Did Adam and Eve have navels?

Dilettante · Post by **Dilettante** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 8:41 pm

An old conundrum says that if Adam and Eve had no navels, they were not perfect human beings. However, if they did have them, those navels would suggest a biological birth that could never have ocurred if the Creation story is to be taken literally.
Michelangelo painted a belly-button on Adam in his Sistine Chapel masterpiece. Artists have usually followed his example. But is it justified to do so?
Other strange Garden-of-Eden-scenarios involve the first trees. Did they have no timber-rings (since such rings are evidence of a past they couldn't have if they had been freshly created). How about elephant's tusks? Did the first elephant have them?
As we can see, reading the Bible too literally raises some intractable questions. Or does it? What do YECs think?

seventil · Post by **seventil** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 8:54 am

I think the answer to this question is simple. Since there is no Biblical (or to my knowledge, any) documentation of Adam in Eve looking different than their children, or men and women after them, it can be assumed that they did in fact have navels. This brings up another question - since God created Adam in His image - does God have a navel? Or did He, if or when He was in a physical form?

Questions like these, in my opinion, are a bit irrelevant. But interesting.

Dilettante · Post by **Dilettante** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 7:55 pm

Seventil, I basically agree. But my question was aimed at Bible literalists and Young Earth Creationists. Here's why: navels, like timber-rings, or even hair, are evidence of a past. Young Earth Creationists say our planet is only 6,000 years old, so how do they explain the existence of older fossils, and the light coming from distant stars? Their typical answer is that God created some fake fossils (and some fake navels, apparently) and that the universe was created with the light of distant stars already in the way. So, is God a deceiver? Why would God do that? Also, if we accept that explanation, what keeps us from believing that the world was created five minutes ago, and that we came into being with memories of a fictitious past already implanted in our brains? I think these questions are trivial to mainstream Christians, but not so to Fundamentalists. And I would like to hear their explanations.

Best,
Dilettante

hannahjoy · Post by **hannahjoy** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 10:27 pm

I don't know whether they had navels or not, and I don't particularly care. They were created as a man and woman, not "boy-baby" and "girl-baby". It's the same old "chicken or egg" question. It's only "deceptive" to people who won't believe in Creation. Anyone who does would recognize that cycles have to start somewhere. If no trees, only seeds, where did the seeds come from? At some point you have to stop at the "Uncaused Cause", whether you believe it's God or the Big Bang.

Hannah Joy

Dilettante · Post by **Dilettante** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:50 am

Yes, Hannahjoy. But if cycles have to start somewhere, why is it better to believe that they start at mid-cycle (with the creation of full grown individuals) than to believe they start at the beginning, with the Big Bang or the transformation of energy into matter or any other such first step?Why would we have to believe Creation occurred exactly as described in the Genesis epic? And why must we choose between God and the Big Bang? If God exists outside space-time, He exists outside the universe--whatever that means-- and Creation may well have consisted in God saying "let there be a Big Bang". Adam and Eve's navels are only "deceptive" or a "problem" for Bible literalists who will themselves to believe that God modeled the first humans in the same way a kid uses playdoh to make figures and that God needed to take a 24-hour day off afterwards. If there is a God, and if He is all-powerful all kinds of Creation methods are available to Him, and if God is eternal (outside time), the billions and billions of years from the Big Bang till the first Homo Sapiens are no time at all to Him.

Of course, this(God's Big Bang) is all speculation and we have no way to prove it. But it makes more sense to me than the Creationist scenario.

Regards,
Dilettante

seventil · Post by **seventil** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 4:01 am

Dilettante wrote:Seventil, I basically agree. But my question was aimed at Bible literalists and Young Earth Creationists. Here's why: navels, like timber-rings, or even hair, are evidence of a past. Young Earth Creationists say our planet is only 6,000 years old, so how do they explain the existence of older fossils, and the light coming from distant stars? Their typical answer is that God created some fake fossils (and some fake navels, apparently) and that the universe was created with the light of distant stars already in the way. So, is God a deceiver? Why would God do that? Also, if we accept that explanation, what keeps us from believing that the world was created five minutes ago, and that we came into being with memories of a fictitious past already implanted in our brains? I think these questions are trivial to mainstream Christians, but not so to Fundamentalists. And I would like to hear their explanations.

Best,
Dilettante

Well, being an ex-astrophysics major, the thoughts behind your question has haunted me in the past, when I first became a Christian.

My conclusion, in short, is that I don't know for sure. But I, myself, have two different theories on how to explain tree rings, light speeds, and all of that stuff. They are as follows:

Conclusion 1: God can create things with the likeness of being aged.

I think any believer will agree that there is no limits on what God can and can not do. He can create bread that is already cooked and aged, or create a world that has trees that have grown tall and old. He can create the world, as we see it today, to look like it is however old we think it is. His power is not limited by the laws of physics, relativity, or anything else.

It makes me smile when I think of God making our world and spreading out the stars (breaking the laws of physics, and explaining things like red-shift and an expanding universe) - along with the sheer genius that appears when you see and understand quantum physics.

Conclusion 2: The Genesis Creation is symbolic, and not literal.

While I don't personally agree with this (at least fully) - I don't think you can rule out the possibility that God created the world, man wrote it down, but did a poor job or did it in a non-literal way. While it might be heresy to some, I think keeping an open mind, and remebering what is important (a relationship with God) - I submit it is a possible that the Genesis Creation is symbolic instead of literal. Once again, this is not my personal belief, but since I am not arrogant enough to think I know everything, everything is possible.

Hope this helps... comments appreciated!

Dilettante · Post by **Dilettante** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 4:27 am

seventil, thanks for your input.

I like your open-minded attitude. My knowledge of astrophysics is rudimentary, to put it mildly, so I'll concede that your theories are both plausible. However, the second one is, in my view, even more plausible than the first. For one thing, it seems simpler. It doesn't require as many assumptions as the first one. And it doesn't require God to play games with us..what if the universe was created minutes ago, with only the appearance of a past?

Hmm...Other things being equal, I prefer the simpler hypothesis.

But thanks again for your expert opinion!

YEC · Post by **YEC** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 7:10 pm

Did Adam and Eve have a belly button? I doubt it...there was no need for one.

Concerning the other issues...ever hear of apparent age?

Just as Adam was created mature...why not the trees? Why not the elephants?

Why not the universe?

Dilettante · Post by **Dilettante** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 7:21 pm

And why couldn't the universe be only five minutes old?

I don't see how your theory (or the five-minute old-universe theory) could be logically refuted. However, I'll follow Ockham's advice and stick with the simpler hypothesis. "It is pointless to do with more things (or more assumptions) what can be done with fewer".

Regards,

hannahjoy · Post by **hannahjoy** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 7:25 pm

And why must we choose between God and the Big Bang?

At some point you get to the original "Uncaused Cause". I don't know what evolutionists consider that to be, so I guessed it would be the Big Bang. What event do you go back to, or do you just not think about how everything started?