who transmitted the Bible through the generations have bequeathed a comprehensive, flexible, and even multifaceted attitude toward the meaning of the Bible. As a result, the Bible as interpreted within the framework of approaches taught by Jewish tradition is very different from its literal 'translation'. In particular, the creation account as understood from within many of these approaches is not in conflict with science.
............................
A poem is recited to a loved one: "your eyes are stars, your face shines as the sun...". Is this poem true?
Clearly the question of the truth or falsity of the statement "your eyes are stars" is misplaced here, and knowing that it is a poem is the key. Only if it is presented as a statement of scientific fact rather than as a poem is it false. A culture which had only science and no poetry might well misunderstand the intent of such a statement, and finding it in a book would conclude that the author was proposing a cosmology in which all stars are actually some type of eye, and that some people had eyes which were of this type. They might then conclude that the author had a primitive notion of the universe and disregard the book - another culture upon seeing the book might adopt this belief themselves. Both would be misunderstanding the author's point.
A poem which states that the sky is composed of the breath of one's beloved obviously does not conflict with science. However, for readers to base their cosmology on a literal understanding of the poem may indeed represent a conflict with scientific teachings regarding the nature of the universe. The poetry book in itself, and the words of the book are not in themselves in conflict with science, however it may certainly be the case that the beliefs held by some due to the words of the book may indeed be in conflict with science.
Similarly, the possibility of contradiction between science and the creation and Eden accounts arises not due to the Bible itself - the very existence of the Bible cannot by itself represent a conflict with science - nor even due to its contents, but rather due to various beliefs about its contents. Specifically, the beliefs regarding the universe which some people have as a result of their interpretation or understanding of the words of the Bible may be in conflict with scientific understandings of the universe.
Furthermore, even those traditional views regarding creation which seem to conflict with science do not necessarily involve all of tradition in their conflict, since not all of the ideas regarding matters cosmological expressed in post-Biblical traditional sources are necessarily authoritative. As Rambam states:
"You must not expect that everything our Sages say regarding astronomical matters should agree with observations for mathematics was not fully developed in those days, and their statements were not based on the authority of the Prophets, but on the knowledge which either they themselves possessed or they derived from contemporary men of science."
Regarding cosmological knowledge and its relation to the traditional secret teachings, Rambam stated:
"Know that many branches of science relating to the correct solution of these problems, were once cultivated by our forefathers, but were in the course of time neglected, especially in consequence of the tyranny which barbarous nations exercised over us. Besides, speculative studies were not open to all men, as we have already stated only the subjects taught in the Scriptures were accessible to all.....no portions of the secret teachings of the Torah [were] written down...[they were] orally transmitted....the natural effect of this practice was that our nation lost the knowledge of those important disciplines. Nothing but a few remarks and allusions are to be found in the Talmud and the Midrashim, like a few kernels involved in such a husk, that the reader is generally occupied with the husk, and forgets that it encloses a kernel."
Regarding the metaphysical cosmological ideas current in his time, and the opinion of some that they were in conflict with religious belief, Rambam states:
"...these theories are not opposed to anything taught by our prophets and our Sages....But when wicked barbarians have deprived us of our possessions, put an end to our science and literature, and killed our wise men, we have become ignorant...Having been brought up among persons untrained in philosophy, we are inclined to consider these philosophical opinions as foreign to our religion, just as uneducated persons find them foreign to their own notions. But in fact it is not so."
The Bible without the accompanying oral tradition is just a book rather than a set of beliefs, and therefore there can be no conflict between the Bible itself and science. The Bible plus the traditional belief that the Bible originated with God, word for word, does not in itself give rise to a conflict between the Bible and science. Although it may be that some have beliefs about the content of the Bible, about the words which tradition ascribes to God, which lead these words to conflict with science, Traditional Jewish understandings of the creation accounts are generally not in conflict with scientific teachings.
In the words of Prof. Walter Kaufmann of Princeton University
"The contemporary Jew faces no grim problems in connection with specific scientific statements. He need not choose between dogma and Darwin. Whatever dogmas various Jewish theologians may have thought up from time to time the contemporary Jew can repudiate and still be a pious Jew, even a so-called Orthodox Jew."
The Surface Meaning of the Creation and Eden Accounts
We have no way of knowing from the text itself if the Genesis account and most of the other sections were part of the writings which God told Moses to write down and give to the people. Even if the text began with a claim to the effect that the creation account was part of that, we would have no means of knowing if that claim were true and so we search for the origins of the Book in that which people know of it - that is, in tradition.
We are not told by the text if the creation account is an actual or poetic description of physical events. We are not even told in the text why the story is told, whether the fact that it is told means that we must read it, study it, know it; we are not even instructed as to whether we must believe that the creation account is an actual description of physical events.
Certainly anyone can see that on the surface it contains many inconsistencies, so that it could not have been meant as a purely literal surface-meaning account of actual physical events. Furthermore, the anthropomorphisms in the creation account such as “God said” or “God saw”, or “”God rested” are inconsistent with Traditional religious belief itself that God is not corporeal (God is a spiritual rather than physical entity and therefore does not have a physical body) . Clearly, proponents of Tradition cannot accept the account as totally literal. Clearly then, one cannot legitimately assume that Traditional belief necessarily considers every word of Fthe creation and Garden of Eden accounts as literal. However, what these accounts do mean, and why they were included in the Bible, and how we must relate to them are not in the text, and cannot reliably form part of the text - for this context we turn to the tradition which accompanies the text.
As stated above, many of the statements regarding the creation and the creation account in the Talmud, Midrash, Zohar, and in the classical Jewish Bible commentators seemingly conflict not only with each other, but also with the Biblical creation account itself. Because they contradict each other at the level of their surface meaning, it is not possible to claim that the creation account and the statements about creation in traditional sources are all meant literally.
In addition, many of these statements speak of processes which are not mentioned in the creation account, so that they can be true only if the creation account is not a complete account of all the events which took place at creation, and in the Garden of Eden. Many of the statements are also somewhat vague, and are therefore amenable to a wide range of interpretation.
Whereas a dogmatic religious fundamentalist makes the claim that every word in the Torah was meant totally literally, and as a description of actual physical events unless religious tradition unequivocally states otherwise, many - perhaps most - traditional Jewish sources imply that the creation account is not meant as a totally literal description of actual physical events.
The most authoritative voice of Jewish Traditional philosophical beliefs has been that of Maimonides, whose views have reigned for the last eight hundred years. Seven hundred years before Darwin, Maimonides wrote:
"..the account given in Scripture of the creation is not, as is generally believed, intended to be in all its parts literal." "The literal meaning of the words might lead us to conceive corrupt ideas and to form false opinions about God, or even to entirely abandon and reject the principles of our Faith."
He states categorically that according to Tradition, the Garden of Eden account is allegorical. Of course that they are meant allegorically does not mean that they are trivial stories. R. Crescas, in his commentary on Rambam's statement that the creation account is at least partially allegory, states:
" Allegories....means that the mention in Scripture of the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, the description of Adam, his initial condition and what he later became, the serpent, Eve, the naming of Adam's sons Cain and Abel, and all that long narrative, all refer to extremely deep matters which are inaccessible to the common run of humanity and were therefore given in the form of allegory." .
Even the very idea of a creation ex-nihilo (from nothing), which is seen by some as one of the central points in the creation account, was included by Maimonides as possibly in this category. In a discussion of Aristotle's belief that the universe is eternal rather than created, Maimonides states that just as the anthropomorphisms in the Torah are not meant literally, it is theoretically possible that the idea of creation ex-nihilo presented in Genesis is also meant allegorically.
Other great Traditional Biblical commentators and philosopher such as Rashi and Ramban (Nachmanides) have intimated that the initial chapters of Genesis should not even be seen as a 'creation account', since the Divine actions leading to the creation of the universe are beyond man's comprehension. Instead, these accounts are meant to teach humanity certain basic truths - and in this book we shall indeed look at these accounts in this light rather than as cosmogonies.
Origins
Speculations on the origin of the universe have fascinated man for thousands of years. During the last few thousand years one of the most widely accepted answers - and one considered quite authoritative - was provided by the book of Genesis. In recent centuries however, this source has seemed to be somewhat in conflict with the results of careful observations of the universe about us, and with the deductions from these observations. To many readers, the origin theory of science and the origin model described in Genesis seem quite incompatible with each other, and this has led many to feel that one could not accept both - painful though such a choice might be. Einstein writes:
"I had attained a deep religiosity by the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking."
However, the conviction that one is faced with an inescapable contradiction can be founded on misconceptions. Darwin for example
"revealed his lack of expertise in biblical matters by replying to the information that the notorious 4,004 B.C. date for the creation of the world was Archbishop Ussher's and not Moses' by laughing, 'How curious about the Bible. I declare I had fancied that the date was somehow in the Bible'."
Many of the traditional Jewish interpretations of Genesis might well have astounded Darwin. Quite a few do not consider the creation account to be that of a standard cosmogony at all. Furthermore, many of those which do so consider it, contradict the plain meaning of Genesis, and do so rather more than does the theory of evolution.
The following, which on the face of it bears virtually no resemblance to Genesis, is a composite of traditional understandings of the creation referred to in Genesis:
"Before all was created
God reigned
and after all ended
God reigned
Time emerged from no time,
and there passed 17 1/2 billion years
Then,
in the beginning,
nine hundred and seventy four generations
prior to that of Adam,
God was to have created the universe
but didn't.
God contracted Herself
and emanated a number of emanations from Himself
in descending order of contact with the Divine.
God looked then into that part of Himself which is the Torah,
and created the universe from a black fire.
God then created and destroyed several universes.
Then God created a universe in one day,
containing among other things
a two-headed male-female creature
with scales, webbed fingers and a tail,
whose height was such that
it could see from one end of the world to the next.
[At first God wanted to create a female and a male separately, but then God decided not to.]
In the heavens, God created two suns,
but changed one into a moon later on........
There is virtually no similarity between the above 'creation account' and that given by the Bible. In fact they 'contradict' each other no less than the origin theory 'contradicts' the Biblical creation account, yet every idea in the above derives from traditional sources hundreds or thousands of years old.
One can say that an elephant is gray, or that it is huge, or that it has a certain odor, or that it has four legs or that it is a mammal, or that it is noble. Each description can indeed be that of an elephant, and each is very different, yet it is clear that none of them contradict any other - unless they are offered as being the exclusive truth about the elephant as perceived from any possible perspective. The differences in the descriptions derive from the differing perspectives or senses which are being used in order to compose the description.
Science, the Kabbalah, and the Midrash, are all systems which provide explanations regarding certain aspects of reality, and do so from differing perspectives. They see things differently, and are interested in answering different types of questions. Thus, each system describes the origin of the universe from the point of view of its concerns, leading the unwary to the impression that this difference implies a contradiction and a conflict.
Just as traditional sources like the Midrash and Zohar are explanations of the Torah rather than contradictions to it, so too the scientific origin theory is an explanation of the creation account rather than a contradiction to it. Discovering how the two are related is one of the subjects of both this book and its companion volume entitled "A Garden of Edens: the Many Faces of Genesis".
Whatever one's approach to the Bible, the text itself implies that the creation and Eden accounts refer to many of the same events. However, even the casual reader easily notices that the two accounts portray these events in widely divergent fashion, with the surface meaning of the two texts often being in direct contradiction.
Indeed, by presenting in the creation and Eden accounts two very different and conflicting descriptions of what are seemingly the same events, and by juxtaposing these two accounts, the Torah itself makes unmistakably the point that the creation and Eden accounts are not to be interpreted naively according to a straight 'literal' understanding.
Jewish tradition, which indeed sees the two accounts as referring to the same subject, does not see the surface meaning of the texts as the level from which its meaning can be gleaned.
The Bible as Moral History
History is not monolithic. The past may be objectively existent, but history is not, as it is merely a subjective and selective human view of the past.
Some history books begin with the ancient empires of the near east, and contain accounts of various wars and political struggles. Others mention wars not at all, but focus instead on the artistic achievements of humanity, beginning perhaps with cave-drawings found in southern France - subjects entirely absent in the previously mentioned history books. The careful reader of a 'history of the world' must understand the context of the work, and the intent of the author in order to correctly integrate this 'history of the world' into a coherent understanding of the world's complete and objective history, its 'past'.
According to the greatest of the traditional Biblical commentators, Rashi, the creation account is not really a chronological account of the creation of the universe, but is instead a teleological account. That is, the very first few words of the creation account usually translated as "in the beginning God created", actually mean something quite different, more on the line of "The reason that God created the universe was for [and Rashi specifies]......".
Since in these traditional views the creation account is not a chronological description of the creation and evolution of the physical and organic universe, and its focus is upon the moral dimension, tradition may feel no need of searching it for mention of the big bang or of stellar evolution or the extinction of the dinosaurs.
As some of the greatest of traditional Biblical commentators have pointed out many hundreds of years ago, the so-called creation accounts cannot be that, since creation ex-nihilo is beyond the reach of ordinary human comprehension. Instead of being a description of divine creation therefore, these accounts serve a different purpose, including setting the stage for the subsequent commandments and narratives.
Rather than being fundamentally chronological, the creation account refers to the underlying purpose of creation.
Chapter 23: Quantum Randomness and Teleology
Section I: randomness, teleology, and the emergence of a moral being
One of the ways in which the laws of physics are remarkable, is that although there exists such a precise order to the phenomena of nature, at the heart of all events there lies a core of randomness.
It was the conviction of many generations of scientific and philosophical investigators that the universe operates like an ordered machine with all its motions completely specified, with cause followed by effect in a determined manner. However, in the last seventy or so years experiments and the theory of quantum physics have shown that events at the most fundamental level are not determined, but can instead occur in more than one way, so that there exists an element of randomness in the development of events.
When applied to the context of the emergence of life in the universe, this means that there can be no guarantee that life would eventually evolve from any given big bang. Even if the initial state of the universe was in theory suitable for the emergence of life from it eventually, the quantum randomness inherent in the laws of nature could cause the universe to evolve on a different quantum path, one leading to a sterile, lifeless universe.
Creation of a moral universe therefore involves more than just the creation of a particular big bang designed to be suitable for the eventual production of life; it involves also actions taken to ensure that the universe indeed develops along quantum paths leading to moral beings. Thus creation of a moral universe may begin with the creation of a carefully chosen big bang, but the process of creation can conclude only with the emergence of a moral being - an earlier cessation of creative activity can result in the non-emergence of moral beings.
In the Biblical teleological perspective, our universe was indeed created to produce moral beings, and thus from the perspective of quantum physics, Biblical creation can be complete only upon the actual emergence of a moral being. From the combination of the teleological perspective of the Bible and that of quantum physics therefore, it is appropriate that the process of creation of the moral universe central to Genesis does not begin and end simply with the creation of a big bang.
Instead, as presented in Genesis, the ultimate act of creation is the creation of a conscious being - a being created 'in the image of God', followed by the initiation of this being into moral beinghood.
Thus the juxtaposition of the creation and Eden accounts symbolizes this interdependency - the creation of the universe as described in the creation account is completed only upon the emergence of a free willed conscious being, as described in the Eden account.
Section II
In this section we deal with metaphysical and theological issues related to the ideas expressed in the previous section.
Guaranteeing the Emergence of a Moral Being
Although a big bang cannot be guaranteed to develop into a universe containing moral beings, there are ways in which moral beings can be produced by a determined creator.
By throwing a many-sided die enough times one can expect that eventually the desired result will emerge, especially if the die is 'loaded' - constructed so as to make the desired result the most probable one. Similarly, teleoderived big bangs could be created and left to develop on their own over and over, and eventually one would develop along the desired quantum path leading to moral beings .
An alternate possibility is the following: According to one interpretation of quantum theory, all the possible results actually occur. Each of the infinitely many possible universe-states which can follow any given universe-state, do follow. There is a 'super universe' in which infinitely many universes exist, representing each possible universe which could develop from the big bang. According to this 'many-universes theory', among all the infinite states, the desired branch is sure to develop [If it so desired, all the undesireable branches could be eliminated allowing only the desired branch to develop].
Another alternative would be to create a big bang whose most probable path would lead to a moral being, and then to intervene at each stage so as to force the quantum choices to occur as they must in order to actually produce that moral-being-path.
For a creator, beyond the space-time-matter-energy of the physical universe a different type of alternative is also possible, and is indeed possibly the most aesthetically pleasing alternative. Any big bang which was designed to produce life would have been the product of careful planning, and would be created from a detailed blueprint. This detailed blueprint could be extrapolated forward to the moral stage, and the moral-stage-universe could then be created from this mental blueprint . In this way, it is guaranteed that the desired moral-stage universe is created, rather than any other. Thus, rather than creating the universe at the stage of the big bang, it would be created at the stage of the emergence of the first moral being, at which point it could be left to evolve according to the laws of nature.
Theological issues
Einstein maintained that the basic laws of the universe are in actuality deterministic. That is, he believed that the indeterminacy of quantum physics was a reflection of our ignorance rather than a fundamental property of nature: as he put it once, "God does not play dice with the universe". If this is so, then it is possible for a big bang to have been created which would develop inevitably into the desired moral universe, even though to man, because of his ignorance, it would seem that it developed that way due to chance.
However, most physicists today accept that the indeterminacy of quantum physics is a basic fundamental feature of the universe, and thus even a teleoderived big bang could not be designed to arrive inevitably at any particular state, and thus no big bang can be created which would be guaranteed to give rise to moral beings.
However, once we are dealing with the concept of a designed big bang, we are speaking of a creator of the universe and its laws, and therefore of a being who may well transcend these laws. Therefore, from the perspective of a creator who created - and therefore transcends - quantum physics, the universe is not random. Therefore even if quantum randomness is fundamental at the level of human reality, when speaking from the perspective of the creator, we can say that - to paraphrase Einstein - "God does not play dice with the universe".
If this is so, it may be meaningful to state that a big bang could be created which would necessarily develop into the desired moral universe.
One problem with this approach is that according to Rambam it is improper to attribute to God the ability to do that which is inherently impossible. Therefore, if quantum events are inherently non-predictable, it might be that it is meaningless to say that God can know the outcome of a series of quantum events without actually creating them - as meaningless as saying that God make a circle which is square,,.
Although Rambam states that it is meaningless to attribute to God the power to do that which is impossible, this is probably so only for that which is logically impossible rather than merely physically impossible. For example Rambam states that it is possible for God to know the future of man's actions without this implying that these actions are determined. There is no logical contradiction between the two, but it seems to us that there is a possible physical impossibility - yet it is possible to God.
There is of course no way that we can know what is truly impossible, and what merely seems impossible to us because of our present incomplete knowledge of the laws of nature; and to distinguish between that which is truly impossible to attribute even to God, and that which seems logically impossible to us because we are limited and physical beings, but which is actually possible to God.
Appendix: Quantum physics and random development
No prior background in physics is needed, and no equations will be introduced. However the material is nevertheless slightly technical. It can be skipped over, or skimmed through, without prejudicing the thread of the argument of the rest of the book.
At the level of fundamental particles, events do not occur in an inevitable manner, but rather each state of a particle or system of particles can be followed by a variety of possible states, each such state having a well defined probability of occurrence. However we cannot know what will actually occur. Nature so to speak rolls the dice and chooses one of the possibilities, according to the relevant probabilities.
For example: Quantum formulas applied to process X show that there are five ways for it to occur; ways A B C D and E; the formulas show further that way number A has a 10% probability, B a 5% probability, C has 35% probability, D a 27%, and E a 23% chance. Speaking very figuratively, nature constructs the following table in its mind:
Way type Relative Probability Code Numbers Assigned
________________________________________________
A 10% 1 - 10
B 5% 11 - 15
C 35% 16 - 50
D 27% 51 - 77
E 23% 78 - 100
________________________________________________
Imagine a hundred 100-sided die: each number from one through one hundred has an equal chance in each throw. Nature then decides how an event should occur as follows: it rolls a one hundred-sided die, and then consults the table. If the number on the die is for example between 1 and 10, then since code numbers 1 - 10 have been assigned to way A, event X occurs in way A. If the number is for example between 51 - 77, it occurs in way D, etc.
Combining the relevant physical law and the relevant circumstances with the rules of quantum physics, for PDR events one can exactly determine the relative probabilities of each "way of occurrence" for every type of physical process, under any circumstance.
Appendix:
The impossibility of guaranteeing that a moral stage develop from any given big bang.
The state of the entire universe with all its contents at any given time will be here termed a universe-state. The history of the universe can thus be divided into a series of consecutive universe-states.
According to determinism, any one specific total state of the universe at some instant leads necessarily to another specific total universe-state at the next instant. In contrast, quantum physics teaches that the universe has an infinite number of possible next-states for any one given universe-state. Of course, most of these are highly improbable, and even of the remaining ones many are somewhat improbable. However, none can be excluded since all are possible.
It is, in principle, impossible to predict which particular one of these infinite universe-states will actually occur: the "choice" of which universe-state to evolve into is "made by the universe" at random. Thus, for any given big bang, there are an infinite amount of possible "immediately-post-big-bang" universe-states. Similarly, there are then an infinite amount of possible universe-states representing the "second instant" after the big bang. [Each of the infinite possible post-big-bang universe-states has an infinite amount of subsequent universe-states into which it can evolve.]
Chapter 24: Human Significance: Many have derided the role of humans in the cosmos. Are humans truly insignificant?
Is Human Life Significant?
What is “Significance’?
“Significance” is a conception of the human mind. The feeling that something is significant is just that, a feeling. That which is considered significant is not in itself significant since the significance does not reside in the entity or event, but rather the feeling of significance is an aspect of the mind which feels the sense of significance; it is not intrinsic.
‘Significance’ is a feeling or a name for a concept, it is not a property of an object or event. ‘Significant’ is an adjective (?) describing the reaction of a mind to an objet or event.
Endowing Something With Significance
Similarly, nothing can be ‘given significance’, e.g. a death cannot be endowed with significance by some action of the survivors; the significance is forever resident in the mind of the feeler, just that as a turn of phrase we can say for short that the significance lies in the object/person etc.
[The same for ‘meaning’ and for ‘beauty’.]
To give significance to one’s life, or endow it with meaning, is the same as to see it as beautiful, i.e. it is to have the feeling of significance/meaning/beauty associated with the thought of one’s life. The significance/meaning/beauty are not properties of the life lived but are words describing the feelings of the mind contemplating that life.
Love and Significance (the significant other)
‘Human life is significant/insignificant’ is a statement of the feeling of a mind in reaction to something, it cannot be an ‘objective’ statement about the things/entities/people themselves outside the mind that feels this.
To say that e.g. ‘love gives significance to human life’ means that some person/people feel a sense of the significance of their/another’s/human life when they are in love or feel love etc and the memory of this feeling gives rise later to the statement ‘love gives significance to human life’.
Human Significance and the Size of the Universe
As some would put it, a Human is a being evolved from slime crawling on the face of a speck of dirt in the galaxy which is itself an insignificant speck in the universe.
In actuality however, whatever the size of the universe etc, life is neither significant nor insignificant; rather the contemplation of the size of the universe can give rise to feelings in some people of the significance/insignificance of life.
Should the size of the universe etc give rise to the feeling of human insignificance? Is it irrational to feel otherwise?
Well, in any case often feelings have nothing to do with what is rational intrinsically. But in this case, since objectively neither are factually correct, logic is not relevant. Whatever people feel they feel. Perhaps if we knew all there was to know about human brains etc, we could predict what a ‘rational’ mind would feel upon being presented with the understanding of the size of the universe, and then expect that as the ‘rational’ feeling. As it stands, since some people feel one way and others another, there does not seem to be anything intrinsic in the wiring of the human brain which establishes the necessity of all human brains reacting in one particular way.
When Significance Does Not Exist
Since significance is a property of the mind of a sentient being, if there is no sentience extant, or no sentience exists which is capable of experiencing the feeling of significance, then there is indeed no significance to anything in the universe, indeed the concept of significance has no meaning, it would never arise, no entity would say ‘significance is meaningless’ because they would not even understand the concept - no, the concept would not even exist - and it must first exist for it to be incomprehensible.
.............
“The Rembrandt or the Baby”:
If there was a fire, which would you save?
“Human Significance in the age of Science”: Existentialist despair, self-abnegation, animal rights extremists. End with last part of geo article from BH.
We know that tree falls etc, this is trivial. Deeper is the realization that without Mind there is no significance. Without FW there is no active agent in the un.
The idea of the insig of humanity began with: geo, then evo, and Freud etc.
.................
Insert here adaptation of last part of article "Geocentrism" from B'ohr Ha'torah #5 or "Fusion" regarding human significance.
Chapter 25: The First Moral Beings
on Earth
According to the theory of evolution, the emergence of Man is approximately described by the following dates [ Y.A. denotes "years ago"]:
Early Hominid 3,000,000 YA = Australopithecus
Homo Erectus 700,000 YA = Java Man, 500,000 YA = Peking Man
Homo Sapiens 120,000 YA = Neanderthal Man
Homo Sapiens Sapiens 100,000 YA = Modern Man [ 200,000 -60,000 YA]
The Evolution of Morality
According to the scientific origin theory, we have been billions of years in developing: from big bang to home planet, from inorganic matter to life, from simple life to ape, and millions of years more from ape to man. However, it was only approximately 100,000 years ago that there appeared an ancestor we could identify as a member of our species: a truly sapient [thinking] creature, the first of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Clearly, then, even if the universe is 15 billion years old, morality could only have emerged in the last 100,000 years.
The essential human qualities we associate with a human, as opposed to an animal or a computer, are those of moral behaviour and the idea of moral accountability. These qualities, when they first arose among Homo Sapiens Sapiens would almost certainly result in the formulation of religion. Thus, the earliest religions would follow not too long after the first stirrings of moral consciousness. When one actually reviews the cultural history of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, one makes an interesting discovery - it becomes clear that religion as we know it developed only in the last 5,500 years.
A Short History of Major Cultural Developments
10,000 YA Painting, burials
BCE
5000 YA 3000 Writing, farming
4000 YA 2000 Abraham: Monotheism formulated
3500 YA 1500 Moses . Hinduism formulated
3000 YA 1000 King Solomon: philosophy, ethicalwriting, poetry
2600 YA 600 Isaiah (Yeshayahu)
2500 YA 500 Ezekiel(Yeheskel),Buddha,Confucius,Lao-Tze 2400 YA 400 Greek Science/Culture/Philosophy:
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle Etc.)
1900 YA = CE 100 R. Akiva; Christianity (spread of);
1400 YA 600 Islam
300 YA 1700 Newton
140 YA 1850 Darwin
80 YA 1900 Einstein
Thus, Man's brain had developed about 100,000 years ago. His cultural abilities - painting, pottery and so on - developed perhaps 15,000 years ago. The first glimmerings of thought about death and life - the first burials - took place about 10,000 years ago, and the first religions were developed about 4,000 years ago.
The emergence of the first true moral being, with sufficient intelligence and understanding to make a free choice would presumably occur somewhere between the time that man began to think of death and a possible afterlife, and the time that religious thought and attitudes were first developed .
According to the chronology of the Biblical geneologies, this occured roughly 6,000 years ago - 2,000 years before the first religion developed, and about 4,000 years after the Cro-Magnon culture's cave-wall paintings.
We would then add one stage onto the chain of human development
*** Homo Sapiens Voluntas 6,000 YA = moral humanity
We can see that:
1. Humans as a race achieved modern type of intellectual capacity only 100,000 years ago, and prior to that many modern concepts - such as "morality" - were likely beyond the conceptual ability of humanity's evolutionary ancestors.
2. All the world's religions were founded in the last 4,000 years, so that 4,500 years ago there was no real conception of a Gd, of moral responsibility, of purpose to a human life, and so on .
3. The vast majority of our scientific knowledge was unknown only 500 years ago, and science had its rudimentary beginnings only 2,500 years ago. The great ideas which are the foundations of our society - ideas of religion, philosophy, culture and science - are relatively recent innovations.
The Creation Account and Subsequent Chronologies
After the Eden account, there follows the story of Cain and Abel, and then a chronology of 'Adam' and his descendants. The chronology speaks of Adam "who was created as male and female", implying that it is the Adam of the creation account. If one understands both the creation account and the Eden account as referring to an individual, and to the same individual, then the Adam of the Eden account is the being who was created on the sixth day, and it is his chronology which is provided. The chronology concludes with the birth of Noah, and later the chronology of Noah's descendants is provided, ending with Abraham. From Abraham there are various passages providing chronological information leading to the time of the entry into the land of Israel, and from there to the time of the Persian conquests and so on. Since the time of the Persian conquests are known to historians from non-Biblical sources, one can construct a comprehensive chronology from the time of Adam to our day, and this provides us with a figure of about 6,000 year
However, of course the Adam of the chronology may not be the same Adam as the creation account, just as the creation and Eden account seem to speak of two separate Adams, "adam" being simply a generic term for "a man". Also, the chronologies speak of lifespans of many hundreds of years, and may well be allegorical, not historical. However, those who assumed that the creation account is a literal account of the actual creation of the physical universe and that the chronologies atre meant literally, concluded after adding up all the figures given in the various chronologies that Adam must have lived about 6,000 years ago.
Adam and the Emergence of Moral Beings on Earth
As indicated above, the first moral beings on Earth may well have emerged approximately 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, and the chronologies of Genesis place "Adam" as having lived about 6,000 years ago. Therefore, whether one interprets the "Adam" of Genesis as an individual named 'Man', or as the race 'Man', one can identify this "Adam" with the first moral beings who emerged on Earth - either the first such individual, or the race of moral humanity as a whole.
The Creation and Eden Accounts
In the Biblical perspective which sees the purpose of the existence of the universe as tied up with the emergence of moral beings within it, it is appropriate that humanity should be considered as having begun with the emergence of the first moral being, and that the universe itself should be considered as having begun its relevant existence only with the emergence within it of moral beings, in Genesis symbolized by the enigmatic and ambiguous "Adam". Thus the creation account, reflecting this perspective, collapses into a very brief discussion the creation of the universe and its subsequent development until the emergence of Adam, and commences its recital of history with the emergence of the first moral being - symbolized by Adam - rather than with the big bang, or with the dinosaurs, or even with the pre-moral Homo Sapiens.
Ch 26: The Evolution of Adam
" from the war of Nature….the production of the higher animals, directly follows."
(AR: Previously quoted, the closing paragraph of Charles Darwin's "Origin of the Species". )
Part I:
Scientific Monogenesis
It has long been recognized by many evolutionary biologists that all life emanates from a common source. The famous mathematical-physicist Hermann Weyl writes as follows:
"Considerations of evolution in the large will of necessity lead to the question of the origin of life. The evidence of genetics makes one incline to see in life the chance success of a play of creative accidents. Not some predictable macrophysical or macrochemical process, that with a certain natural necessity came to pass at a certain stage of evolution - and would repeat itself wherever the appropriate conditions prevailed - seems responsible for the historic beginnings of life, but a molecular event of singular character, occurring once by accident, and then starting an avalanche by autocatalytic multiplication (P. Jordan). Jordan adduces as a strong argument for this opinion "the fact that all the more complicated molecules found in plants and animals, especially the protein molecules, are stereochemically different from their mirror images". Indeed had they an independent origin at many places and many times their levo- and dextro-varieties should show nearly the same abundance. Thus it looks as if there is some truth in the story of Adam and Eve, if not for the origin of humanity then for that of the most primitive forms of life."
It is now becoming evident however, that there is yet more truth to the story of Adam and Eve: a specific gene has been traced in the various races of Man which indicates that it derives from a common ancestress who lived about 100,000 years ago.
In this way comparative genetics indicates that all humanity existing today is descended from one genetic line, which mutated from the parent line about 100,000 years ago . Thus even according to evolutionary theory, all huhumanity is descended from one original progenitor just as in Genesis. Fittingly, evolutionary geneticists have dubbed her "Eve" .
Genesis and scientific theory are therefore in agreement that the universe emerged out of nothing, and is not eternal; that all life is descended from a single original life form; and that all Humanity is descended from one unique ancestral human being.
The Emergence of moral humanity
Physical science does not generally recognize free will as a qualitatively unique physical phenomenon, but rather as a psychological phenomenon, and therefore evolutionary genetics can consider an intelligent conscious being with free will as genetically identical to one lacking free will. Therefore fossils and skulls may not be relevant as indicators of whether or not their owners were free-willed.
It is also not clear if one can ascribe different types of behaviour to true moral beings and to non-moral beings who imagine themselves to have free will, and therefore it is not clear if archaeological evidence can ever be used to distinguish between the remains of a civilization of moral beings and those of non-free-willed beings. Therefore although there are various theories and pieces of evidence which help determine when humans of one type or another emerged, it is not clear when free-willed moral beings first emerged.
One can suppose however that since moral beinghood requires intelligence and foresight in addition to free will, that the emergence of moral beings was somewhat after the emergence of ordinary Homo Sapiens. Indeed, as we saw in a previous chapter, it may perhaps have been relatively recently - about ten thousand years ago.
One could consider Cro-Magnon Man as the first to have been capable of free will, and perhaps it was a genius from this stock who first formulated a moral code, and who taught morality to his contemporary latent moral beings. Alternatively, it may be that an additional mutation was responsible for the aquisition of free will, and the first such mutant descendant of Cro-Magnon Man was the first moral being and the father of a new race of moral beings.
The emergence of the first moral being or society may be the event which is referred to in Genesis, in the allegory of the eating of the Tree of Knowledge and the consequent understanding of the concepts of good and evil.
Adam's Birthdate
The date of the creation and of the emergence of Adam - the first moral being - is not given explicitly in the Bible and is not referred to anywhere else in the Bible. A putative date can be computed via the geneology given after the creation account, however in it we are told of life-spans of almost a thousand years, so that the geneology is apparently not refering to ordinary physical ages and dates, leaving the date of the emergence of Adam unspecified.
Genetics does not deal in categories of purpose, and therefore the ability to exercize free will and become a moral being is not considered genetically significant. Genetically speaking, the first human may have lived long ago, however with respect to the category of purpose relevant in the Bible, the first true human was the first moral being, and we - who are moral beings - are its children.
In the terms of reference of the purpose of the human race in the Biblical context, it was the emergence of moral humanity which allowed the onset of purpose.
Biblical perspective classifies beings according to categories relating to purpose rather than to evolutionary-genetic development. From this perspective, the predecessors of the first moral humanity are classified with the animals since they lacked intelligent free willed consciousness. Only the moral being is a 'human' being, and can be classified as being 'in the image of Gd', so that the title of 'first human being' is bestowed on the first of ' moral humanity'. The Bible essentially begins with the emergence and moral development of the first such beings since their prior evolutionary development is not of direct relevance from the perspective of the category of purpose.
Genesis and the origin theories agree that the race of modern man 'began' at some point, that there was a 'first man'. However from the categories of science and of religion 'human' is defined differently, and therefore the date of emergence of the 'first human' is different. Although Cro-Magnon Man may have existed for about 90,000 years before Adam, we are told that it was Adam who was the first human, and the only human of his time, since he was the first moral humanity, and for a while, the only one.
Part II: Adam's Predecessors as Inhabitants of the 'Prior Worlds'
There are statements in the Talmud and Midrash to the effect that "Gd created and destroyed worlds" prior to the creation detailed in Genesis. It is not clear however whether this implies the creation of worlds prior to the very creation of heaven and earth - that is, the creation of prior universes - or if it is referring to the creation of planets within the universe whose creation is described in Genesis. And, if it refers to the creation of planets within the universe of Genesis, it is not clear whether the reference is to planets other than earth, or to the planet earth prior to the creation of Adam.
Indeed, another Talmudic statement declares that the destruction of an individual is considered as the destruction of a world. Thus, if God 'created and destroyed worlds' on planet earth prior to the emergence of Adam, this would mean that Adam was not necessarily the first human on our planet. Indeed, the Tifferet Yisrael stated that fossil remains may bear witness to such pre-Adamic man. Similarly, according to R. Shimon Schwab there may have existed human-like being without free will not created 'in the image of God'.
We can perhaps interpret the "creation of worlds" as taking place via a divinely instituted natural law - via an evolutionary process. One could then say that life - and man - originally arose on Earth via evolution. Then at some stage Gd "destroyed the world" which arose this way - that is, caused an evolutionary or climactic change such as for example caused the disappearance of the dinosaurs and later of Neanderthal Man, the ice ages and so on - and created Adam as described in Genesis - that is, caused the emergence of the first moral being.
Part III: The origin of the soul, and its transmission
According to religious philosophy, Man is connected to the spiritual realm and posseses a non-physical aspect - a 'soul'- as distinguished from the animals. Since the soul is by definition a spiritual entity, not a physical one, we encounter the age-old philosophical problems relating to the difficulty of a purely spiritual entity interacting with a purely physical entity - a form of the mind-body problem.
In Genesis, the soul-body issue may be hinted at by(/is referred to in) the phrase “and the spirit of God hovered above the waters”, where it was from the waters that life emerged, and especially in the almost shocking statement that after causing man to emerge from the physical elements at hand, “God breathed into him the living spirit.... creating him in the image of God”.
The genetics of soul
In order to listen to the radio, one must have, as a necessary condition, a functioning, powered radio. However, this is not a sufficient condition. There must also be a transmitter which is broadcasting, and among other things, the radio must be tuned to the same frequency as the transmitter. Similarly, one can distinguish between the necessary and sufficient conditions to be fulfilled in order for a being to possess a soul.
In order for the spiritual realm to interact with a physical being as a soul does, it is necessary that the being be of a highly developed type with a certain genetic structure. This however is not a sufficient condition, as it is also necessary that there be the transmitter, in this case the spiritual realm reaching out to the physical being. In addition, the being must 'tune' its consciousness to the proper channel.
This genetic potential to tune in to the spiritual can be inherited genetically. The spiritual realm is constantly reaching out to man, and anyone with the potential can tune in if they choose to do so. Thus, a 'soul' is more of an interaction, a reception, than an entity by itself. It is not a 'thing' that can be inherited or given. Rather, it is 'a phenomenon' available to all beings with the requisite genetic structure.
Thus physical birth can allow transmission of a transcendant 'soul' from a mother, and the origin of a transcendant soul can coincide with a particular physical genetic development, so that the first being to evolve with sufficiently 'advanced' genes would possess a soul , and pass it on genetically to its progeny.
Summary
Genesis relates those points most relevant to the category of purpose: the universe is a purposive creation; God is involved in the universe, intervening in affairs in order to further a divine plan, including the evolution of moral humanity; humanity is imbued with a spiritual nature in addition to its physical, evolved, animal nature; and humanity possesses the ability to distinguish good from evil, and the moral responsibility to choose the good.
After presenting these ideas in the metaphorical language of the creation and Garden of Eden accounts, the Bible goes on to relate the history of the first individuals to encounter the divine, and continues with the revelation achieved by their descendants, and the commandments to all humanity - all within the context provided by Genesis of a purposive universe directed towards moral activity.
Ch 27: Adam: An Individual
or a Race?
Socio-Biology and Kabbalah
August Comte, founder of sociology, considered a human society as an organism, and saw the society rather than the individual man as the basic unit of Humanity. Some scientists studying 'emergent properties' such as mind and consciousness also consider the possibility that a new and higher emergent level can arise when a sufficient number of individuals combine to form a society.
Morality is almost by definition possible only when there are two involved, and true moral consciousness manifests in choices made when facing moral dilemmas involving another moral being. Moreso, there are rules and dilemmas which arise only when a society is involved.
In this context one can speculate that perhaps a true moral being is only possible as part of a society of moral beings. A race of moral beings as a whole forms a synergistic unit - a unit greater than the sum of its parts, and has the potential to exist on a higher level than that possible by one moral being alone or of a collection of individual moral beings. Perhaps the onset of purpose, and the quantum metaphysical emergence of the universe occurs only with the emegence of a society, or of a race of moral beings.
The Term "Adam" (Man) in Genesis
Due to the ambiguity of the term “man” in the creation account, one can read Genesis as describing the creation of an entire race of Homo Voluntas, so that Adam had contemporaries of his own type. The creation of 'Adam' at the moral stage as related in Genesis would then be understood as the emergence/creation of a race of potentially-moral beings at the stage of the emergence of the first moral action by a member of that race.
Rav Shimon Schwab notes that the first and second creation account differ in the term used for the beings created prior to the creation of Adam. In the first account, the Torah speaks of "kol khayat ha'sadeh" ["all the animals of the field"] whereas the second speaks of "khayat ha'aretz" [the animals of the land"]. Furthermore, he points out that the word "kol" means "the rest of" as in Leviticus [Vayikra] 4:7, and that the Talmud speaks of a man-like being called the "adnei ha'sadeh" ["the masters(?) of the field"]. Thus, the phrase "kol khayat ha'sadeh" in the first creation account may be referring to the creation of a race of man-like beings prior to the creation of Man.
According to Ibn Ezra [1089-1164], there is a secret hidden in the word "Ha'Adam". The Bible uses the term "Ha'Adam" rather than " Adam" and Ibn Ezra calls this distinction a "secret" of the Torah. Ibn Ezra may be hinting that an entire race of humans was created at the time of Adam, and that this is why the Torah calls it "Ha'Adam" - "the species Man" - rather than "Adam" - the individual named "Man":
However, some commentators on Ibn Ezra disagree.
Sforno indicates the same point, that a species called "Man" was created. [Translation and commentary taken from "Artscroll Sforno":]
It is only the the Garden of Eden account which speaks unambiguously of two individuals, Adam and Eve. Even there, the language used implies a generic 'man' and 'woman' rather than a specific man and woman (Ha'adam and Ha'isha). It is only after the Tree of Knowledge incident, when Gd is describing the limitations of the new reality they have entered, that language is used which indicates reference to particular people - to a man named "Adam" and his "wife" named "Eve" - and even so, the events related there clearly point to their allegorical nature. There is thus ample evidence from the terminology and context that the Adam and Eve of the creation account represent a race or society rather than individuals.
In speaking of creation in general, we are told of the creation of the race of man; then, afterwards, we are told of the emergence [mutation or genius] of the first moral humanity. Obviously the first moral humanity must have been an individual, and just as obviously he must have emerged from within an entire race of human beings [via mutation, or as a genius], and thus the two accounts refer one to a race, and the other to an individual.
In the Biblical context, Adam can be considered as a mutation whose descendants we are - via Noah - and thus Adam was unique, the first true human being, as tradition states. Alternatively, if one considers Adam not as a mutation, but rather as a genius who arose from within Cro Magnon Man, the “creation of man” can be understood asreferring to the creation of a race of moral beings.
Traditional Monogenesis
The source available to us for the tradition that Adam was the only created man is the Mishnah in Sanhedrin (Talmud: San. 37A), and the Midrash:
"AND GD CREATED MAN. Gd created only one man at first. Why? Lest the righteous boast that they are the descendants of a righteous first man, whilst the wicked plead that their first progenitor was evil. Another reason: So that families should not quarrel with each other. For if now, when man was created alone (and all have one common ancestor), there is strife, how much more so had two men been created! A further reason: On account of robbers and men of violence. If such exist even now that man was created alone (and they really rob their own kith and kin), how much more so if two had been created! Yet another explanation is this: Man was created alone to demonstrate Gd's greatness, that with a single die He created the entire world."
Also: "lest people say "there are many creators because there were many created beings in the image of Gd""[i.e. each god created a man in its image] .
It seems clear from this Mishna that the reason one should not kill or rob and so on is not simply because all Man is descended from one ancestor, but rather that even were we to be descended from many, killing and robbing would be just as forbidden. It is only the pedagogical lesson which differs in the two instances: it is easier to teach morality when one can say that all Humanity are brothers.
Certainly of course Gd could have created many humans simultaneously, and this would be perfectly in consonance with the rest of the Torah. Certainly it would make no difference whatsoever to the immorality of killing and robbing. The important thing would be for the Torah to state that one Man was created in order that people learn a moral lesson from this. However, it may well be that in actuality many were created, and that the ambiguity in the Torah whether "Adam" means "one man named Man" or "a race called Man" was deliberate, for the pedagogical reasons explored in the mishna above..
Furthermore, evolutionary theory agrees with the mishna that all humanity is descended from one individual, and one can accept the description of creation of Adam as representing both the creation of the first human, and the eventual emergence of an entire race from this individual.
Therefore, it may not be necessarily a point of dogma to insist that "Adam" meant an individual as opposed to a race.
Creation of a Race Rather Than an Individual: Biblical Indications
The Bible itself can perhaps lend additional support for the idea that there were human contemporaries of Adam from the Bible itself. A reading of the three creation accounts--the first five chapters of Genesis--reveals the following details.
One hundred thirty years after creation a son was born to Adam [5:3]. Adam declares that this son is a gift of Gd to replace Hevel who had been killed by Kayin.
From this we see that no male children had been born to Adam since the births of Kayin and Hevel, and also that Hevel had been killed within the first 130 years after creation. Nevertheless, Kayin, when cursed by Gd to wander the Earth, expresses the fear that "anyone that finds me will slay me". Of whom was he afraid?
Hevel died childless, Adam would not kill his own son, and surely Kayin was not afraid of his own children, especially as he didn't have any yet! If there were no other male humans about, of whom was he afraid?
We are also told [4:17] that Kayin built a city in the land of Nod. If there were no other people about, why was there a name to the land before Kayin arrived, and for whom did he build his city? Another problem is presented by the question of whom Kayin and Lamekh and so on married. One can say that the births of female children were simply not recorded, however we have seen that only three male children were born to Adam over a period of hundreds of years. It is therefore quite possible that no daughters at all were born to Adam. We see also that the wives of Lamekh are mentioned by name, and so one cannot presume that women were simply ignored by the Bible. Indeed, the geneologies of Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah are recorded, and one might expect that the geneologies of the first few matriarchs of the human race would be recorded as well.
Further, regarding the birth of Sheth, we are told "Adam again knew his wife", implying that he had not done so since the births of Kayin and Hevel - so that no daughters could have been born. In fact, had there not been any other human contemporaries of Adam, then Kayin could only have married his mother or his sister. Surely this detail is significant, and would be mentioned by the Bible. Instead, the Bible tells us that "Kayin knew his wife" [4:17] rather than "Kayin knew his sister".
In addition, it is clear that there were other types of beings present on the Earth at least at a later stage - the mysterious "Nefilim", and "bnei Elohim" [6:1-6:7] who interbred with the female children of Adam's line. When were these daughters of Adam born? After Noah had reached the age of 500 years, we are told "And it came to pass, when Adam's line began to multiply on the face of the Earth, and daughters were born to them, and the 'distinguished men' saw the daughters of Adam's line. . . and took of them wives. . . "
This seems to imply that daughters were not born to Adam's line for a few generations, until after they had spread out across the face of the Earth. Who then were the wives and mothers of all these people? Surely Eve was not the wife of all her male children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren!
And who were these "distinguished men" - "bnei haElohim" - who were not of Adam's line? Man, and the Jewish people, are called "my sons" by Gd in the Bible. In the third person, this is equivalent to 'the sons of Gd'. In fact, the wording, "I will erase the Adam which I have created" indicates the existence of two races named 'Adam' [6:7]: the "Adam which I created" as opposed to another Adam - perhaps one which arose evolutionarilywithin the created universe rather than as a direct creation. That is, non-Moral-Man.
Perhaps they were the non-mutated, non-moral-man, Homo Sapiens Sapiens rather than the Adamite Homo Sapiens Sapiens Voluntas. Perhaps they are called "bnei Elohim" to tell us that they were the "prior creation" of Elohim, creations not possessed of moral consciousness and therefore not capable of good or evil, and therefore not requiring the Divine aspect of mercy called "Hashem" - but capable of being ruled by Midat Ha'din - by "Elohim".
Then perhaps, it was when non-Moral-Man males took Moral-Man-females that problems began, with a corruption of the Adamite line, leading to the necessity of a new beginning, from Noah, the direct descendent of Adam.
'ALSO FROM THE PASSAGE' : MISSING: SO IS NOT LATEST VERSION: INSERT ?
"from the day that God created man on the face of the earth, has any nation seen..": the implication is that there were nations existing at the time that man was created - from which on can infer that humanity was created as a race rather than as an individual.
Of course there are answers to all these questions given by the Midrash, consistent with the picture of Adam as sole human. However, from P'shat - the direct meaning of the words - it would seem that there were other humans. And in actuality it can be seen that this reading is not in conflict with the traditional interpretation since these contemporaries of Adam were not moral-man, and were not truly human in the sense meant by the Bible. Instead, they were the evolutionary predecessors of the first moral being, Adam, or alternatively they were seperate and prior creations.
Indeed, according to Rambam (Guide I:7):
"And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat (va-yoled) a son in his own likeness, in his form" (Gen. v. 3). As regards the words, "the form of Adam, and his likeness," we have already stated (ch. i.) their meaning. Those sons of Adam who were born before that time were not human in the true sense of the word, they had not "the form of man." With reference to Seth who had been instructed, enlightened and brought to human perfection, it could rightly be said, "he (Adam) begat a son in his likeness, in his form." It is acknowledged that a man who does not possess this "form" (the nature of which has just been explained) is not human, but a mere animal in human shape and form."
"Adam" - Individual or Race?
As we havew seen above, indications of the possible existence of a human race at the time of Adam can be found in the ambiguity of the term Adam itself. We can also analyze the intent of Genesis in employing language which implies that only an individual rather than a race was created. A possible flexibility in the intended understanding of the situation can possibly be implied by similar flexibility in other instances, specifically regarding the survivors of the Flood.
The Bible makes the point very clearly, and repeatedly, that Gd destroyed all man and beast in the whole world expect for Noakh and those in the ark. Nevertheless, one of the Rabbis of the Talmud tells us that Og, King of Bashan, survived the flood! Also, that the Amalekites predated and survived the flood is taught by the Zohar [Gen:25a {Hebrew insert}].
Ramban quotes as acceptable the belief that others escaped the flood along with Og [see Ramban on "Bnei ha'elohim"].
Thus, the surface implication in the language of Genesis that an individual rather than a race was created may not reflect the intended understanding.
A similar ambiguity can be found in the words of the prophets.
According to Rambam, the prophet may use the word "Humanity" when "a nation" is what is actually meant. In addition, a severe Divine punishment can be described as though it were complete annihilation.
This may aid us in understanding the statements of the Midrash and Zohar brought above. Perhaps a description of the complete annihilation of Humanity in the flood account can in actuality be referring to the severe punishment of one particular nation . However, applying this to an interpretation of the Flood is perhaps inappropriate: Rambam is speaking only of the words of the prophets, whereas the account of the Flood was dictated by Gd , and that to Moshe - who received a higher form of prophecy than that of any other prophet Nevertheless, it may perhaps be partially applicable in conjunction with the evidence given above that indeed according to Jewish tradition the Flood did not wipe out all Humanity outside the Ark.
Further, according to Maharal, the Torah is written from the perspective of the reality as perceived by human beings. Indeed, according to Malbim, passages in the Torah relating a seeming fact, may actually be relating a perception of human beings - even erroneous perceptions. We can therefore perhaps suggest that if humans at the time of the Flood considered the reality to have been that all life had been eradicated other than their own family - a delusion which we are told was the case with the daughter of Lot after the great destruction of 'the cities of the plain' [Soddom and Gomorrah etc.] - then perhaps this is why the Flood is so described in the Torah. And similarly, why it is possible for Genesis to state that the entire Earth was covered by the Flood, and all Humanity was destroyed, while tradition tells us that the Land of Israel was not covered, and that various people did survive the flood.
Just as the implications generated by a surface understanding of the Flood account in Genesis can be misleading as to its true intent, and 'the destruction of all humanity' was not meant in its strict sense, so too perhaps with the account in Genesis as regards the implication that 'all Humanity' descended from Adam and Eve. In fact Eve is so named Genesis tells us, becuse she was 'the mother of all life' which is not the case according to Genesis itself, which does not claim that all living beings emerged from Eve!
II) There is an alternate way of resolving the contradiction between the survival of Og and Amalek and the passage which states that "all Humanity" was destroyed. One can perhaps distinguish between humanity as represented by Noakh and that represented by the giant Og. According to Midrash, Og was 15 feet tall, and thus was possibly not of original human stock, but of a priorly evolved race. Similarly, Amalek is the only group which it is incumbent on the children of Israel to fight, and it is a group which is genetically rather than culturally determined. Perhaps they are the perennial arch-enemies of the Jewish people because genetically they represent a different, non-moral, strain of Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
If this is so, then we can conclude that only Homo Sapiens Sapiens Voluntas was destroyed in the flood, and thus that when the Bible tells us that all humanity was destroyed, it means all of Homo Sapiens Sapiens Voluntas and not necessarily all of everyone else.
This would explain the widespread evidence uncovered by archaeologists that there were civilizations which were seemingly not destroyed in a flood 4,000 years ago.
It would also strengthen the case for there being non-Homo Sapiens Sapiens Voluntas present at the time of the creation of Adam - just as "all humanity" clearly refers only to a certain portion of Homo Sapiens Sapiens in the flood account since we are told that at least one survived, so too the creation of humanity in the creation account possibly refers only to the creation of Homo Sapiens Sapiens Voluntas.
One can perhaps also adapt the remarks above regarding the interchangeability of "Humanity" with "a nation", and "total annihilation" with "local diaster", as indicating the possibility that the implication that Genesis is relating the creation of all Humanity is erroneous - it is instead perhaps relating not the creation of all Humanity, but rather the emergence of Homo Voluntas.
Monogenesis and Genesis
The creation accounts are somewhat ambiguous as regards the number of humans created. In the first account, humans are created in male and female form in unspecified numbers, and even the second account deals mostly with a generic 'man' and 'woman' - Ha'adam and Ha'isha - rather than an individual named 'Adam' and his mate.
The accounts in Genesis do not state explicitly that a race of humans was not created. The first account can easily be understood as seems to be taught by Ibn Ezra, that a race of humans was created. The second account - that of the Garden of Eden seems to speak of one couple, but its connection to the first account is far from clear at the level of surface interpretation since much of it seems to contradict the first account.
It certainly seems possible at the surface level of interpretation to understand the Garden of Eden account as referring for example to a couple inhabiting a world already populated by the humans of the first account. Indeed, the Adam of the Garden of Eden account is not 'created' as is the case in the (first) creation account - instead he is 'formed from the dust of the earth'. Accordingly the first account may perhaps be understood as relating the creation of a race of humans, while the Garden of Eden account relates the story of one couple within that populated world.
Rambam and Monogenesis
According to the Rambam "it is one of the fundamental principles of the Law that the Universe has been created ex nihilo, and that of the human race, one individual being, Adam, was created".
Here the Rambam links two seemingly unrelated conflicts. One conflict is between the idea that Adam was created alone vs. the hypothesis that an entire race being created. The second conflict is that between the idea of creation vs. the idea of the eternity of the universe. Rambam connects the two because he fels that one implies the other, as follows: If the universe is eternal, there was no creation of man, and therefore there was always a human race . Therefore Adam was not the only human existing at the time of the events related in Genesis.
However, Rambam himself admits that if there was a convincing proof of the eternity of the universe, he would accept it and interpret the creation idea as 'allegory' just as he did with anthropomorphisms. Therefore, that Adam was the only Human is as much - and as little - dogma as that creation occurred . The implication is that if there is convincing proof to the contrary (i.e. that Adam was not the only Human), we can accept it.
One can perhaps assume that Rambam's elevation to the status of dogma of the idea of individual creation (vs. race creation ) was due to his apprehension that belief in race creation would be within the context of belief in an eternal universe. However, it is clear that although the eternity of the universe might imply the existence of a race "Adam" rather than an individual "Adam", the opposite is not the case. Thus, in our case where they are unrelated, perhaps we can assume that Rambam would not consider individual creation as dogma.
If individual creation is not necessarily dogma - even Rambam agrees its acceptance is contingent on their not being any proof to the contrary,i.e. that such proof is theoretically possible - it would seem that the reason we are told that only one man was created is to make the moral/pedagogical points related by the Mishnah and Tosefta of Sanhedrin. That is, it is quite possible that in actuality more than one man was created, but we are told not to derive sanctions for antisocial behaviour from this fact.
The Rambam however states in strong form that only one human was created. Therefore, we could perhaps be safer in saying that indeed only one human being was created; i.e. only one moral being was created, the rest were not moral beings and so do not count fully as "human beings".
In any case, even in the evolutionary theory, all humans stem from one original human being; and so the Midrash and the Rambam can be interpreted literally. For example, the "Ha'adam" of the first account could be the first human, and the Adam of the second account is the first human to exercise free willed choice, who lived much later.
Summary
If we interpret both creation accounts strictly literally, they contradict each other as to the order of creation of man, woman, and animals; as to the purpose and role of the animals; and as to the days on which all was created. Therefore part of the creation account is necessarily non-purely-literal: that is, it is allegorical. Within this partial allegory, partial literalness, we can say that the very wording of the Torah implies that a complete human race was created, and that the Tree of Knowledge incident is an allegory for a process which involved man as a species - and that is why even the second account speaks in terms of a generic 'man' and 'woman'.
The first two passages of the fifth chapter of Genesis states:
"This is the book of the descendants of Adam: In the day Gd created Adam , He created them as male and female:and Adam bagat Shem.....[Gen.5:12].
The Midrash on this passage tells us that everything in the Torah until this point belongs to the "toldot shamayim va'aretz" - the generations of heaven and earth - rather than to "toldot Adam" - the generations of man. That is, the story of the Garden of Eden is not a description of actual events ocurring to man, but is rather part of the description of the process whereby Gd created the heavens and the earth
Malbim quotes a Midrash to the effect that the Torah itself really begins at Genesis 5:1 with the words "This is the book of the generations... ". Certainly however, the entire account up until the fifth chapter is an account of creation, and hence of events beyond human comprehension. The beginning of actual events commences with the birth of Shem as related in the fifth chapter. That is, the first and second creation accounts are not the record of actual events as implied in a literal reading, but are rather descriptions of mysteries as told in language comprehensible to man.
According to the Sforno, at this juncture the Torah begins to detail for us the history of the human race - that is, on the day Adam was created, there was already a human race .
The Torah begins with a description of the creation of the physical elements of the universe (the first creation account), and then the Torah describes the onset of free-will, morality, etc (the second account). It is only then that the Torah begins the tale of actual history - dealing with a specific couple, Adam and Eve, and their descendents. [This history is meant literally, and is an account of actual historical events.]
Consequently, according to this 'partially allegorical' interpretation, there is no problem concerning the creation of woman separately from man, or of the contemporaries of Adam and Eve: the first account tells us that man and woman were created simultaneously in unspecified number.
The idea of the separate creation was given as an allegory for man's existential loneliness, his search to give and receive love and companionship, and so on. The idea of the uniqueness of the Adam/Eve pair is to teach humanity that all men are equal since they originate from one pair, and all are truly brothers since they derive from the same parents
Appendix: Adam as Mutation Vs. Adam as Genius
What does it mean to say that Adam was the first moral being? Certainly amoebas are not moral beings. However, would it be true to say that no evolved being prior to Adam was a moral being? Was Adam a mutation, and therefore uniquely the first being capable of moral consciousness and free will? Or was he a genius, but not a mutant?
If he was a mutation, then he was indeed the unique physical progenitor of our race; if he was not a mutation but rather a genius, he was the spiritual progenitor.
Although a mutant, Adam would posses almost all his genes in common with the non-Voluntas species, and some of his offspring would not carry his mutant gene. Indeed, according to Rambam, some of the descendents of Adam did not have his special characteristic - the Divine "form". Rambam states that as a result these offspring were not "human".
Thus, from the Biblical perspective, neither the ancestors nor the contemporaries of the first moral being are considered human. And so, in Genesis we are told that the first human had no human ancestors, nor did he have human contemporaries.
All the ancestors of this first free-willed human were of the animal kingdom, whereas he was the first true human. Genesis tells of the emergence of the first true human, after the emergence of the animals, including the pre-free-willed humanoids.
Genesis and the origin theory are consequently in agreement that the first human had predecessors, and that these predecessors were not human in the way we are.
Sources indicating that Adam was a mutation and not merely a genius with the same genes as his contemporaries:
In the third and last recounting of events at the creation (Gen: 5:1), we are told that on the day man - Adam - was created, he was created in the image of Gd ... [Gen: 5:1-3].
As we can see, we are told only of the birth of Sheth, not of the birth of Kayin ("Cain") and Hevel ("Abel"). Sheth was born to Adam, "in his likeness, in his image" whereas Kayin and Hevel were born to Chava (Eve) [Gen 4:1-2].
After telling of the birth of Sheth, the Torah tells us of his line of descendants: Adam; Sheth; Enosh; Kenan; Mehalalel; Yered; Chanoch ["Enoch"]; Methushelach; Lemech; Noach.
Chanoch ["Enoch"] was so righteous the Torah says of him that he "walked with Gd" and did not die but rather " and he was no more, for he was taken away by Gd"... [Gen: 4:25].
Noach was of course the Righteous man of his generation, and the progenitor of all post-flood humanity. Consequently, only the descendants of Adam through Sheth were truly righteous, and only they survived the flood. The other children of Adam were seemingly not quite so righteous: Kayin was the first murderer, and his victim Hevel (Abel) was the first person mentioned to kill at all, in this case an animal, albeit to sacrifice to Gd. Of the descendants of Hevel we are told not of spiritual accomplishments but that they initiated cities, cattle farming, music and metal instruments - all of which could be used both for good and for bad.
Perhaps we can now understand why the Torah tells us that only Sheth was born of Adam "in his likeness in his image": just as Adam was created "in the image of Gd" by virtue of his ability to use free willed choice, perhaps only Sheth of all his children was sufficiently advanced to become capable of moral choice and spirituality, while the others possessed only the creative instinct without a refined moral sense. If this were the case, we can understand why they are not called children of Adam, but rather children of Chava, why they are not "in the image of Adam", why they created art and technology, rather than spirituality, why their descendants did not survive the flood.
In terms of our thesis, one can say that the mutation which made Adam special was not passed on totally to all of his children: only Sheth inherited that physical complexity which enabled him to respond to the divine and to develop a moral sense: the others were different from Adam's predecessors in their advanced intellectual and creative ability, but not in the realm of the spiritual.
The "selection" provided by the flood weeded out those morally unfit, and allowed only the Righteous Noach of the line of Chanoch and Sheth to repopulate the world.
Ha'adam: 'Man' the Species vs. 'the man', an Individual
According to the creation account as remembered by most people, man was created alone, a single male individual without any contemporaries. From this man, a woman was later created. However, careful reading of the Torah will show that this is inexact.
In the first creation account, the species 'man' is created in male and female types from the very outset. The idea that the male, Adam, preceded the female, Eve, is only developed in the second account. It is difficult to imagine that a male human would be created if no female were existent or planned. The second account, however, is quite possibly meant allegorically, as Rambam states. However, one can attempt an interpretation which stays close to the literal meaning.
The very factors which define a male as such, would be meaningless and superfluous in the absence of a female, and even undefined before the idea of a female human was created. Thus it would seem most logical to assume that, as indeed stated by the Midrash, the Adam which preceded Eve was not male, but was rather either a neuter or a combination of what was later separated into male and female .
Indeed, since no command was given to the original Human to multiply until after woman was created, there was no need for any reproduction mechanism at all in the original Human. Thus, this Human (Ha'adam) was probably not 'male', and perhaps without gender at all. Therefore, since there could be no 'man' without 'woman', 'man' was created only when woman was produced out of Ha'adam. That is, man and woman as such were created simultaneously out of Ha'adam.
Thus "Ha'adam" is the evolutionary predecessor of the first true human beings, male and female . And as in the origin theory, man and woman emerged separately but from a common source.
Appendix: Scientific Monogenesis
According to the theory of evolution and modern genetic knowledge, all humanity stems from one ancestor, one original prototype human being who emerged where no true human had existed previously. This of course agrees with the teaching of Genesis on this matter.
We will now briefly sketch the reasons why geneticists have reached this conclusion.
Genetic differences between man and ape and between man and man
1 gene
Chromosome
INSERT DRAWING Of Chromosome
1 gene pairs of nucleotides
All the physical characteristics of a person or an animal are determined by their genes and their environment. The genetic constitution of a being is determined by the type and order of its DNA nucleotide chain [see end of chapter C for more detail.].
When comparing two beings, one cannot necessarily make a linear correlation between the percentage difference in their nucleotide-pairs and the percentage difference in their proteins, nor between these and vital qualities such as intelligence, creativity etc. Nevertheless, one can take these measures as rough guides to the 'similarity' or 'dissimilarity' of the two beings.
Human beings and chimpanzees have approximately 5 billion nucleotide pairs in their chromosomes. The vast majority of these nucleotide pairs - 99% of them - are identical, so that the proteins of humans and chimpanzees are largely alike, as are their resulting genetic traits: both have two arms with 4 fingers and a thumb each, 2 legs with 5 toes, similar face, similar skeletal structure, similar blood etc. The physical differences between man and chimp are due to the 1% difference, i.e. the approximately 50 million out of 5 billion nucleotide pairs which are different in the two species.
The genetic differences between even the most widely disparate humans is very small in comparison with the genetic difference between any human and a chimpanzee. The difference between two people of the same 'racial/ethnic' origin is approximately 200,000 nucleotide pairs, i.e. 0.4% of 1% of the total. It is this difference which causes the physical differences between any two people of the same 'race'. People of the same general 'racial' origin but from geographically divided points will differ by very slightly more, and people from differing 'races' will differ by yet a slight bit more. The difference between two people of different 'races' is not significantly more than the difference between two people of the same 'race'. The reason that people of different 'races' seem so different is that the few actual genetic differences that do exist between them are the easily discernable differences of external features such as skin colour, hair type, nose width etc.
The reason that people of different 'races' differ so much in external features is that it is precisely these external features which make the difference in differing climates (Skin colour determines sunburn, absorption of ultraviolet for the synthesis of vital vitamin D; nose width for staying cool in heat etc.. Thus these features will be selected for in different ways among different populations depending on their environment). However, the number of genes necessary to govern these is quite small - the vast majority of genes are the same for all humans. [It is ironic and perhaps unfortunate that the extremely tiny differences between people of different 'races' cause exactly those changes which are visible to the eye.]
The tiny differences between people of different 'races' shows that all the 'races' originated from the same group of people, and that the differences between them arose when various individual families migrated to distant areas, over thousands of years, and slowly the changes solidified into clearly visible changes. [Among those who migrated to Africa, and other tropical climates, those with darker skins were healthier than light-skinned people: dark skinned people had stronger, and more living, children - intermarriage darkened the skin more, these were ever more survival-successful: and therefore dark skins eventually dominated and v.v. in colder areas, etc.)
Clearly, since the difference between man and chimp is 250 times that of the difference between people of different 'races', and people of different 'races' have no significantly greater genetic differences than people of the same 'race', it would be absurd to say that the different 'races' arose from different mutations from the apes.
There are approximately five 'racial' groupings, each differing from the closest type of ape by 1% of their genetic material, yet all sharing 99.995% of genetic material with each other. For each of the five racial types to have evolved separately from the apes is so improbable as to be quite impososible since it would mean that 5 separate mutations occurred during a very short while (20,000 years), all 99.995% identical to each other, yet all differing by 1% - the same 1% - from their pre-mutated form! The mutation from ape to human is highly unlikely and took millions of years - for it to happen 5 times within a few thousand years and result in individuals identical in 99.99% of their nucleotide pairs would be absurdly improbable. Thus, all men of all 'races' must have originated from one original mutation of 1% and then these mutated in 5 different ways, each of approximately ~0.5% relative variation. Since Homo Sapiens Sapiens arose only about 60,000 years ago (40,000-100,000) and all today's 'races' are Homo Sapiens, the split into different 'races' must have occurred some time after this.
AR: Deleted From ch 11
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The creation accounts as they relate to man will then be interpreted as describing not the entire evolution of man from ape, and ape from earlier forms, but rather as dealing with the emergence of the first moral being .