A review of David Instone-Brewer's Bible Contexts Series - Chapter 20: Cain's "wife"

Dr. David Instone-Brewer is an eminent Bible Scholar in England, one of the experts responsible for the last tranche of changes to the NIV. He knows a lot more than I do about a lot of things, and since he makes it easy to access most of what he writes, I follow him to my advantage--especially in the area of Old Testament Studies, which is his specialty. What I've learned from him, however, are generally facts and insights I hadn't been exposed to before. I don't sit at his feet for much of what he weaves into his teaching, which are just standard tenets of atheism (although I admit, some of them are new to me as well). For although he identifies as an evangelical, he nonetheless looks to atheist scholars and their disciples to inform his interpretation of the Scriptures--and is thus oft led astray.

Dr. D is greatly hampered in his ability to gain insights from the book of Genesis, believing as he does that it was composed as a sort of religious fiction during the Babylonian captivity to inspire Jews not to lose hope in their present situation, or something along those lines. He doesn't believe that it is even intended to be a serious historical record, and certainly not that it was compiled from written eyewitness accounts. There is therefore no apparent limit to the imaginations his mind can supply from a reading of this section of the Scriptures, guided by the speculations of the atheists which lie behind much of his theology. And since he drinks deeply at the font of those who have no access to absolute truth, he all but admits that what he sincerely believes to be true today may be ridiculed a decade or a century from now, as atheist philosophers discard old and unworkable alternative explanations for how the world works, and imagine new ones yet to be disproven. This approach leads him far astray from orthodox understanding. 

Take, for example, his chapter on Cain's Wife. He already reinterprets the first two chapters of Genesis in an atheistic framework, starting with a random humanoid whose ancestral line went back to stardust. He then departs from the atheist narrative just a bit to give God credit for taking this human-looking animal, the pinnacle of billions of years of random evolution, miraculously granting him a human spirit, and then--in a most unusual departure from his involvement of the previous billions of years, and in a biological process we can hardly imagine, much less explain scientifically--splitting off a half-clone which became the first human woman. He then set the newly enlightened couple in special walled enclosure he called Eden and commanded them not to eat a certain fruit. They did so regardless, and as a result they were cast out of Eden to resume their evolutionary progress without any life-sustaining access to the fruit of the tree that conveyed some sort of immortality. And here enters Cain's Wife, who he proposes was a non-human, implying along the way that the host of present mankind must be descended from her.

I hesitate to critique Dr. D in any area of actual OT Studies, as he is an acknowledged expert in both the Hebrew language and rabbinical literature. But here he has left far behind anything directly related to the Hebrew Scriptures to dabble in Evolutionary Biology, in which he is no expert--leaving me on much firmer ground to dispute him. [Edit: he does claim biological expertise based on his undergraduate studies, but then, so could I, having sat for General Science in Bible College.]

I will be interacting in this post with Chapter 20 of his book Bible Contexts which, at least for now, can be found at his website http://www.biblecontexts.com/. He introduces the chapter as follows:

If Cain married someone living outside Eden, this would explain some strange details in Genesis. It would also explain how our gene pool contains so much variation.

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His book is all about explaining strange details in Genesis with even stranger speculations. He sees a problem with God selecting just two humanoids--really, only one--to begin the human family tree. Although his God is capable of many amazing feats, Dr. D seems constrained by his acceptance of atheist teaching to place the Laws of Nature at a higher tier on the hierarchy than that occupied by Nature's God. The God who could split the first man in half at the sub-cellular level to produce the first woman was nonetheless stumped at providing this pair's descendants with enough genetic variety to produce the four blood types, so He needed to pull in some genes from the neighboring humanoids to pull it off. Thus, Cain's Wife. 

Now Mrs. Cain was not a Neanderthal, mind you--Cain had already inherited those genes from his long-dead humanoid ancestors. What she provided instead was access to the "rich gene pool" that had resulted from millions of years of primate evolution. Dr. D uses a modern analogy to explain why this was not only sufficient, but necessary, if humanity were to survive The Fall:

 Cain could, of course, have married his sister – though the Bible doesn’t say this happened. It is difficult to imagine her wanting to marry a brother (especially the nasty brother who murdered the nice one). Presumably this incest wouldn’t be dangerous like it is today because God could have made sure there weren’t any dangerous recessive genes in Adam’s chromosomes. However, our human race would be very weak if the entire gene pool had been limited to just Adam’s chromosomes. Restricted gene pools often cause problems in overrefined agricultural animals or crop lines because this makes them vulnerable to pests and changes in the environment. This is solved by interbreeding with wild species to reinvigorate the gene pool by introducing more variety.

Here he makes a mistake commonly perpetuated by pseudoscientists, assuming that a genetic bottleneck always results in a dangerously depleted gene pool. The reason modern agricultural crops and animals have depleted gene pools, and wild varieties don't, is precisely the result of human intervention to breed out unwanted variation. Absent that unnatural selection, a fairly robust set of genes will continue to be passed on, even in a small population. But racism is a powerful and primordial urge, such that organisms resist hybridisation and generally seek to mate with creatures most like themselves, resulting in further speciation, as any organisms that depart from the standard in the same direction tend to seek out each other for breeding, leaving an even more depleted genome to their descendants. Were it not for the balancing act of another primordial urge--that of men, having gone forth to conquer, seeking and finding sexual release amongst the females of the conquered races--humans would be much more genetically depleted than we are. 

If I were to hypothesize myself, I would say that God created Adam with two completely different sets of chromosomes, with each of the millions of gene pairs consisting of different alleles. Thus Eve was far more distant from Adam, genetically, than any two humans are today; at the time she was split off from him, she only shared 50 per cent of his genetic material. And if God were powerful enough to pull off forming yet another haploid set for the rest of Eve, then he only shared half of her genome--providing far more diversity than Cain could have brought into the young race by impregnating a distant descendant of the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Adam could well have carried one haploid gene for Type A blood, and one for Type B. We don't even have to split that in half again to get all three of the blood types just among their children, provided that Eve possessed the same. And if, post-Fall, any two of their children ended up with an allele that lacked the information for producing either the A or B antigen, Type O could emerge as early as their grandchildren's generation. It's a stupendous pity that Dr. D, with all his learning, didn't see how God could accomplish this without having Cain interbreed with a non-human. 

       Mutations occur very rarely, unless there are carcinogens present. This is good, because most mutations are dangerous – as seen by the effects of carcinogens. Reproductive cells are protected from mutations by DNA repair mechanisms, which make sure that accidental mutations are rarely passed on to our children. A few do get through – on average sixty-four mutations – though this is tiny compared to the three billion base pairs that are copied perfectly.⁴ However, some of these are so harmful that they result in miscarriage – about 10 percent of pregnancies end this way. So even a small increase in mutation rate would result in a lot more miscarriages.

Dr. D goes on at length to describe just how humanly impossible it would have been for God to actually get the human race going with just two people. Okay, and where does the book of Genesis imply that God can't do anything humanly impossible? This cognitive dissonance would be laughable, did he not with such sincerity lend credence to the atheist hypotheses. Of course, the way heredity works now, in our currently depleted human population, where any two humans on the planet share at least 99.9 per cent of the same genome, does not necessarily speak to how things would have worked back when they shared barely half of that. We don't really have any idea what a genuinely rich gene pool looks like, as the nature of genetic recombination means that some genes go missing with each successive generation, and after several thousands of years, every genome has become depleted to one extent or another--unnatural selection greatly accelerating the process. And since this goes against the collective wisdom of Evolution--which imagines, contrary to all evidence, the gene pool at large becoming progressively richer over time--Dr. D. just isn't going to hear this from his atheist mentors or their disciples.

So whom DID Cain marry? Well, as all scholars have noted, Genesis doesn't say. And why should it? If humanity began with only one man and one woman, and no ape-men to "enrich the gene pool," then of course he married his sister. Anyone with even half a human brain could figure that out with just a little help; there's no need to state the obvious. All we need is the succinct statement of the compiler of Genesis 3 that Eve was "the mother of all living." That leaves no room for any previous races to insert their alleles into the human genome, period. 

Dr. D should have stuck with interpreting and explaining the Bible, and left fairy-tale speculations to those who reject the Genesis account out of theological necessity. 

A self-contradiction in Evolutionary Theory--and what they've done about it

I've been musing some more about fatal flaws in Darwinism--specifically, the element of the Theory that an overriding motivation in all living organisms is to pass on their genes to the next generation (a la "The Selfish Gene"). Contrast this with the reality that throughout the animal kingdom, mothers have to protect their young from being killed by their own fathers.  For example, in his book Ring of Bright Water, Gavin Maxwell shares his friend's frustrated attempt to raise offspring of the Scottish Wildcat. He reports that wild toms would mate with housecats, but would then return to slay their offspring the moment they were born.

Ah, says the evolutionist, but the Wildcat thrives, therefore the toms must not be killing their purebred offspring. Yes, since the Wildcat is about twice the size of a housecat--this is only because the Wildcat queens are able to defend their young against the same predatory toms. But this begs the question of where the first Wildcat came from in the first place. If toms always kill their hybrid offspring, then the first Wildcat tom, whoever he was, would have been driven to kill his offspring, the first set of half Wildcat kittens. Evolutionist hold to two irreconcilable axioms: First, that animals are driven to propagate only their own genes; and secondly, that new genes spontaneously arise in the offspring of animals that didn't have those genes. Thus, under a real-world scenario, as soon as a female gives birth to offspring with new genes not present in either parent, one or the other parent will be driven to kill it, to ensure that only offspring carrying its own genes survive.

Evolutionists are certainly stumped by this contradiction, but their steadfast belief in Evolution drives them to the even more contradictory belief that there must be some evolutionary benefit in partially extinguishing the next generation--to the point that they would actually believe that some unseen hand is guiding the cannibal parents to weed out the least fit of their offspring ahead of any indication of such fitness, in order that the most fit--the most likely to push Evolution along--have a better chance of survival.

In this article, we can read how a computer model was used to demonstrate this! How convenient. If one can't find actual animals to portray the behaviour one wants to observe, just create some on a computer and program them how to act. These are the levels to which true believers will stoop, rather than give up their useless religion.

In which Kin Selection Theory is unsupported by real-world evidence

One of the pillars of Darwinian Theology is the doctrine that every organism is driven by a compulsion to pass on its own genes to a future generation. Now, meiosis means that only half of the parent's genes can ever be passed on at any given time. Famous evolutionist J B S Haldane alluded to this when he was asked if he would give his life to save his drowning brother. He is supposed to have said: "No, but I would to save two brothers, or eight cousins."

But what human realistically could be expected to make such a calculation? By this line of reasoning, the discovery that a pregnancy consists of twin fetuses would suffice to change any parent's mind against getting an abortion, when in fact we know that multiple pregnancies are even more likely to bring up the question of termination to those who hadn't otherwise considered it. And this report is just one of many to that could be offered in refutation the doctrine:

Eight-year-old Tyler Doohan will be laid to rest on Wednesday as the most honored of honorary firefighters, saluted by his local fire company as one of its own who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. . . . Tyler then heard calls for help and realized that his disabled grandfather and step-great-grandfather were still inside. Tyler had a particular bond with the grandfather, who was the kind of guy who was always quick to assist a neighbor or to help somebody in need even though he did not have all that much himself. The grandfather, 54-year-old Steven Smith, had lost part of a leg and got around in a wheelchair or on crutches.

So: a pre-pubescent organism risked, and as a result lost, his future ability to procreate in a rather ill-fated attempt to save the life of his grandfather, who was not only past the point of procreation, but even of the sort of organism that is typically selected for culling. Why would he do such a thing? There is no Darwinian explanation for his motivation, but it is exactly the same motivation behind the attempt of a father to save the life of his son--or a grandfather to save the life of his grandson. The evolutionary explanation is nothing but the hopeful figment of an unbeliever's imagination, and posts like this one show that even some evolutionists see Kin Selection Theory as simply a case of wishful thinking: a hypothesis in search of actual evidence.

Another look at Loving v. Virginia

Today, in honor of Loving Day (which would have been celebrated yesterday, but for the modern habit of moving the observance of all holidays to Monday), The White Man will revisit the case which brought it about: Richard Perry Loving, Mildred Jeter Loving v. Virginia.
Right off the bat, there's a problem: look at the photo of the famous couple, described everywhere as being of separate races:




Note that whilst they are described as "white" and "black" respectively, it is evident that they have the same skin tone just by comparing where their bodies touch. Mildred Jeter, at the time Richard Loving impregnated her, was basically as white as he was. What she had, and he hadn't, was verified African and Native American Ancestry, in addition to the majority European ancestry that they both shared; and under the law then current in Virginia, their entire lives must needs conform to that almost invisible distinction.

This is very important: had it not been that all Virginians were already divided, first by convention and then by law, into discrete categories of Pure European and Not Pure European, there never would have been a case. Mildred's European ancestry, despite contributing the majority of her genome, counted for nothing, admixed as it was with the blood of supressed races. Thus the whole foundation of the Racial Integrity Act, which Loving v. Virginia overturned, was a distinct theology of racial purity which deliberately sought to ignore the reality of the racial mixing plainly evident just by looking at the co-defendants.  It is the height of hypocrisy that none of Mildred's European ancestors were ever prosecuted for raping their African slaves, yet her lawful husband was prosecuted for sleeping with her, with her full consent. It was a law that had no chance of surviving in a righteous nation.

Loving v. Virginia was long thought to be the culmination of Supreme Court decisions that invalidated laws meant to prevent fornication and adultery; but these were to resume under a new court after a 20-year hiatus. So rare was homosexuality in the mid-1960's, it's unlikely that anyone at the time would have been able to predict that in her own lifetime (and she only lived another four decades), Mildred Loving would be able to point out, to widespread acclaim, that by filing suit against the state that denied the validity of the one-flesh relationship she shared with her husband, she was laying the grounds for the invalidation of all laws that denied equal treatment in the eyes of the law to people of the same sex who cohabited in the same way she and Richard had.

Ironically, the eight years since Mildred Loving's death have still failed to eliminate the classification into which she is always placed, now usually referred to as "African-American," but recent months have seen the proliferation of people who are still pigeonholed by race, but left free to change their gender at will. Thus Virginia's Act could yet stand, with modern Lovings fully evading its force merely by claiming to be of the same sex. The bizarre twisting of reality gets ever worse: race is as immutable as ever, but it is sex that is now malleable to the will of the person claiming it.

Backing up to the Racial Integrity Act, we see that it was specifically written to criminalize relationships such as that of the Lovings, which under common law had never been illegal:

"This bill aims at correcting a condition which only the more thoughtful people of Virginia know the existence of.
 It is estimated that there are in the State from 10,000 to 20,000, possibly more, near white people, who are known to possess an intermixture of colored blood, in some cases to a slight extent it is true, but still enough to prevent them from being white.
 In the past it has been possible for these people to declare themselves as white, or even to have the Court so declare them. Then they have demanded the admittance of their children in the white schools, and in not a few cases have intermarried with white people.
 In many counties they exist as distinct colonies holding themselves aloof from Negroes, but not being admitted by the white people as of their race.
 In any large gathering or school of colored people, especially in the cities, many will be observed who are scarcely distinguishable as colored.
 These persons, however, are not white in reality, nor by the new definition of this law, that a white person is one with no trace of the blood of another race, except that a person with one-sixteenth of the American Indian, if there is no other race mixture, may be classed as white. "

It is obvious on its face that this law was designed to reserve special rights and privileges to those with no discernible trace of non-European heritage (a loophole having been inserted to allow white people to claim descent from the famous princess Pocahontas).  This approach had already been roundly condemned by Justice White in his McLaughlin v. Florida decision earlier in the decade:

"That a general evil will be partially corrected may at times, and without more, serve to justify the limited application of a criminal law; but legislative discretion to employ the piecemeal approach stops short of permitting a State to narrow statutory coverage to focus on a racial group."

It is quite ironic that the Racial Integrity Act, a product of the American Eugenics Movement, is now so roundly condemned by everyone from Supreme Court Justices on down, whilst the other major achievement of that movement--the suppression of the black race by sterilization and abortion--is still celebrated as a major victory for women, its crowning victory, Roe v. Wade, having been handed down by the same court that overruled the decision of Pace v. Alabama.

Under the Racial Integrity Act, the sanctity of Mildred Loving's bedroom could be invaded by officers hoping to catch her in the act of sleeping with her husband. Under Obergefell v. Hodges, which cited Loving v. Virginia as precedent, the sanctity of her daughter's bathroom stall can now be invaded by any sexual predator claiming to share her gender.

This, we are told, is progress.

One more thing: Obergefell v. Hodges effectively replaced 'race' with 'gender' in evaluating whether any law since Loving v. Virginia can be held to provide equal treatment under the law. Just imagine all the implications of doing this to Associate Justice Potter Stewart's concurring opinion, in which he stated that "it is simply not possible for a state law to be valid under our Constitution which makes the criminality of an act depend upon the race of the actor."

The first result of this ruling being applied in such manner is that no state will be able to continue regulating the depiction nor the exhibition of any part of the human mammary gland (nor will Facebook, or eventually any other interactive website). Better get used to it; it's coming.

And it will be hailed as progress.

Biographical Fiction and the Snakes of Vietnam

The Land I Lost by Quang Nhuong Huynh has been read by many an elementary teacher to her students. Probably all accept its stories as gospel truth, because the author really did grow up in the mountains of Vietnam.

Likewise, for many decades teachers have read the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder to their students, assured that what they related must be true because Laura really did grow up where she said she did. Now, however, we know that the Little House books were highly fictionalized, with changes in names, ages, and family relationships of the characters, as well as both lapses and inversions in the chronology. Time compression and composite characters are other typical features of dramatized biography.

We need to recognize The Land I Lost for what it is--novelized dramatized biography. How much of the account is actually based on truth, we can only guess. But we certainly shouldn't go adding the Horse Snake (which can kill by both constriction and venom, and is mesmerised by burning the fat of a certain fish) and the Two Step Snake (which can kill just by breathing on its victim) to our Vietnamese Bestiary, just because both animals play prominent roles in the book. In fact, it appears that almost nothing in the book is zoologically accurate. The book should be filed not under Biography, but Mythology--not that educators have learned anything from The Education of Little Tree.

And yet the ACLU has no problem whatsoever that teachers not only read it as literature during instructional time, but expect their students to actually believe it.