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RECONCILIATIONS OF SCIENCE, ADAM, EVE
AND THE TOWER OF BABEL
 Are science and the Bible
at odds? Ir is that science and some people's misteachings about what the Bible actually says are at odds?
To begin, DNA studies suggest a relatively small band of Africans went to the Middle East, in particular around the
Dead Sea area then spread into Europe, South Asia, East Asia and finally into the Americas. The studies also show fewer DNA
markers the farther people are located from Africa. Thus we see what appears to be this overall movement: Probably small,
long-range immigration group mostly of men went from Africa into the Middle East around the Dead Sea, later descendants going
into Europe, into South Asia, into East Asia where Chinese migration was south to north, humans pausing in Beringia then about
15,000 years ago some 70 people moving on into the Americas although with some movement back and forth while humans also moved
east to Greenland.
The Bible speaks of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Does this contradict science which
suggests that humans may have come into being in Africa? The Hebrew word for garden means a place where food is grown.
Scriptures speak of Adam and Eve’s son Abel as having sheep and their son Cain as having produce. If we understand
that the Garden of Eden was an area of farming, a possible reconciliation might mean Adam and Eve were the first humans in
the earth in the sense of humans settled in the terrain of the Middle East who went from hunting and gathering to raising
produce and sheep.
Interestingly science has shown that many plants
and animals were first domesticated in the Middle East from Egypt through Iraq and into Turkey and Iran. These include dogs,
sheep, goats, pigs, the donkey, cattle, dromedary camels, possibly oxen; also peas, rye, oats, barley, wheat, lentils, figs,
apples, grapes and einkorn wheat. Genetic studies suggest einkorn wheat was first domesticated in the Karacadag Mountains,
in southeast Turkey at the upper fringes of the Fertile Crescent, about 11,000 years ago. Apples may have started in
eastern Turkey. Grapes may have begun in southern Turkey.  A readjustment in understanding about the Bible’s account of Adam and Eve
would not be without precedent. For example many churches have taught that languages began at the Tower of Babel.
Actually before the scriptural account about the tower in Genesis chapter 11, chapter ten has scriptures saying there had
already been a split of languages before Babel. it speaks of humans spreading about in many places and with different tongues
or languages.
Beginning with Genesis 10:2, prior to the Tower
of Babel event, it is recorded that “The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras. 3
The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah. 4 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittim and the
Rodanim. 5 (From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each
with its own language.)
Again the referred to migrations brought along with them the spreading of languages, even
before the Tower of Babel. Thus, the interesting possibility is that not what the Bible says of the Genesis account
of Adam and Eve is wrong, but the understanding that many churches have had of it is wrong.
At Babel, which was
evidently located in what is now Iraq, there was a further dividing of languages. Even to this day there is great linguistic
diversity around that same area. For example, besides Arabic and Hebrew being in the Semitic family of languages, Kurds
and Iranians speak forms of the Indo-European family, the Turks are in still a different language group, Afro-Asiatic languages
including beyond Egyptian some that in the past were also partly in the Arabian Peninsula. Languages to the west tend
to have prepositions before nouns; languages to the east tend to have prepositions after nouns.
So it appears that
at the Tower of Babel there was a significant linguistic split. However, human languages had developed prior to the
Tower of Babel incident, a fact that casual Bible readers do not catch.
REFERENCES
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