Adam, Eve, Noah and Evolution
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The three monotheistic religions refer to Adam and Eve as the first humans on earth. Adam and Noah are considered prophets/messengers/holy men.
Given the vast amount of scientific evidence that shows prehistoric creatures (dinosaurs, etc.) and a savage type of primitive human unlike the humans of today existed, where does Adam and Eve fit into all this? If Adam and Eve are the humans all of humanity originates from, were they primitive humans? Was Noah really able to gather the billions of living creatures on this planet all in one ark?
To believe in the truth of the Quran or any holy book, one must believe everything in it. These stories just seem a bit difficult to believe.
Also, why would there be no reference to past events, these prehistoric creatures that clearly existed or any mention of nations or people outside that area? Instead, most of the verses deal specifically with tribal life and that specific part of the world.
Any thoughts/comments on this would be greatly appreciated.
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To believe in the truth of the Quran or any holy book, one must believe everything in it. These stories just seem a bit difficult to believe.
A pre-requesite for understanding such questions is to surely read The Quran first. Which is what your statement above implies has been done.
If so, you would have realised "Eve" is non-existent in The Quran, for example.
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A pre-requesite for understanding such questions is to surely read The Quran first. Which is what your statement above implies has been done.
If so, you would have realised "Eve" is non-existent in The Quran, for example.
Not in my Quran, Wakas. She is referred to as Hawaa'. In two of the three passages that refer to the expulsion from Paradise -- namely Surah 2 Al-Bajarah 35-39 and Surah 7 Al-A?raf 19-25 -- the Shaitan is stated to have led both Adam and zauj (Adam?s mate, Hawaa' astray. Unlike the Jewish and Christian account of the ?Fall? episode, in Surah 20 Ta-Ha 115-124 -- it is Adam who is charged with forgetting his covenant with God (verse 115), who is tempted by the Shaitan (verse 120), and who disobeys God and allows himself to be seduced (verse 121).
If one looks at all the three passages as well as the way in which the term Adam functions generally in the Quran, it becomes clear that the Quran regards the act of disobedience by the human pair in al-jannah (the Garden) as a collective rather than an individual act for which an exclusive, or even primary, responsibility is not assigned to either man or woman. The act of disobedience is committed jointly by Adam and Hawaa? (zauj).
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Now, care to take a stab at answering my original questions? )
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To me, "Eve" is significantly different from "hawaa/zauj".
A comparison of the Biblical V Quran account was well done in this book
http//www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Quran-Themes-London-Studies/dp/1860640095/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212176987&sr=1-8From my studies, the story of adam is a parable
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=12703.msg102151#msg102151 -
To me, "Eve" is significantly different from "hawaa/zauj".
A comparison of the Biblical V Quran account was well done in this book
http//www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Quran-Themes-London-Studies/dp/1860640095/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212176987&sr=1-8From my studies, the story of adam is a parable
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=12703.msg102151#msg102151I am well aware of the Biblical vs the Quranic account. If the story is considered a parable, then were there primitive humans on earth before they came along? Are Adam and Eve/Hawaa or are they not thought to be the first humans on earth from which humanity derived?
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If the story is considered a parable, then were there primitive humans on earth before they came along?
Yes, that is my understanding. One could interpret this from AQ too.
Are Adam and Eve/Hawaa or are they not thought to be the first humans on earth from which humanity derived?
I assume you mean from a Quranic perspective? If so, if you read it literally, then you could argue for that. However, that is not my understanding, as I said, the story of adam is a parable. adam in Classical Arabic also means mankind, pattern/exemplar, means of access.
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Yes, that is my understanding. One could interpret this from AQ too.
I assume you mean from a Quranic perspective? If so, if you read it literally, then you could argue for that. However, that is not my understanding, as I said, the story of adam is a parable. adam in Classical Arabic also means mankind, pattern/exemplar, means of access.
I know, that is my understanding as well. Thank you for your reply.
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Peace,
From my understanding, Adam was taught (learned) the description of things, he was able to describe things and thus express ideas. This was a paradigm in human evolution.
Certainly, Adam was not living alone; he was a member of a community of what we consider now as primitive humans. When acquiring such ability, he and his community possessed a great advantage over other communities and thus flourished while the others declined.
With ideas comes knowledge, but also nonsense; so truth and falsehood had to co-exist. I think before that period, only the truth existed, falsehood needs a medium which is language to propagate.
Let?s see if this understanding is stands or not; feel free to correct.
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Peace.
First we all need to understand that time is irrelevant to GOD. So, if we see a million years go by .... how much time does GOD see go by?? NONE. We are under trial and thus we see "our" time pass from our "perspective". GOD created time just like everything else. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden where they eventually ate of the tree forbidden ...... it was not on this planet ... it was in the Garden of Paradise. We have all been alive once before and due to Adam and Eve's failure we are now being tested .... each one of us. Adam is our Father. The creation on this planet evolved over whatever time we are made to perceive by the signs left by GOD on the planet and the layerings of the earth. Noah and those before him lived up to a thousand years ... go to the Torah and the Quran ... both these books state that Noah lived 950 years on this earth .....
The generations before us were stronger, taller, had more intellect and lived longer lives ... look at the signs left of them .... we still can't figure out how they made the structures thousands of years ago, which we can barley make now with all our "technology". Look at the buildings carved out of the side of mountains in Petra ..... how did they do that?? when we can't even do that today??
What has happened in the past is not known to us clearly .... we can't even get the last 50 years right ... and we read books written by men ...... when the three books of GOD, Torah, Bible and Quran reside with us to confirm what happened and what will happen.
Man disputes everything he does not understand .. those that "understand" a bigger picture are called fools and mad. We will all die and we will all see then .... but then will be too late if we haven't seen with our hearts already.
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Noah had a special machine teleport and shrink all the creatures on his ship so they were able to fit there, wait, I think the ship was actually really huge, but maybe all the creatures were just super small?
Joe
That?s partially true. There was a special machine involved but it didn?t do what you describe. Good guess, though.
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The Ark.. )
Maybe it was a giant ufo, or some kind of genetic storage, requiring only a disc
It was known as the UF-Ark, but people just called it ?Ark? back then. It wasn?t that large, however; only Noah, his family and his livestock were carried off on it, not all living creatures. The DNA of all other living organisms was simultaneously extracted with a SuperDuperDNAExtractor, manipulated to create additional organisms, and then transformed in the spacecraft?s hi-tech lab into data, which was then stored on a disk. This was done by highly intelligent aliens that humans now look like (they still walk among us, but there are very few of them). So, yes, you guessed right about the genetic storage.
No, I am not kidding.
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The generations before us were stronger, taller, had more intellect and lived longer lives ... look at the signs left of them .... we still can't figure out how they made the structures thousands of years ago, which we can barley make now with all our "technology". Look at the buildings carved out of the side of mountains in Petra ..... how did they do that?? when we can't even do that today??
And all this time I thought the opposite was true; I thought they were shorter or at least didn't walk as straight as humans today, had less intellect/knowledge, and were lucky to live past forty. I think what you describe might be the aliens a lot of people believe visited our planet.
http//www.geocities.com/magpiester/oldtestament.html
In 1967 a book called Chariot of the Gods? was published, and within the space of five years it had become a best-seller in 38 countries and was translated into 26 languages. The author of the book was Erich Von Daniken, the managing director of a Swiss 5-Star Hotel. The claims made by Von Daniken in his work were bold and blasphemous. Von Daniken had been educated at the College of St-Michel in Fribourg, where even as a student, he had occupied all of his spare time studying ancient holy writings. His lengthy research led him to the following conclusions Humanoid aliens from a remote galaxy had visited the Earth around 10,000 years ago, apparently after an intergalactic war. These 'sons of the stars' created the human race in their own image by tinkering with the genes of the primates. The alien visitors so overawed their creations with their far superior technology that they were worshipped as gods. Evidence, such as artifacts and relics of the visiting ancient astronauts have been uncovered by archaeologists but unrecognised. Many of the fabulous stories in the Bible and other sacred books are actually accounts of the ancient spacemen intervening in human affairs.
http//www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/2399/jesus.html
Some even speculate that Jesus may have been one of these aliens of advanced intelligence and extraordinary powers. Who woulda thunkit!
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Peace.
First we all need to understand that time is irrelevant to GOD. So, if we see a million years go by .... how much time does GOD see go by?? NONE. We are under trial and thus we see "our" time pass from our "perspective". GOD created time just like everything else. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden where they eventually ate of the tree forbidden ...... it was not on this planet ... it was in the Garden of Paradise. We have all been alive once before and due to Adam and Eve's failure we are now being tested .... each one of us. Adam is our Father. The creation on this planet evolved over whatever time we are made to perceive by the signs left by GOD on the planet and the layerings of the earth. Noah and those before him lived up to a thousand years ... go to the Torah and the Quran ... both these books state that Noah lived 950 years on this earth .....
The generations before us were stronger, taller, had more intellect and lived longer lives ... look at the signs left of them .... we still can't figure out how they made the structures thousands of years ago, which we can barley make now with all our "technology". Look at the buildings carved out of the side of mountains in Petra ..... how did they do that?? when we can't even do that today??
What has happened in the past is not known to us clearly .... we can't even get the last 50 years right ... and we read books written by men ...... when the three books of GOD, Torah, Bible and Quran reside with us to confirm what happened and what will happen.
Man disputes everything he does not understand .. those that "understand" a bigger picture are called fools and mad. We will all die and we will all see then .... but then will be too late if we haven't seen with our hearts already.
Peace
I agree with what you are saying but we did not have a life before this. Adam was created once then he died, he will be raised again. We were created once and we will die and rise again. There was no previous life before for mankind ie living in the Garden. I quote
"They will say, 'Our Lord, twice You have caused us to be lifeless and twice You have brought us to life. Now we recognize our sins. Is there any way out?'"
We were lifeless when we didn't exist (ie werent born) and will be lifeless when we expire on this Earth. We were brought to life once when we were born (including Adam instead he was created from dust not sperm), and we will be brought to life again on the Day of Reckoning. That's all.
Truth_Seeker, as for Noah's Ark, if you are doubtful about this, then why are you not doubtful about Jesus' & Moses' miracles or the Jinn being sub-servient to David and Solomon? Surely these are more far-fetched? God does as he wills, just like we are the only planet with life on as we know, this is by God's will, even though it is incredible and awesome to us, this is the will of God just as is fitting pairs of every species on an Ark may seem incredible and awesome to us. I believe it happened, I believe everything in the Qur'an happened because God is Almighty.
I think Adam is not a parable but the truth, it gives the reason for our existence on this Earth as a test. The reason why the Jinn, Iblis is deceiving many of us to disbelieve and the origin of man. When I think of man I do not think of cavemen or neanderthals. I think Adam was a man like us (obviously his intellect was lower, but we as humans progress in intelligence and science, look at the world today and 200 years ago) and he was able to memorize the names of all the God's creation. This isn't a hard thing to comprehend. He was the first MAN akin to us, but I believe there were cavemen and neanderthals before him but they were wiped out were'nt they? God said himself if he so willed he could remove us from the Earth and set up a new creation as Guardians of the Earth. Cavemen and homo-beings before us were different creatures to us, we didnt evolve from them, Adam was created separately in the Garden as the new Man, "Eve" (who cares about the name we all know what its referring to) was the partner of Adam to live with in peace and love. They later disobeyed God and were sent to Earth is my understanding.
Peacee
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527 And read/recite on them (the) information/news (of) Adam's two sons with the truth, when they approached/neared an approachment to God (an offering), so (it) was accepted from one of them and was not (to) be accepted from the other, he said "I will kill you." He said "But, God accepts from the fearing and obeying."
Is above allegoric of human conflict and at which point is Adam ? the consciousness of understanding right and wrong ?I will kill you? which does not exist in animal kingdom?
Who woulda thunkit!
The We Persona who created aliens!
Let us (i.e. me) reason we are friends I you? ;D
