#Meek5: Human Origins — Similarities between the first Adam and the Second Adam
This article is the transcript from episode #5 of a six-part podcast that I released between October 2, 2022, and January 2, 2023. The name of the podcast is “The Meek Will Inherit the Earth”. You can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast directories. Here is the podcast description: Jesus’s prediction that ‘the meek will inherit the earth’ is not well understood. Taken at face value, he is predicting a fundamental change in the humans who live on earth. He claimed this change is currently in progress and one day, it will be complete — humanity as we know it will be extinct and the new type of humans, along with the animals, will populate the earth. This podcast explores how Jesus saw this happening, why we should take him seriously and what it really means for us.
Episode Introduction
[0:00] Hi. My name is Brian. Welcome to the podcast, The Meek will Inherit the Earth. The apostle Paul compared Adam from the first book of Genesis to Jesus, calling Jesus the second Adam (1 Co 15:45). Paul tells us that Adam represents the pattern for all humans who followed him (Romans 5:14) and in a similar manner Jesus represents the pattern for a new kind of humanity, and many will follow him too. In this episode we will take a closer look at these patterns. What is unique about Homo Sapiens that has enabled them to dominate all the other animals? And what about the new humanity? How does their uniqueness compare to Homo Sapiens?
<<< Opening Music >>>
In this episode, we will connect New Testament teaching to human evolution
[0:56] To understand Adam and Eve, a good place to start might be the first few chapters of Genesis. If I did, we could talk about how Adam and Eve are made from dirt and the breath of God, their special commission to be God’s image to the rest of creation and how they ultimately decided reject God’s good gifts and define good and evil for themselves. If you are interested in this, I suggest you check out an episode in Tim Mackie’s podcast called, “Torah Crash Course Part 1 — Genesis”[1]. Tim provides a great intro to this material — I don’t think you will be disappointed.
I won’t be focusing on Genesis in this episode. Instead I will again be talking about concepts that are most fully developed in the New Testament, like I did in episode three. To do this, I plan to start out with a scientific account of human origins. As promised in the intro, I will focus on what makes Homo sapiens unique, such that they are able to dominate all the other animals. Because of this focus, I also won’t be talking about the transitions between the various types of homins that preceded Homo sapiens such as Ardipithecus, Australopithecus and Homo habilis. Rather I will start the story about 70,000 years ago.
In the Cognitive Revolution we gained new cooperation skills that gave us a survival advantage
[2:22] Scientists tell us that Homo sapiens experienced cognitive revolution about 70,000 years ago. Prior to this, our ancestors were successful, but in the grand scheme of things, they were insignificant, with little impact on their ecology. They lived in small groups, similar to the other animals, even though they had the greatest intelligence and the most advanced technology of any species, for a million years.
In the Cognitive Revolution there were apparently some small changes in the brains and DNA of our ancestors. But the only observable difference resulting from these inner changes was that Homo sapiens developed new skills in cooperating together. Previously, like the great apes and many other animals, our ancestors cooperated based on personal acquaintance and the dominance structure. After the cognitive revolution, Homo sapiens cooperated using stories and social institutions. This is the key difference between animals and us — how we cooperate. We rely on our government, our legal systems and our other institutions to regulate our relationships. By relying on institutions instead of personal acquaintance and the dominance structure, we can cooperate in much larger groups and therefore, we have a huge advantage over the other animals. [2]
[3:55] People often speculate that it is our intelligence or technology that sets us apart from the other animals, but as noted earlier, we had the best intelligence and the best technology for a million years and we remained insignificant. Nothing remarkable happened. It was only when this new method of cooperation emerged, that we see the dominance over other animals and the rise of human civilization This is unique — there are no other examples like this in earth’s evolution.
Let me acknowledge that I have taken a lot of this section from Yuval Noah Harari’s book, Homo Deus, A Brief History of Tomorrow. I think Harari gives a very engaging and helpful telling of our story, and I recommend you read his book. That being said, I think Harari missed something in our story, which I will now discuss.
Dominating the other animals wasn’t as happy an outcome as you might think
[4:53] Although human civilization and dominance seems like a happy outcome for Homo sapiens (but not for the other animals), things are not as rosy as they first appear. The institutions and stories we tell take on a life of their own. Our common activities become focused on the goals of the institution, which are often not synonymous with human welfare. This often works out well for the rich and powerful and badly for the poor and disenfranchised. But in the end, even the rich and powerful need to serve these institutions and therefore, their outcome is not purely positive either. These institutions become beasts (see Daniel 7 or Revelations), which no one can fully control, and which we all end up serving. This is a stark contrast to the original vision for humanity in the Garden of Eden, where humanity was to have benevolent dominion over all the beasts of the field (Genesis 1:26).
A key component in our new method of cooperating is easy targets for violent urges
[5:54] To understand how we came to be ruled by beasts, we need to look more closely at our method of cooperating. How does this new skill really work? Well, the major threat to human society is violence. We are competitive and this leads to conflict. Managing the resulting violence is a huge challenge — it can very quickly spiral out of control. Our stories and institutions provide a set of rules, penalties, and incentives to regulate our behaviour. If you break the rules, you go to jail, or face other penalties. But there is more to it than that. The stories also manage the violence by directing it at easy targets. Easy targets are minorities such as the disabled, the poor, people of a different religion or skin colour and our enemies. By agreeing on who the ‘bad guys’ are and participating in violence together, communities are able to get along. These acts of communal violence let pressure off the system and help cement cohesion. This is what ‘tribal alliances’ are all about. People rally together because they have a common hatred.
Today our institutions are very sophisticated, but in the beginning they were simpler. Often the only human institution was religion. A key component of these religions was sacrifice — the ritualistic killing of humans or animals. You can read about the practice of sacrifice in the Bible, in ancient Greek literature and in reports by anthropologist. It is often not easy to read. For example, consider the ancient Aztec practice of sacrificing children to the water god Tlaloc[3]. The Aztecs believed that Tlaloc required the tears of the young; their tears would wet the earth with rain. Therefore, they made sure that the children were in severe pain, with many tears, before they were ritualistically sacrificed. This is difficult to hear. Why did the Aztecs believe killing children in this way was a good thing? Were they just ‘bad people’? Or is there an answer we can give that is grounded in evolutionary reality? There is an answer — as I have been saying, these shared acts of communal violence helped the community get along. Tensions arise in the community in normal times, but they are especially intense in times of stress, like when the rain isn’t falling. By committing these terrible acts together, the Aztecs had an outlet for the violent impulses that were threatening their survival. They were not horrible people. They were typical Homo sapiens. This is how we cooperate. Ritualistic murder is our signature communal activity. Animals do not do this.
At the heart of our method of cooperating is a false accusation
[9:02] So at the heart of our method of cooperating is a false accusation. The accusation justifies the hostility we are directing towards our victims. Perhaps the gods require it? Or perhaps our victims deserve it because they are guilty of something? Our enemies and other victims may have their faults, but the reality is, our violence towards them is arbitrary and self-serving. But we cannot see it. We are blind to this reality. And this isn’t even really our fault. It is a product of how we evolved. In order for our stories and social institutions to work, we need to really believe the violence they condone is justified. Societies that could lie to themselves about this more effectively were able to cooperate better and therefore, they had a survival advantage. This is why the truth about our own nature has been hidden from us since the foundations of the world, 70,000 years ago (Matthew 13:34). We have been liars and murderers from the beginning (John 8:44). Animals participate in violence too of course, but they don’t tell elaborate fictions to justify it. We are ignorant of our own nature in a way that animals are not. We are living in darkness.
For those of you familiar with the French literary critic Rene Girard, you will recognize these ideas. I have definitely been inspired by my readings of Girard and if you have the chance, I encourage you to read his writings directly. For example, you may want to read his book, Violence and the Sacred or Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World. Sorry, this episode has lots of homework — I have now recommended a podcast episode by Tim Mackie, a book by Yuval Noah Harari, and a couple of books by Rene Girard. I hope you get a chance to follow up on these items.
Our method of cooperating is unsustainable
[11:07] Anyway, despite this moral flaw in our nature we have been wildly successful. The accomplishments of human civilization are impressive — from the pyramids of Egypt, to travelling to the moon, to the iPhone. An argument could be made that we should accept the good with the bad and not worry too much about it. But even setting aside the moral issue, there is a very practical problem with our method of cooperating — is unsustainable. As discussed, Homo sapiens practiced ritualistic killings of humans and animals more or less universally. But today this practice has almost completely disappeared. Things have changed. Back in the day our ancestors could sacrifice a child, or a captured enemy soldier or an animal and everyone felt good about it. Everyone believed they were doing the right thing and it worked for them. But today most of us would not feel good about it. Sacrifices like these would likely have the opposite effect, causing people to become more upset. They would likely increase the appetite for violence (perhaps towards those who are responsible for the sacrifice) rather than reducing it like it did for our ancestors. The reality is, today we cannot practice explicit sacrifice. Our victimization of others continues, but now it needs to be subtler, or supported by stronger stories, and ideally, partially out of sight.
It is obviously a good thing that perpetrating injustice is becoming more morally troubling to us. But the problem is, this is the Homo sapien method of cooperating. This is who we are. If it doesn’t work anymore, what happens to us? The answer is simple — we go extinct. This may be difficult to accept, but it is difficult mainly because evolution has trained us to avert our eyes from understanding our basis for cooperating. People often naively believe that humans are inherently good and will eventually do the right thing. But the reality is, humans are inherently competitive, similar to animals. Therefore, we need a basis for cooperating. Animals have the dominance structure and the pecking order and other stable methods of cooperating. These methods allow species to persist for millions of years. But Homo sapiens cooperate based on social institutions and stories. This method is unsustainable. We have had a good run for the past 70,000 years but the internal inconsistencies within our method of cooperation are causing it to collapse. We are going extinct
Satan is the New Testament’s name for the Homo Sapien approach to cooperation
[14:10] Our upcoming extinction is bad news, but it isn’t new information. The New Testament authors told us about it 2,000 years ago. For example, Jesus talks about the ‘end of the age’ in the gospel of Matthew in chapters 13, 24 and 28. What is the ‘end of the age’? It is the end of humanity as we know it. There are also the less direct references. For example, the prediction that the meek will inherit the earth. You know when inheritances are given out, right? It is when someone is dead. The meek will inherit the earth because the Homo sapiens are all gone.
The New Testament authors anticipated this extinction because they felt they had insight into what makes Homo sapiens tick. One of the main ways they describe the Homo sapien pattern of relationships is through the character of Satan. The name Satan means ‘the accuser’. This is in reference to the false accusation that is at the heart of the Homo Sapien method of cooperating. At one point Jesus told his listeners (John 8:44) that they were children of the devil, who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. What a harsh statement! But Jesus actually meant something very specific or technical by it. He was referring to our method for managing conflict through communal acts of violence. We tell ourselves stories about how through these acts we are the defenders of truth, justice and safety, but it isn’t true. Our stories are lies, and our violence is murder. In this sense all Homo Sapiens are children of the devil because we conform to his pattern of relating. We are all ‘chips off the old block’ and in this case, the block is Satan. Adam and Eve represent the pattern for all Homo Sapiens who follow them, and this is the pattern of Satan.
It sounds so harsh to equate Satan and Homo Sapiens like this, but it is important to be honest about our shortcomings. Don’t get me wrong — I love Homo Sapiens. I am one and I think they are great. There is often much love and joy, especially at the individual level or in small groups. But at the same time, we are competitive, and to cooperate in large numbers we need our stories and institutions, and we need a way to channel excess violent urges out of the system. This is the pattern of Satan. This is what makes Homo sapiens tick.
The good news is a new version of humanity is emerging with improved cooperation skills
[17:03] Our upcoming extinction bad news, but fortunately, there is good news too. The good news is that a new version of ourselves, that has improved cooperation skills is emerging. As discussed, the last stage in our evolution was during the Cognitive Revolution, 70,000 years ago when we developed new cooperation skills. The good news is that a second Cognitive Revolution is coming, and it is already in progress. In this revolution we will again emerge with more advanced cooperation skills.
Animals cooperate based on the dominance structure and personal acquaintance, Homo sapiens cooperate based on social institutions and stories, and the new humanity will cooperate selflessly, based on voluntary mutual service. This what we have been talking about throughout this podcast. Jesus describes how the new humanity works in his Sermon on the Mount and in his parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. In particular, these new humans settle matters quickly with their adversaries, they avoid lust, divorce and oaths, they do not resist an evil person, they love their enemies and they do not compete against each other to be the greatest. Jesus models what this new humanity looks like by loving his enemies until his death. Jesus is intending to bring about social change and even make himself a kind of king — and yet he never takes on any authority that comes from human institutions because he is not that kind of human being. It is Homo Sapiens who rely on the police, the courts of law, government, and corporations to cooperate but not that is not how it works in the kingdom of God.
The Parakletos (Holy Spirit) is the lawyer for the defence. This is the pattern for the new humanity
[18:59] The New Testament authors have a name for this pattern too — it is Parakletos. Parakletos is a Greek word that means one who pleads another’s cause before a judge or the counsel for defense or an advocate[4]. For example, in John 14:16 Jesus tells his disciples that he will send the Parakletos to help them. The NIV translates this as advocate, other translations use ‘comforter’ or ‘counsellor’. In any case, Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit, which is the spirit that infuses Jesus himself. Jesus is leaving his disciples and he is reassuring them that even though he is gone, God will send them his spirit to be their guide.
The striking thing about the word Parakletos is how it is the exact opposite of Satan.
- Satan is the accuser; the Holy Spirit is the defender
- Satan is the lawyer for the prosecution; the Holy Spirit is the lawyer for the defense.
- Satan is the spirit that inspired the crowd who was calling for Jesus to be crucified. “He is guilty they cried! Crucify him!” The Holy Spirit is the spirit who inspired Jesus to love his enemies to the very end, even if it meant forfeiting his life.
- Satan is the pattern for Homo sapiens, who are represented by Adam and Eve; the Holy Spirit, the Parakletos, is the pattern for the new kind of humanity, represented by Jesus.
- If you want to know which type of human you are, look at what happens when society is under stress. Homo sapiens will inevitably target some minority group with hostility and claim that by doing so, they are the defenders of truth, justice and safety. Do you get on board with this or turn a blind eye? If so, then you are acting like a Homo sapien. Who can blame you? It is only natural. It is the easiest and safest thing you can do. On the other hand, if you peacefully stand up to the bullying and oppression, in spite of potential personal costs to yourself, then you may be on track to becoming a different kind of human.
Similarities between the emergence of Homo Sapiens and the New Humanity
[21:28] It is also striking how similar our current cognitive revolution is, to the one that happened 70,000 years ago: In both cases it is a change in cooperation skills that is the hallmark. In both cases there were pressures on humanity to enhance cooperation, but they were up against a wall and could go no further.
As long as humans cooperated based on personal acquaintance and the dominance structure they were limited to groups of 100 or 200. In groups of this size there could be very little specialization; they could not take full advantage of their superior technology and intelligence. But once the new method emerged it enabled coordination in much larger groups. Human communities could be as large as thousands and then millions, and today even billions.
Similarly, as long as we cooperate based on stories and social institutions there will always be violence and destruction. We have taken advantage of our superior intelligence and abilities with technology, but we can’t control it. Our technology often does not do what is best for human welfare. As our destructive capability grows and our socialization intensifies, the evolutionary pressure for a more sustainable approach also increases. At some point we will reach a tipping point, and something will have to give. This is when we will see the new method of cooperation fully emerge. It will lead to world peace, and it will also enable other changes that are difficult to even imagine right now. Just like it would have been hard to explain the Egyptian civilization, the British Empire or iPhones to the Neanderthals, it is difficult for us to conceive what the world will look like when it is filled with humans who have these enhanced cooperation skills.
The data points to the emergence of the new humanity
[22:35] This is obviously an extraordinary prediction of the future. I have argued that it is similar to the last time humanity took a big step in evolution and that it is what the Bible is predicting. But what about the data? What evidence is there that a new humanity is truly emerging right now? Well, I would point to two pieces of evidence. Firstly, as we have already discussed, 3,000 years ago animal and human sacrifice were widely accepted and believed in as being good things. Human communities could get together and kill a child or captured enemy soldier and everyone felt good about it. Today we need much more powerful stories to justify our violence. This evolution in the strength of the stories we need to tell is the first piece of evidence — the effectiveness of the old ways is eroding, leaving us vulnerable.
The second piece of evidence is the new humans who are already here. Yes, there are people among us right now who are shifting their cooperation approach to the new, more advanced method. Jesus is the great example in my mind, but there are many others. Some names that come to mind include Marin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi and Greta Thunberg. And there are probably people just down the street from you who are practicing these skills too. Maybe you are one of them? The point is not that these people are perfect. The point is they exhibit behaviour that is difficult to explain in Homo sapien terms of tribal alliances, competing for advantage and violence management through social institutions. Sure, you can make up a story to explain away their behaviour, but when you add up all the examples, a more reasonable explanation is that we are seeing a new act of creation. From a scientific perspective, people relating on this basis should not exist unless there is truly something new happening in human evolution.
[25:53] Is the evidence overwhelming? Maybe not. But we should also recognize that evolution has biased us against understanding our method of cooperation. If we really understand how it works, it will no longer work as we will have no outlet for the excess violence that we can all agree on. Remember, the human societies that are able to lie to themselves the best have the survival advantage. For this reason, we are doing everything we can to ignore the evidence. But there comes a point when all this dishonesty collapses in on itself. This is when Homo sapiens go extinct, and this is when we need to be really honest with ourselves if we want a future.
Jesus told us that the emergence of this new humanity starts small and is easy to overlook. But one day it these new humans will fill the earth and it will be undeniable. It is just like a mustard seed, which starts as the smallest seed in the garden but eventually becomes a large tree (Matthew 13:31). If you listen to the news today most of the headlines focus on those who have reached the pinnacle of Homo sapien society. It is about those who have successfully competed to be the greatest. But the real story is what is happening on the ground, where this new method of cooperating is emerging. It will continue to grow and one day, the meek inherit the earth. I hope you will join.
Summary
[27:27] OK. Let me summarize this episode:
- The key difference between Homo Sapiens and animals is how they cooperate. Animals such as apes or wolves cooperate based on the dominance structure and personal acquaintance. Homo Sapiens cooperate based on stories and social institutions.
- This new cooperation method first emerged about 70,000 years ago. It is what allows Homo Sapiens to cooperate in larger groups, it gives us the ability to dominate all the other animals and it led to the rise of human civilization.
- Social institutions (such as government, police, religion and law) manage our violent tendencies through a set of rules, penalties and incentives. The rules are always somewhat arbitrary, privileging some and directing violence towards the vulnerable. Inflicting violence on the vulnerable is a key feature of our method of cooperating. Participation in shared violence helps let pressure out of the system and it cements social cohesion.
- The New Testament authors have a good understanding of this anthropology. They use the character of Satan to describe this pattern of relating. Satan is the accuser. He is the personification of the false accusation and violence directed at the vulnerable. Adam and Eve and all their descendants follow this pattern. The New Testament authors tell us this way of relating is unsustainable — humanity as we know it is going extinct.
- The good news is that God is creating a new humanity. Just like last time we evolved, our method of cooperation is getting an upgrade. The new humanity will cooperate based on servant leadership and self-giving love, instead of social institutions. This is the pattern that Jesus followed. He did not take on the coercive power of institutions. Instead he loved his enemies until death. This is the pattern of relating for the new humanity. To describe it, the New Testament authors use the word Greek work Parakletos, which means lawyer for the defense.
- To understand the origin of the first and second Adam the main thing you need to know what makes them unique. Once you understand this, it isn’t hard to see how the first Adam emerged from the animal kingdom and how the second Adam is emerging from the collapsing Homo sapien species.
- The evidence for the emergence of the second Adam is all around. People relating in the new way are living among us right now. That being said, the evidence is also easy to overlook. In fact, our evolutionary path has trained us to look the other way. But regardless of whether we pay attention to it or not, evolution continues to move forward. We all have the opportunity to become early adopters. I hope you will join.
<<< Closing Music >>>
Trailer for the next episode
[30:48] In the next episode we will talk about how Jesus is the answer to climate change. At first this seems like an outrageous claim. Isn’t the solution to climate change all about science and technology? The reality is we have plenty of great science telling us what the problem is and the kinds of things we need do to address it. Unfortunately, we are unable to implement these solutions due to limitations in our cooperation skills. To get over this hump we need to upgrade to these skills. Fortunately, this is exactly what Jesus was talking about. Please join me for the next episode!
Also available in other podcast directories
[1] https://bibleproject.com/podcast/torah-crash-course-part-1/
[2] The exact timing of this ‘cognitive revolution’ and the genealogy of the species that preceded us are less important to me than the fact that it obviously happened. Homo sapiens today obviously do cooperate based on social institutions and this is obviously different than the animal methods I described. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Homo sapiens emerged 315,000 years ago. (https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution) Presumably they would not have had these skills at that point. When the skills did emerge it likely would have been very slow at first but, obviously, it has accelerated in the past 10,000 years. Given the uniqueness of this method of cooperating and the ecological impact it has had, the cognitive revolution seems like the most remarkable evolutionary step that our ancestors have taken, and therefore, I focus on it in this podcast.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice_in_pre-Columbian_cultures
[4] https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/parakletos.html
