Explore

Feedback archiveFeedback 2005

Misunderstandings about One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism

11 February 2005

Having read your book One blood i have a few issues that i want to address

In reading your booklet I find a few things I need answered about your findings. You claim that Adam was one man created in the beginning yet in the first chapter God says Ge 1:26 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 birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Who is the them that god is talking about?

Now if you were to say that it was eve in the next verse it is very clear that God is not talking about eve. Ge 1:27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Your website has been a great help to me. I discovered it only a week or so ago, and have spent many hours reading your work. My husband is a former biology teacher and an evolutionist, deceived by false education. He has learned that NOTHING can shake me from my belief in the God of Creation! I hope and pray that someday he, too, will see that evolution is huge fabrication, a tissue of lies that cannot hold up under honest scrutiny.
Thank you for all the knowledge and inspiration you provide!
— Y.P., USA

The ‘them’ is clearly the male and the female, since it says in the second half of the verse, ‘male and female he created them’. Surely this refers to the same ‘them’ as the first half of the verse? More detail can be found in Genesis ch. 2 which makes it clear that there was only a single couple. Jesus settled the matter when He cited Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 together, showing that these chapters referred to the same man and woman (Matthew 19:3–6? and Mark 10:6–9—see also Jesus and the age of the world.

The next verse take things a bit further when god says Ge 1:28 And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Here God is telling them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth this was before man even sinned. How is that possible? The only other time the word replenish is used is when God told Noah and his family to replenish the earth after the flood. How could Adam replenish the earth if there was no one before him. Ge 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

This is an example of how archaic language can mislead people. The Hebrew translated in the KJV simply means ‘fill’, not ‘refill’. When the KJV was translated, ‘replenish’ simply meant ‘fill’. The meaning has changed. Quite correctly, modern English translations do not use ‘refill’. See What does ‘replenish the earth’ mean?*

Yet you say in Genesis 3:20 we read, And Adam called his wifes name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. In other words, all people other than Adam are descendants of Eve she was the first woman.

But in the beginning eve was called Adam as well showing that the name Adam can be applied to more than a single person. Ge 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Ge 5:2 male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

What we have to realize is the word Adam in Hebrew means man and vice versa as well as the word men. Ge 6:1 And it came to pass, when men <‘adam> began to multiply on the face of the earth , and daughters were born unto them. You see the word Adam used for men also. You use Gen. 2 to establish your claims and yet you make no mention of Gen 1. Why is this?

It is not at all clear what point you are trying to make here. Words can have various meanings, depending on the context. ‘Adam’ can be a name for a particular man, or it can mean mankind, or man, as distinct from woman (look at any analytical concordance of the Bible). There is nothing in this that contradicts what we have stated.

In fact, ‘Adam’ is a very suitable name for the progenitor of all mankind, and there is no doubt that in this case it is an individual. It would be rather harsh on Eve if it was all of mankind who lay with her (Genesis 4:1) rather than a single man called ‘Adam’. Furthermore, Luke 3:38 treats Adam as an individual as an ancestor of Jesus, and Paul contrasts "the ‘first man Adam’ with the ‘Last Adam’, Jesus Christ 1 Corinthians 15:45. This is vital to understanding the Gospel—see The last Adam.

In using genetics to explain the genes we have to first start out with a dominant gene in order to get weaker genes.

Where did this idea come from? This has no basis in biology. Dominance, in a genetic sense, has nothing to do with strength or weakness of a gene, just whether it is expressed or not.

Now when man was created was he created as a man of color or a man void of color?

However, in One Blood we suggested that Adam and Eve had genes for both lighter and darker skin colour, which would mean (because of co-dominance) that they were probably middle-brown in colour. This combination of alleles, through the recombination via reproduction, would result in a range of possible shades of colour in their offspring.

Also, no one (except an albino person) is devoid of colour (melanin), as One Blood explains. Have you actually read the book?

Know that the gene of color is stronger it would stand to reason that man must have been of a color. You cant get something from a thing unless that thing has it in there in the first place. Like a magician pulls a rabbit from his hat and we all know that the rabbit was already in there. The same with genetics mendals laws has dominant and recessive genes.

You clearly know very little about genetics, but this is something else that might have been remedied if you had actually read One Blood carefully. Not all genes are dominant or recessive. Some are co-dominant, meaning that both alleles of a given gene contribute to the outcome. (BTW, it is ‘Mendel’s’ laws of inheritance.)

Reading further in your book you make a ridicules claim We also need to be aware that one is not born with a genetically fixed amount of melanin, but rather with a genetically fixed potential to produce a certain amount, increasing in response to sunlight.

But this is still more evidence that you have not actually read the text of the book (perhaps only the captions to the pictures?) because we explain this too!

Where did that come from? Are you saying that old wives tale about people who live in hotter regions get darker to protect themselves against the sun? What nonsense,

Yes, such would be Lamarckian nonsense, but we don’t say that. Again, we carefully explain how the differentiation in skin colours between different areas could have come about through selection (likely human intelligence/preference being involved as well).

you are laying down a subliminal message that all people started out white but because of migration wherever they lived they got darker.

This is wrong. We imply no such thing; quite the opposite.

Yet in part Ge 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, The word dust is used very loosely, in the Hebrew the word dust has several meanings. aphar, aw-fawr’ 06083 dust (as powdered or gray); hence, clay, earth, mud:—ashes, dust, earth, ground, morter, powder, rubbish. Since the bible says Ge 2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. If this was the ground that God used it would stand to reason that there was some water involved in the making of mans body and also this would be called mud and or clay, what color is mud?

Again, we don’t say that Adam and Eve were white skinned. I cannot imagine where you got this idea from. But mud can range in colour from fawn to quite dark, depending on the mineral content, so this line of reasoning says little about the skin colour of Adam.

Then you go on to say that Noah and his family were probably mid-brown, with genes for both dark and light skin, because a medium skin color would seem to be the most generally suitable (dark enough to protect against skin cancer, yet light enough to allow vitamin D production). How silly Then why hasnt anyone spoken out against the hidden racism in all the pictures and statures that are of white people and tell the world that this would make Jesus a as you say a mid brown man no better yet since Jesus lived in a hot climate he would have been black in color.

Jesus, as a Jew, would likely have been of middle-eastern complexion, not ‘black’ or ‘white’. But again, you are accusing the wrong people of racism. You don’t seem to be able to appreciate friends when you see them. In our pictures of Adam and Eve, Noah, etc., over and over again, our pictures are not of white people! See any of our cartoons featuring Adam, Noah, etc.

Then you go on to say For example, if you are in a Caucasian community, you may have noticed that when your friends headed for the beach at the very beginning of summer, they may, if they spent their time indoors during winter, have all been more or less the same pale white. As the summer went on, however, some became much darker than others. Since melanin is as you say a person is genetically fixed potential to produce a certain amount,

Do you realize that you have just contradicted yourself here? Earlier you accused us of not appreciating that the potential level of melanin is determined by the genes!

increasing in response to sunlight then why doesnt the person who goes to the beach and get that sun tan stay that way?

It’s quite simple: proteins degrade all the time, so the skin cells have to continually replace the melanin that degrades. Without the stimulation of continued exposure to sunlight, the extra melanin production shuts down to the normal background level and the skin colour fades back to normal.

There are people who live in the Polar Regions who are people of color and yet the sun is not that bright or the climate too hot. Your answers to that are An Inuit (Eskimo) has brown skin, yet lives where there is not much sun. Presumably they have a genetic makeup such as AAbb which would not be able to produce lighter skin. You use the word. Presumably which is not based on any facts just an assumption which breaks down to mean that you do not know.

It is a reasonable suggestion in the absence of any definitive studies of the matter. How else could it be explained? If you think that this explanation is not reasonable, then you need to provide an alternative, or at least show reason why it is not possible. You have done neither.

Then you make this claim The first man, Adam, from whom all other humans are descended, was created with the best possible combination of genes for skin color, for example. A long time after creation, a worldwide flood destroyed all humans except a man called Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives. This flood greatly changed the environment. How was the environment changed when in the very beginning it says Ge 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: It is clear that the seasons (environment) were already established from the beginning.

The seasons operate in both Florida and Alaska, but the environment is quite different, wouldn’t you agree? So the fact that seasons were established in the beginning does not imply that the environment has not changed.

Then you say Afterwards, God commanded the survivors to multiply and cover the earth (Gen. 9:1). As stated before, the same words used in the beginning. Ge 1:28 And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,

See above and the website where we deal with this.*

Another statement you make is From Genesis 11, we understand that up to this time there was only one language. However the bible is clear when it says Ge 10:5 Of these were the isles of the nations divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations. Ge 10:20 These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations. Ge 10:31 These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. This is saying that each one spoke after the language of their families after the flood and being separated from one another.

Genesis 10, often called the ‘Table of Nations’, describes the nations after the Tower of Babel. I have never heard of anyone misunderstanding this. Quite often the Bible is in thematic rather than chronological order. In this case, Genesis 10 describes the descendants of Noah, then explains how this diversity occurred.

You also say All tribes and nations are descendants of Noahs family!

The Bible says that all people who were not on the Ark of Noah perished in the global Flood. Noah and his family and the animals were on the Ark for 371 days. Were the other people who you say supposedly survived the Flood treading water for the duration of the Flood? See Was the Flood global?*

How about the race of giants that goliath came from which many theologians claim were descended from the giants in Gen 6?

If there are any theologians who say this, then it is clear that they do not believe what the Bible says about the Flood, in which case I would not respect them as theologians. Also, the Bible does not say that Goliath belonged to a different race. Are the tallest people on the earth today a different race? And the Hebrew in Genesis 6 nephilim which doesn’t necessarily mean giants anyway— this comes from the Septuagint Greek and Latin Vulgate translation gigantēs, whereas nephilim is derived from naphal, meaning ‘fall’.

If you are referring to the nephilim which the spies of Canaan reported as being in the land, and implying that therefore they survived the Flood, remember that the spies brought a lying report Numbers 13:31–33.

I can go on but I think I have made my point one more thing if we are all of the same blood then where did the different DNA come from. Since we all come from the same parents. The genes do not lie. In your tape you had the gall in front of black people not to know the name of the man as you say did something with the peanut. This is George Washington Carver, Jr.: Chemurgist. Former Slave, Educator, Scientist, Businessperson, Service Industry Employee, Agriculturist, Medical Worker, Artist, Author, Lecturer, Domestic, Reformer, Performing Artist … All you could say was the peanut man.

You will find an article extolling the achievements of George Washington Carver at George Washington Carver.*

This is not my opinion this is scripture based. Stop making things up the bible never says there are two spiritual races you made that up.

The Bible teaches that there are two ways: the broad way and the narrow way. One leads to destruction; the other to life. There are two groups of people: those who are not saved; those who are. To say that there are two spiritual races is just a figure of speech (a metaphor) used to underline the fact that with God the concept of race based on skin colour is meaningless—all that concerns God is our spiritual state, not the colour of our skin.

If there is one race biologically then why are there many DNA? DNA is the building blocks of the world and if all came from one father one mother then there still should be one DNA. DNA does not change.

Again, you don’t seem to understand basic genetics. Every person has two copies of their DNA. Because of recombination between the 30,000 genes (60,000 alleles) in the human genome, a husband and wife (just two people) could produce millions of children (if it were physically possible) without producing two DNA sets exactly the same. Just think about it: if the DNA was identical from individual to individual, then we could all look the same!

Racism came from the so called white man due to his lack of being a minority on this planet as you yourself stated there are more people of color in the world than white people. If you think about it all the major war and genocide were started by so called white people. It was the so-called white man who started racism not people of color.

As indicated, all people have color, just different amounts.

Now you come along and try to clean up this mess by saying the earth family is one family and say the bible says so.

Sure, ‘white’ people have been responsible for a lot of racism, particularly when they did not apply what the Bible said, and/or were influenced heavily by Darwinism. We are up front about that. Check out the many articles at Q&A: Racism. But racism is not limited to ‘white people’. Look at what happened in Rwanda. That was ‘black’ against ‘black’. Look at what happened in Manchuria with the Japanese and Chinese. People of any ‘race’ can be racist, because we are all sinful people. Indeed your own attitude smacks of racism because you seem to dislike anyone with ‘white’ skin, even when they are trying to overcome racist attitudes.

Yet you step outside the bible in many instances to make your points.

Our basic framework for nonracism comes from the Bible. We only step outside the Bible to show that the world makes sense when we know what the Bible says, or that science is finally catching up with the Bible, or to explain how events described in the Bible could have happened.

Also you say that God made man with mistakes in his genetic make up so God does not deal with perfection?

We said exactly the opposite, actually: that God created man perfect. Mutations came only after man sinned.

Man was made good according to the bible Ge 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. There is no biblical proof because sin entered the world that the genetic make up began to degenerate, where does it say that in the bible?

An argument from silence is not an argument at all. The Bible does not mention DNA, but does that mean that God did not create DNA? No, it is a very reasonable inference that God created DNA (where else did it come from?). It is a fact that we have mutations. You have acknowledged that God created Adam and Eve perfect. So when did mutations start? Clearly, since other issues related to death and suffering started with the Fall, it is only reasonable to infer that mutations did also.

This is another misleading statement you have made Cain was in the first generation of children ever born. He (as well as his brothers and sisters) would have received virtually no imperfect genes from Adam or Eve, since the effects of sin and the Curse would have been minimal to start with. Going back to Gen 1 God has already commanded them to be fruitful and multiply before sin came into the world so it makes no mention of a person having degenerate genes. You are clutching at straws to make your points with no biblical facts to back them up.

Lisa
USA

Again, this is an argument from silence. It is possible that some of Adam’s and Eve’s children had no mutations. But they have accumulated since, for sure. That is our point: Cain could marry his sister because of the low level of genetic defects, whereas their accumulation since makes sense of God’s command to Moses and what we see today with the heightened level of defects in the children of first cousin marriages.

It has been very frustrating to answer you. Clearly, your anger has clouded your ability to be rational. I would ask you to reconsider these issues and you will see that we are being true to the Bible and that we are doing our very best to overcome racist attitudes, which are most definitely contrary to the teaching of the Bible.

Sincerely,
Don Batten, Ph.D.
CMI–Australia


* This means that you have violated the feedback rules in not checking that your questions have already been answered on our website.

Published: 3 February 2006