John, Now you are just going to have to accept the fact that some things have not been revealed yet. We can only speculate on the descent of man, whether there was an evolution involved or not. My speculation is that the scriptures were written on a personal/lineage history level. In the current FARMS magazine, discussing DNA and the BoM, Sorensen explains what personal/lineage histories of small groups are. As far as they are concerned, the universe revolves around them, and they view events in terms they understand. Amazingly, we do the same today. 9/11 or Pearl Harbor only have value inasmuch as we place value there personally. When our personal worlds are falling apart, it seems the whole world is coming unglued. And when we are doing great, we often forget the pains that still occur throughout the rest of the world. Given archaeology's estimate that there were only 1-200 million people alive in Abraham's day throughout the world, we can understand how unpopulated many places would be, especially further back in Adam's day. We are possibly talking of just a few million people, according to archaeology. It would be very easy to believe him to be the only person upon the earth. Or, it is very possible that the Lord allowed Adam to be first man, and those before him were not counted as in the population of mankind. We worry about thousands and millions of years, when God works in multi-billion years and perhaps much longer periods of mortal time. Was God the Father around prior to the creation of this universe 15 billion years ago? Perhaps. Does it matter? Not really. Did he create this earth 4 billion or 6 thousand years ago? Doesn't matter, either way. He's free to do it any way he likes. Is the Bible a perfect history? Possibly, but not necessarily so. It is highly likely that scribes down the road from Moses could have enhanced some of the story. Why else would there be two creation stories in the Bible? Yes, I know some claim one to be a spiritual creation and the other a physical - but if so, which is which? If the second is the physical creation, then there's no mention of creating Day and Night, earth and water, etc. We just have a general creation, and then man shows up in the Garden. As for the creation stories in the Book of Moses and the endowment, we still don't know whether we are learning about the spiritual creation or the physical one. And there is Book of J evidence of a third-type of creation story within the Bible that falls in line with ancient Babylonian/Sumerian Creation stories (including God having to fight and destroy Leviathan). So, which one do we fully rely upon? Traditionally, we take Genesis 1, and follow it. But it isn't necessarily that easy once we look deeper into the scriptures.
Do i believe Adam was a historical person? Absolutely! I just don't know if he was physically the father of all humans, or symbolically the father of all humans. After all, did God create him out of the dust of the earth as the scriptures tell us, or was he transplanted here from another world, as suggested by Brigham Young? More speculation! Gary K'aya K'ama Gerald Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.geocities.com/rameumptom/ Freedom Forever ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html --^----------------------------------------------------------------
