Neanderthals, Early Modern Humans, and a Creator

by Comatose 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Comatose

  I am hoping that this topic may reach other Jehovah's Witnesses eyes. Others like myself, may have questions that need to be answered. I know I did many Google searches on this topic.

  Some basic info and interesting facts:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

  The Neanderthals or Neandertals are an extinct species or subspecies of the genus Homo which is closely related to modern humans. They are known from fossils, dating from the Pleistocene period, which have been found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia. The species is named after Neandertal ("Neander's Valley"), the location in Germany where it was first discovered.

  Neanderthals are classified either as a subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) or as a separate species of the same genus (Homo neanderthalensis). The first humans with proto-Neanderthal traits are believed to have existed in Europe as early as 600,000–350,000 years ago.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-Magnon

  Cro-Magnon is an informal name for the first early modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens ) of the European Upper Paleolithic . Current scientific literature prefers the term European Early Modern Humans ( EEMH ), to the term 'Cro-Magnon' which has no formal taxonomic status, as it refers neither to a species or subspecies nor to an archaeological phase or culture. The earliest known remains of Cro-Magnon-like humans are radiocarbon dated to 43,000 years before present .

  http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102011413#h=8:0-9:682

  Were Neanderthals Like Us?

  “The long-held view that Neanderthals were inferior to Homo sapiens is changing as, one by one, capabilities thought unique to us have been linked to them,” says New Scientist. Recent discoveries indicate that Neanderthals built shelters and hearths, controlled fire, wore clothes, cooked food, made tools, and created glue to attach spear points to their shafts. There is also evidence that they cared for sick individuals, wore symbolic ornaments, and buried their dead. According to Erik Trinkaus, professor of physical anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., “Neanderthals were people, and they probably had the same range of mental abilities we do.”

  Neanderthals could speak and had jewelry.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/opinion/global/Who-Are-You-Calling-a-Neanderthal.html?_r=0

  Neanderthals lived much richer lives than ever presumed. They were not exactly like us, but they bred with us and their genes and behavior are part of our heritage.

  Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans probably interbred.

  http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/neanderthal-skeleton-provides-evidence-of-interbreeding-with-humans-130327.htm

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  I am hoping that this topic may reach a Jehovah's Witnesses eyes. I know one of my initial questions I had was how Neanderthals fit in with everything? If they lived and died a sinful and imperfect life, then why would Adam have been designated different and worthy of a ransom?

  Neanderthals according to the Awake buried their dead, had jewelry, and took care of their elderly. Why would they have been unworthy of knowing a creator? They spoke to each other, why would god not speak to them?

  What implications do the answers to these questions have regarding me and my worship? Can I just forget these facts and pretend they do not matter? Are satisfactory answers a reasonable request by me?

  Please think about the questions raised in your mind. Work out how universal sovereignty could be involved when these early humans lived 40k years ago. There is never anything wrong with understanding basic truths regarding our origins.
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  Seraphim23

  What an excellent set of questions. For me this all showed that Genesis was either a parable or falsely represented by JWs and others as literal truth. It also showed that the universal sovereignty issue was also an error, as well as Satan being a literal being, and also original sin.
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  OnTheWayOut

  Make sure you change that to " then why would Adam have been designated different and HIS OFFSPRING worthy of a ransom?"

  Adam, according to WTS, was not worthy since he disobeyed while perfect.

  WTS including an article on Neanderthals, granted just a paragraph, is ONCE AGAIN talking out of both sides of their ass. They mention something in such a way so they can make themselves look like modern science users, but they mention it in such a way that modern science scoffers can say that the information shows that "MAN's" opinions on Neanderthal keep changing.
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  konceptual99

  This subject is one of the reasons my faith has all but disappeared in less than 12 months after over 40 years of regular activity from a baby.

  The WT Society's refusal to present any reasonable (or for that matter unreasonable) answer for the questions around modern human development is is shocking. The problem they have of course is that any argument against the general concensus will appear crazy as there is no way of supporting it scientifically.

  They really do follow the maxim "better to say nothing and have people think you a fool rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt".
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  Room 215

  'They really do follow the maxim "better to say nothing and have people think you a fool rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt"..... That's why any sort of participation in a moderated public forum, or granting of interviews to the press, etc. is anathema to them.
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  designs

  Comatose- nice research, it is enlightening, like learning that villages and towns like Damascus were in existence 10,000 B.C..
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  blondie

  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/decoding-neanderthals.html
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  Comatose

  I didn't know about the villages you mention actually. Interesting.
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  notsurewheretogo

  Pffttttt don;t you know that humans are only 6,000 years old! All other evidence is just Satan covering up...

  A dub actually said that to me...
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  Vidiot

  Ah, Neanderthals; there’s a special place in my soul for these guys.

  Like most of us born-ins, I’ve lost count of all the little things (either at the Hall or in the publications ) that pop up their heads and made us mentally stop short and ask "wait, what?" Individually, they seem minor; it's not until they become bundled up katamari-style that they become too hard too ignore. For some of us, however, a Big Thing comes along all at once.

  Neanderthals were my Big Thing.

  Despite the fact that my parents were both devout JWs (Dad was an elder at one point), my Mother was very educated, and both of them instilled in me a healthy respect for science and academia. I had no problem with the assertion that dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago, the reality of Ice Ages, carnivorous saber-tooth tigers, etc,. I also accepted the evidence for global warming, and was interested in astronomy and genetics, so I was already primed to take what I read about the Neanderthal Genome Project seriously.

  The study’s preliminary MT-DNA findings (published back in '06, I think), seemed to indicate that there weren’t enough genetic commonalities between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons (i.e. contemporary humans) for them to interbreed, i.e., Neanderthals were a completely separate, genetically distict species of human.

  Problem was, the WT had already acknowledged back in the 90s that they were, indeed, human (tools, clothes, religiosity, etc.). However, if the Genesis creation account was literal history (and Adam was the progenitor of the entire human species) as WT canon insists, another species (or "kind", to use OT terminology) of humanity was simply not possible.

  Yet here was compelling forensic evidence that strongly suggested otherwise.

  I grasped immediately that if the Genesis creation narrative wasn't literal history (notice I'm calling it a "narrative" at this point rather than an "account"), then evolution was a far more serious contender than I had ever considered. Once I came to accept that, though, I essentially gave myself permission to explore why geneticists and paleontologists came to their conclusions about evolution by means of natural selection, and it didn’t take much to convince me that creationists (Young- or Old-Earth) had it all wrong.

  It caused a number of sleepless nights for me, I can tell you.

  Initially, I assumed that the WTS would sooner or later acknowledge this and correct their stance, but when I thought about it more and more, I realized that they'd already painted themselves too far into the Genesis-as-literal-history corner. To reverse their position on evolution would require them to rewrite huge swaths of JW theology.

  And this was, in fact, confirmed for me in an Awake! issue about a year after I had my little epiphany; they basically acknowledged that if evolution were true, Genesis could only be an allegory (and thusly the foundation of JW Christianity would be completely undermined; i.e., no Adam, therefore no Adamic Sin, therefore no need for Jesus’ Ransom, therefore no need for Christianity, at least as the WT defined it).

  They had chosen to reject evidence in favor of ideology, and would not / could not budge.

  I already knew that historically, the "facts on the ground" always end up winning over ideology in the long run, and thusly gave myself permission to explore what else the WTS might be wrong about.

  A few more twists and turns in the years following, and here I am.

  Quite ironic now that the Neanderthal Genome Project’s more recent conclusions are actually the reverse of their preliminary assertions; Neantherthals actually did have enough genetic commonalities to hook up with the ancestors of contemporary humans, and anyone of European descent is still a little bit Neanderthal (this actually happens more often in nature than one might expect - when changes in its environment require a species to adapt more radically in order to preserve the genome, i.e. polar bears + grizzlies = grolars, coyotes + wolves = coy-wolves, etc.).

  No going back now though, the Red Pill is long since swallowed.