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Abstract

Table of Contents

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII
   

Volume 2: The Doorway Papers Series

GENESIS AND EARLY MAN

 

 

Abstract: The current interpretation of human fossil remains challenges the biblical statements of man's origin. Yet the facts of these remains cannot be simply rejected. An alternative interpretation is here presented after examining what is known of man's early history, his culture, his intelligence, the factors which determine the shape of a skull and the validity of anthropological reconstructions and the origin of language, that unique faculty possessed by man alone. And a study of patterns of cultural behaviour help us to understand some incidents in Scripture.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

 

 

PART I


FOSSIL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN
AND THE RECORD OF GENESIS

     The discovery of human fossil remains with grossly brutalized features in remote areas of the world has been hailed as proof of man's animal ancestry and that these ancestors are millions of years old. But this poses a serious threat to Christian theology. What are we to do with the Adam of Genesis? If the Adam and Eve of Genesis are merely symbolic representatives of the first truly human beings, then there is no problem with these fossil remains of millions of years ago.
     But if the Adam and Eve of Genesis are the first truly human beings and really existed in the historical sense that Genesis implies, then these remains can't be our ancestors.
     What, then, are we to do with these human fossil remains which seem to challenge the biblical record of man's early history at almost every point? To reject the evidence is to commit intellectual suicide. Is there an alternative interpretation?
     It is not necessary to assume that everything that looks like an ancestor is an ancestor -- it could be a descendant! And degeneration is as likely as improvement. Taking Genesis as a true statement, this Paper presents a reasonable, and satisfying, alternative interpretation of the evidence of fossil remains.

Chapter 1. The Evolutionary Faith
Chapter 2. Faith Without Sufficient Reason
Chapter 3. An Alternative Faith
Chapter 3. Where Did Man First Appear?  

 

PART II


PRIMITIVE CULTURES:  A SECOND LOOK
AT THE PROBLEM OF THEIR HISTORICAL ORIGIN

   Human history, far from being characterized by progress from savage to barbarian to civilized is in fact more frequently characterized by regression from civilized to barbaric (albeit, refined at times) to savage. This tendency to degeneration in spite of a high beginning is documented in two chapters.  Neither the evolution nor the devolution of culture is automatic: the last chapter discusses these determining factors.
     The record of Genesis, rightly understood, readily accounts not only for the sudden rise of culture in the Middle East but also for the loss of that culture as people moved out from this centre of high civilization.

Introduction  
Chapter 1. The Changing Climate of Opinion  
Chapter 2. Climax at the Beginning  
Chapter 3. Cultural Degeneration  
Chapter 4. Some Consideration, Some Causes, and Some Conclusions  

 

PART III


ESTABLISHING A PALEOLITHIC IQ

     Early man, we are told, may have had a fair measure of animal cunning � otherwise he would not have survived. But of the kind of intelligence we associate with inventiveness and advacement of culture, he can have had very little. For one thing, his brute features and small cranial capacity are taken as evidence of low mentality: he looked idiotic and therefore was idiotic. For another thing, the extreme simplicity of his tools and artifacts is indication of a low IQ.
     But is intelligence to be measured by looks and by standard of living? Only if evolutionary "progress" from simple to complex, from animal to human, is assumed as fact. This Paper discusses what criteria eestablishes intelligence, what it is that makes man human � and presents evidence that proves Stone Age man to be quite intelligent.
     The biblical picture of early man which shows him from the very beginning as not one bit less intelligent than ourselves,] may, after all, be the true one.

Introduction  
Chapter 1. The Intelligence of Early Man  
Chapter 2. Are Intelligent People Inventive?  
Chapter 3. The Intelligence of Our Contemporary Ancestors  
Chapter 4. Intelligence as Judged by Facial and Head Forms  
Epilogue  

 

PART IV

THE SUPPOSED EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN SKULL

     It is assumed that a human fossil skull which has wide jaws, a simian shelf, thick brow ridges, a sloping forehead and small craium must be proof of descent from apes and must be ancient. But the fact is that instad of a nicely ordered series of fossils from prinitive to modern types, we find reversals in which modern types precede priimtive ones and ape-like ones are found in the very latest geological strata! This makes modern man older than his forebears which is ridiculous: but only if we insist that the prpimitive types are his forebears.
     Actually morphology (shape, stucture) tells us far more about the environment and living habits than about ancestry and age. This Paper is about the effects which climate, diet, no cutlery, hormonal imbalance, disease, hardship and isolation have upon the shape of a skull.
     Then how do we explain the confusing picture of fossil remains? It may be that these fossils are waifs and strays who perished in the isolation and hardships encountered.
     These fossil remains do not challenge but rather find their explanation in the biblical record of the early history of man.

Chapter 1. The Problems in Determining the Age of a Skull  
Chapter 2. Factors Influencing the Shape of a Skull  

 

PART V

THE FALLACY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTIONS

     Imagination is wonderful � and can be useful. But does it always serve the truth? Can one by studying any skull determine whether the lips are full or think the beard and eyebrows thick or sparse, the eyes lively or dull and vacant? But that is what anthropologists do � and the older the skull is, the uglier the features, the more stooped the posture, and the more vacant the stare. The public is presented with pictorial reconstructions, phyletic 'trees' out of a bunch of twigs, and sequences that are not only unscientific but positively deceitful � as documented here.
     This Paper serves to warn the unwary. For the imagination can, as Scripture says, quickly become "vain" � and this is especially so when the biblical record about man's nature and origin is rejected.

Introduction
Chapter 1. How It All Began . . . .
Chapter 2. How Reconstructions Deceive

 

PART VI

WHO TAUGHT ADAM TO SPEAK?

     It is taken for granted that the first man, being half-ape, 'spoke' by copying them. Research shows that such grunts and cries cannot "evolve" into cultured speech.
     Perhaps, then, speech is instinctive, since there is no people, however primitive, without a language. Yet unless spoken to, one does not learn to speak � as demonstrated by feral (wild) children and deaf-mutes. So who spoke to Adam to teach him?
     Apart from revelation, the origin of language is a mystery. The first two chapters of Genesis not only tell us who spoke first and how He taught the first man, but the implications of the necessity of this unique faculty in terms of his humanity and the purpose of his very creation are profound.

Origin of Speech: Two Accounts
Sounds of Speech: Signs, Symbols, Words
So Who Did Speak First?

 

PART VII

LIGHT FROM OTHER FORMS OF CULTURAL BEHAVIOUR
ON SOME INCIDENTS IN SCRIPTURE

     It is almost impossible to step out of one's own culture and see things from the standpoint of another culture. Yet the attempt should be made if we would understand what is right and wrong not only from a cultural viewpoint but from God's.
     The behaviour of some of the saints in Scripture which, to us, seems shocking and quite improper or at the least somewhat irrational, will to those of other cultures seem quite proper and reasonable. While it seems to us that both Abraham and Sarah acted quite improperly in the matter of Hagar, to other cultures that was the right action to take. To some cultures it makes perfect sense that Noah should curse his grandson instead of his son who is the guilty party. Nor was Laban unfair: Jacob ought to have known that the eldest daughter must be married first. The light which these cameos in the study of cultural behaviour casts upon some very familiar passages of Scripture gives them a new meaning and fresh vitality.

Introduction
Chapter 1.  The Rationale of Cultural Behaviour
Chapter 2.  Illustrations From Other Cultures
Chapter 3.  Illustrations in Scripture

 

1975 published by Zondervan Publishing Co.
1997 published online
2001 2nd Online Edition – corrected, edited and re-formatted

Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The material in the ARTHUR CUSTANCE ONLINE LIBRARY is copyrighted and can be reproduced with permission from Doorway Publications c/o Dr. R. Gary Chiang, 346 Southcote Rd, Ancaster, ON, L9G 2W2, Canada. Telephone: 905-648-8491. E-Mail:[email protected].

 



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Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights reserved