Taco Box, September 2023: Week 4

Introduction

Hello everyone!

We have been doing the Taco Box this month.

Where you give me your questions about the Bible,Christianity, Morality, or anything else.

And I answer them week by week.

We are finishing up this years “Taco Box” this week with our last 2 questions.

Lets begin!

1. Dinosaurs: Are/were Dino's real or did people just make it up? Because I know people have found bones but did people like a really long time ago make them? Or were there actually Dino's and does the Bible talk about that?

First off, dinosaurs were real.

They did exist.

Virtually nobody contests that fact.

Now, the Bible doesn't really talk about dinosaurs, and for good reason.

There really isn't any reason to bring them up.

The purpose of scripture is to show us all that we need to know God and come into relationship with Him.

Its to detail Gods relationship with mankind, the promises He has made, and His faithfulness to those promises.

I mean, really think about it.

If I was writing a book on how to have a healthy marriage, would I have any reason to mention dinosaurs?

Probably not.

There are several animals around today that the Bible never mentions.

Squid, Orcas, Moose, Bison, Elephants, Buffalo, just to name a few.

Dinosaurs just aren't important to the story God is trying to tell us.

Now, there are a few different theories people have on how the Dinosaurs went extinct.

There is the asteroid.

Some people say that Noah’s flood killed them all.

One theory says that since all around the world, different cultures had legends of dragons, and dragon slayers, it may have been that “dragons” and “dinosaurs” were one and the same, with humans actually hunting them to extinction.

And some say that we actually still have dinosaurs today, they just evolved into different types of animals.

Which of those is true?

I don't know, and currently in my life, I don't really care.

Since I tend to lean Old Earth, and believe that the six days in Genesis were poetic metaphor, I think the Asteroid seems plausible.

However I could be wrong.

It could have happened any of these other ways.

Whatever the case, My faith isn't shaken by the existence of dinosaurs.

As a matter of fact, its strengthened by it.

The God I serve, YHWH, Is a magnificent creator.

To think of all the beautiful and dangerous and exciting things that His creativity brought fourth is fun and awe inspiring.

Then, to realize that of all creation, he views us as his most spectacular creation, the creation He would die for.

It puts things into perspective.

Our God loves us more than you can imagine.

And He is far greater than we could ever comprehend.

2. If Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth, aren't we all the product of incest?

Haha, Ummm… Maybe?

If universal common descent is true, then we definitely are all the product of incest.

That would be Darwinism, or Macro-evolution.

Which would mean that not only humans, but every living thing on earth is the product of incest.

Whats interesting, is that while the Bible does seem to indicate that Adam and Eve were the FIRST humans to be created.

It never says they were the ONLY humans to be created.

Look at Genesis 4 for example.

Cain, who is the direct child of Adam and Eve, has just killed his brother Abel.

God is unveiling his Judgement against Cain:

The NET Bible (Second Edition) Chapter 4

13 Then Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is too great to endure!

14 Look, you are driving me off the land today, and I must hide from your presence. I will be a homeless wanderer on the earth; whoever finds me will kill me!”

Who are these people Cain is afraid of?

Are they other brothers and sisters of his?

Maybe.

The Bible doesn't tell us.

The way Eve reacts when she has Cain seems to imply that he is her firstborn.

But the Bible doesn't tell us that he is, or that he isn't.

I also think you'll have a hard time reconciling the fact that the Israelite law forbids incestuous relationships.

How then can we say that Gods ordination for the spread of Humanity was fixed on disobedience to His eternal law?

Some people may say “the Bible never tells us that God made other people besides Adam and Eve.”

But the Bible never tells us that God didn't make other people either.

Really, the focal point of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve is that the first man and woman brought sin into the Earth, and that the Messiah, who will reverse the effects of sin will be descended from that first man and woman.

I mean, if you really pay attention to it, the Biblical text isn't too concerned with the origins of humanity.

Its concerned with the origins of the One who will redeem humanity.

There is one passage that some will say proves that all of humanity has to be descended from Adam.

And that is Acts 17:6.

To answer that, I’m going to read to you part of an article I found on a Christian website called Thinktheology.co

“What do we make of Acts 17:26 then? Literally, Paul says, “and from one he made every nation of mankind, to live over the face of the earth.” For some, this verse is proof that all humans are exclusively descended from Adam and Eve - and it might, of course, mean exactly this. However, in the light of the strong suggestions to the contrary in the Genesis story we have just considered, and the fact that Paul knew this story well, it is worth pointing out that the text may not mean this at all. It might mean that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve, but also from a wide range of other ancestors (think about it: if you go back ten generations, you’re descended from over a thousand different people), including the other people in existence in Genesis 4. It might mean that God took the soul-life he had breathed into Adam and put it into many others (Eve is said to be “of the man”, even though she wasn’t his child). It might mean that Adam, as the first person made in God’s image, was the template, the prototype if you like, for all subsequent people (as we might say that from one Model-T, Henry Ford made thousands of others).”

So, what view do I personally take?

I think that Adam and Eve were the first humans that God made.

However, I think its entirely possible, even likely, that God made several other humans in placed them around the Earth.

I could be wrong on that.

But ultimately, my Salvation doesn't depend on the exact specifics on humanities origin.

Are all humans the product of incest?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Either way, the Bible doesn't force you to take one view or the other.

Closing

That wraps up this years Taco Box!

I hope I provided some clarity on these questions for you all.

Im excited to see what we have in store next year!