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My HT & I have been talking about FH & how the number of our ancestors compounds over time. For example:
– Our parents = (2)
– Our GPs = (4)
– Our GGPs = (
– Our 2nd GGps = (16)
– etc.
The point was, if you go back 25 generations, you have almost 17,000,000 people.
This is direct line grand parents & not extended family. (Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, etc)
My question was: how to you get back in time to (2) specific people: Adam & Eve?
The one conclusion we came up with is: Adam & Eve are (2) people at a specific point in time.
I know this is not a deep thought or conclusion. It is just a discussion between (2) people, at this point.
Today he sent me this article about the impact of polygamy, genetic & social problems that are being studied.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170726-the-polygamous-town-facing-genetic-disaster FWIW- I found it interesting.
When you look at one individual, it does seem that the population grows as you go backward in time. Yet, we know that there were fewer people in the past. For example the US in 1776 had about 2.5M people. In fact, side note, the colonies, which produced a lot of people of consequence, like John Adams, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson had about the same number of people as live in modern day Idaho plus South Dakota. But, at some point in the past, whether it was Adam and Eve or a cave-couple named Og and Gog, we have a very small number of common ancestors, and both our Mom and Dad could trace their lines back to them, if we had the records. And each of our GPs could as well, and so could all of our G-GPs, etc. If you go back to the 1400’s and beyond, you will likely start to see people that appear in your lines in multiple places, and those will start to be more common as you go back farther. You mentioned that if you went back 25 generations (counting yourself), there would be about 170M people. Let’s keep exploring that. If you say that a generation is about 25 years, then it would take 80 generations to get back to the time of Jesus. But if we assume we have an entirely unique set of ancestors going back that far, with no overlap or doubling up, then that would mean that a child born today would have 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 unique ancestors living when Jesus was born.
Let the jokes begin but my grandparents were related. Not closely but when we did their work we found that they had a common ancestor about 4 or 5 generations deep (from them, not me). I bet that sort of thing was fairly common before there were things like cars and planes to whisk us away to different gene pools.
nibbler, I recently found out that my Wife & I are 16th cousins. Our common ancestor was born in Sharon VT. Before the Smith’s arrived in the community. The 2nd part of this post is the genetic pool that comes from generations of individuals created by 2 people. Wouldn’t we see
more genetic defects in the current generation? Or maybe we are?
I know this is a non-issue for so many, but for me Adam and Eve was a big shelf item. There is no way the entirety of the human race descends from one common set of ancestors 6000 years ago. And even if you extend the time frame to allow for 100’s of thousands of years of evolution, there’s still no common ancestor. This is speaking strictly from the evidence of the diversity of the human genome. The reality is that humans evolved in a parallel fashion in many parts of the world simultaneously. No common ancestor, according to the scientific data. I never liked the explanation/theory of “pre-adamites” without spirits and then spirits being given to Adam and Eve when mankind was found on the earth. This still doesn’t avoid the data that says the diversity present in humans throughout the world points to a long line of evolution going back 100’s of thousands of years. A common ancestor 6-10 thousand years ago precludes that amount of diversity.
So again, no common ancestor. No literal Adam and Eve. For many, this would be no big deal either way. But for me, it was because of the emphasis the church places on the Adam and Eve story, especially in the temple. The church treats the Adam and Eve narrative so literally. It was a hard issue for me to work through.
Sorry to sidetrack this thread, but this is what comes out of me whenever I think about Adam and Eve.
And if you try to make this a math problem, that ignores massive deaths that happen. If you just go look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemicshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics” class=”bbcode_url”> you will see even way back in the “pre-1500’s” sections there are some that are epidemics that took up to 60% of the population. That messes with the math problem. And throw in wars and it is just hard to solve via a spreadsheet.
On a related note, try relativefinder.org. It’s a site where you can login with your familysearch login and find out if you’re related to someone else. My wife and I found out we’re 5th cousins 6 times removed (incest!). It will also tell you famous people in and out of the church you are related to. Kind of fun to check out. I, too, don’t buy into a literal Adam and Eve fathering the entire human race. There is too much evidence against it, IMHO. It was great, taking Evolutionary Biology. Once you get into the deeper courses, all professors start with the general statement from the FP, stating “Adam and Eve where the first of our race”, and then admitting that most of the details are unknown. And with that little disclaimer, they were able to dive deep into evolution, including human evolution, and all the pre-man species we’re related to. There used to be some pretty sentient non-humans out there; ones with religion, burial rites, who took care of their sick and injured, and held with their children as they walked from place to place. There is too much out there, for the simple human species to be the center of all of existance. But I digress… Interesting fact: 8% of all humans who have ever walked the earth in the past 100,000 years are alive today. Really throws a kink in the whole “chosen generation” theory.
DT, my wife is a geneology nut. Right after we got engaged, she took one look at my geneology chart and knew exactly how we were related. We’re 4th cousins.
:wtf: I don’t buy the one pair of common ancestor thing either. Genetically it makes no sense to me. Hence, I don’t believe in literal Adam and Eve as two people, but perhaps as representative human beings in general. The endowment used to include an explicit statement that the creation narrative regarding the man and the woman was figurative. I think it was removed due to a lot of literalist members not being able to handle it, but it was there for quite a few years.
I wanted to find the reference for what Ray mentioned. For anyone who is wondering, the text in earlier versions of the endowment, which points to a figurative and not a literal creation of Adam and Eve, states: Quote:“This, however, is merely figurative, so far as the man and the woman are concerned.”
Thanks for sharing, Ray.
There are several points that come to mind for me whenever there is a discussion like this. They are:
– We come from a very long line of family. Over many generations & thousands & thousands of years.
The number wasn’t the point. The mathematical principle of compounding numbers & time surprises me.
– We are ALL connected or related at some level over time.
Either by blood or adoption. People marry & are adopted (hopefully) as a full member into the next tribe.
– We have within our history and DNA a lot of Saints & Sinners. Plus, many in between.
– For me, it isn’t important if Adam & Eve were real persons.
Because of this (goofy) exercise or fixation, I think of my wife & I as a type of Adam & Eve. Looking forward at
this stage of life & seeing our family stretching into the future over time. I never considered this vantage
point before. Especially in my youth. The Temple ceremony will have a different impact from now on too.
– Inbreeding is a DNR disaster waiting to happen. Maybe that is one of the reasons we emphasize missionary
work so much. Missionary work brings in more ideas, beliefs & possibilities. We need more diversity in our DNA,
our belief system & in our Church.
I’ve been on this site for awhile now. It’s probably time to move on. I thank everyone for helping me along the
way. For those of you just joining us, welcome. This may feel like a painful process. Embrace the pain & move
forward. It has been a wonderful adventure for me so far. For anyone I’ve offended. I’m sorry.
My only regret is we don’t get to talk to each other face to face. If you ever get to Milwaukee WI, send by a PM
message. Dinner’s on me.
We all are Adams and Eves. What a wonderful conclusion.
So Mormon – in a great way.
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