This article first appeared in a Protestant
Creation Research Society Quarterly, (Volume 29),
Creation Research Society, Kansas City, MO, March 1993.
There are currently two competing evolutionary
theories concerning the origin of modern humans, called the Candelabra and
Noah's Ark theories. I would like to examine in this paper if it is possible
to accommodate either or both of these theories to the biblical account of
Adam and Eve. Brian Fagan summarizes the Candelabra theory:
“The Candelabra model argues that Homo erectus populations, once having radiated out of Africa, evolved gradually and
independently in different parts
of the world into early, or archaic, Homo sapiens, then into anatomically
modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens. Modern humans emerged having very
deep genetic roots, for they separated from one another at least 700,000
ago, and probably earlier...
“Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, one of the main Candelabra
model proponents, believes...that there is a regional continuity in Europe,
particularly as evidenced by the Neanderthals - Homo sapiens neandertalensis. The Neanderthals appeared on the scene before 100,000 years ago, and are on
the direct ancestral line to modern humans according to the regionalists. “1
In the Candelabra Theory then there is no Adam and Eve, or rather thousands
of them, from whom we are all descended. This is technically what is known
as polygenism, many first parents, as opposed to monogenism, a single pair.
It is impossible to accommodate this theory to Christian teaching, because
it involves an implicit denial of original sin, which we all inherit from
our common father, Adam. But many so-called theistic evolutionists have attempted
an accommodation. One such, Fr. T. Kitahara-Frisch, S.J. of Sophia University
in Tokyo, writes:
“In their study of Middle Pleistocene evidence from East Asia, Wolpoff,
Wu Xin Zhi and Thorne regard ancestral populations within a dispersing genus
Homo as ‘having had decreased genetic and morphological variability.’ This
new evolutionary pattern was to perdure and even to become better marked.
The more we learn about human evolution from Middle Pleistocene times until
present, the better we realize that humans evolved as a single species, interbreeding
on a worldwide scale. As a matter of fact, ‘through the late Pleistocene
we notice increasing amounts of gene flow from the more central areas, reflecting
the late Pleistocene improvements in human adaptation and the consequent population
Father Frisch's theistic evolution is cautious, and
he does not mention Adam and Eve or original sin. Not so his mentor,
Fr. Teilhard de Chardin,
who said: "Thus in the eyes of science, which in the long range can only
see things in bulk, the 'first man' is and can only be a crowd, and his infancy
is made up of thousands and thousands of years." 3 Another Teilhardian,
Fr. Robert Faricy, S.J. presents his teaching on original sin:
“In Teilhard's theory original sin cannot be localized in a historical
chain of events. Rather it is a global modality of evolution...The acceptance
of his hypothesis would incidentally free us from the obligation heavier every
day, of paradoxically making the whole human race derive from one couple.
In Teilhard's theory Adam is ‘universalized.’ Strictly speaking
there is no Adam...In Teilhard's view Adam is a symbol that all men are born
fallen, that all are marked by original sin the instant they become members
of mankind. But men are not born in sin because of some aboriginal sin of
a primitive Adam. Men are born in original sin because this is the law of
the universe, the cosmic condition of a world in evolution.” 4
These ideas were condemned in 1950 by Pope Pius XII in the encyclical Humani
“There are other conjectures, about polygenism (as it is called),
which leave the faithful no such freedom of choice. Christians cannot lend
their support to a theory which involves the existence, after Adam's time,
of some earthly race of men, truly so called, who were not descended from
him, or else suppose that Adam was the name given to some group of our primordial
ancestors. It does not appear how such views can be reconciled with the doctrine
of original sin, as this is guaranteed to us by Scripture and tradition, and
proposed to us by the Church. Original sin is the result of a sin committed,
in actual historical fact, by an individual Adam, and it is a quality native
to all of us, only because it has been handed down by descent from him (see
Rom.5:12- 19).” 5
The Candelabra Theory then, cannot be harmonized with
the Scriptural account of Adam and Eve, but what about the rival Noah's
Ark Theory? With its biblical
terminology, "Noah's Ark," "mitochondrial Eve," etc.,
it would seem to be more promising. Brian Fagan summarizes this model:
“The Noah's Ark hypothesis (or "Garden of Eden" theory according
to taste) argues that fully modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) evolved relatively
recently from a primeval African population, and spread from Africa into all
corners of the world quite late in the Ice Age. The superficial biological
differences between different "races" of Homo sapiens, such as skin
color, hair form, build, and so on, then developed as adaptations to different
environments. Under this theory, modern geographic populations have shallow
genetic roots that are derived from species formation relatively recently.“ 6
The Candelabra hypothesis is espoused by the majority of paleontologists,
while the Noah's Ark model is upheld primarily by geneticists. It has been
recently discovered by geneticists that the DNA in the mitochondria, a little
organelle in the cytoplasm of the cell, is inherited exclusively from the
mother. Fagan writes:
“Mitochondrial DNA...is inherited only from the mother. Some experts
believe that this is because only the nucleus of the sperm makes its way into
the egg during fertilization. As the egg contributes all the cytoplasm to
a fertilized zygote, only the mother contributes mitochondrial DNA to the
next generation. Thus, only the egg's mitochondrial DNA is reproduced in the
offspring, and mitochondrial DNA is immune to change by sexual recombination
of genes from each parent.” 7
Rebecca Caan of the University of California studied the mutation rate of
the mitochondrial DNA in women from all over the world. She says:
Our major conclusion was that the human species, the
group that gave rise to us whether we call them anatomically modern humans
Homo sapiens sapiens,
or whatever, that population contained a woman, an...Eve, if you want call
her that, and she was in Africa. She belonged to a group which spread throughout
all areas of the world and we're all descended from her.” 8
Although Cann et al. are saying that we are all descended
from one woman, they are not really espousing monogenism, since they
maintain that there were
true men before and after "mitochondrial Eve" who were not descended
from her. Especially important in both the Candelabra and Noah's Ark theories
is the position of Neanderthal Man. In the Candelabra model he is hybridized
by more modern appearing men such as Cro-Magnon Man, and in the Noah's
Ark Theory he is simply replaced. Fr. Anthony Zimmerman, S.V.D. of the
Life Association in Tokyo attempts to accommodate the Noah's Ark Theory
to the biblical story of our first parents. He claims that Neanderthal
not truly human because he lacked the physical capacity for proper speech.
“This is not to deny that Neanderthal Man and other hominids had some
kind of speech ability. But they could not have had the rapid speaking ability
which we have. If we tried to fit our speech organs into Neanderthal Man,
the larynx would be located in his chest, an impossible situation never observed
among primates. 1 Lieberman mentions a speaking ability with perhaps one-tenth
of the speed at which we speak, as attributable to the non-Homo sapiens supralaryngeal
airway. Therefore only short sentences could be spoken. Anything longer would
be lost to the short-term memory because the time lapse is too long.” 2
Father Zimmerman writes as if this were a proven scientific fact, but such
is not the case according to M. Bowden:
“Constable admits that the Lieberman-Crelin hypothesis has been ‘vigorously
disputed’ and ‘widely challenged,’ which is understandable,
for to attempt to reconstruct a voice box, which has disappeared, by examining
the adjacent bones, must clearly involve a large number of unprovable assumptions...
“These theories have been heavily criticized as there is little real
supporting evidence which would allow them to become ‘proven facts.’ Unfortunately
some hypotheses tend to become accepted as ‘facts’ after a time,
and the speculative nature of the evidence makes them difficult to disprove.” 10
One outstanding fact in the study of languages, namely, the more primitive
the people, the more complex the language, presents a tremendous problem for
evolutionary theory concerning the origin of language. Even so doctrinaire
an evolutionist as George Gaylord Simpson admits:
“Many other attempts have been made to determine the evolutionary
origin of language, and all have failed...Even the people with the least complex
cultures have highly sophisticated languages, with complex grammar and large
vocabularies, capable of naming and discussing anything that occur in the
sphere occupied by the speakers...The oldest language that can reasonably
be reconstructed is already modern, sophisticated, complete from an evolutionary
point of view.” 11
One of the most famous Neanderthal sites is the Shanidar
cave in northern Iraq, which was excavated in the 1950s by the American
Solecki. This dig was described in some detail in a TV program in the Nova
series entitled "Children of Eve":
“After several feet of painstaking work, they
discovered a grave, many thousands of years old. In it were the bones
of a Neanderthal man. Around
the bones the soil contained large amounts of pollen. It was pollen from
the local flowers and it has been assumed that these had been buried
his body, a gesture that transcends time and belies the image of Neanderthals
as brutal, primitive people.
“Many other Neanderthal graves have been found
throughout Europe and Western Asia. From this data, it is assumed that
they buried their dead, something
that earlier peoples appear not to have done.
“Other important information from this find is that the Shanidar male,
who was about 40 years of age, old for those days, had been for years a walking
text book of ailments...The implication is that he had been taken care of
for many years...despite the fact that he was not very economically useful
to a group of hunter gatherers.” 12
The defense of the Bible against the pretensions of evolutionism has been
carried on for the most part by Protestant creationists, who only recently
have been joined in the fight by some of their Catholic counterparts. One
of the Catholic pioneers in this effort was Fr. Patrick O'Connell, whose now
classic, Science of Today and the Problems of Genesis, first appeared in 1959.
“The Neanderthal Man is still represented in illustrations in books
and statues in museums as having a short neck with the head bent forward.
This idea, however, has long been abandoned by the experts. It is clear from
the skeletons that the spinal column was perfectly normal, and the head fitted
on it straight and not at an angle, as in the case of the apes.” 13
In the June 8, 1991 issue of Science News there is
a perfect illustration of Father O'Connell's complaint. The lead article
by Bruce Bower, "Neanderthal’s
Disappearing Act," is a very technical discussion of the hybridization
or non-hybridization of Neanderthal Man and so-called Archaic Homo sapiens found at sites in Israel. Yet the cover of this supposedly scientific magazine
features the completely unscientific diorama by Charles Knight at the American
Museum of Natural History, representing Neanderthal Man as the familiar
stooped, brutal looking ape-man.
Neanderthal Man has prominent brow ridges and a receding
chin, and it is easy for an artist to make him appear ape-like. It is
amusing to note that
even some scientists have become brainwashed by these artistic creations.
For example, Alexander Marshack of Harvard's Peabody Museum conducted an
extensive microscopic analysis of an ox rib covered with symbolic engravings,
was dated by their questionable methods to 135,000 B.C., well before the
appearance of Neanderthal Man. Marshack concluded that it was a form
“What seems to be emerging from these studies
is a view of early man's way of thinking as being exceedingly complex
and surprisingly modern. In this
culture of early Homo sapiens the real and symbolic worlds were intertwined,
and there was a continuity and sequence in man's ritual and ceremonial
relationship to that world. Art, image, and notation were means of expressing
reality, of recognizing and participating in it.
“These are all human actions that require intelligence and a use of
language. Moreover, they are aspects of man's early life that cannot be deduced
merely from stone tools, for they are what anthropologists refer to as cognitive
- that is, they are a result of recognitions, abstractions, and solutions
to problems, all of which take place in the brain.” 14
On the cover of the October 1988 issue of National
Geographic (long one of the leading promoters of evolutionism) there
is a beautiful photograph
of a small bust carved in ivory of a Neanderthal Man. It had been found
near Dolni Vestonice in Czechoslovakia, which is supposed to be a Cro-Magnon
but is near Brno, a Neanderthal site. Marshack's initial reaction was: "it
was too good to be true!" As he examined the carving under a microscope,
he expected to establish quickly that it was a fake. Some forger must have
used a Neanderthal skull from Brno as a model, he thought. His problem
was that although the carving, even to a layman, was that of a classic
Neanderthaler with the high brow ridges, etc., it in no way looked ape-like,
that of a rugged, but handsome, completely human being.
Unsuccessful in his microscopic analysis in establishing fraud, Marshack
then had the ancient ivory and the carving itself dated by Edward Zeller of
the University of Kansas using the alpha-particle spectral analysis method.
“The scientists envision this Ice Age scenario: Sometime after a mammoth
died, someone carved a piece of tusk. The carving became buried in sediment
or sand, where it absorbed uranium, iron oxide, and fluoride from the groundwater.
The calcium phosphate of the ivory absorbed the minerals, especially the uranium.
At the same time, radioactive decay set in, leaving its by-products at levels
that require thousands of years to build up to the present reading. If the
head had been carved at any time in the past few centuries, the decay products
on the surface would have been cut away. ‘Even Madam Curie couldn't
fake that effect,’ Zeller said.” 15
Edward Zeller claims that the carving is 26,000 years
old, well within the Neanderthal Era, according to the evolutionists,
so Marshack is hoist on his
own dating petard. But nowhere in the article is he scientist enough to
admit that this is what Neanderthal Man might have looked like, so much
go against the evolutionary grain, but he refers to it throughout simply
as an "Ice Age" carving.
The genetic theory proposes that descendants of mitochondrial
Eve left Africa about 100,000 years ago and replaced Neanderthal Man
in Europe and the Near
East, and the descendants of Java and Peking Man in Asia. Most paleontologists
reject this theory, saying that the fossils tell a different story. An
exception however, is the paleontologist, Christopher Stringer of the
Museum in London. Stringer thinks that a new dating technique, thermoluminescence,
has established that modern humans, "Proto-Cro-Magnon-Man," lived
at Mount Carmel (Kebara) in Israel before Neanderthal Man.
“The new dates also support the view of a minority of workers, including
myself, who believe that Neanderthals may have constituted a separate species
(H. neandertalensis). Other evidence of clear biological separation of Neanderthals
and moderns is provided by the persistence of the two populations separate
identities over a long period. The Kebara Neanderthal may have lived 40,000
years after the two populations could have come into contact. Yet this specimen
shows no sign of hybridization with modern humans - in fact, it is one of
the most robust and characteristic of Neanderthal skeletons. By the same token,
early modern fossils from Israel and Lebanon dated to between 30,000 and 40,000
years ago show no features that might be ascribed to previous hybridization
with Neanderthals.” 16
This view is rejected by Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan,
a leading proponent of the Candelabra Theory, who believes in the hybridization
of Neanderthal Man rather than his replacement.
"’I'm one of the many who conclude that
modern humans originated in areas all over the world - after Homo erectus
had populated that world
and provided the basis for further evolution. And that basically modern
Africans originated in Africa, modern Europeans in Europe. And this happened
extent because all these populations were interconnected by a flow of genes.
People were coming and going. Everywhere you get bigger brains, smaller
teeth, all the peculiarities of modern people. How does this happen if
an exchange of genes all through human evolution?"
“...In the skulls of the early modern Europeans he was studying, Wolpoff
saw no signs of African morphology; he saw instead evidence pointing to a
link with the Neanderthals. There was above all else the nose – ‘What
a schnozzle,’ Dr. Wolpoff said. ‘We still see it in the Europeans
of today.’" 17
We have seen Fr. Anthony Zimmerman try to accommodate the Noah's Ark Theory
to the story of Adam and Eve, while Father Frisch attempted to fit the Candelabra
Theory into his Teilhardian version of theistic evolutionism. Father Zimmerman
“Before Adam and Eve, then, humans may have existed in a condition
of pre-adulthood as far as thinking and a sense of responsibility are concerned.
When the fullness of time came, that is when Adam and Eve arrived at the threshold
of true human maturity, then God took them apart from the others and introduced
them into Eden.” 18
Here is Father Frisch's summary of his position:
“Seen through the eyes of the paleontologist,
human evolution departs from animal evolution as a whole principally
by the way it switched from a
polyphyletic and divergent type of evolution to monophyletic, convergent
. “..the spiritual energy of civilization may be said to have become
canalized in an ever narrower segment of the human race. Would not such a
concentration. in fact run counter to the longing for universality found in
the world's great religions? Among these Christianity, particularly bids us
to see God' Spirit at work in all cultures and nations. Thus according to
the Christian worldview, the streams of spiritual life, far from becoming
constrained within an ever narrower channel, is seen to embrace progressively
the entire universe.” 19
Neanderthal Man is the test, and simply put, in the Candelabra Theory he
is what is sometimes called a Pre-Adamite, and in the Noah's Ark Theory, a
Co-Adamite. These opinions have been around for a surprisingly long time.
Pre-Adamism was first proposed in 1655 by the French Calvinist, Isaac Peyrere,
who later abjured his error before Pope Alexander VII. In 1890 it was revised
by Winchell, supposedly in more scientific form, in his Pre-Adamites or
a Demonstration of the Existence of Men Before Adam. 20
Co-Adamism, that is that true men existed contemporaneously
with Adam who were not descended from him, is a necessary corollary of
polygenism. We have
seen above, that Pope Pius XII condemned polygenism and at the same time
cannot lend their support to a theory which involves the existence, after
Adam's time of some earthly race of men, truly so called, who were not descended
ultimately from him" (Denzinger 2328).
Neanderthal Man is clearly Homo sapiens sapiens, not a separate species
Homo sapiens neandertalensis. He is simply one of the many races of men, that
is varieties within the species. Whether Neanderthal race was hybridized or
replaced by other races of men is beside the point. Father O'Connell speculates
that he may have been from the race of Cain which perished in the Deluge,
21 and that the disputed evidence of hybridization between Neanderthals and
Cro-Magnons in Israel, might be the result of intermarriages between the race
of Seth and the race of Cain which is mentioned in Genesis 6:2.
The creationist movement began as a strictly Protestant, American struggle,
but now others have entered the fray. There is for example, the Cercle
Scientific et Historique (CESHE), a creationist group based in Belgium which is predominantly
Catholic and includes many distinguished scientists, among whom is Maciej
Giertych, the Head of the Genetics Department of the Polish Academy of Sciences'
Institute of Dendrology. Concerning the origin of races such as the Neanderthal
race, Giertych writes:
“My primary objection as a geneticist was the claim that the formation
of races, of microevolution as it is often referred to, is a small scale example
of macroevolution - the origin of species. Race formation is of course very
well documented. All it requires is isolation of a part of a population. After
a few generations due to natural selection and genetic drift t he isolated
population will irreversibly lose some genes, and thus as long as the isolation
continues, in some features it will be different from the population it arose
from. In fact we do this ourselves with artificial selection and creating
artificial barriers to generative mixing outside the domesticated conditions.
The important thing to remember here is that a race is genetically impoverished
relative to the whole population. It has fewer alleles (forms of genes). Some
of them are arranged into special, interesting, rare combinations. This is
particularly achieved by guided recombination of selected forms in breeding
work. But these selected forms are less variable (less polymorphic). Thus
what is referred to as microevolution represents natural or artificial reduction
of the gene pool. You will not get evolution that way. Evolution means construction
of new genes. It means an increase in the amount of genetic information and
not a reduction of it. The evolutionary value of new races or selected forms
should be demonstrable by natural selection. However if allowed to mix with
the general breeding population new races will disappear. The select genes
they have will disperse again, the domesticated forms will go wild. Thus there
is no evidence for evolution here.” 22
I think it is wonderful of God to allow the geneticists by the study of
DNA to scientifically demonstrate that we are all descended from a single
woman. This, however, is not as claimed, a support for evolution, but rather
a confirmation of the Bible, and should lead unbelievers of good will to God.
Maciej Giertych, who is a geneticist, discusses recent studies in DNA:
“Currently there are new suggestions that molecular
genetics provides evidence for evolution. Analyses of DNA sequences in
various species should
show similarities between related ones and big differences between systematically
far removed species. They do exactly that. Molecular genetics generally
confirms the accuracy of taxonomy. But at the same time it does not confirm
evolutionary sequences. There are no progressive changes say from fishes
to amphibians to reptiles to mammals. Molecular genetics confirms systematics
“No. Genetics has no proofs for evolution. It has trouble explaining
it. The closer one looks at the evidence for evolution the less one finds
of substance. In fact the theory keeps on postulating evidence, and failing
to find it, moves on to other postulates (fossil missing links, natural selection
of improved forms, positive mutations, molecular phylogenetic sequences, etc.).
This is not science.” 23
We have seen Father Frisch and Father Zimmerman's unsuccessful attempts
to harmonize the Candelabra and Noah's Ark theories with the book of Genesis,
and have concluded that Neanderthal Man is neither a Pre-Adamite or a Co-Adamite,
but (to use a word I never heard before) an Adamite. Since God is the Author
of both nature and the supernatural, it is easy to harmonize true science
and the Bible. But with a false scientific theory it is impossible. Giertych
“A whole age of scientific endeavor was wasted searching for a phantom.
It is time we stopped and looked at the facts. Natural sciences failed to
supply any evidence for evolution. Christian philosophy tried to accommodate
this unproven postulate of materialist philosophies. Much time and intellectual
effort went in vain leading only to negative moral consequences. It is time
those working in the humanities were told the truth.” 24
1 Brian M. Fagan, The Journey from Eden, Thames and Hudson, London, 1990,
2 Kitahara-Frisch, S.J., "Human History and Natural History Compared,
of Biological Anthropology," Bulletin Volume 21, No. 4, Institute
for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology, St. Louis, 1990,
Wolpoff, M.H., Wu Xin Zhi, and Thorne, A.G., "Modern Homo sapiens origins:
the fossil evidence from East Asia," in The Origins of Modern Humans,
Smith and F. Spencer, A. Liss, New York, 1984, p.471.
3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., The Phenomenon of Man, Harper and Row,
York, 1959, p.105.
4 Robert Faricy, S.J., Teilhard de Chardin's Theology of the Christian in the
World, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1967, p.158.
5 Denzinger, 366.
6 Fagan, Op. cit., p.21.
7 Fagan, p.21.
8 John Groom, writer and producer, "The Children of Eve," Nova
Transcripts, Boston, 1986, p.24.
9 Anthony Zimmerman,
S.V.D., "Original Sin: When Did It Happen?" Fidelity,
7, No. 3, South Bend, IN, February, 1988, p.42; n.1, Philip Lieberman, The
and Evolution of Language, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1984, p.296,
n.2, Lieberman, p.325.
10 M. Bowden, Ape-Men - Fact or Fancy? Sovereign Publications, Bromley
Kent, 1977, pp.156,157.
11 George Gaylord Simpson, "The Biological Nature of Modern Man," Science,
Volume 152, April 22,
1966, Washington, D.C.; cited in Gerard J. Keane, Creation Rediscovered,
Credis Pty. Ltd., Doncaster Vic. Australia, 1991, p.149.
12 Groom, Op. cit., p.12.
13 Fr. Patrick O'Connell, Science of Today and the Problems of Genesis,
Christian Book Club of America, Hawthorne, CA, 1959, p.93.
14 Alexander Marshack, "Exploring the Mind of Ice Age Man," National
Geographic, Volume 147, No.1, Washington, D.C., January, 1975, p.89.
15 Alexander Marshack, "An Ice Age Ancestor?" National
Geographic, Volume 174, No. 4,
Washington, D.C., October, 1988, p.481.
16 Christopher Stringer, "The Emergence of Modern Humans," Scientific
American, Volume 263 No. 12, Harlan, Iowa, 1990, p.103.
17 John Putnam, "The Search for Modern Humans," National
174, No. 4, Washington, D.C., 1988, p.463.
18 Zimmerman, Op. cit., p.43.
19 Frisch, Op. cit., p.12.
20 See Monsignor Joseph Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, translated from the German by Arthur Preuss, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1916,
21 O'Connell, Op. cit., pp.98-103.
22 Keane, Op. cit., Introduction by Maciej Giertych, p.2,3.
23 Keane, Introduction by Giertych, pp.3,4.
24 Keane, p.4.