Or bellybuttons.
Arabs and Jews are different species?
This OP is an excellent example of why it is so important to define one’s terms when asking a question.
Exactly what do you mean by “Jewish”?
It is often said that Abraham was the first Jew, but he did not posess the Ten Commandments, nor any written form of what was later to become the Torah. So the meaning of “Jewish” when applied to him must clearly differ from the meaning in relation to us.
If one wants to say that Abraham was Jewish because he was aware of God’s identity in the same way that today’s Jews are aware of Him (that is to say, a pure monotheistic belief, with accompanying beliefs in His role as Original Creator and Continued King And Ruler, and similar stuff), then Abraham could also be claimed by other religions which believe similarly, such as Islam. Moreover, Adam and Noah would also meet those criteria.
Adam and Eve before the fall were children of God in the Kingdom of God, and as such would know God and would not be under a written code, therefore not Jewish. The requirement of be fruitful and increase IMHO is a matter of the heart and is really a combination of the first 2 commandments which are also matters of the heart, which is also how one operates after coming to Jesus which is under grace, not under a written code (IMHO the fruit of the tree of good and evil is the same as intentionally not following ‘be fruitful and increase’). The difference between A&E and a saved believer in Jesus is that the believer is saved by grace, they can mess up matters of the heart and it is pre-forgiven.
Once fallen A&E fall under the authority of Satan (IMHO Eve’s husband is Satan in the curse, not Adam as it is the act of spiritual adultery). God then interceded and mediated between Satan and man (and woman) and rules (curses) are established that will govern A&E’s life. At this point the curses are not choices (such as don’t murder), but things that make life less pleasant. So I’m not sure if they would be considered Jewish till the first rule/law is set down
Assuming by ‘historical Adam and Eve’ the OP means those who first crossed from modern-day Djibouti to modern-day Yemen, then they would have been African, not Semitic. ‘Semitic’ being tens of thousands of years in the future.
My take (obviously not authoritative) is that Jews are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (largely via Jacob’s son Judah, after whom Judaism was named).
Hence, Adam and Eve don’t qualify.
I think some of the confusion in this thread is that devilsknew is using “ancestor” to mean “descendant” and “ancestry” to mean “descent.”
The story of Adam and Eve is a myth (in the technical sense of cosmogonic narrative: I’m not interested in truth / falsehood for the moment). It is perfectly possible to have a mythic ancestor couple from whom all humans descend that only the Jews descend from. It’s a paradox and literally impossible, but such things are common in myths. This is why myth =/ science.
I don’t think that represents the viewpoint of any Jew or Christian now (at least, not that I’ve ever encountered), but there’s a reason the ancestry of the Egyptians, Babylonians, etc. is not traced to Noah in the OT: it didn’t matter at the time the text was shaped. Later, of course, you get the tradition of Noah’s three sons founding the three “races,” but originally the Jews didn’t need to account for the separate ethnic groups within their mythic origins.
That’s my take on it. Adam and Eve is a fable/myth/story. If you chose to believe it then you can believe them to be any religion you like.
I find it amusing that on this board we can debate the history/world/cannon of Star Trek, Star Wars, LotR etc and yet a discussion of history of Adam and Eve is quickly discounted as being merely a “myth” by some posters.
Yes, I too believe it is a myth, but we can still discuss how this myth (if that is what you believe) fits in with our “cannon”. As a Jewish person, I find this discussion fascinating, regardless of its historical “accuracy”.
You missed my point completely. A myth and a fable are two completely different genres of traditional narrative. Fables are always understood to be fictional. Myths are much more complex than fables, and they have certain inherent qualities which make them difficult and often pointless to analyze from a strict rationalist standpoint.
IvoryTowerDenizen, I hope I did not imply that I was discounting anything.
I was counting you- your post actually inspired my point.
Don’t forget the “bottleneck” that occured later on. When Noah and his family had to repopulate the earth.
Well, that is showing the ignorance of some posters. Star Trek/ Star Wars/ etc are nowhere near important or truthful enough to qualify as myths.
(Disclaimer – “truth” does not always equal “factual,” and is often a deeper level of meaningfulness than simple facts can achieve.)
Ugh, typo. I wasn’t counting you! I hope my meaning was clear!
The difference between the two sets, though, is that outside a very extremely small number of completely crazy individuals, no one takes Star Trek, Star Wars, LotR, etc as seriously as quite a few otherwise rational people do with these religions. And even among those few, there aren’t people killing each other over slight differences in their views of these fictions – again, unlike religion.
When we can marginalize the religious crazies like we can the sci-fi crazies, then you’ll have a much more valid point.
An interesting question. They were certainly worshippers of the diety that Jews worship, but that can also be said of modern non-Jews who obey what we Jews call the seven Noahide laws. Jews are a distinct group because they accepted the covenant with G-d that originated with Abraham, and is ultimately expressed in our commitment to keep the laws of the Torah. We believe the Torah’s laws are a path to spiritual refinement over and above merely being a good person. So I suppose that Adam and Eve would have to not be considered Jewish in the current sense, as they did not have the covenant of the Torah.
The comment was limited to the context of this thread.
Getting to where we are today isn’t a problem. The problem for anyone who believes in the Noachian flood is the population of the Earth at various well understood points in history. I haven’t done the math (but easily could) but I suspect that starting with 8 at the time of the flood wouldn’t produce nearly enough people to fill all the cities we knew were filled soon afterwards.
Unless every female descendant for generations afterward were Octomoms, that is.
See, I’m not a fan of that sort of compartmentalization of religion. But we’re straying well out of GQ territory here, maybe I’ll work up a GD OP about it.
It’s not about compartmentalizing, it’s about context. The context of the thread is to discuss the ancestry of Adam and Eve as laid out in the Torah, based on the idea that Genesis through Exodus represents the lineage of the Jewish people. It’s a scholarly question. Whether people fight or die because of religion is not pertinent to the scholarly analysis of of the question.
I was amused that the scholarly question was dismissed by a few people because the biblical stories were not true. And yet many people have no trouble discussing in depth the implications of other not-true stories such as the worlds of Star Trek etc…
My parents are Holocaust survivors and lived and fought in Israel for many years, so I know about the destruction and sorrow religious bigotry can cause. However, there is a place for a more academic discussion of religious texts that can remain outside of those issues.