The Descent of Man
This work contains hardly any original facts in regard to man. The conclusion that man is the co-descendant with other species of some ancient, lower, and extinct form, is not in any degree new. <> Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; <> we must, however, acknowledge <> that man with all his noble qualities <> still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. (Darwin)
For reasons of their own, militant atheists are extremely fond of "debunking" the biblical account of man's creation, meaning their own reading of the Book of Genesis. Protestations to the effect that this reading is neither traditional nor informed are simply ignored. I can see why: even cursory reading of the commentary shows how little conceptual novelty is really being offered (an observation that did not escape Darwin). It is like producing an abacus as the latest word in mathematics, hoping that no one will notice. Am I supposed to be impressed by a revelation that humans and apes had a common ancestor? Well, Bereishit Rabbah stated that in no uncertain terms nearly 1700 years ago:
...man was originally formed with a tail like the lower animals, but this was afterwards taken from him out of consideration for him. [14]
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/tmm/tmm07.htm
This midrash teaches that our world is just one in a succession of created and destroyed worlds; its only special feature is that it is good (as proclaimed by its Creator) and so it is let to stay. The same general principle of trial and error applies to our own ancestry. We were not made from scratch. It is stated that there were many generation of human-like creatures, in which the creation of a man was held back:
...There is a Baraitha [a tradition not incorporated in the Mishnah] to the effect that R. Simeon the Pious said: There are nine hundred and seventy-four generations which were held back from being created. The Holy One, blessed be He, scattered them through all the successive generations, and these are the impudent who are in a generation. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Talmud/hagiga2.html
Depending how one counts generations, that period alone can be as long as 100 kyr. BTW, R. Simeon was hardly a heretic. By Jewish tradition, he was a High Priest and the last to know how to pronounce the Tetragrammaton. In the Christian tradition, he was "a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Spirit was upon him." (Luke 2:25) When I need instructions regarding the proper manner of understanding the Bible, I'd rather take them from R. Simeon. He had the credentials for the job, which cannot be said about our secular warriors.
They seem to greatly concern themselves with the origins of a human animal; a subject that the sages found largely irrelevant, because what they called a "man" was a union of animal and spiritual natures. It is this union that is considered to be the act of man's creation; how many generations of anatomically modern humans walked the earth before Adam is unimportant. These creatures, however advanced, were not men. How was that union accomplished? The midrash suggests an analogy:
...The builder mixes a thick sand with a thinner one in the mortar, by which contrivance the latter becomes very strong and the building more substantial... Something of this method was adopted. [14]
That’s “making a man out of clay.” The goal was more important than the method:
...G-d said,... "Let there be a creature not only the product of earth, but also gifted with heavenly, spiritual elements, which will bestow on him reason, intellect and understanding... Let us make man.' G-d may be said to address the spiritual and the material elements thus: 'Till now all creatures have been of matter only; now I will create a being who shall consist of both matter and spirit. In our form, in our likeness.’ If man had been created out of spiritual elements only there could be no death for him, in the event of his fall. If, on the other hand, he had been created out of matter only, there could be no future bliss for him. Hence he was formed out of matter and spirit. If he lives the earthly, i.e. the animal life only, he dies like all matter. [8]
The creation of man is in endowing him with the divine spark. It occurred in a single individual; we all descend from this one man. What distinguished this creature was its ability to perceive the unseen behind the seen: having a mind that served as a window on a different realm.
I know of no science that contradicts this insight. It fills details how an animal capable of being transformed into a man could have descended. It also suggests that human-like creatures looking like us existed for tens of thousands years without distinguishing themselves in any way. Then, around 50 kya there was a sudden change ("the behavioral revolution"): language, arts, music have appeared; our last Y-chromosome common ancestor lived around that time.
This outline is only suggestive (it has been contested): we do not know when anatomically and behaviorally similar “men” became us. We do not know, at the level of testable rather than revealed truths, what makes us different, how and when this difference originated, and how it spread. We may be reasonably assured that this difference originated in a single individual (from biological likelihood of such an occurrence); that this person was the first "man.” However, making a receiver is only half of the job; it needs something to receive, to think of it, express it, and act on it.
Ironically, we may be further from understanding of our origins than the rabbis that lived two millennia ago; like us, they were clueless about the mechanics of creation but, at least, they understood the problem. We are trying to look the other way. An incredible amount of effort goes into studying the least important aspect of our origins, because that is the only aspect that can be presently studied, whereas a means for addressing what truly matters are as obscure as ever.
The impudent descendants of hominids (which, according to the early evolutionist R. Simeon, are reincarnations of their own spark-less ancestors) do not notice that the old news of men-with-tails provide zero insight in the only aspect of our nature that causes such proclamations: being human. Their animated, factoid-peppered monologue reminds me of a sharp turn to avoid a head-on collision with the issue that alone makes such talk purposeful --
What is this creature that descended from the apes, and why does only this creature ask such questions?
For reasons of their own, militant atheists are extremely fond of "debunking" the biblical account of man's creation, meaning their own reading of the Book of Genesis. Protestations to the effect that this reading is neither traditional nor informed are simply ignored. I can see why: even cursory reading of the commentary shows how little conceptual novelty is really being offered (an observation that did not escape Darwin). It is like producing an abacus as the latest word in mathematics, hoping that no one will notice. Am I supposed to be impressed by a revelation that humans and apes had a common ancestor? Well, Bereishit Rabbah stated that in no uncertain terms nearly 1700 years ago:
...man was originally formed with a tail like the lower animals, but this was afterwards taken from him out of consideration for him. [14]
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/tmm/tmm07.htm
This midrash teaches that our world is just one in a succession of created and destroyed worlds; its only special feature is that it is good (as proclaimed by its Creator) and so it is let to stay. The same general principle of trial and error applies to our own ancestry. We were not made from scratch. It is stated that there were many generation of human-like creatures, in which the creation of a man was held back:
...There is a Baraitha [a tradition not incorporated in the Mishnah] to the effect that R. Simeon the Pious said: There are nine hundred and seventy-four generations which were held back from being created. The Holy One, blessed be He, scattered them through all the successive generations, and these are the impudent who are in a generation. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Talmud/hagiga2.html
Depending how one counts generations, that period alone can be as long as 100 kyr. BTW, R. Simeon was hardly a heretic. By Jewish tradition, he was a High Priest and the last to know how to pronounce the Tetragrammaton. In the Christian tradition, he was "a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Spirit was upon him." (Luke 2:25) When I need instructions regarding the proper manner of understanding the Bible, I'd rather take them from R. Simeon. He had the credentials for the job, which cannot be said about our secular warriors.
They seem to greatly concern themselves with the origins of a human animal; a subject that the sages found largely irrelevant, because what they called a "man" was a union of animal and spiritual natures. It is this union that is considered to be the act of man's creation; how many generations of anatomically modern humans walked the earth before Adam is unimportant. These creatures, however advanced, were not men. How was that union accomplished? The midrash suggests an analogy:
...The builder mixes a thick sand with a thinner one in the mortar, by which contrivance the latter becomes very strong and the building more substantial... Something of this method was adopted. [14]
That’s “making a man out of clay.” The goal was more important than the method:
...G-d said,... "Let there be a creature not only the product of earth, but also gifted with heavenly, spiritual elements, which will bestow on him reason, intellect and understanding... Let us make man.' G-d may be said to address the spiritual and the material elements thus: 'Till now all creatures have been of matter only; now I will create a being who shall consist of both matter and spirit. In our form, in our likeness.’ If man had been created out of spiritual elements only there could be no death for him, in the event of his fall. If, on the other hand, he had been created out of matter only, there could be no future bliss for him. Hence he was formed out of matter and spirit. If he lives the earthly, i.e. the animal life only, he dies like all matter. [8]
The creation of man is in endowing him with the divine spark. It occurred in a single individual; we all descend from this one man. What distinguished this creature was its ability to perceive the unseen behind the seen: having a mind that served as a window on a different realm.
I know of no science that contradicts this insight. It fills details how an animal capable of being transformed into a man could have descended. It also suggests that human-like creatures looking like us existed for tens of thousands years without distinguishing themselves in any way. Then, around 50 kya there was a sudden change ("the behavioral revolution"): language, arts, music have appeared; our last Y-chromosome common ancestor lived around that time.
This outline is only suggestive (it has been contested): we do not know when anatomically and behaviorally similar “men” became us. We do not know, at the level of testable rather than revealed truths, what makes us different, how and when this difference originated, and how it spread. We may be reasonably assured that this difference originated in a single individual (from biological likelihood of such an occurrence); that this person was the first "man.” However, making a receiver is only half of the job; it needs something to receive, to think of it, express it, and act on it.
Ironically, we may be further from understanding of our origins than the rabbis that lived two millennia ago; like us, they were clueless about the mechanics of creation but, at least, they understood the problem. We are trying to look the other way. An incredible amount of effort goes into studying the least important aspect of our origins, because that is the only aspect that can be presently studied, whereas a means for addressing what truly matters are as obscure as ever.
The impudent descendants of hominids (which, according to the early evolutionist R. Simeon, are reincarnations of their own spark-less ancestors) do not notice that the old news of men-with-tails provide zero insight in the only aspect of our nature that causes such proclamations: being human. Their animated, factoid-peppered monologue reminds me of a sharp turn to avoid a head-on collision with the issue that alone makes such talk purposeful --
What is this creature that descended from the apes, and why does only this creature ask such questions?