Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man

I try to approach issues where religion and science collide. I was hoping for an enlightening experience from reading this book. Sadly, I only made it to chapter 4 before realizing that this whole project is another scam.The proverbial scuttling of the ship is where, while admitting that pre-humans, the hominids, used tools of varying complexities, they hold the tenet that a veritable explosion in tool technology happened when humans were created. By logical corollary, the same could be said with the Industrial Revolution with the explosion of manufacturing. Or how about the explosion in transportation starting in the mid-19th century with rail and culminating a hundred years later with the advent of rockets, spaceflight, jet aircraft, and automobiles. What about the electrical, electronic, or computer revolutions which happened even faster? Are we to conclude that any rapid, sudden progress in a given area of technology as evidence of a new special creation? Laughable.Their origins theory in chapter 3 is astonishing in that it perfectly supports evolutionary theory's conclusion based on the fossil record that humans started in Eastern Africa from a small population. Their framework posits that humanity started in Mesopotamia, which would have been in the vicinity of modern-day Iraq. The Sudan is at the northern boundary where these hominid fossils are found. A cursory check on Google Maps will show the distance from Baghdad to Khartoum to be around 3300 miles. Not. Even. Close.One of the biggest problems was the circular citations to their own previous works. The two further readings I was interested in were the explanation of the creation 'days' being eras or epochs, as a way to explain away the young Earth problem, but then later claim that the numbers of years of the geneologies was exact. Why would Moses write the creation story using metaphorical 'days', yet use exact years for the geneologies? Wouldn't a writer working on the supposed 'Word of God' at least be consistent, if not honest? Everyone knew what a day is at the time and to use that term in place of era or epoch seems deceitful at the very least. When I went to look at their 'reference citation', it was yet another book by the author Ross. It's bad form to cite to your own work in this manner, at least for real scholars. Same thing when they give reference material in support of a regional flood, contrary to clearly written doctrine of a worldwide flood. They reference another title written by Ross. The whole point of references is for corroboration with other scholars. If I could write the reference material for a book I was writing, I could probably convince anyone to believe anything.Finally, for the sake of brevity, the hair splitting they do when attempting to distinguish modern H. Sapiens Sapiens from archaic H. Sapiens is quite inapposite. To claim that we are a very special creation set far apart from all the other animals, (in which God has chosen to reuse parts?), yet the hair splitting differences like a slight difference in cranial thickness, which would not be even remotely noticeable in the flesh, falls completely flat.What they have done, and for which I must give them great credit, is bolster the evidence that evolutionary theory is correct. Throughout chapter three, everything they put forth to support their central theory that exactly one man (Adam) and one woman (Eve) started it all in the Garden of Eden in Mesopotamia (roughly Iraq), actually by their own words point to an African origin (again at least a 3300 mile difference) of a small population. That, my friends, has been central to evolutionary theory for at minimum 25 years, since I studied physical anthropology at college. Four chapters was enough for me to conclude that their arguments actually support the evolutionary model rather than theirs.

In Who Was Adam? A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man Dr. Fazale Rana, biochemist, and Dr. Hugh Ross, astronomer, of Reasons to Believe, take a novel look at the origins of man. Their approach takes the bible's account of human origins seriously, and sets out to test it against the available data in the disciplines of geography, anthropology, genetics, paleontology, biology, and other various disciplines being used in this area of inquiry today. Using a day/age creation model, explained in other publications of Reasons to Believe, they posit that miraculous creation of humans most adequately explains the origins of man.With exhaustive explanations, a formidable bibliography, and the tools of good teacher (diagrams, tables, and good explanations of complicated terms) the good doctors systematically set the scientific data, and other interpretations of the data, beside the biblical account. For those of you who do not believe the bible you'll find that Drs. Rana and Ross are not science bashing theologians/pastors. They are scientists interested in the scientific method. They acknowledge their bias as Christians, but unlike many of us, these men came to this search for truth in origins as non-Christians and were persuaded by the evidence that the bible paints a testable model for finding human origins. With charity and good faith they confront alternative points of view rather than lambast those who disagree with them as evil or stupid. Even if you are not persuaded you will at least see why they think miraculous creation is plausible in light of other alternatives.For many young earth creationists you might need further information before reading this book. Try A Biblical Case for an Old Earth to explain the day/age creation model that Drs. Rana and Ross follow in this book. Dr. Ross has written a book on this subject but I have not read it yet. Either way, this is well worth the time and effort.

The Creation-Evolution debate, or more specifically the Intelligent Design-Naturalism debate would be far more productive if level-headed presentations and discussions of the evidence, like those presented in "Who was Adam", were more common place. The typical dogmatism from the Young-Earth creationism or naturalism/neo-Darwinism has dominated the debate for far too long.Why should you read "Who was Adam"? Dr. Fuz Rana and Dr. Hugh Ross have summarized the scientific record, discussing it from the perspective of two opposing world-views, and proposed a testable creation model for the "Origin of Man". Dr. Rana and Dr. Ross have taken an approach that systematically presents their evidences for intelligent design and shows how their model is soundly supported by both the scientific understanding of nature as well as the Holy Bible"Who was Adam" should be used as a point of discussion where believing and non-believing scientist or layman can debate and discuss the evidences rather than simply follow the path of personal attacks taken by many in the Young-Earth Creationist-Evolution debate.I believe that anyone who studies "Who was Adam" with an open mind followed by a "testing" of the supporting references will reach the same conclusion as did Rana and Ross; mainly that the scientific record supports the words of the Holy Bible. The next step is up to you.