"In the Beginning..."

“In the Beginning…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xxx7m-1iik

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Who were the first humans on earth? Were they creatures that sprung from the primordial soup of happenstance? Were Adam and Eve generic names for civilizations that populated the planet as a result of probability factors? The answer depends on who do you trust. If you trust a biologist, geologist, or another type of scientist, then your perspective may be different from a theologian’s perception. For me, I would prefer to look more closely at Genesis 2:7-3:24.

If you trust the Bible, a real person identified as Adam was the progenitor of humankind. He was the first human created by God, and Eve was the second human created by God. “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and overall the creatures that move along the ground. So, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26 and 27).”

God made man after he reconstituted the earth. God created an annual human being identified as Adam in His image and gave him dominion over all creation. Adam comes from Adamah meaning soil, and Adom meaning red. Adam originated from reddish clay, and he probably was a dark hued individual since God molded him from red dirt six millennia ago somewhere in a broadly unidentified region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the land of Mesopotamia.

The creation timeline suggests that we are approaching a unique opportunity for a new Sabbaththe Millennium Sabbath, and, at that time, the earth will rest.

Genesis 2 provides a more detailed description of the birth of Adam and Eve. God created Adam from dirt and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. He gave him a paradise to protect and told him not to eat the fruit hanging on the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If he eats the fruit from that tree, then he would surely die.

God brought the animals and birds to Adam for nomenclature. Each set of animals identified had companions, but Adam did not have a companion. After putting Adam to sleep, God took one of his ribs and fashioned an eye-pleasing female. The rib symbolized that Eve was a companion for

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Adam. Adam was not to dominate her, and she was not to dominate him. God intended them to be companions where they would stand, sit, and walk the earth side-by-side.

Adam and Eve were not aware of their nakedness and felt no shame until the serpent coerced Eve into tasting the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. When Eve shared the fruit with Adam, their nakedness became apparent, and they covered themselves with fig leaves.

In embarrassment, they hid from God. God asked Adam, “Who told you that you were naked?

Did you eat of the tree from which I had forbidden you to eat (Genesis 3:11)?” Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent. This is the first record of blame. Adam, with eyes wideopened, eats the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fruit tainted his sensory perceptions, and he blamed Eve rather than objectively internalizing his psychological motivations for falling from grace. He did not recognize or accept the inadequate role he portrayed in this scenario. Likewise, Eve failed to recognize her shortcomings by listening to the serpent; therefore, she blamed the serpent for her inability to follow God’s commands. God, being God, listened attentively, then declared the consequences of their disobedience.

The most tragic punishment was the implementation of the death sentence. Death would not be instantaneous, but the aging process would lead to death. Death is a universal disease that over time culminated in an incurable pandemic without an apparent causation or a method of prevention. Everyone experiences the sting of death, but God provided a pathway to restoration.

Even though the deteriorating infestation of death is inevitable, a propitiation is available.

Propitiation comes in the form of the enmity God put between Eve’s seed and the head of the serpent. So, Eve initiated the genealogic timeline between creation and the birth of Christ (about four millennia). Christ, a member of the Triune God, would suffer the indignity of the cross and would be victorious over sin but would taste the curse of death along the continuum of eternity.

God transformed the serpent from a theoretically beautiful multi-legged kaleidoscopic creature to a menacing legless crawly and creepy entity. Did the snake give Satan permission to imitate him? Why did God curse this beautiful animal when Satan surreptitiously imitated the image of this cunning creature? These are questions Deuteronomy 29:29 addresses.

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Eve would bear children in pain, and childbirth has been excruciatingly painful for women throughout recorded history. God told Eve that she would suffer pain in childbirth but would continue to have children because of her strong sexual desire to have coitus with Adam. So, from the beginning of creation, sex has been paramount in uniting men and women.

God said to Adam, “Because you did as your wife said and ate of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ Cursed be the ground because of you; by toil shall you eat of it. All the days of your life: Thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you. But your food shall be the grasses of the field; by the sweat of your brow shall you get bread to eat, until you return to the ground–for from it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:17–19)."

God made clothing from the skins of animals for Adam and Eve. So, God implemented the death penalty for both man and beast. God extricated Adam and Eve from paradise so that they would not eat the fruit from the Tree of Life. If Adam and Eve eat fruit from the Tree of Life, would they live forever in sin?

Eve’s first child was Cain, and then Eve gave birth to Cain’s younger brother, Abel. Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel after she left paradise. This may give a different perspective to God’s command to “replenish the earth”, i.e., the circumstances surrounding childbirth and the onslaught of pain and discomfort are expectations and anticipations external to paradise. So, what would have been the expectations of reproduction in paradise?

Cain committed the first murder when he dishonored God and when he refused to be his brother’s keeper.

Then, Eve gave birth to Seth when Adam was 130 years old.

Several ancient writers alluded to the existence of our African parents from which all races originated. These testimonies are in Greek literature, Syrian literature, Egyptian literature, Babylonian and Sumerian literature, and other ancient writings. “The Epic of Gilgamesh (written

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a millennium before Genesis) mentions a talking serpent suggesting immortality and a man divinely created from soil who lived naked among the animals. A temptress leads this man into sin, after which the two clothe themselves and are expelled from their garden paradise.”

Humanity originated from one source in Northern Africa where “a river watered it” and divided it into the following four tributaries: 1. Pison (probably northern Saudi Arabia); 2. Gihon (Ethiopia); 3. Hiddekel (East of Assyria); and 4. Euphrates (which exists today as part of the Tigris River found in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq).

Therefore, the location of Eden was somewhere in Northern Africa or the Middle East.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence indicates that all humanity originated somewhere in Africa. Scientists believe that “out of Africa” came the human genome. “…The oldest mitochondrial DNA in our human genetic code can be traced to a small group of [Black] women.”

God did not destroy Eden. He placed a Cherubim and a flaming sword at the entrance so that Adam and Eve could never re-enter and eat the fruit from the Tree of Life. I suspect that somewhere in the Multiverse, the Tree of Life exists with its hanging life-extension fruit. Is there an unknown chemical substance or a combination of substances that God created that could extend life regardless of whether you are born in sin and shaped in iniquity? The salient word is sin; therefore, God removed the Tree, the fruit, and the Garden so that it would be impossible for mortal beings to access the life-extension fruit of the Tree of Life and live in sin forever.

Some researchers think that the story of paradise is allegorical. That is because their vision and comprehension of the spiritual realm are myopic. Adam lived for 930 years (almost a millennium), then he died. He had many children (Genesis 5:4), and his offspring intermarried and populated the earth. Cain found his wife among his family members. Undoubtedly, Cain's wife was a relative one or two or more generations removed from Adam. The genetic integrity of

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the gene pool was not as weak as it is today; therefore, antediluvian incestual relationships did not result in inborn errors of metabolism.

I submit that God created man with full maturity and intelligence from the dust of the earth, not from the primordial soup percolating through the statistically entangled stages of evolution.

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