Oh, stop being so obtuse! Why couldn't the first two humans to emerge from the primordial ooze have been called Adam and Eve? What's so implausible about that?!?

Nah.

Question for you Rize.

If I say, "I saw a beautiful sunrise this morning while enjoying my coffee and it was good."

Am I making a scientific statement?

Why is it that in the majority of religious debates the atheist doesn't use this contradiction as his main talking point? If in fact the story and scientific discovery were contradicting to one another, wouldn't all debates just end there?

How is it that these debates last several hours arguing over a load of other points and not this particular contradiction. Why is it that the theist representative isn't loled off the stage???

So humans = ss but
clay != ss

correct?

When stars go supernova they spew out their material and then through natural forces are pulled together to form moons, planets etc. So everything is star stuff, from clay to humans.

But, we don't know that life evolved from clay, clay is just another hypothesis in a long list of possible genesises where life could have arose.

But even if we get past the fact of evolution and posit that Adam and Eve were the first evolved humans: aren't they presented with a bit too much sophistication for the first evolved humans? I mean, not only are they able to communicate in more than just grunts, Adam is fluent enough that he can name all the animals! They have conversations. Or was the naming of all the animals just a series of grunts with different inflections?

Or is none of the story true and its all supposed to be allegory. If so, then what do we make of the geneology that goes right up to Jesus? At what point does "history" jump in?

Because when theists can't defend absurd things, they make that part of the bible as "figurative". Oh this doesn't make any sense? That's because it's not meant to be taken literally.

Yep now you're getting it. It's allegory.

This is regurgitated rhetoric that doesn't really answer my question...

Well, do you know anything about ancient genealogies? Did you know that it was common practice to only include the pertinent people? In the beginning of Matthew I think there is a genealogy of Jesus, Son of David, Son of Adam. Now do you believe that the bible is telling us there were only 2 generations before Jesus?

this.

anyone want to explain to me how the whole human race thingy started up from adam and eve?

let me clarify: why was god so down with incest?

My point remains that there is a line from Adam to Jesus. If we are positing that Adam never existed, then neither did his kids, etc. etc. At what point do theists who believe this believe that the fictional geneology ends and the historical one begins.

For those who believe there was an actual Adam and Eve who were the first two evolved humans, how do you think they were able to speak language, or keep track of their kids, to pass down through the generations, etc.

The problems of Adam and Eve go deeper than just whether or not they were literal or not. At some point, if we are to accept that the bible becomes historical at one point, there must be historical insertion point where someone is considered to have been begatten in the text, but someone who never really existed.

Ok, I guess I misunderstood the point that you were making.

Well seeing as Jesus was born of a virgin (lol) he isn't descended from man anyways on one side of the family anyhow. How does the lineage from Adam-->Abraham-->David-->Jesus make any sense at all within virgin birth concept...

Lol at using equals signs for this.

Humans are made of star stuff, clay is made of star stuff, but humans are not made of clay.

They trace it through Mary or Joseph as a step father afaik.

Genealogy of Jesus

There's a lot of debate on the whole issue though because Matthew and Luke dont match up.

If you like conspiracy theories Jesus might come form this guy too. Panthera.

I think you are making a statement that requires the sun to exist and be visible, so yeah a little bit.

For the record, it tilts me so damn bad that you won't spend three minutes on google. There are buckets and buckets of Biblical scholars (Christian scholars, even!) who make reference to the two creation stories in genesis.

It's a pretty simple, "LDO" to anyone with even a little bit of Old Testament studies under their belt. So here, you're either ignorant and don't have any desire to change that, or looking to get into a semantic debate (It's not two creation stories, it's two stories about one creation!) rather than actually interact with the content in the thread.

Genesis 1 deals with the creation of everything. Genesis 2:4 starts the story again and retells it, with the focus specifically on the Garden of Eden and the creation of Adam and Eve.

I can go on here about the four sources contributing to the Torah, and how the J source and E source are responsible for the different stories and came in at separate times, and that the Hebrew clearly demonstrates differing stories, but... meh. You'd rather just act smug with one word answers than offer up any actual discussion on the topic. But hey, feel free to go on ignoring 300+ years of research and the general consensus of Biblical Scholars (Christian and otherwise), if that's your thing.

Seriously. You're in front of a keyboard already. Search it up, find anything that isn't an echo chamber of ignorance, and read up. Fail that, find a pastor, priest, clergyman or anyone with a degree in Biblical Studies or Theology. Hell, just pick up a commentary and read along. Or, go on being ignorant. Whatever's cool with you.

No theist wants to weigh in here?

Could it be that parts are historically accurate, and parts are allegorical? Does it have to be that it begins strictly allegorically and then suddenly becomes entirely historical?

Also, what is it that you are looking for in an answer? What I mean is, let's say that someone points out the sentence where they think real history begins. What follow-up would you be looking for?

Well, first of all, I think at the very least it would be considered to be a contradiction (or at least an untruth) which many theists claim don't really exist in the bible, we just have to look hard enough.

The fact of one person being completely fictional causes deep questions about the rest of the story because each story is linked genealogically. At the very least we have at least one untruth in the bible, if we are to accept that someone in it is said to have been born of parents who never existed. If there is one untruth that can't be saved by allegory, perhaps there are more. If it is the holy word of God then we have at evidence of at least one fib that's been passed to us directly by God.

Given that the genealogy is linked directly to Jesus Christ I think it adds an element of clear fiction to the Christ story that must make theists a bit uncomfortable.

I'm sure there are other implications as I think more about this, but I think it goes a little deeper than "aha I found another contradiction!" If the genealogy wasn't there I don't think it would have been as big a deal as the stories would have been more dispersed.

Remember, I am coming from the perspective that the entirety of the book is allegory, if at times having elements of historical fiction (that is, many of the events may very well have been based on real events or figures).

This just came to me a few hours before I posted it, so I'm very open to debate on this topic and I'm sure there are plenty of elements I haven't considered. I wasn't able to find anything on this in google, but that's not to say this issue hasn't been debated before, I'm sure it has. Not sure how theists have dealt with this problem.

I might come back to this when I'm not pretending to study, because your answer makes sense. However, I do have to respond to this quoted part for now. I think you meant to say "Christians" instead of "theists" at the end there. It's not just you, but I find that very often on this board people seem to forget that people can be of other religions.

Yes, sorry, although Judeo-Christian-Muslim would be more accurate, since it applies all the way through...