From: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Progressive Creationism Part 6
Summary: the age of mankind
Date: 4 Oct 92 22:46:09 GMT
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]


     This is tedious!  Wish I had a scanner.  Anyways, the
following is from James Montgomery Boice's "GENESIS: An
Expositional Commentary", Chapter 11 entitled "The Sixth
Day":

     "HOW OLD IS MAN?

     How old is man?  This is a troublesome question,
because there seems to be a conflict between the account in
Genesis and the apparent evidence of science on this point.
The various biblical genealogies (Genesis 5 is the earliest
example) suggest that man is on the order of thousands --
perhaps ten or twenty thousands -- of years old.  But
anthropologists speak of man or manlike creatures being on
the order of three and a half to four million years old.
The work of the Leakey family in Kenya and Tanzania provides
the best-known examples.
     What are we to say of this conflict?  It may be
impossible to resolve it finally at this stage of our
knowledge, but the issues can be put in proportion.  First,
we must say that this seems to be a real conflict and not
merely a case in which we are dealing with two different
ways of looking at the same evidence.  It has been pointed
out by biblical scholars, among them no less a scholar than
Princeton's B.B. Warfield (2:  "On the Antiquity and the
Unity of the Human Race," _Biblical and Theological
Studies_, Samuel G. Craig, Ed.  Presby and Reformed Publ.
Co., 1968) that the biblical genealogies are not necessarily
inclusive when they list a series of descendants.  That is
to say, they may (and in fact do) leave gaps, so that a
person identified as a "son" of the person coming before him
in the list need not necessarily be a literal son but may be
a grandson or great-grandson.  (ED. NOTE:  For all of those
who thought the Bible was literally without error, this
admission from a Biblical innerantist is AMAZING! -- and
should be NOTED.)  Moreover, as the gaps may sometimes be
quite large, as for example, the summation of the geneaology
of Jesus Christ occurring in Matthew 1:1 ("the genealogy of
Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham").
Because of this, it is possible, even probable, that the
geneaology of Genesis, which suggest a creation of Adam in a
time scale of approximately 4,000 years before Christ
(Bishop Ussher's date was 4004 B.C.), are actually
summations of much longer periods.  Still, even if we
multiply the figure of 4,000 years three, four, or even five
times, we are far from what most anthropologists are
claiming.  An origin of the race on the order of 12,000 to
20,000 years ago is very different from an origin three and
a half to four million years ago.
     It helps to put the fossil evidence in perspective,
however, for not all fossils claimed to be human are
necessarily so.  Skeletal materials found at sites from
historical times are essentially the same as those of modern
man, called *Homo sapiens* ("thinking" or "discerning man").
But as one goes back beyond historical times there are
increasing differences.  Cro-Magnon man, who is prehistoric
and whose remains have been found scattered widely
throughout western Europe, was similar to people who exist
today.  He used bone and stone tools and made cave paintings
of animals and other features of his world.  Slightly
farther back (on the order of 100,000 years) is the so-
called Neanderthal man.  He also used tools and buried his
dead.  But he was less human in appearance, having a
receding forehead and a pronounced jaw.  He seems to have
been more "apelike".  (ED. NOTE:  I apologize for Boice's
perspective, but there are important implications here.)
Remains of this "man" were found in Europe, Israel, Zambia,
and Rhodesia.  Still farther back are a number of other
essentially "modern" types found in France, Germany, and
England, dating from perhaps 250,000 years ago, according to
the most accepted calculations.
     The so-called Peking Man and Java man date from between
500,000 and 1,000,000 years ago.  Sometimes crude tools have
been found with these skeletons, but the chief reason for
their being regarded as humans is that they apparently
walked upright, hence are designated *Homo erectus*.  Most
anthropologists would call *Homo erectus* the first truly
modern man.  The discoveries of Richard and Mary Leakey in
Africa, while frequently referred to as evidences of ancient
men in the secular press, are at best pre-human creatures,
even by the Leakey's own judgments.  (ED. NOTE:  What does
"pre-human" imply?)  They apparently walked upright, but
they were quite small -- about four feet in height -- and
had a brain capacity of about one-third that of modern man.
The general impression one has of the skulls is that they
represent extinct apelike rather than manlike forms (3:  See
Young, pp. 146-51, for a summation of the fossil evidence.
This is probably "Creation and the Flood".)
     [I now skip a section where Boice discusses the
uncertainty of dating these QUOTE "apparently ancient human
ancestors" UNQUOTE.   Again, the implication of Boice even
suggesting that these are human ancestors are ENORMOUS for a
Biblical inerrantist writer who says he has dismissed
evolution!   He also cites Paluxy River, which has even been
abandoned by the ICR.  Note that he didn't say "ancient,
apparently human, ancestors."  Thus, he implicitly accepts
human ancestry.  He may not have realized what he wrote, but
it stands in print.]
     In the interim what may Christians, who hold to the
truthfulness of Genesis and who still want to be honest (ED.
NOTE: !!!) where scientific data is concerned, conclude?
One scientist, Robert A. Erb of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania,
concludes that fossil "man" is not necessarily man and that
Christians do themselves a disservice when they regard all
such as Adam's descendants.  He writes, "I believe in a
historical Adam  and would tend to date him near the
beginning of the Neolithic (new stone) age in the Near East
(about 8,000 B.C.).  Indeed, this step in the creative work
of God may be the cause of what is known as the Neolithic
Revolution, with the domestication of plants and animals,
the building of cities, the invention of pottery, the
beginnings of writing and such things.  That Adam does not
belong to the Upper Paleolithic age of 30,000 years ago is
suggested by:  the domestication of plants and animals in
the account of Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:2) and Cain building a
city (Gen. 4:17).  In about six generations (neglecting the
probable gaps in genealogy), Tubal-cain was working with
metals (Gen. 4:22) and Jubal was making music (Gen 4:21).
(5: Robert A. Erb, unpublished paper on "Miscellaneous
Thoughts on Science and the Early Chapters of Genesis", p.
3.)  (ED. NOTE:  I can see why it was unpublished.  Who is
Erb?  Boice does himself a disservice by quoting this
poorly-founded position.)
     The conclusion is that, while the earth and universe
may indeed be quite old (on the order of billions of years),
there is no need to insist that man is millions of years
old.  His creation by God may be as recent as genealogies
seem to indicate."

     Summary of pertinent points, in my (Jim Acker's) view:
     
     1.  Boice gives more legitimacy to the anthropological
record than I have ever seen in a Biblical inerrancy
position.

     2.  Boice apparently supports "progressive creationism"
and discounts "theistic evolution", based on prior reading.
Interpolating his position, then, he appears to believe that
God separately created all these forms:  H. sapiens,
Neanderthal Man, Cro-Magnon Man, H. erectus, and
Australopithecus.  Yet he will not admit their ancestry to
man.  Since Davis Young "summarized the fossil evidence",
Young must be in the same boat.

     3.  Yet he comes within a whisker of doing just that,
calling them "pre-human" and "apparently ancient human
ancestors"!  I doubt Boice realized what he'd implied, but
there it is.

     4.  Allowing the comments by Erb leads to the obvious
question:  If there was a historical Neolithic Adam in the
Near East, WHO WERE ALL THE OTHER GUYS?  Though unfamiliar
with case histories, I know there are numerous Neolithic
fossil sites.  Was there a created "generation" of Adams,
with one particular "Edenic" Adam?  Poor citation!

     I was astonished reading this section, because of the
cited support for Biblical inerrancy in Boice's credentials.
Trust me -- to give this much weight to anthropology in his
scholarly framework is remarkable.  I personally can believe
that God "monitored" or "directed" the evolutionary lineage
leading to *Homo sapiens*, tweaking and adjusting the
process at each step, but it would seem utterly foolish to
present this ancestral lineage and still insist on a some
type of creative "isolation" for each separate form.
However, that is what I believe Boice holds.

     Feel free to discuss.  I'm done (and tired).

     Jim Acker
     jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov