The flood and Ancient Chinese Documents

Even so, when it says,"when X was Y years old he became the father of Z," this is the english translation. When read in hebrew it can also mean that when X was Y years old he became the father of a "family line which included or culminated in Z." Often times, names which are not especially noteable are left out of the genealogies. This is widely accepted by Bible scholars, who are both believing and non-believing, as an acceptable reading. It is the general acceptance that there are gaps in the genealogies of genesis. Parallels can be seen elsewhere in the Bible like in a geanealogy in Mathew 1:8 which we know left names out because the same genealogy in 1 Chronicles 3:10-12 has more names and is more complete. These lists are meant to be adequateAs for the origins of man in Mesopotamia, secular anthropologists are divided over whether humanity was started by multiple couples in different locations or one couple somewhere in Northern Africa. To those who believe the latter this could be the source of Adam and Eve. Perhaps whatever Eden there was existed in this place or near it and when they were cast out east it brought then into Mesopotamia. However I am talking about something that happened before the supposed flood. It would be rather difficult to say where Eden was because it is irrelevant if it were destroyed. What I am suggesting is that whatever flood occured happened before people migrated to different continents on land bridges 20-30 thousand years ago.

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As for the origins of man in Mesopotamia, secular anthropologists are divided over whether humanity was started by multiple couples in different locations or one couple somewhere in Northern Africa. To those who believe the latter this could be the source of Adam and Eve.

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No anthropologist believes that humans started with ONE couple.------------------
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I don't believe that is true. Just last year I took a biological anthropology class my professor told us that there were different views on man's origin within anthropology and that the one I described was one of them. Unfortunately the name escapes me but I know it was in the textbook, and I believe it was a test question. And no, I don't go to a Christian school. San Diego State is about as secular as they come.

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Just last year I took a biological anthropology class my professor told us that there were different views on man's origin within anthropology and that the one I described was one of them.

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You mis-read, mis-heard, or misunderstood something.What you wrote was close to being accurate. There are two main theories for the emergence of homo sapiens. Those two theories are multi-regionalism and the out-of-africa theory. The first case you presented is multi-regionalism. The second case would be the out-of-africa theory except for the part about our descending from ONE couple. Think about it.1) One couple is not enough genetic diversity. A species that hits this level is as good as gone.2) How would you know? There is no way in our current toolkit to make this determination.What I think has happened is that you have confused the mitochondrial eve idea with the out-of-africa idea and came up with 'we descended from one couple.' It doesn't work that way. Sometime around 200,000 years ago a woman lived who is the matrilineal ancestor of everyone alive today. This does not mean we all descended form one couple. Mitochondrial DNA is passed along the mother's line, and the mother's line alone. It says nothing about the males in the tree.Imagine. One woman moves away from her home and onto an island. An unrelated man soon moves onto the island as well. Sparks fly. Tummies swell. Feet pitter and patter. Hmm... one couple??? Yes. Or not. There could be any number of men involved. We can't tell. Men could move to the island to marry the young girls. Assuming no women move to the island any children born are matrilineally related to the one woman who first settled there. This is a bit of an artificial example, but it is intended only to show that one female ancestor does not mean only one couple.Read all about it. What, if anything, is a Mitochondrial Eve?------------------
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I thought the common ancestor for females was somewhere around 60 thousand years ago. I also thought a common ancestor for man was also determined using the y chromosone instead of mitochondria. Also, if people had inbreeded why could we not have descended from a single couple? By the way, there is no need to be patronizing. I actually appreciate the dialogue and the clarification. i will have to look into it.

John,
I know your going to hate me for this but try and bear with me. I wanna bring this back to the flood. Keep in mind that i don't believe in a global flood. Now, I just read the article on the link you posted and it confirmed what I said about the chromosone and males. Anyway, beside the point, let's pretend just to humor me that their was in fact a flood. Okay, maybe this explains the gap between the common ancestor for modern women and the common ancestor for modern man. Think about who the Bible tells us is on the ark, assuming they are the ones to repopulate. You have 4 blood related males. Noah and his three sons. So who is the common ancestor? Noah is.
Okay now we also have the wives of these men. 4 females who are not blood related so their common female ancestor would be much farther back. Possibly Eve?Just a thought to put out there

Do you have any support for your interpretation of the Hebrew, from Hebrew scholars or is it just what it looks like - a guess based on what you want the text to mean ? It's certainly a bizarre reading.
Leaving out names in a simple list is one thing - but the formula used in Genesis does not lend itself to the idea that any names have been left out (and if they were why not accept the ages as correct ?).And the leading scientific view at this point is that humanity began as a population (NOT a single couple) in Africa. And no there is no reasonable possiblity that this population moved en masse to Mesopotamia, as you assume. If there was a flood that was global to humanity (and there is no evidence of that) it would have to be in Africa.

Althought our female common ancestor lived about 60,000 years ago, that does not mean that there was only one human female alive at that time. All that it means is that we all are descended from that one female and others.We could not have descended from one single couple because we are too genetically diverse. We have observed that species consisting of only a few individuals or species descended from a few individuals have very little genetic diversity and tend to go extinct. Genetic diversity does increase over time, due to mutations and what-not, but we have measured its approximate rate. The rate is far, far too slow to have generated the observed human genetic diversity in anything less than a few millions of years.Since we have these measures of genetic diversity, we can detect species that have descended from a few individuals; in other words, "passed through a genetic bottleneck". In species that have passed thorugh a genetic bottleneck, we can derive the approximate time when this happened. If there was a Noachian flood, all species should have passed through a genetic bottleneck at the same time. But they didn't all pass through a genetic bottleneck, and those that did, did so at different times.

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I also thought a common ancestor for man was also determined using the y chromosone instead of mitochondria.

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It has been. That calculation is mentioned in the article I cited. However, notice that the dates diverge by tens of thousands of years. Adam and Eve could not have been A couple in any sense of the term. They were seperated by hundreds of individuals.

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Also, if people had inbreeded why could we not have descended from a single couple?

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Because, in practice, long term inbreeding of this order is a death sentence for the species. Incest brings out the worst in DNA. Try looking into endangered species conservation. Such species have very small gene pools and the side effects of incest are always a concern. Look into animal breeding as well. Breeding close relatives is risky business, even when breeding within a population of twenty or thirty. Start with two and the game is practically over.------------------
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I thought it was generally accepted that inbreeding would not show genetic difficulties until many multiple generations have passed. Am I mistaken?

"If there was a flood that was global to humanity (and there is no evidence of that) it would have to be in Africa."Again, I don't think there was a global flood.Just for arguments sake, if people for some reason were able to live 900 years(bear with me), could it be possible that whatever population started out as could have increased exponentially over time to give us a population diverse enough genetically to justify what we observe today.The reason I bring this up is that although alot of people accept the 900 year life spans as myths. I've heard some interesting hypothesis to the contrary.Two of the reasons we age the way we do is from radiation from radio isotopes in igneous rock and another is cosmic radiation. Now Biblical culture from what I understand were segregated from igneous rock. Now suppose that we could attribute (again this is just a hypothesis) alot of the cosmic radiation we experience today to the relatively close Vela supernova which occured 20-30 thousand years ago.Next comes Telomerase, which if I'm correct is an enzyme which adds on nucleotide base pairs to the ends of DNA so that chromosones can divide more times and end up prolonging life. The consequence of this however, is that one becomes highly vulnerable to cancer via radiation. What if a person living before the Vela supernova (assuming the above hypothesis) had some sort(I'm not suggesting what or from where) of enzyme supplement coupled with a vegetarian diet, which coincidentally was instructed by God until after the flood. Could not that person live much longer than we live now?

It takes a few generations, but not that many. By five generations or so you'd see some adverse effects. Incest doesn't actually cause any genetic damage, it concentrates such damage. Assuming an undamaged genome-- whatever that means-- I suppose there would be no problem. This assumption would not be made by an anthropologist, so it isn't relevant to the discussion. Someone also pointed out that we'd notice a distinct genetic bottleneck if the species had been reduced to two individuals.------------------
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I'm not sure what I was thinking. i totally missed what I should have been saying which is...What about the earth's population coming from the survivors of the flood? That is 8 people.

Nevermind, I'm not sure that matters.Anyway, about the incest thing. I'm pretty sure it would take dozens of generations for "concentration of genetic damage" to result starting from a clean slate. As for what happened between Eden and Noah, if people had lived longer than we do today (see my post on lifespans), given that people would have far more offspring...is it not possible that the populations would increase exponentially and therefore reap genetic diversity

Genetic diversety comes from a wide and varied genepool. When brothers and sisters have chilldren, there is a great risk of deformaty and mental retardation. Incest is not a good thing, and it can lead to sterill offspring. This is TODAY, were we do have a wide genepool. Imagine back in Adam and Eve's day, were it had to start from two people.How do you suppose that works?