Adam and Eve

The story of Cain and Abel establishes the theme that the very best meat must be sacrificed on the altar to God, repeated later through the Old Testament. Perhaps the early priests who partook of the offerings were anxious to ensure a proper fare.

Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

The passage in Genesis chapter 1 should not be thought of as other people created by God before he created Adam in Genesis 2: and Eve much later in Genesis 2:22. They are simply two completely different stories from two different sources and written by two different authors.

The first creation account, in Genesis 1:1-2:4a (the first sentence in verse 2:4) is attributed to the Priestly source. The second creation account, in Genesis 2:4b-2:20 is attributed to the Yahwist source. This is why the first account has God creating people, both male and female after he had created everything else, while the second account has God creating Adam before any other creation and Eve last of all.

For the misfortune of not obeying God's instructions, Adam and Eve were banned from the Garden, must toil in their lives, continue the human race and die. After Lucifer fell and lost the right to rule on the 'Throne of the Earth,' God created physical Adam to attain that position. All he had to do was chose from the 'tree of life' and not sin along with his deceived wife Eve. We know the rest...but this was the beginning of God's Plan of Salvation passing on to Abel who was also cut short but the line continued via Seth to Noah to Shem to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel), Joseph.

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE:

"Judgment Day" is revealed in the Bible to be the "Last Great Day" of God's plan of Salvation for man; with the LAST JUDGMENT taking place at the end of Christ's thousand year rule [see Rev.20:11-15].

But, surprisingly, to many, it also reveals "TWO" phases to the Judgment. The FIRST phase of Judgment Day is actually GOING ON RIGHT NOW... and has been for the past two thousand or so years... among God's church!

"Because the time has come for JUDGMENT TO BEGIN AT THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD, and if it BEGINS WITH US, what will the end be of those who are rejecting God's Good News [gospel]?" (I Peter 4:17 WNT William's New Testament)

A number of Jesus' parables speak of this "ongoing Judgment" of His church, in the parables of the "talents" and "pounds"... in which the "Nobleman" [Jesus] goes to a "far country" [heaven] and returns to "assess the work of those He left in charge of His possessions while He was away."

"After a LONG TIME their Master RETURNED FROM HIS TRIP and called them to GIVE AN ACCOUNT of how they had used His money." (Matt.25:17 NLT New Living Translation)

God is presently training, through the instruction of His Word, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit, His servants; to Know, Understand, and Obey His Laws... so that when Christ returns, He will assign each "Faithful, Obedient Servant" the office, position and job within His Kingdom that they qualify for [depending upon how they are JUDGED by Christ] when He returns, to RULE, lead, teach and minister to the nations of the earth in God's ways throughout the millennial rule of the Kingdom on earth:

" ...They came to life again [at Christ's return], and they reigned WITH CHRIST for a thousand years. THIS IS THE FIRST RESURRECTION [and the time of the First Judgment; when Christ will reward each of His saints with the office they've earned through their Faith and Works]. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended. [the time of the Second Judgment]) Blessed and Holy are those who share in the First Resurrection. For them the Second Death holds no power, but they will be Priests of God [the Father] and of Christ and will reign with Him a thousand years." (Rev.20:4-6 NLT)

The First Judgment has been going on since God first began to "call" His servants out of the world to train for their positions in His coming Government on earth [beginning with "Faithful Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc."]. Christ has been training, correcting and disciplining them... grooming them... for the offices His Father has "predestined" for them to do when He returns to establish God's Kingdom on earth.

It's a little-known and understood Truth in the Bible... but it's written there for those with the eyes to see it.

Whether we evolved exactly as Darwin stated or whether a different form of evolution will be finally discovered, or whether Creation happened as per the Bible is still rather a subjective question despite evidence for evolution, although the evidence so far cannot reliably be stated as 'irrefutable'. That some form of evolution occurs, there is no doubt. However, there are still many unanswered questions about the nature of evolution. There are similar problems, for example, over gravity; we know gravity exists but the mechanism by which it works is still not completely understood. There are theories about gravity 'particles', 'waves', and, of course, the warping of spacetime as postulated by Einstein. But, despite all these theories having a great deal of merit, the exact 'factual' means by which gravity works is still not fully understood. In the same way, evolution, though evidence supports its existence, is still not fully understood, and until it is, facts about it cannot be cited without some doubt. The word 'fact' can be either irrefutable mathematical evidence (eg 2 + 2 = 4) but can also mean an idea for which there is overwhelming evidence - until something else comes along and improves or modifies it, that is! As an example, Newton's laws of motion were 'fact' for hundreds of years until Einstein realised that they break down at speeds near the speed of light. This is not to say Newton was wrong - only limited. In the same way, we are still groping with Darwin and, although it is unlikely that Darwin will be 'proved' wrong, it is almost certain that the current 'facts' will be modified as new evidence comes along.

With regard to whether or not we evolved as per Darwin's theory, or whether we 'descended' from Adam and Eve, there are two extremes, both of which are rather untenable. Firstly there are those, like Richard Dawkins, who accept Darwin as irrefutable fact. He once stated "Evolution is as much a fact as the heat of the sun. It is not a theory, and for pity's sake, let's stop confusing the philosophically naive by calling it so. Evolution is a fact.' Whilst he may be eventually shown to be correct, there are many questions about evolution that Darwin simply does not answer at the moment, and so such a statement by Dawkins is rather foolish and cavalier. There are some intermediary species that have been found, but, considering the multitude of different creatures that have existed since life began, there simply aren't nearly enough to back up Darwinian theory, even if we discovered many, many more. Also, rather than a gradual process of evolution as suggested by Darwin, the fossil records suggest that it happened, in some cases, in leaps and bounds. Why? There are also many unanswered questions such as the unlikelihood of complex structures like the eye or the feather being formed by chance, and the great improbability of a complex code like DNA being formed also by chance, even in the most primitive of bacteria. While these unanswered problems and others like them, may eventually be solved, to stick ones neck out and claim that Darwinian evolution, at this moment, is irrefutable, is as dangerous as Fred Hoyle's insistence in the Steady State Universe, until Wilson and Penzias came along and discovered the background radiation from the Big Bang, causing Hoyle's Steady State to be shelved overnight.

Secondly there are those who deny evolution totally and who insist on an earth that is just a few thousand years old, where all species were created together, and where Adam and Eve are real people from whom we all descended. Creationists have formulated their own explanations of life's formation surrounding the 'falsified' evidence of Darwinism, and usually rely on scripture to dispute Darwin's theories out of hand. This rigid approach is equally untenable as there is clear evidence of the immense age of the earth, and clear, and overwhelming, evidence that some form of evolution through natural selection does actually take place. Creationists seem, also, to forget that the Darwin they demonise, despite some wobbly episodes, lived and died a Christian. He was once famously quoted as saying he had never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. Even his Origin of Species ends with the words "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." In truth, then when asking about the whether evolution occurred it is very presumptuous to either accept Darwin's ideas on evolution as irrefutable or deny it out of hand. It seems the truth lies somewhere in between.

As a simple example, many Christians believe that we did indeed evolve, but at some time during history the human race gained a spiritual dimension (were made in 'the image of a spiritual God'), especially as the name Adam actually means 'mankind' in Hebrew. This is not contrary to scripture as most biblical scholars agree that Genesis is an allegorical book - a book that hides great truth, but which should not be read literally. Sadly, the Creationists, by their own folly, have fueled the militant atheistic view that the story of Adam and Eve is just a 'fairytale'. Whilst there may never have been an 'Adam' nor an 'Eve' (just like there was never a Cinderella), just like Cinderella tells of the great truth of a poor oppressed girl making good through love and integrity rather than the hate and jealousy of the ugly sisters, the depth of the narrative in Genesis talks of the great truth of humanity's need for God, the love of God for humanity, and humanity's rejection of that love and it's inevitable consequences.

In all this, until more evidence comes to light, both theological and biological, until more theories and speculations come and go and until scientists and naturalists understand much (much) more about the workings of DNA, the facts about evolution will still be rather nebulous and controversial.

Answer The story of Adam and Eve is a fairytale; there is absolutely no truth in it. The concept of evolution is more theoretical than factual. Although evolution is constantly taking place all around us it still does not accurately explain the source of all matter and the source of its intelligence. Evolution does not accurately identify the source of energy that keeps an organism alive, the absence of which causes death. Religion has also failed to accurately demonstrate that their theologies are infallible.

Answer However it sounds, as evolution may seem scientifically correct, it is like fitting puzzle pieces together in the wrong spots, and with different peices of a puzzle. How could an animal evolve perfectly, and be exactly the way it is now? how do you explain thousands and millions and trillions of years make a new animal because it evolved? You don't. Why didn't mos of the apes Evolve? did lack of pigment make people different skin colors? did we "Evolve" from an animal and decide we didn't need as much fur and we didn't need tails? Don't get me wrong, but a human with a tail and fur would be warmer and maybe could use its tail, but that didn't happen. Evolution is the result of scribbles out of the garbage. it's a random process, that really wont make sense. here's an example...take a block of wood, cut it perfectly into a shape of a square, and get a paintbrush. now splat all over the blocks you made (multiple blocks) and make a letter, but you must just flick the brush. did it make a letter? No. now keep doing it a million times, and try to get the letter. you could possibl get it, but i you get the ink on another block, or if you mess th leter up, you must start all over, and the rest are thrown away. now, did you get a scrablble board, after splatting foolishley forever? blaahhhh, no you didn't. That's what evolution is. it's random and foolish. I could say chopsticks with ears created a baby by chipping, and wind made new wood, which kept chipping until it mixed with fluids in water and the ear, which nobody knows where the water comes from (notice how evolution never has a begining, or an end?) but they mix, and make a plant, and they keep working, and magically, some disapear without evidense or their existence, and aliens run amok and trn into apes, and then, we have humans. that's how foolish it is. no, im not putting up any evidense in the particular thing, but I'm just proving my point.