History of Man: Reality part 1

This lesson will be heavily laden with scripture.  We want to see what God tells us about man.

First we see...

Genesis 1  ²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Psalms 8: ⁴ What is man that You take thought of him,

And the son of man that You care for him?

⁵ Yet You have made him a little lower than God,

And You crown him with glory and majesty!

⁶ You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

⁷ All sheep and oxen,

And also the beasts of the field,

⁸ The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,

Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

 

God created man in His own image.  He was given the dominion and stewardship of everything on the earth.  In fact he was created just a little bit lower than God.  If your translation says that man was created lower than the angels, then it is mis-translated.  The Hebrew word is Elohim.  That is the plural word for God.  It means all of God...the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.  It has absolutely nothing to do with angels.

But the traditionally accepted, naturalistic, evolutionary worldview tells us that man began as an ignorant brutish animal and that he progressed through "caveman" to "technologically modern" over millions of years.  The earliest cultures were thought to be "primitive" or "crude".  Objects that early man produced are expected to be "primitive" and "simple".  Religion was created by man, and it developed and evolved along with man.

And the result is that anything (anything at all) that doesn't fit this picture--anything that is ANCIENT AND ADVANCED is automatically labeled a "mystery". 

I'm reminded of the saying:
"Inadequate theories leave unsolved mysteries."

And those "mysteries" are dealt with in one of these three ways:

• Ignore them
• Reject the evidence outright
• Explain them as "alien invasions"

Why do people want to classify ancient cultures as "mysterious"? 

• Because we reject the alternative...that early man could have been advanced.  After all then we would have to change our whole picture of man.
• Because we carry a lot of baggage of distorted teaching about the past.  We're baffled by the evidence...and there's a lot!

There is a name for that evidence.  Any artifacts that are more technologically advanced than the age they appear to be are called OOPArts...Out-of-place artifacts.  Even the name tells us that there is a particular expectation for what should be found where.

Ecclesiastes 1   ⁹ That which has been is that which will be,

And that which has been done is that which will be done.

So there is nothing new under the sun.

¹⁰ Is there anything of which one might say,

“See this, it is new”?

Already it has existed for ages

Which were before us.

¹¹ There is no remembrance of earlier things;

And also of the later things which will occur,

There will be for them no remembrance 

Among those who will come later still.

Genesis 11:  ⁶ The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.

So God tells us that man really can accomplish anything he sets his mind to...and in reality it is not anything at all that is new.  It all existed before.  What?  Does that fit with your picture of man?

In May 1975, the Reader's Digest published an article titled, "When Did Civilization Begin?"  In it the author says, "The new findings have made a shambles of the tradtional theory of prehistory."  If you read "evolutionary" for "traditional" you would have that about right. 

Philo of Alexandria adds, "By reason of the constant and repeated destructions by water and fire, the later generations did not receive from the former the memory of the order and sequence of events"

Plato quotes Solon as saying, "There have been and there will be again many destructions of mankind," and when civilization is destroyed, "you have to begin all over again as children." 

The Minoan civilization on the island of Crete was advanced in their government, the arts, language, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, sea travel, and architecture...in fact they are described as "remarkably sophisticated".  But they were wiped out by an immense volcanic eruption.

So, if scripture is right about man we should see evidences of ancient technology in the archaeological record.  But that's for next lesson!

Ancient cultures follow a well-defined pattern...

• They appear as an advanced technology and culture
• Their rulers become steeped in tyranny and violence
• Despite their accomplishments, their wickedness causes their downfall.

Remember this: Man's records of his own history go back only 4500-5300 years at the very most, based on a secular timeline.  On a biblical timeline we could only say 4200 years maximum.  This is the case regardless of which culture you might talk about.  Any different dates are based on other dating systems, and you remember how accurate those are!