God and Primordial People

The Rise and Fall of Man and Our Rescue through Christ

Poulton

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781532640254
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

The modern world is in a position to view the divine sculptor's work as no other generation has. Throughout previous generations many people believed that God created life, but preceding generations were not privy to the method and manner in which he worked--his modus operandi. We are now in that position, thanks to the fine work of archaeologists, geologists, paleontologists, and scientists, some of whom have faith in God: the Big Bang Theory itself was first proposed by a Christian priest, who was also a scientist.This explosion of verifiable information affects the way we view the Bible. God and Primordial People investigates and provides a cohesive picture of the Christian doctrine of the rise and fall of man and our salvation through Christ.The book moves through each relevant step in the chain from the first primordial human beings to the world we live in today.

Chapter 1

Divine Sculpting

Michelangelo said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” A human sculptor who slowly and skillfully chips away at a block of stone is similar to the sculpting of life by God who deftly worked away at the clay of the earth until it reached a state where he considered it “good.” God, the sculptor, found the image of a human being in earth’s clay and turned that human frame into a being made in his image.

The modern world is in a position to view the divine sculptor’s work as no other generation has. Throughout previous generations many people believed that God created life, but preceding generations were not privy to the method and manner in which he worked—his modus operandi. We are now in that position, thanks to the fine work of archaeologists, geologists, paleontologists, and scientists, some of whom have faith in God: the Big Bang theory itself was first proposed by a Christian priest who was also a scientist.

Georges Lemaître proposed that the universe had a beginning—an observation he made from reading the Bible and working as an astronomer and professor of physics. Lemaître described his thoughts on the universe as “the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation.” Some people were not too happy with this theory. British astronomer Fred Hoyle, taking part in a BBC radio broadcast made a disparaging remark about the exploding universe, calling it the “Big Bang theory.” The name stuck. Albert Einstein was also slow to accept Lemaître’s expanding universe but when Edwin Hubble published his findings on objects observed in deep space, Einstein was quick to accept Lemaître’s view.

Lemaître said, “Once you realize that the Bible does not purport to be a textbook of science, the old controversy between religion and science vanishes . . . The doctrine of the Trinity is much more abstruse than anything in relativity or quantum mechanics; but, being necessary for salvation, the doctrine is stated in the Bible. If the theory of relativity had also been necessary for salvation, it would have been revealed to Saint Paul or to Moses.”1

Lemaître makes a valid point. The Bible is concerned with humankind’s salvation and not science, but the perceptive reader of the scriptures will garner enough information to acknowledge that the Bible and science can comfortably coexist. The precise wording of the book of Genesis and the meticulous work of scientists, each in their own way, offer insights into the creation of man. Scripture and science are far from being opponents and serve the common purpose of informing us of issues pertaining to their individual fields. We also see that the “fields” of scripture and science periodically overlap.

Genesis 1:24–28 announces the arrival of human beings. God called humankind “Adam,” reminding them that they originally came from the “land,” the same as all the other creatures. Adam is mentioned for the first time in the Bible in Genesis 1:26. English Bibles translate the word as “man,” “mankind,” or “human beings” but the Hebrew word is Adam. Adam, in the context of Genesis chapter 1, is a collective group. Adamah is Hebrew for “ground,” so there is some wordplay involved—man named the animals but God named man (2:19; 1:26–27). The word human is in the same category as the word Adam and therefore reminds us of the ground. We see that the word human extrapolates its earthy meaning into other words too. “Humus” is dark, organic material that forms in soil. “Humility” means down-to-earth. “Exhume” means to dig something out of the earth. God has given us a permanent reminder of our humble beginnings in our name as Adam or Human.

In the early Proto-Indo-European language the word ghomon means “earthling” or “earthly being.” This is helpful because if we look at the word ghomon we can see “human” in there, as well as “homo.” Latin uses Homo from where we get “hominis” or “man.” We see it in “homicide,” meaning to kill a human. In French “man” is homme and in Spanish it’s hombre.

We are from the genus Homo. The word “kind” is the biblical term for “genus.” “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind” (Gen 1:24). We are Homo sapiens. Homo reminding us of the “ground” or “earth,” and sapien, meaning “sapient” or “wise.” Genesis concurs, informing us that there came a point when the creatures from the ground became Homo sapient—from the ground yet with the image of God upon us (27).

In his acclaimed book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari writes, “What then drove forward the evolution of the massive human brain during those 2 million years? Frankly, we don’t know.”2 When we humans struggle to comprehend, even with our massive brain, Genesis is happy to enlighten us.

Genesis 1:24 informs us that living creatures came from the ground: “And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures.’” God doesn’t say, “Let the land produce” a second time when man is made in his image, because he said that right at the beginning of the process—man comes at the tail-end of the procedure, which is what scientists tell us and Genesis confirms. God then says, “Let us make man in our image,” not referring to the land producing at all (26).

We read, “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so” (24 kjv). Notice the order: cattle, creeping thing, and beast. The root of the Hebrew word “beast” is chay, which means “living,” and is sometimes used to describe God himself as the “living” God. Included in “beast” were early pre-humans. There came a point when God saw that the condition of some of the beasts had developed to a level where he could endow his image on them. Note that God doesn’t say, “Let the land produce” again when man is made in his image, God now says, “Let us make man in our image.”

We can’t help but notice that beast is missing when God gives his reasons for making man in his image. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (26 kjv). The fish and fowl are there (God made them on his fifth day of creation). Cattle are there, and so are the creeping things, but no mention of beast. Science informs us that beast had developed (in its highest form) into man, and Genesis concurs. We do not expect the book of Genesis to highlight every stage of evolution, God has given that job to scientists, but the omission of the word “beast,” and the introduction of the word “man,” informs us that the book of Genesis is still leading the way. Science will always trail behind scripture. When we begin to think that science has highlighted some new universal truth we have to stop in our tracks and admit that the Bible got there first. Science informs us that beasts developed into man and Genesis (with a smile on its face) makes provision for that transition.

If we think about God saying, “Let us make man in our image,” the choice of words suggests that man is already there. If man were not already there God could have said, “Let us make man and let us make him in our image.” But God didn’t say that. The main point being made here is not the making of man, but the making of man in God’s image. It is the “image of God” that is the focus of the sentence when God says, “Let us make man in our image.” This statement seems to presuppose that the basic “man” is already there but that God is going to add one important final ingredient, which is spirit. A car manufacturer may make a stylish car, with an engine that runs nicely and an interior that is plush and ergonomic, but until a human being sits behind the wheel and drives the vehicle, the car does not reach the potential for which the manufacturer made it. The “human spirit” is the driver within each man and woman that enables us to reach the potential for which we were made.

Let’s look at this scenario another way. Imagine a pool table on a ship with the natural lurching of the ship making the pool balls move and collide in an indiscriminate manner. The clashing of the balls would not seriously gain anyone’s interest. But if we place a human pool player at the table hitting the balls skillfully with a pool cue we find that the interest of onlookers is awakened. The “spirit” that God placed within human beings is the skillful player at the pool table able to pocket the electrons within the human brain with consummate ease. The human spirit separates us from the animals whose instinct serves them well but it’s nowhere near human beings’ creative thought. To be human is far more than a biological machine. There is a driver in this hominid vehicle, there is a player at this anthropological pool table, there is a ghost in this biological machine.

Confusion arises in some people’s minds when they read Genesis chapter 2 because biblical Hebrew doesn’t have a pluperfect tense—a fact important for the Bible student to remember. Critics say that Genesis chapter 1 has the animals created before humans but chapter 2 has a human created before the animals; however, that objection disappears once we take into account the absence of pluperfect tense in Hebrew. Early Hebrew states the completion of an event but leaves the time of the event to be inferred by the context. “Context is king” is a saying that some Bible translators like to use; they say it because it’s true. Hebrew tenses do not convey the time but simply the state of an action.

Genesis 2:7 (kjv) says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Chapter 1: Divine Sculpting
• Chapter 2: Migrants
• Chapter 3: Simplicity Itself
• Chapter 4: Sex-Driving Lessons
• Chapter 5: God Said to Them
• Chapter 6: The Great Awakening
• Chapter 7: Dawn of Humanity
• Chapter 8: Art for Art’s Sake
• Chapter 9: Dead and Buried
• Chapter 10: Run Baby Run
• Chapter 11: The Fall of Man
• Chapter 12: The Competition
• Chapter 13: Creation Groans
• Chapter 14: The Center of Civilization
• Chapter 15: Train Up a Child
• Chapter 16: The Long-Livers
• Chapter 17: Producing Fruit
• Chapter 18: Educating Adam
• Chapter 19: Made in the Image of God
• Chapter 20: Forefathers
• Chapter 21: Appointed to Die
• Chapter 22: Faith
• Chapter 23: Bad from Birth
• Chapter 24: Bone and Flesh
• Chapter 25: The Work of Our Hands
• Chapter 26: A Clean Heart
• Appendix A
• Bibliography