Addam & Eve or Cavemen?

Question

First off i would like to say i do believe in god, i am just a normal 17 year old who has questions, if god made generations of humans with addam and eve, then where do cavepeople come in at, because their were SIGNS that they lived here first, or where do they talk about dinosaurs at in the bible??????

Answer 1

This is a fair question. These are the kinds of things I was thinking of when I was an 8 year old girl being made to go to church by my parents: How do we know this is the right god, if other religions believe other things? How could the world be made in 7 days if dinosaurs lived millions of years before man? For me, the answer was that there WAS no god and what I was reading in the bible was written by people who needed some sort of explanation because they were afraid. To me it simply made no sense, and it still doesn't.

For other people, it just means that the bible isn't to be taken literally, which is probably the way you should be looking. Just like you read a poem that says "The sky was on fire, and the flowers were bursting with colour" they don't really mean the sky is burning or the flowers are exploding. It's to be taken as a guide, not an exact text. I think this is the biggest problem with organized religions, not being able to bend. If they could, they'd attract more people.

Just be careful - the radical religious crazies will come up with ANYTHING to convince you and themselves that it all makes sense, and sometimes their explanations appear to be scientific and reasonable simply because they are so lengthy and use complicated words.

All you ever have to do is use your good judgement and common sense. If it doesn't make sense, and you can't get a believable explanation, then it likely isn't true.

Good luck, and don't EVER stop asking questions.

Answer 2

Even if you take the Bible literally and believe EVERY word is absolute truth without error, it still says that there were people living East of Eden when Adam and Eve left the garden. They found their son a wife from the land of Nod.

Personally, I see Torah (what Christians have swiped for their "Old Testament") as the creation mythology of a people, how they saw themselves and their place in the world as they knew it. Its truths are all the stronger for being metaphorical, not literal.

Answer 3

The reason that dinosaurs were not mentioned in the bible is because the writers of the bible never heard od them. None of the writers were scientists. They were just ordinary superstitious people who weren't any too gall darn schmart.
You have the choice of believing the scientific explaination of evolution, or the bibical explaination about the clay and the ribs.

Answer 4

Crystal,

I am not a Christian myself but hope that this helps you :)

It is perhaps impossible to see Adam & Eve as literally the first people in the light of what we know about early humanity...Thus, many Christians (& Jews & Muslims, I am sure) take up a metaphorical interpretation, that is...

Adam & Eve's creation (shaped from the dust) shows our 'earthly' origins, whereas in Genesis 1 you'll see how we are the last to be created, in the image of God (our spiritual element/core). Our bodies are made of that organic material, and when we die our bodies return to the earth.

Eve is formed from Adam's rib, and I guess you could interpret that in a # of ways...I like to think how man & woman are parts of one another & "complete each other."

Eden is a perfect place in which Adam & Eve have no knowledge of evil...and therefore, no knowledge of what is actually good, even though ultimate goodness surrounds them in the Garden. God wants them to be close to him in this way, in the Garden...so he does not want them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, but like a parent, knows they will have to eventually in order to grow/mature/evolve into real human beings...

(It's like how your parents will tell you what mistakes not to make, but it isn't until you have the experience of making those mistakes that the advice becomes more meaningful to you.)

So that is why the Tree is there. Eve is tempted by the snake, which in Christian tradition is a manisfestation of Satan. Some people see it as a non-literal snake...In the end, Eve's curiosity leads her to it...and God is devastated, punishes them harshly like a parent, but knows it will be for the best...In order to be really truly loving people & be really truly close to God, it is necessary for humans to have this awareness of good & evil...

In this I always like to quote from the movie, A Walk to Remember, when Landon asks Jamie how she can believe when there is so much bad in the world.

I remember her response, "Without suffering there would be no compassion."

Also, the saying that "you never know what you have until it's gone" and that a (paraphrasing Rumi here) a man who works in the bakery does not know the taste of bread as well as a poor man w/o food does...

And that is (in short) an interpretation that many Christians hold and that I really love.

As for dinosaurs, I think they would be mentioned in Genesis 1 w/ the other animals. There is a wonderful book that I read called The Genius of Genesis that goes into this interpretation and more and does it beautifully. It has really shaped my view of the story, and I recommend it. :)

In the book, Rabbi Shulman reconciles the seeming contradiction between Genesis 1 & 2. (Genesis 1: humans created last; Genesis 2: humans created first)

Anyway, I guess it depends on whether one reads the Bible stories literally or metaphorically/symbolically or with a little bit of both. I hope this helps! :)

Answer 5

Personally, I'm into evolution, but my father likes to say the "days" for creating the world may not have been days by our standards, but, perhaps, millions of years made up a "day" when God was creating the world. BTW, my friends and I asked about the dinosaurs when we were your age, but the church elders never did give us an answer. I was raised Episcopalian.

Answer 6

I don't recall even scientists saying humans lived with dinosaurs, had they we might have been made extinct!

YOu think Adam and Eve had a condo with a refrigerator and dishwasher. They drove an SUV into town.

Did you think, having just been thrown out of Eden, they knew how to build a log cabin.

God had to make their clothes for them. God had to teach to hunt and kill animals.

Jewish people refer to themselves as TRIBES.

There was no written language, no schools. The most crude form of written language is pictograms or pictures.

Answer 7

The authors of the Bible does not have prevalent approximately Neanderthals, or dinosaurs. They weren't risk-free interior the Bible. not one of the hominids have been, and a lot of earth history. in case you think in God, it is nice, yet you're putting out to work out that the Bible can't be a literal account of the Earth's history. some Christians will inform you that dinosaurs coexisted with adult adult males, it is ludicrous. inspite of modern-day weaponry we would have hardship contending with a number of those beasts, with some sharp sticks?!?! we would be dinner. not something in technological expertise contradicts the existence of a deity. It does, even though if, let us know that the Bible can't be a history e book, in basic terms a narrative e book that tells the legends of a people.

Answer 8

The bible is a quaint ancient understanding of the natural world please don't use it as a reference tool for understanding the planet. The men who wrote it were just writing down how they and their culture explained things to each other.
2000 years of massive human progress has changed dramatically our understanding of how things work and how we came to be here. If you want to understand the evolution of man or if fact all creatures buy or borrow an unslanted book without a religious agenda from your public library.

Answer 9

There are 3 heaven and earth ages, same heaven and earth but different ages.

II Pet.3:5-7 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
……………………………………….
THE WORLD THAT THEN WAS
Gen.1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

To that earth age the world that then was, belongs all fossils and remains. Scientific estimates or guesses; universe or heavens 20 billion years old, earth 4.6 billion years old, moon 200 to 300 million years younger than earth, dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago, Ice Age 2.5 million years ago.
………………………………………………………………
BEING OVERFLOWED WITH WATER PERISHED
Gen.1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

AND THE EARTH WAS
The word “was” (hayah) in Hebrew, was not distinguished by the Revisers, that is the verb “to be” from “to become”. The same Hebrew word “hayah” is translated “became” in Gen.2:7.
AND THE EARTH BECAME

WITHOUT FORM H8414 tohu (to'-hoo) From an unused root meaning to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), that is, desert; figuratively a worthless thing; adverbially in vain: - confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, (thing of) nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness.

VOID H922 bohu (bo'-hoo) From an unused root (meaning to be empty); a vacuity, that is, (superficially) an undistinguishable ruin: - emptiness, void.
AND THE EARTH BECAME DESOLATE AND EMPTY
Earth was not created that way but became desolate and empty due to Satan’s rebellion. A global overflowing of water, but not Noah’s deluge. Darkness was upon the (face) of the deep, in other words the whole earth.
Into this we can read; dinosaur extinction, destruction of Atlantis, breakup of Gondwana Land, and the Ice Age.
………………………………………………………………………...
BUT THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH WHICH ARE NOW
Gen.1:2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen.1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

About 63 A.D. Peter writes, the heavens and the earth which are now. The heaven and earth age we are in now, today.
BY THE SAME WORD ARE KEPT IN STORE
RESERVED UNTO FIRE
AGAINST THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
AND PERDITION OF UNGODLY MEN
PERDITION G684 apoleia (ap-o'-li-a) From a presumed derivative of G622; ruin or loss (physical, spiritual or eternal): - damnable (-nation), destruction, die, perdition, X perish, pernicious ways, waste.
Some will perish eternally and not see the third heaven and earth age.

Cavemen???? Do you mean people who lived in caves for shelter?

Answer 10

There weren't just signs about it. There is more proof debunking Christianity than there is proving the moon exists. Seriously, that's not just an expression, it's true.