The timeline of human evolution can be found in Bible quotes (Genesis Book). Adam’s ribs symbolize the chromosome and are key to human monkey development. When we discuss evolution vs creation, many convergences like this are found.
A person who clings to the theory of evolution and denies creationism may ask why such an important matter as the creation of human beings would be in a symbolic message rather than in explicit language. And after all, the Holy Scriptures don’t talk about chromosomes. That’s a valid question to pursue below. First and foremost, the main interest is to see the points in the intersection of evolution and creation with regard to human appearance.
Parallelism between Adam’s ribs and science
There is an astonishing coincidence between the numbers in the Book of Genesis involving creationism and numbers in science regarding human evolution from the monkey. The parallelism begins with the Bible quotes, after which God took one of Adam’s ribs and made the woman, Eve.
And the Lord God fell upon a deep sleep upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed the flesh in its place. Then he made the rib which the Lord God had taken from man into a woman, and he led her to the man.
The number of ribs – Men have it 24 ribs – 12 on each thorax side. The same number is found in women. The text says so God removed that one rib and not a few ribs. Had he actually removed only one rib, the human would have different numbers of this bone on each side of his chest. Not only that, but there will also be doubts about the number of ribs in a woman.
These contradictions disappear if the text is examined from the point of view of information Jesus transmitted to His disciples: For God, nothing is impossible. God may have removed one of Adam’s ribs, but he did it in such a way that the woman and all her descendants would have the same number of ribs. However, the removal of ribs is believed to be a symbolic language and explained that it cannot be considered direct language.
A look at it now from the science standpoint. That chimpanzeefrom which science now admits that man has evolved, has 24 chromosomes in its sexual cells, i. e., 24 chromosomes in each spermatozoon and 24 chromosomes in each ovulation. This refers to gametes, the germ cells capable of reproducing the species. Therefore, the number of ribs in a man and chromosomes in a chimpanzee are identical. The other cells in a chimpanzee, as in a human, are diployd, that is, they have the chromosomes in pairs – therefore they have 48 chromosomes.
Confluence of the Book of Genesis and the Human Evolution Timeline
Should we admit that the ribs symbolize the chromosome, the implicit and explicit Bible numbers say that God removed a chromosome from a chimpanzee and made a woman out of it. In other words, the “man”, a chimpanzee, lost a sex cell chromosome, thus forming a woman.
In fact, like the man, the woman has a chromosome smaller than a shrimp in the germ cells. That human spermatozoon has 23 chromosomes and the human ovulation also has 23 chromosomes. It makes sense. The other cells in human are diploid, ie. e., they have 46 chromosomes. But it is necessary to see what science says about human monkey evolution, that is, human evolution from the chimpanzee.
Man evolves from the monkey – It is admitted that in the evolution of the species through some unknown phenomenon, two chimpanzee chromosomes were fused and thus came the primitive man, a hominid. Some theories claim that the woman came first, which, if true, would add further consistency to the uniform version of Adam and Eve’s story.
In short, this is what the case has:
- Number of ribs in man: 24.
- Number of chromosomes in chimpanzee gametes: 24.
- Creation: removal of a rib.
- Evolution: fusion of two chromosomes.
- Ribs symbolize chromosome.
- Removal of a rib = fusion of two chromosomes.
- Number of chromosomes that result in gametes: 23 – New species: male, hominid.
Without wandering too far from these basic questions, one should ask why there are so many differences between humans and chimps, given the “simple” fusion of two chromosomes. Furthermore, those who advocate creationism would argue that the similarity between a chimpanzee’s DNA and that of a human is over 98%, humans and chimpanzees should be more similar. These are relevant issues that need to be carefully examined.
Start with the numbers: the difference between human and chimpanzee DNA is less than 2%. For three reasons, this percentage can be very meaningful:
science has hardly begun to understand the human genome, that is, the DNA map, the genes and each role. On the other hand, we also know a little about the chimpanzee genome. Thus, it is perfectly acceptable that this percentage, although small, means a lot in terms of anatomical and physiological differences between the species;
the differences may be located in basic parts of the DNA, enough to cause the differences between the species;
the amount of DNA in the cells is not always proportional to their complexity. Therefore, the arrangement of DNA components in humans may be more important than the amount.
Thus, the slightly less than 2% difference between chimpanzee and humans can become more meaningful. The “simple” fusion of a species’s two chromosomes can cause many differences in the resulting species.
Why is the Bible not explicit? – In other words, why hasn’t the biblical message spoken directly about chromosomes since the question was raised at the beginning of this article? At least two answers are possible.
The first has to do with Christian and Jewish dogma: this is a sacred text, dictated or inspired by God, and there is no doubt how God speaks. The second has to do with the biblical authors: They would be people who have a deep knowledge of the timeline of evolution and human nature. They knew it would not be possible to write what men would not understand at the time (existence of chromosomes, genes, DNA). They also knew that women in a patriarchal society like what they lived in had to remain in a secondary role, in the written version, to facilitate acceptance of God’s Word.
The faithful clings to the first answer, the dogma.
But those who are not faithful can rightly ask how these writers, hardly out of a semi-nomadic life, could possess such knowledge of the species’ evolution.
Examined as a book and without any preconceived attitude, the Bible is a unique book and its authors differ from ordinary mortals. However, as intelligent as they may have been, there was no way they could have had such knowledge. So the answer is: this is a mystery.
Book of Genesis & Science: More Convergence
In the pleasant study of biblical numbers involving creation vs. development, there are other convergent points. Example: Part of the holy text reproduced at the beginning of this article and the science version of the differences in man / monkey. Genesis-term “closed the meat in its place” conveys a special meaning and suggests several parallels between religion and science. It could be read as “closed frontal leg in place”.
In the apes, the frontal flame is 9% of the brain. In the man it is 30%. The frontal lobe is a tissue (“flesh”), a nerve tissue. The frontal lobe integrates most of the brain functions. Its prefrontal part is related to the commencement of planned actions, viz. thinking, idealizing, acting in an orderly way, and releasing emotional expressions. In the difference, “the meat is closed in its place.”
Subsequent reproduction
The appearance of men raises the question of propagation. In the history of creation, this problem does not exist: Once Adam and Eve were created, they began to reproduce. In development, however, one individual from the fusion of the two chromosomes would not give birth to the human species.
To illustrate, suppose that the fusion of the two chromosomes took place in a female, resulting in 23 chromosomes in the gametes living with males carrying 24 chromosomes in the gametes. Creation would be impossible. Even if they copied, no ovulation would form due to the lack of symmetry in the DNA. How then would man have evolved in evolution?
More likely, the phenomenon – physical, chemical, or physicochemical – had reached several individual chimpanzees at that time, causing chromosome fusion in many of them, both men and women. In the history of evolution, there is still another peculiarity: bonobos have more elements than the chimps to be human ancestors.
Chimpanzees against Bonobos
Chimpanzee preference over bonobos – On an evolutionary scale, science shows preference for chimpanzees over bonobos, though the latter resemble humans more.
See some of them:
the percentage of similarity between bonobos ‘DNA and humans’ is greater than chimpanzees;
their genitals are more protuberant and face forward, as with humans;
except for humans, they are the only primates that copulate from the front;
they are part of gay and heterosexual relationships;
when they reach youth, the females leave their group and join another. In their new group, they submit to the woman – including sexually – and then copulate with the men;
the females are kept together in groups and the male respects them because together they will fight him for food;
they stand more often on two legs than chimpanzees do, and their laughter is more expressive. They are also more cordial in the group.
Despite all this, it is believed that humans have evolved from chimpanzees due to the fact that they are found in many African regions, in wide open areas, which would have favored their territorial spread. Bonobos, on the other hand, live in closed forests in some regions of Africa. However, from the genetic, anatomical, emotional and behavioral points of view, the human species is more likely to come from bonobos. Perhaps, after their community was severely affected by a disaster, they sought refuge in closed forests.
Mans ancestor: Neither Chimpanzee nor Bonobos and Adams Rib
Another theory admits that chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, ribbons, all belong to the primate family known as Pongid, as does the Hominid family, whose sole representative is the human being, all belonging to Hominoid’s superfamily, and would have come from individuals known as Old World Monkeys.
It is possible that some violent environmental changes hit Africa and Asia and changed the genetic structure of many Old World Monkeys (Cercopitecoids) sometime between six million and 25 million years ago. Different pongids came into being.
Why wouldn’t different hominids have appeared? The present human being must have shown differences between individuals from the very beginning. Eg. Must have appeared at the same time individuals with white skin and black skin in Africa and Asia. The weather conditions and the struggle for survival would have made it easier for white-skinned individuals to disappear from Africa and for black-skinned individuals to disappear from freezing cold.
The theory of a common trunk for all Hominoids does not change the parallel of Adam’s ribs. The entire Hominoid superfamily would have come from individuals with 24 chromosomes in the gametes. One family (Pongid) continued with 24 chromosomes in the gametes, while another (Hominid) appeared with 23 chromosomes.