{"id":9760,"date":"2025-11-22T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9760"},"modified":"2025-05-24T17:03:37","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T17:03:37","slug":"looking-at-dennis-venema-and-scot-mcknights-book-2017-adam-and-the-genome-part-6-of-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9760","title":{"rendered":"Looking at Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight\u2019s Book (2017) &#8220;Adam and the Genome&#8221; (Part 6 of 22)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>0051 I continue to roll with Venema\u2019s text.&nbsp;&nbsp;I\u2019m ignoring the niche.&nbsp;&nbsp;Rather, I am simply assuming that a niche is operating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In chapter 3, Venema convincingly lowers the curtain on&nbsp;<em>Augustine\u2019s concept that Adam and Eve are the biological ancestors of all humans<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;He does so on&nbsp;<em>the basis of DNA alone<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0052 DNA \u201cremembers\u201d, but not completely.&nbsp;&nbsp;Insertions, deletions and substitutions sometimes occur as DNA is copied.&nbsp;&nbsp;DNA is copied whenever a cell divides.&nbsp;&nbsp;Chromosomal pairs are sorted into single chromosomes when a sperm or egg is formed.&nbsp;&nbsp;Sperm and egg are united in the formation of a fertilized egg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What does this imply?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The range of variation within the DNA of a species<\/em>&nbsp;reflects&nbsp;<em>the size of the breeding population<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;If&nbsp;<em>a breeding population<\/em>passes through&nbsp;<em>a severe bottleneck,<\/em>&nbsp;then the result would be&nbsp;<em>less variability in DNA in subsequent generations<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0053 Venema shows that, for human DNA, the breeding populations never fell below several thousand.&nbsp;&nbsp;If they had, human DNA (at present) would show the typical pattern of a genetic bottleneck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If that is not enough, during the Paleolithic, anatomically modern humans engaged in hanky-panky with two closely related species,&nbsp;<em>the Neanderthal and the Denisovan<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0054 How else to explain&nbsp;<em>the appearance of their DNA<\/em>&nbsp;in some human subpopulations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0055 Venema forecloses on&nbsp;<em>the historical Adam imagined by Saint Augustine,<\/em>&nbsp;where Original Sin passes from one generation to the next, through that hanky-panky business mentioned above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0056 If there is&nbsp;<em>a historical Adam and Eve,<\/em>&nbsp;they are not&nbsp;<em>the parents of all anatomically humans, living during the Paleolithic, over 50,000 years ago<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>0051 I continue to roll with Venema\u2019s text.&nbsp;&nbsp;I\u2019m ignoring the niche.&nbsp;&nbsp;Rather, I am simply assuming that a niche is operating. In chapter 3, Venema convincingly lowers the curtain on&nbsp;Augustine\u2019s concept that Adam and Eve are the biological ancestors of all humans.&nbsp;&nbsp;He does so on&nbsp;the basis of DNA alone. 0052 DNA \u201cremembers\u201d, but not completely.&nbsp;&nbsp;Insertions, deletions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[417],"tags":[581],"class_list":["post-9760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-historical-adam"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Looking at Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight\u2019s Book (2017) &quot;Adam and the Genome&quot; (Part 6 of 22) - An Archaeology of the Fall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9760\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Looking at Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight\u2019s Book (2017) &quot;Adam and the Genome&quot; (Part 6 of 22) - An Archaeology of the Fall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"0051 I continue to roll with Venema\u2019s text.&nbsp;&nbsp;I\u2019m ignoring the niche.&nbsp;&nbsp;Rather, I am simply assuming that a niche is operating. 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