RECONCILIATIONS OF SCIENCE, ADAM, EVE AND THE TOWER OF BABEL Are science and the Bible at odds?  Ir is that science and some people's misteachings about what the Bible actually says are at odds? To begin, DNA studies suggest a relatively small band of Africans went to the Middle East, in particular around the Dead Sea area then spread into Europe, South Asia, East Asia and finally into the Americas. The studies also show fewer DNA markers the farther people are located from Africa.  Thus we see what appears to be this overall movement: Probably small, long-range immigration group mostly of men went from Africa into the Middle East around the Dead Sea, later descendants going into Europe, into South Asia, into East Asia where Chinese migration was south to north, humans pausing in Beringia then about 15,000 years ago some 70 people moving on into the Americas although with some movement back and forth while humans also moved east to Greenland. The Bible speaks of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Does this contradict science which suggests that humans may have come into being in Africa?  The Hebrew word for garden means a place where food is grown.  Scriptures speak of Adam and Eve’s son Abel as having sheep and their son Cain as having produce.  If we understand that the Garden of Eden was an area of farming, a possible reconciliation might mean Adam and Eve were the first humans in the earth in the sense of humans settled in the terrain of the Middle East who went from hunting and gathering to raising produce and sheep. Interestingly science has shown that many plants and animals were first domesticated in the Middle East from Egypt through Iraq and into Turkey and Iran. These include dogs, sheep, goats, pigs, the donkey, cattle, dromedary camels, possibly oxen; also peas, rye, oats, barley, wheat, lentils, figs, apples, grapes and einkorn wheat.  Genetic studies suggest einkorn wheat was first domesticated in the Karacadag Mountains, in southeast Turkey at the upper fringes of the Fertile Crescent, about 11,000 years ago.  Apples may have started in eastern Turkey.  Grapes may have begun in southern Turkey. A readjustment in understanding about the Bible’s account of Adam and Eve would not be without precedent.  For example many churches have taught that languages began at the Tower of Babel.  Actually before the scriptural account about the tower in Genesis chapter 11, chapter ten has scriptures saying there had already been a split of languages before Babel. it speaks of humans spreading about in many places and with different tongues or languages.  Beginning with Genesis 10:2, prior to the Tower of Babel event, it is recorded that “The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras.  3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah.   4 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittim and the Rodanim.  5 (From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.) Again the referred to migrations brought along with them the spreading of languages, even before the Tower of Babel.  Thus, the interesting possibility is that not what the Bible says of the Genesis account of Adam and Eve is wrong, but the understanding that many churches have had of it is wrong. At Babel, which was evidently located in what is now Iraq, there was a further dividing of languages.  Even to this day there is great linguistic diversity around that same area.  For example, besides Arabic and Hebrew being in the Semitic family of languages, Kurds and Iranians speak forms of the Indo-European family, the Turks are in still a different language group.  Not far outside of what is now modern Egypt are numerous African language families and in the ancient past some may have also extended over the Red Sea into Arabia. It is notable that languages to the west of Mesopotamia or Iraq tend to have prepositions before nouns; languages to the east tend to have prepositions after nouns. So it appears that at the Tower of Babel there was and still is a significant linguistic split.  However, human languages had developed prior to the Tower of Babel incident, a fact that casual Bible readers and entire groups seem oddly not to have discovered. REFERENCES http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025160653.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081221210201.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050523235455.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090428223836.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cushitic_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Asiatic_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_families#Africa_and_Southwest_Asia http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab57#ixzz0cL763WOe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution#Domestication_of_plants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution http://www.spelt.com/origins.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070903204822.htm

SCIENTISTS EDGING TOWARD AN ADAM? Human Ancestors Less Ape-Like Than Thought An article by Sarah Knapton in the United Kingdom’s newspaper called The Telegraph notes that scientists now conclude that new research suggests “human ancestors living millions of years ago were bad at climbing trees and not nearly as ape-like as many experts believe.” They studied ankle joints from hominins dating back over four million years who lived.a relatively short time after humans and chimpanzees split from a common ancestor.  Experts have argued this ancestor was probably similar to chimpanzees and so earliest humans were also probably very similar to apes.  But new research shows that ancient humans were not designed to climb trees. Dr Jeremy DeSilva (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) analyzed video of chimpanzees in Uganda for their skeletal motion and in focusing on the ankle joint found that the chimps were capable of a 45-degree bend but the range in humans is between 15 and 20 degrees. When Dr DeSilva examined 12 fossil tibias from early hominins he found no such adaptation. This evidence is supported by other details about the skeleton, so it shows early human ancestors could not have been good at climbing.  Dr DeSilva’s article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences therefore suggests that early hominins may have sometimes climbed trees even as humans do today but they didn’t do so any more often than modern humans do so. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5150668/Human-ancestors-less-ape-like-than-thought.html

WHAT ABOUT THE SNAKE IN EDEN? When we watch the Star Trek TV series there are shows where intelligent creatures are able to change their forms, for example from that of a human or human-like being to that of snake or the like.  Yet watching such Star Trek shows does not make us scoff at them but rather we accept that if there might be other life forms dwelling amidst the starry heavens, then, shape-shifting creatures may be included among them. Also, if you watched the series you may recall one where Captian Kirk has a one-on-one fight with an alien who looks like a walking lizard and hisses some when he talks.  Again, there is no scoffing, just enjoyment of the show.   Also when we read the Bible and it speaks of a talking snake, it is possible to think of two additional possible ways for this to be true.  One is that Satan, an energy or spirit being, transformed into a snake and did the speaking.  The other way would be that there was a literal snake but  Satan caused it to speak much as a human causes a puppet to speak or seem to do so. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5150668/Human-ancestors-less-ape-like-than-thought.html

HUMANS LEARNING HOW TO CREATE LIFE Most atheists laugh at the idea that any intelligent entity called God could have created humans and other forms of life.  However, we are now reading that even human scientists are becoming able to create non-biological forms of life.  For example, V.N. Tsytovich and other Russian scientists have found that particles in a plasma can organize in structures that attract one another and divide to form two copies of the original structure. They can also induce changes in their neighbors and evolve into yet more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest.  Tsytovich notes that "they are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve."  So they are non-biological yet very similar to biological forms of life. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070814150630.htm Scientists at the University of Glasgow working to create “life” from inorganic chemicals.  As with biological cells, they are creating internal membranes that control the passage of materials and energy through them, meaning several chemical processes happen in the same cell.  The cells can also store electricity, so may be used in various medical applications such as for sensors or confining chemical reactions.  The research is to show inorganic chemical compounds can self-replicate and evolve as do biological cells made of carbon.  The paper is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110915091625.htm If humans can do such things, then why can't an entity greater than humans have also created other life-forms including human beings?   If nothing else, then for such new forms of life, the humans who make them are a god or God.  If this statement is false then please correct.  Meanwhile, like a fast-moving rocket, science launches rapidly ahead.