The Race of Adam

Submitted by Michael S (United States), May 18, 2015 at 03:58

Hi, Waz

I've got a little time here, trying to get to sleep. Rather than count imaginary sheep or take a pill, I would like to spend this time doing something useful -- namely, talking to you.

I remember youre picking up here about my "Adam's race" comment. You said,

"...considering that Cro-Magnon man bred with Neanderthals (so that now non sub Saharan people people can have from 2 to 4% DNA of ), Denisovans and as yet undiscovered related species existed - who was 'Adams race?'"

Adam's race is exactly what it seems to mean: the descendants of Adam. Adam, in turn, is an individual mentioned in the Bible -- the very first individual mentioned, in fact, after YHVH; and the very first "living soul", from the passage,

Genesis 2:
[7] And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

You mentioned Cro-Magnon Man and Neanderthal Man. Were those sub-species formed literally "of the dust of the ground"? That's certainly not the scientific explanation. Scientists, by and large, believe mankind -- including Cro-Magnon Man, Mungo Man, etc., evolved from a long chain of life forms, originating in simple organisms in a watery environment. I don't presume (and remember that I am a Chemist by training) to know how this true miracle came about; and neither has any scientist come up with a satisfactory explanation. Suffice to say, though, that the Bible agrees with the broad outlines of the "out of the sea" motif theorized by scientists:

Genesis 1:
[11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
[12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Man, of course, was created on the sixth day, three days later. Those "days", moreover, could not have been the earth-sun 24 hour "days" we know of today, since God didn't make the sun, apparently, until after filling the seas with life:

Genesis 1:
[16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
[17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
[18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
[19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

God's making of man "from the dust of the earth", therefore, should be understood as having been a very, very long process; with other living things, including the Neanderthals et al, having evolved along the way. That's why I mentioned "Adam's race" instead of "mankind"; so there would be no confusion. We know Adam's lineage and approximate dates, from Bible chronologies: He lived about 6000 years BP.

Are you and I descended from Adam? Unless you're a Cohen, you would have a hard time proving this; and only a small percentage of Jews are male-line Cohens. That line is of yDNA haplogroup J2:

"A further academic study published in 2009 examined more STR markers and identified a more sharply defined SNP haplogroup, J1e* (now J1c3, also called J-P58*) for the J1 lineage. The research found "that 46.1% of Kohanim carry Y chromosomes belonging to a single paternal lineage (J-P58*) that likely originated in the Near East well before the dispersal of Jewish groups in the Diaspora."

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron

Since Aaron, the ancestor of the Kohanim, came only a few generations and a few thousand years after Adam, it's safe to assume that Adam himself was of haplogroup J2. This haplogroup evolved in the same general area as its cousin, Hg J1; so it's reasonable to assume that after the Biblical flood, the two groups intermixed. This is strongly suggested in the passage:

Genesis 6:
[1] And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
[2] That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
[3] And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
[4] There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

If you look at a map of the spread of those two "J" haplogroups, you will see that they correspond to the dispersal of the nations as described in Genesis 10:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Haplogroup_J_%28Y-DNA%29.PNG

I hope that clears up the matter of the "race of Adam".

I think I can get to sleep now. Shalom shalom :-)

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