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Everyone that Jesus healed died. Everyone that Jesus raised from the dead died. At a later time they all died. But everyone that Jesus saves lives forever. John 11:25-26:
25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
Such a glorious promise, that the redeemed know as the blessed hope, swallows up all of life’s trials and even death itself in one single gulp.
If today is your appointment with death, are you prepared to meet your maker? Would eternal life in Christ Jesus be your portion? If your answer is less than “absolutely yes,” you need to settle the issue today. You need to make your peace with God. Jesus calls this place “born again.” John 3:3:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Born-again is a place where one is literally born a second time – this time of the Spirit of God. Here, at the altar of born-again, the sons and daughters of Adam can repent and turn from their sins, believing on the shed blood of Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, for the salvation of their souls. Romans 10:10 reads:
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
This is where born-again begins. At this place you become a son or daughter of God, and a new name – your new name – is written down in Glory. Will today be your day of salvation? Will today be your day of forgiveness and deliverance? You are in the valley of decision. Choose life and live forever. Click onto “Further With Jesus” for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God. Now for today’s subject.
GOD SAID, Genesis 1:26-27:
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
GOD SAID, Genesis 5:1-2:
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
MAN SAID: Frank Zindler, former president of the American Atheists, “The most devastating thing though that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. . . . If there was never an original sin, there is no need of salvation.”
Now THE RECORD. Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature article #850, that will one again prove the full veracity of the Word of God. All of these beautiful features are archived here in text and streaming audio for the edification of the saints and as soul bait for the fishers of men. Every Thursday eve, God willing, they grow by one.
Thank you for visiting with us. May God’s face shine upon you with Light and Truth.
From the very beginning of the beautiful book, Satan has mounted his challenge. But he has failed. He always fails.
On day six of creation week the Bible declares God created Adam, the world’s first man. Some suppose that proving all of mankind has sprung forth from one man, and that this one man was made by God out of dirt just over 6,000-plus years ago, would be an impossibility. That supposition is wrong. There was a first man, Adam, and this is provable beyond any reasonable doubt.
Of all the evidence in this feature the most important of course is the Bible’s record. This record was not handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, but was given by God unto Moses who penned the book of Genesis. The record received by Moses was from the supernatural creator God, whose memory is unimpeachable. A wealth of third party Adamic confirmations are available. This feature will address several high points.
One of antiquity’s most renowned historians is Flavius Josephus. One of his historical volumes is titled, “The Antiquities of the Jews.” You’ll find the following paragraph concerning Adam and his son Seth in that text:
Now Adam, who was the first man, and made out of the earth, (for our discourse must now be about him,) after Abel was slain, and Cain fled away, on account of his murder, was solicitous for posterity, and had a vehement desire of children, he being two hundred and thirty years old; after which time he lived other seven hundred, and then died. He had indeed many other children, but Seth in particular. As for the rest, it would be tedious to name them; I will therefore only endeavor to give an account of those that proceeded from Seth. Now this Seth, when he was brought up, and came to those years in which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as he was himself of an excellent character, so did he leave children behind him who imitated his virtues. All these proved to be of good dispositions. They also inhabited the same country without dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes falling upon them, till they died. They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order. And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day. [End of quote]
Concerning Adam and his roots in the clay, you’ll find the following in the GodSaidManSaid feature, “Man From Dirt Updated:”
The Bible declares that God created man from the dust of the earth just over 6,000 years ago. It teaches that He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul. The Hebrew word Adam means “red dirt” or “ruddy,” and rightfully so, since Adam was made from red clay.
Josephus had this to say concerning Adam: “This man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies one that is red, because he was formed out of red earth, compounded together; for of that kind is virgin and true earth.” [End of quote]
The idea of God making man out of dirt, as far as unbelievers are concerned, is absurd. In a recent Newsweek magazine article, titled “Life From Clay,” the following story was printed:
As if the Biblical tale of man’s creation from “the dust of the ground” were haunting their unconscious minds, NASA chemists have presented evidence that life on earth may have gotten its start in clay. They have shown that clays attract the organic molecules that make up protein and DNA, the ingredients of life, possibly from the sea during high tides. The clays might then trigger chemical reactions that string the building blocks into proteins and DNA.
The latest experiments show how, according to NASA’s Lelia Coyne, clays scavenge energy released by such natural processes as radioactive decay. They store the energy in the form of trapped electrons and then release it when subjected to stress—an earthquake, for example, or from wetting and drying as the tides rise and recede. Says Coyne, the ability of clays to store energy, catalyze reactions and perhaps self-replicate—all attributes of living systems—“is forcing us to re-examine at a very fundamental level the definition of life.” [End of quote]
It is common knowledge that the chemical and mineral content of a person’s body is identical to the earth’s. Everyone knows that when a person dies, their body turns back to dust—TO DUST!
The ancient Miautso people of China have chronicled their lineage back to Japheth, the son of Noah, and from there all the way back to the world’s first man, whom their genealogical record calls “Dirt.” Author E. Traux, in an article titled “Genesis According To The Miao People,” again renders the original Miautso name in the following quote: “It is clearly meant to portray Adam, the version of whose name in the Miautso language (as in Hebrew, Akkadian and so on), means earth or clay, the substance from which he was created.” [End of quote]
The world’s non-Biblical societal records are replete with accounts of the earth’s first man, Adam, the man of clay. The following excerpts are lifted from the GodSaidManSaid feature, “Adam and Eve and the Ancient Record:”
The scientific discoveries that certify the accuracy of the Genesis account are daunting, but there is more than science. Adam, whose name literally means “red dirt,” had the breath of life breathed up his nostrils. Adam is imprinted on the very historic memory of the peoples of the world.
The accounts that follow did not come from God’s firsthand account in the book of Genesis, but were verbally passed down from Adam to his direct offspring and then on to subsequent generations. The following excerpts are from Theodor H. Gaster’s book, “Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament:”
This fancy is, however, by no means confined to Scripture. The Mesopotamians too conceived man to have been fashioned in such manner. [In a cuneiform text from Ashur, the earlier capital of Assyria, the goddess Aruru is said to have pinched him out of clay; and by virtue of this expertise it is the same goddess who likewise fashions the hero Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh. ...
A similar legend was current among the Greeks. Prometheus is said to have moulded the first man out of clay mixed with water of the River Panopeus in Phocis; [while in one of the mimes of Herondas, a pander bringing charges against a man who has broken into his brothel observes tartly that “he ought to know what kind of fellow he is and of what clay he is compounded.”]
The Australian blacks in the neighbourhood of Melbourne said that Bunjie, the Creator, cut three large sheets of bark with his big knife. On one of these he placed some clay and worked it up with his knife into a proper consistence. He then laid a portion of the clay on one of the other pieces of bark and shaped it into a human form; first he made the feet, then the legs, then the trunk, the arms, and the head. Thus he made a clay man on each of the two pieces of bark; and being well pleased with his handiwork, he danced round them for joy. Next he took stringy bark from the eucalyptus tree, made hair of it, and stuck it on the heads of his clay men. Then he looked at them again, was pleased with his work, and again danced round them for joy. He then lay down on them, blew his breath hard into their mouths, their noses, and their navels; and presently they stirred, spoke, and rose up as full-grown men.
A very generally received tradition in Tahiti was that the first human pair was made by Taaroa, the chief god. They say that after he had formed the world he created man out of red earth, which was also the food of mankind until bread-fruit was produced. Further, some say that one day Taaroa called for the man by name, and when he came he made him fall asleep. As he slept, the Creator took out one of his bones and made of it a woman, whom he gave to the man to be his wife, and the pair became the progenitors of mankind. This narrative was taken down from the lips of the natives in the early years of the mission to Tahiti. The missionary who records it observes: “This always appeared to me a mere recital of the Mosaic account of creation, which they had heard from some European, and I never placed any reliance on it, although they have repeatedly told me it was a tradition among them before any foreigner arrived.
In Nui, one of the Ellice Islands, they say that the god Aulialia made models of a man and a woman out of earth, and when he raised them up they came to life. He called the man Tepapa and the woman Tetata.
The natives of Malekula, one of the New Hebridges, give the name of Bokor to the great being who kneaded the first man and woman out of clay.
The inhabitants of Noo-hoo-roa, in the Kei Islands, of New Guinea say that their ancestors were fashioned out of clay by the supreme god, Dooadlera, who breathed life into the clay figures.
The Bagobo, a pagan tribe of South-Eastern Mindanao, say that in the beginning a certain Diwata made the sea and the land, and planted trees of many sorts. Then he took two lumps of earth, shaped them like human figures, and spat on them; so they became man and woman. ...
The Kumi, who inhabit portions of Arakan and the Chittagong hill tracts in eastern India, told Captain Lewin the following story of the creation of man. God made the world and the trees and the creeping things first, and after that he made one man and one woman, forming their bodies of clay; but every night, when he had done his work, there came a great snake, which, while God was sleeping, devoured the two images. This happened twice or thrice, and God was at his wits’ end, for he had to work all day, and could not finish the pair in less than twelve hours; besides, if he did not sleep, “he would be no good,” as the narrator observed with some show of probability. So, as I have said, God was at his wits’ end. But at last he got up early one morning and first made a dog and put life into it; and that night when he had finished the images, he set the dog to watch them, and when the serpent came, the dog barked and frightened it away. ...
The pagan accounts continue:
... So Mahadeo, by whom they mean Siva, sent a crow to find for him an anthill of red earth, and the bird discovered such an anthill among the mountains of Betul. Thereupon the god repaired to the spot, and taking a handful of the red earth he fashioned out of it two images, in the likeness of a man and a woman. ...
Turning now to Africa, we find the legend of the creation of mankind out of clay among the Shilluks of the White Nile, who ingeniously explain the different complexions of the various races by the differently coloured clays out of which they were fashioned. They say that the creator Juok moulded all men out of earth, and that while he was engaged in the work of creation he wandered about the world. In the land of the whites he found a pure white earth or sand, and out of it he shaped white men. Then he came to the land of Egypt and out of the mud of the Nile he made red or brown men. Lastly, he came to the land of the Shilluks and finding there black earth he created black men out of it. ...
The Ewe-speaking tribes of Togo-land, in West Africa, think that God still makes men out of clay. When a little of the water with which he moistens the clay remains over, he pours it on the ground, and out of that he makes the bad and disobedient people. When he wishes to make a good man he makes him out of good clay; ...
The Pima Indians, another tribe of Arizona, allege that the Creator took clay into his hands, and mixing it with the sweat of his own body, kneaded the whole into a lump. Then he blew upon the lump till it began to live and move and became a man and a woman.
A priest of the Natchez Indians in Louisiana told Du Pratz “that God had kneaded some clay, such as that which potters use, and had made it into a little man; and that after examining it, and finding it well formed, he blew upon his work, and forthwith that little man had life, grew, acted, walked, and found himself a man perfectly well shaped.” [End of quote]
An expert on ancient history, author David Rohl weighs in on Adam and dirt in his 454-page book, “Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation.” He refers to Aratta in this first paragraph:
The mountains here are rich in mineral resources, especially gold for which Aratta was renowned. The walls of the city of Aratta were plastered in rich red-ochre mined from the mountain known as Kur-Hashura whilst we had seen just such a ‘red mountain’ near Takht-é-Suleiman. Red ochre was also the substance used to cover the remains of the deceased in prehistoric times as attested at archaeological sites in this area. Indeed, the name Adam (‘red earth’) may be connected to this ritual.
Again, Rohl writes,
Here the word aphar is translated as “dust” for poetical reasons, but this word also has the meaning “clay.” So in both the biblical and Mesopotamian traditions Man was made from clay. [End of quote]
Ancient history points to a first man, Adam, and the fall of mankind. Again, from David Rohl’s book, “Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation,”
The Great Sages
We have closely examined the earliest ancestors of both the Genealogy of the Hammurabi Dynasty and the Assyrian King List and found a series of remarkable linguistic ‘coincidences’ with the names of the biblical antediluvian (pre-flood) patriarchs. But we began this whole exercise with Berossus and the Sumerian King List. So what about the Sumerian – as opposed to Amorite – tradition regarding the pre-flood rulers? Is there anything in this source which will add to our linguistic and historical synthesis between Genesis and the extra-biblical traditions?
We now come to the question of the Sumerian “apkallus” or wise-men. These are not the antediluvian kings themselves but the sages or advisors associated with them.
Mesopotamian literature contains sporadic references to seven sages (apkallus), who lived before the flood and who were apparently regarded as the originators of the arts and skills of civilization.
Who were these extraordinary beings? They are given very strange physical characteristics (fish-like bodies with human heads) and, to all intents and purposes, are mythological creatures. But, once the mythological veils are removed, there seems to be a distant memory of some of the antediluvian patriarchs of Genesis lurking in the names and deeds of these apkallus.
According to the apkallu tradition, the first and greatest of the sages was a contemporary of King Aalu (SKL – Alulim), the first ruler of Eridu. This was ‘the purification priest of Eridu,’ Adapa or Uan-Adapa, who ‘ascended to heaven.’ Berossus calls him Oannes (from Uan).
In tablet W-20030, held by the British Museum, we find just the name ‘Uan’ given for the first sage. However, Uan also appears in other ancient texts in the double-name form of Uan-Adapa where, it has been argued, Adapa is an epithet meaning ‘the wise.’ One possible explanation of the myth that this wise counsellor of the king was half fish and half human is to be found in the potential confusion of the word Adapa with other similar sounding Sumerian word – utuaba – which means ‘born of the sea.’ With the recognised changes from u to a, t to d and b to p we would get Aduapa. Given the apkallus’ close connection with the sacred abzu in Eridu, it would hardly be surprising to find a tradition of a sea creature derived from the epithet Adapa, even though the true meaning was probably ‘wise-man’ and not ‘one born of the sea.’ According to a much later inscription of the late SELEUCID PERIOD, Oannes-Adapa was the founder of a temple of great antiquity, perhaps the earliest sacred shrine of Eridu – the very first temple on earth.
All this becomes much more significant when it is realised that many Sumerologists and biblical scholars have made the direct connection between Adapa and the biblical Adam. One simple shift from the consonantal p to m give us the biblical name. We can then read the Sumerian Adapa Epic in a wholly new light. Let us briefly compare the broad themes of the Genesis 2-3 narrative surrounding Adam and the story of Adapa. As Bill Shea has observed, there are clear parallels to be made.
⚫ Both Adam and Adapa were tested for their obedience by their respective deities.
⚫ The test, in both cases, involved food.
⚫ Both forfeited immortality and became mortal human beings.
⚫ Certain consequences were passed down upon humankind.
⚫ Adam and Adapa belonged to the first generation of humankind.
⚫ As we have seen, their names can be equated linguistically.
Thus Adam not only appears in the Assyrian King List and the Genealogy of the Hammurabi Dynasty but may also surface in one of the great Sumerian epic traditions. [End of quote]
Many in the world today observe various forms of ancestor worship, and the genesis of such activity is found throughout ancient history. Finally, from David Rohl,
But what about Atum – the first god and living being in Egyptian theology? You may be ahead of me but, just in case you need a little encouragement, we shall return to the vagaries of comparative language to complete the picture.
The name Atum is written as A-t-m with the loaf-of-bread sign for the letter ‘t.’ However, it is recognized by linguists that the letters ‘t’ and ‘d’ are often interchangeable within the different language groups of the ancient Near East. For example, Kenneth Kitchen has shown that Egyptian Twtw is Semitic Dadu – ‘the beloved’ (i.e. the name David). As we saw in Chapter Six, the Sumerian Adama becomes Atamu in Akkadian. So I believe we are equally justified in substituting the Egyptian ‘t’ in A-t-m with a ‘d’ – giving us Adam! [End of quote]
The Bible, societal records, history, archaeology, and now science all shout yes to Adam! The following paragraphs are from GodSaidManSaid’s “Y Chromosome Adam–and God’s Children are Already There:”
Evolutionists theorized that there was no certain place from which man originated, but “around a million years ago,” mankind was springing up from all over the globe. They were highly perplexed when molecular science discovered that all of mankind alive today came from the now scientifically famous mtDNA Eve and Y chromosome Adam, but—you guessed it—the childlike in faith were already there. By the way, the age is not “millions” or “tens of thousands,” but 6,000.
The headline in the September 7, 2013 issue of Science News reads, “Y Chromosome Adam gets older,” and the subhead reads, “Male and female ancestors were roughly contemporary.” On GodSaidManSaid, you will find several features that address this issue and that confirm Holy Writ. Several excerpts from the September feature in Science News follow:
Men might need some more pages in their family album.
The largest analyses to date of the human Y chromosome suggest that modern men can trace their family tree further back in time than previously thought. One of the studies, an analysis of 69 men from nine populations worldwide published in the August 2 issue of Science, finds that their most recent common ancestor lived 120,000 to 156,000 years ago. That’s roughly the same time that the last common ancestor of women is estimated to have lived, researchers report.
The Y chromosome, passed down from father to son, and mitochondrial DNA, passed down from mother to child, are useful in retracing ancestry because they don’t undergo genetic reshuffling, as the rest of the genetic instruction book does. Researchers analyze mutations in these parts of the genome to assess when groups split apart. The hypothetical common ancestors of these genetic lineages are sometimes called Y Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. [End of quote]
Darwinian scientists speculate that there were other humans besides Adam and Eve, but that they died out—but speculation is all that is. Again, from Science News:
…but they are real people whose Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA have been passed down with modifications to every living male and female.
The findings may overturn previous results that suggested Y Chromosome Adam was only a half or a third as old as Mitochondrial Eve. Most previous analyses date the Y chromosome common ancestor to between 50,000 and 115,000 years ago and the mitochondrial DNA common ancestor to between 150,000 and 240,000 years ago.
Bustamante and colleagues also looked at mitochondrial DNA in their study population and found a common female ancestor 99,000 to 148,000 years ago.
Another study in the same issue of Science pushes the Y ancestor back even further in time. Paolo Francalacci of the University of Sassari in Italy and colleagues analyzed DNA from 1,204 Sardinian men and determined that Y Chromosome Adam lived 180,000 to 200,000 years ago. [End of quote]
Their age calculations are way off but their conclusion that all humankind walking the earth has one common father and one common mother, which they title Y chromosome Adam and mtDNA Eve, is of course correct.
The first man Adam (Red Dirt) was created by God to live forever, but he cast off his faith and obedience to God and he died. All of the sons and daughters of Adam were sold in sin and spiritually stillborn. That’s all of us. Therefore we needed a savior – someone to buy us back – a redeemer. We needed someone to pay the ransom for our souls – someone to set us free from the bondage of sin. That someone was and is Jesus Christ. Choose Christ and live forever.
GOD SAID, Genesis 1:26-27:
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
GOD SAID, Genesis 5:1-2:
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
MAN SAID: Frank Zindler, former president of the American Atheists, “The most devastating thing though that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. . . . If there was never an original sin, there is no need of salvation.”
Now you have THE RECORD.
References:
Authorized King James Version
Gaster, T.H., Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament, Harper & Row, 1969, pp9-17
Josephus, F., Complete Works, Kregel Publications, p27
Mortenson, T., "Searching for Adam," Master Books, 2016, p465
Rohl, D., Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation, Random House, 1998, pp200-202,398-399
Truax, E., “Genesis According To The Miao People,” Impact, April 1991
Wayman, E., “Y Chromosome Adam gets older,” Science News, September 7, 2013
