The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: Should Eve Have Been Surprised to Hear the Serpent Speak?

"For many modern readers of the Bible, perhaps the most surprising feature of Genesis 3 is the talking serpent. This is partly because of the naturalistic worldview by which they interpret the text. 

Q: But would a talking serpent have surprised Eve? 

A: Some believe Eve’s lack of surprise is an indication that the

serpent itself had the ability to speak. However, Genesis 3 gives no specific explanation for the serpent’s ability to speak, other than it was “crafty.” There is no clear indication in the early chapters of Genesis that animals had the ability to speak. While some animals today can mimic human speech (African grey parrots; beluga and orca whales), there is no animal that can speak in the sense of creating complex abstract language.

Q: Why is it that man can speak but animals cannot? 

A: In creation week, God not only spoke creation into existence but He spoke to Adam and Eve who were made in his image (Genesis 1:26–27, 2:16–17). 

As an image bearer of God, Adam had the ability to speak; he named the animals and thereby exercised his dominion over them (Genesis 2:20). In naming the animals, Adam showed how different he was from them as the animals could not name themselves. This is because animals were not made in the image of God, and unlike Adam, they did not have the ability to speak. 

This is why Old Testament scholar E. J. Young states,

"The actions of the serpent, however, constitute a denial that God has made him. The serpent speaks; it does what animals cannot do. Only man, of earthly creatures, possesses the ability to speak. Yet the serpent acts as a man; it raises itself above the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made and it elevates itself to an equality with man. There is something wrong and Eve should have recognized this as soon as the serpent began to speak."

The very clear distinction between man and the animals shows that a speaking serpent is strange in the context of the creation account. The Bible doesn’t say how Eve reacted when she heard the serpent, but to us, it’s a signal that something strange is going on. And the fact that the serpent immediately attacks God’s Word tells us that Satan is behind the serpent’s speech." 

AIG

Creation Moment 12/10/2025 - A "finely tuned biological dance"

"Little by little, piece by piece, man’s knowledge of the internal workings of plants is growing—akin to the putting together of a large jigsaw puzzle. And speaking of jigsaw puzzles, plants actually manufacture their own—in the leaves. All pavement cells in the leaf epidermis “grow into interlocking patterns resembling jigsaw puzzle pieces.”

Researchers have now identified some of the molecular processes

regulating cell growth so as to form the jigsaw pattern “in a controlled and ordered way”. A group of enzymes known as GTPases (guanosine triphosphatases) play a key role in “a complicated and coordinated series” of chemical interactions. 

In simple terms, these proteins tell one part of a cell to grow outward to form a ‘lobe’ while correspondingly telling the neighboring cell at that point to recede or indent itself so as to form a ‘neck’ that interlocks perfectly.

Controlled, ordered, complicated, coordinated. While there’s still much more to learn about how construction of the jigsaw pattern can be coordinated in such an orderly manner, what is already known about the phenomenon has been described as “a finely tuned biological dance”.

This is not the only time that scientists have referred to the workings of plants in such terms. For instance, when they discovered roots grow in rhythmic pulses, one researcher said, “Everything’s coordinated. It’s like a dance,” with the “entire complicated ballet” repeating every three minutes.

Of course, such finely-tuned, coordinated ‘dances’ don’t fit the no-Designer-was-necessary evolutionary storyline so often paraded today. 

Rather, a very different ‘big picture’ emerges, for those with eyes to see. 

Orderliness, where every piece of the puzzle fits in perfect and strengthening juxtaposition with its neighbors, cannot arise by itself from disorder, but only by design. 

And contrary to atheistic scoffing, recognizing God as Creator gives

more impetus and motivation for undertaking scientific research, not less. 

Q: For who would not want to explore and admire the intricacies performed by the Hand of the Master Designer? As the Psalmist wrote, “Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them” (Psalm 111:2)." 

CMI

The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: Who Is the Serpent?

"Genesis 3:1 states, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”?’” 

Instead of identifying the serpent, Moses tells us two things about him: (1) he is crafty; (2) he is a beast (animal) made by the Lord God.

The serpent is compared to one of the beasts of the field that the Lord God had made (Genesis 1:25, 2:19), so he is identified as being part of the animal kingdom. 

The serpent was a part of God’s “very good” creation (Genesis 1:31). Yet the serpent is described as “crafty.” 

The Hebrew word here (ʿārûm) is an ambiguous term because it can

have a positive meaning “prudent” (Proverbs 12:16, 23, 13:16, 14:8) but it can also have a negative meaning “crafty” (Job 5:12, 15:5). The negative meaning “crafty” fits the context of Genesis 3 as the serpent’s speech distorts the Word of God (Genesis 3:1–5; 2:16–17). The description of the serpent as “crafty” (ʿārûm) is also a play on the word “naked” (ʿārôm) in Genesis 2:25: Adam and Eve are “nude,” but the serpent is “shrewd.” The serpent’s shrewdness causes Adam and Eve to experience the shame of their nakedness (Genesis 3:7).

Q: Does the fact that the serpent can speak mean he is a mythological creature? 

A: No, the garden in Eden is not the magical land of Narnia. The garden in Eden is a part of God’s very good creation that had real trees with real fruit, a real river, real animals, and real people (see Genesis 2:4–25). Moreover, the New Testament always treats Genesis 3 as real history (1 Timothy 2:13–14; 2 Corinthians 11:3).

Q: How then should we understand the talking serpent? 

A: The only other time in the Bible when an animal speaks is in the account of Balaam’s donkey (Numbers 22:28). 

In that account, God opens the mouth of the donkey so it can speak. Moses was not trying to depict a world in which animals can speak but was describing what was in fact a supernatural act. 

*So the only other example of a talking animal in Scripture implies that it was through supernatural intervention. 

*The fact that the serpent’s speech directly distorts God’s Word and calls into question the trustworthiness of his character suggests there is an evil force behind the serpent (John 8:44).

Although Genesis never calls the serpent Satan, in the progression of revelation the New Testament states that the serpent was Satan (Revelation 12:9, 20:2; 2 Corinthians 11:3, 14).

The serpent was not acting on its own but was in fact used by Satan to be his mouthpiece in the temptation of Eve. This is why both the serpent and Satan are judged by God for their part in the fall of mankind." 

AIG

Creation Moment 12/9/2025 - Gravity: the DESIGNERS tool

And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.
Colossians 1:17

"We enjoy the warmth of sunshine on a beautiful fall day, or the red, orange, and yellow leaves adorning the trees, or the silver light of the moon in its various phases. These, and almost every manifestation of physical nature and life, form a tapestry that sustains and nurtures our souls. The plot thickens, however, when we examine the underlying forces between particles that cumulatively shape all that we see and experience.

If we think of gravity, we often relate it to the weight of something

— more gravity, more weight. Maybe we’ve seen videos of astronauts on the moon, as if they’re walking in slow motion or under water. These effects come from the moon’s surface gravity being about six times less than Earth’s. 

Q: What causes this? 

A: Apparently not just the mass of the moon, since its mass is about 81 times less than the mass of the Earth.

Sir Isaac Newton discerned the correct relationship for the force of gravity — not only is it proportional to the masses of the attracting objects, but it’s inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The moon is only about 27 percent of the size (radius) of the Earth, so an astronaut standing on the surface of the moon is nearly four times closer to its center than if the astronaut was standing on Earth. Put it all together, and according to Newton’s law of gravity, the weight of the astronaut on the moon is (1/81)/(0.27)2=1/5.9 (or about one sixth) of their weight on Earth.

Einstein’s theory of general relativity extends our understanding of gravity beyond Newton’s classical theory and introduces us to some of the most bizarre physical effects in the universe. General relativity shows that mass (and even the mass-equivalent of energy) bends space itself, so that light rays following the curvature of space can deviate from a straight line and can even undergo “gravitational lensing.”

Perhaps even more unbelievable is the effect of gravity on time. Einstein’s theory shows that time slows down in a stronger

gravitational field — an effect that manifests in our GPS systems and must be compensated for to allow the positioning satellites to accurately track your position when driving. To appreciate the degree of fine-tuning in this figure, imagine that someone calculated that the universe couldn’t support any life if it was just one second older or younger than it presently is. This would give a fine-tuning in age of one part in 10 to the 17th. The fine-tuning of gravity is ten million times a trillion, trillion, trillion times more delicately tuned than that!

As a force of nature, gravity is the ultimate weakling. Astrophysicists have calculated that the extreme weakness of gravity compared to the electromagnetic force (to the tune of about a trillion times a trillion times a trillion times weaker) is necessary for the gravity-pressure balancing act to make a star like our sun shine and support life on a planet like Earth. To get a stable stellar balance at all requires fine tuning the ratio of the strengths of these forces to one part in 10 to the power of 35.

However, in determining the livability of an atmosphere, a balance must exist between the loss rates of gases that are favorable for life and those that are not. For example, consider methane, ammonia, and water vapor, with nominal molecular weights of 16, 17, and 18, respectively. The average velocity of an atmospheric molecule is inversely proportional to the square root of its molecular weight, and so it’s more likely that methane and ammonia would escape into space over time than would water vapor. 

If gravity were slightly different, our atmosphere could either see a build-up of these unhealthy gases over time, or a higher loss rate of essential water vapor.

Life requires a number of different constants to be related to each

other in unusual and precise ways….Sure, there are many dials. But there are also many requirements for life. Adding more dials opens up more space, but most of this space is dead.
Without gravity, life would be nonexistent in our universe, and the more in-depth we study the effects of gravity, the more evidence we find for its remarkably finely tuned properties to support life."
Science&CultureToday

IN the NEWS - Talk of an AI Christ

Q: What if?....what IF AI impersonated Christ and gained billions of followers? This is SCARY stuff.....
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1

"The A in AI could stand for “Almighty”, according to a theory put forward by Joe Rogan about what form Jesus Christ could take if he were to return.

Interviewed on the American Alchemy podcast, Rogan gave his views on aliens, the future and artificial intelligence.
Rogan suggested Jesus could come back thanks to technology, telling the host Jesse Michels, “Jesus was born out of a virgin mother, what’s more virgin than a computer?”
He said that if there was a “loving powerful” person who can show people how to live, who better than artificial intelligence to do that?

Rogan said that Jesus can return “with all the powers of Jesus,” such as the ability to perform miracles." 

Newsweek

On the Streets of Babylon: Transitioning taking place on the Streets

Babylon is fallen, is fallen,..
Come out of her, My people,
Revelation 14:8/18:4

There seems to be some "Transitioning"  taking place on the Streets of Babylon....

"A New York pastor surprised churchgoers with the revelation that he

is transitioning into a woman and will now use she/her pronouns.
Phil Phaneuf, a 51 year old man, told his congregation at North Chili United Methodist Church (UMC) during Sun-day service that he has been undergoing a gender transition.
'I get to announce with joy that I am transitioning. I am affirming and saying to all of you that I am transgender,' the veteran pastor, wearing a rainbow stole, declared this past Sun-day.
Phaneuf, who told listeners that his new name will be Phillippa Faye Phaneuf, said he will continue to go by 'Reverend Phil.'" Fulcrum7

IN the NEWS - CANADA: Codified Disdain of God

But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. Luke 19:14

"Even though the Canadian Charter explicitly guarantees “freedom of conscience and religion,” Ontario doctors with a religious objection to committing euthanasia or abortion were denied conscience

protections by courts, thereby requiring them to kill or refer to a doctor they know will kill (“effective referral”) or face professional discipline. The judge ruled that if they didn’t like it, they should get out of medicine.

In Quebec, public religious practice is in danger of being further suppressed than it already is. The province previously banned the wearing of religious symbols by public sector employees. Now, the ruling government wants to curtail religious practices more broadly and has filed Bill 9, “An Act Respecting the Reinforcement of Laicity in Québec,” toward attaining that end.

Among its provisions, the bill would ban group prayer in public places like parks:

"No public road, within the meaning of the third paragraph of section 66 of the Municipal Powers Act (chapter C-47.1), or public park may be used for the purposes of collective religious practice unless a municipality authorizes, exceptionally and on a case-by-case basis, such a use in its public domain by resolution of the municipal council."

Another aspect of the bill would ban the accreditation of religious schools and repeal existing accreditations:

"No accreditation may be granted to an institution whose provision of educational services prescribed in the basic school regulation during the hours of activities devoted to those services, or whose provision of childcare services, is based on religious standards or precepts, on the transmission of religious convictions or beliefs, or on religious practice, or to an institution that practices segregation, in particular on the basis of religious criteria, in the selection of students or of personnel members."

An accreditation may be revoked under section 123 for failure to comply with the conditions set out in the first paragraph.

It even bans the use of religious symbols in communications:

"No institution or body referred to in section 3 may prominently display a representation of a religious symbol in its communications, unless that religious symbol is an integral part of the logo or coat of arms used by the institution or body on (insert the date preceding the date of introduction of this bill)."

Science&Culture

Papal Notes - Lebanon bends the knee

"When you listen carefully to the statements made by Lebanon’s leaders during the Pope’s visit, it becomes clear that people are misplacing their hope. 

Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai openly said that the nation is depending on the Pope’s visit to “turn the page” and bring “hope and peace.” 

His words present the Pontiff as the key figure capable of renewing the country, healing divisions, and guiding Lebanon through its “very, very critical moment.”
In Lebanon, many are looking to the Pope as their source of hope, believing that his visit can bring change and a fresh start for their troubled nation. These leaders describe his presence as the key to “opening a new page,” revealing a growing dependence on Rome and its leader as the answer to Lebanon’s crisis, rather than looking to Christ—the only true source of lasting peace, hope, and restoration.
The Bible consistently warns that ultimate hope cannot be found in

man: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man” (Jeremiah 17:5). 
Revelation 13, 17, and 18 reveal that the world will increasingly turn to the Papal system as the center for global unity, peace, and healing. Lebanon’s longing for the Pope to bring renewal and transformation is a small but significant example of this global trend." 

AdventMessenger

Creation Moment 12/8/2025 - DESIGN or Lady Luck?

Even every one that is called by My name: 

for I have created him for My glory, 

I have formed him;

 yea, I have made him. 

Isaiah 43:7

"Humans have long been drawn to tessellated patterns: “repeated pattern of geometric, discrete elements bound by a joint material.” A brick wall bound by mortar is a simple example; tiles and mosaics are more sophisticated. Artists have incorporated tiles into their creations.

In their paper, “Tiled material systems: Exploring biodiversity and multifunctionality of a universal and structural motif,” Jana Ciecierska-Holmes et al. asked why functional needs of organisms would result in repeating patterns that humans find beautiful.

"Humans are drawn to patterns and hierarchies in nature, mimicking them particularly in decoration and architecture. Natural patterns, however, are never purely esthetic and, since evolution works on a variety of factors simultaneously, natural structural systems are intrinsically multifunctional. In order to understand the roles that structural patterns play in biology (and therefore their potential capabilities and utilization in design, architecture and engineering),

we need to catalog and encapsulate the diversity of examples and the materials involved. Here, we provide a first classification of biological “tilings,” tessellated natural architectures that involve the repeated pattern of geometric, discrete elements bound by a joint material. By examining 100 examples across the Tree of Life, we reveal this natural structural motif is unexpectedly prevalent: we cover a huge taxonomic diversity, eight orders of magnitude in size scale, and myriad morphologies and functions ranging from optics to armor, allowing us to construct a hierarchical system of eight variables to classify form, function, and materiality in biological tilings."

From their investigation of these 100 examples, they created a database “as a multidisciplinary meeting point (e.g. for biologists, designers, engineers, architects)” that could be used “exploring selective pressures and trade-offs and a launchpad for future research and collaborative, cross-disciplinary, bioinspired projects.” 

Q: How does their project impinge on questions of Darwinism vs. design? 

Q: Is there any conceivable “selective pressure” for tiled patterns?

Q: And wouldn’t consideration of trade-offs presuppose the foresight to choose the best set of options?

From well-known examples, we can evaluate potential functional benefits of tessellation that — for whatever reason — we humans find attractive. Beehive hexagons (made by bees but external to their bodies) are stackable, using the least amount of beeswax and the greatest area. Some butterfly scales produce optical effects for mimicry or mate attraction. The overlapping scales on armadillos and some reptiles and arthropods maintain mobility for the animal while shielding the interior. The possible functions of biological tiles are listed in the database:Structural support

Shielding

Surface interaction (adhesion, grip)

Sensing

Separation (regulating inside/outside flux)

Mobility (e.g., armored animals that roll)

Optic (e.g., structural color)

It should be noted that function and beauty are not mutually exclusive. Human architectural projects, including concert halls, bridges, and art galleries often exhibit both.
A functional advantage does not confer upon an organism the desire or power to innovate a solution providing the advantage. Darwinian innovations, remember, are based on chance variations, not foresight. In his new book False Messiah, Neil Thomas discusses at length how Darwin’s chance-based theory deified “Mother Nature” as Lady Luck with imagined causal powers to engineer any advantageous variation."
David Coppedge

The first 4 Commandments and the Mark of the Beast

The Mark of the Beast controversy assaults the first 4 on the table  of God's Commandments:

1) Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3

It replaces via worship as God with the "Beast".

2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any

likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; Exodus 20:4,5

It replaces the worship of God with an "Image" to the Beast.

3) Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Exodus 20:7

It blasphemes the name of God by taking the place of God in adoration, veneration and worship.

4) Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou

labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work....For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Exodus 20:8-11

It replaces God's Holy Sabbath Day (seal) with it's own counterfeit (mark).....the 7th day Sabbath is the Seal that identifies God as CREATOR---therefore He alone is God.

Creation Moment 12/7/2025 - The "Soul": "get out of the materialist paradigm"

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7

"Last Wednesday, COSM 2025 featured a most interesting panel discussion between neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and historian of scinece Michael Shermer.

The question was, “Does neuroscience show that we are mere biological machines?”

Shermer, executive director of the Skeptics Society, takes the view:

"Humans are biological machines that evolved from previous

biological machines going back billions of years. Mind, sentience, consciousness, intelligence, and free will evolved gradually, elements of which can be found in our ancestors and related contemporaries such as non-human great apes and cetaceans. There is no reason to believe that at some point in the evolutionary process an Intelligent Designer or Deity intervened to direct natural selection in a particular direction. Humans no more have souls than do chimps, gorillas, whales, or my Chocolate lab Hitch."

A key element of his critique is that the soul is not really a good explanation for our human reality.

"How does an immaterial soul register light and sound or move the muscles of the vocal tract, respond to psychoactive drugs. If a soul can animate the body without a brain, what do you need the brain for in the first place? If we can reason and have free will without a brain, then why bother with the brain and body? Why not just be a soul?"

Here’s one general comment Egnor made in response, stressing the non-locality of the soul:

"There’s no from [for the soul], it’s not a location. They are abilities that we have that are not material. “From” implies a location which implies matter. You need to get out of the materialist paradigm. The problem is, if the way you think about the world is a materialist, you try to cram the evidence into this artificial box."

Denyse O’Leary

Hospital of the Cross

Ask, and it shall be given you. 

Matthew 7:7

"He has built a St. Cross Hospital, so that whenever a sinner is hungry, he has but to knock and have his wants supplied. 

Nay, He has done better; He has attached to this Hospital of the Cross a bath; and whenever a soul is black and filthy, it has but to go there and be washed. 

No sinner ever went into it and found that it could

 not wash away his stains. 

Sins which were scarlet and crimson have all disappeared,

 and the sinner has been whiter than snow.

As if this were not enough, there is attached to this Hospital of the Cross a wardrobe, and a sinner making application simply as a sinner, may be clothed from head to foot.

If all these things are to be had by merely knocking at mercy's door, O my soul, knock hard this morning, and ask large things of thy generous Lord. 

Leave not the throne of grace till all thy wants have been spread before the Lord, and until by faith thou hast a comfortable prospect that they shall be all supplied. No bashfulness need retard when Jesus invites." 

Charles Spurgeon

Creation Moment 12/6/2025 - The unproven and unscientific foundation of Evolution

For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Romans 1:20

"Our entire intellectual culture is built on the unproven and unscientific foundation (assumption) of evolution. 

Evolution in turn rests on three basic claims:

--Life arose from chemicals by blind random processes.

--The raw material for evolution is random mutations. (Random mutations supply the necessary variation.)
--Natural selection propels the evolution of all organisms by selecting mutations that provide a survival advantage for the organism. Although natural selection, Darwin’s own proposed mechanism, may be able to explain the conservation and fine-tuning of existing traits, it cannot account for what is commonly called macroevolution. The postulated source of evolutionary variation is mutations, but since >99 % of mutations are neutral or harmful, each generation accumulates more genetic damage than it removes—an unsustainable trend that modern genomics confirms.

*Another major problem for evolution is that life was designed to not evolve—to resist evolutionary change rather than to embrace it.

The main proposed source of genetic variety is mutations, which provide genetic variety that, in turn, allows improved survivability.

Yet cells invest enormous resources in preventing and correcting precisely those mutations. In humans alone, more than a dozen highly sophisticated DNA-repair pathways—mismatch repair, base-excision repair, nucleotide-excision repair, homologous recombination, non-homologous end-joining, etc.—detect and correct well over 99.9 % of the spontaneous base changes and damage events that occur every cell cycle." 

CEH

SDA Issues: Biblical Proof for our Interpretation of Daniel 8:14

"The “mystery of God” is to be finished (Revelation 10:7), or as it is

put in the book of Daniel, there is to be…
Daniel 9
24 …an end of sin, and bringing in everlasting righteousness.
The longest time prophecy in the Bible, the 2300 days (years) of Daniel 8:14, pointed to time when the work began in heaven whereby Christ would prepare His people for His kingdom and soon return." J.N. Andrews

Papal Notes - Pope Leo Calls for Full Communion Among All Believers

"In his recent appeal, Pope Leo XVI calls for full communion
among all religions and for the rejection of all forms of “fundamentalism.” 

At first glance, this may sound like a simple invitation to global unity—but it isn’t. His own words make it clear that there will be no room for those who stand firmly on Scripture or who proclaim the distinct end-time warnings of Revelation 13 and 14.
Vatican released the following statement from Pope Leo XIV:
• “The more we are reconciled, the more we Christians can bear credible witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is a proclamation of hope for all. Moreover, it is a message of peace and universal fraternity that transcends the boundaries of our communities and nations.”

• “There is a universal fraternity of men and women regardless of ethnicity, nationality, religion or personal perspectives.”
• “Furthermore, we must strongly reject the use of religion for justifying war, violence, or any form of fundamentalism or fanaticism. Instead, the paths to follow are those of fraternal encounter, dialogue and cooperation.”
The Vatican defines unity in terms of universal fraternity, not in terms of Biblical truth.
The “fraternity” Pope Leo XIV promotes is not grounded in the commandments of God or in the faith of Jesus (Revelation 14:12), but in the deliberate setting aside of doctrinal differences so Christianity can speak with a single, ecumenical voice. " AdventMessenger

Creation Moment 12/5/2025 - Designed Diversity Model

And Adam called his wife's name Eve; 

because she was the mother of all living. 

Genesis 3:20

"The attack on the historicity of Adam and Eve began long ago (VanDoodewaard 2015; Carter 2015) and has increasingly been coming from within the church (Venema and McKnight 2017; Carter 2017). 

Many theistic evolutionists are aggressively advancing the argument

that Adam and Eve never existed, and so they must be either mythical or allegorical (Faulk 2004). 

They typically assert that there was no miraculous creation, no Edenic state, and no literal Fall. 

Perhaps the most popular science-based argument against a literal Adam and Eve is the claim that it would be impossible for just two people to give rise to all the genetic diversity we see in the human population today. Some theistic evolutionists have been aggressively promoting this claim (e.g., Venema 2010; Venema and McKnight 2017). 

On various forums and blogs, some are even claiming they can prove the human population has never been less than several thousand individuals, or that that human allele frequency distributions are proof against a literal Adam and Eve (e.g., Shaffner 2017a, 2017b).

Interestingly, other evolutionists caution that allele frequency analysis does not justify making dogmatic historical inferences (Myers, Fefferman, and Patterson 2008; Terhorst and Song 2015; Harpak, Bhasker, and Pritchard 2016; Baharian and Gravel 2018). This does not mean that allele frequency data are useless, however, only that one must be cautious when trying to derive historical models from them. 

We have been exploring the concept that Adam and Eve might have been created in a heterozygous state for more than a decade. We call this the Designed Diversity Model. 

Our 2005 version of the numerical simulation program Mendel’s Accountant (hereafter “Mendel”) included an “initial contrasting alleles” (ICA) option that was intended to enable the study of created diversity in a human population. At that time, we understood that the first human couple could have been designed with millions of variable genetic sites.

The Designed Diversity Model requires an expanded vocabulary. Traditionally it has been assumed that genetic variation only comes from mutations, giving rise to mutational variants (“mutational alleles”). However, given a miraculous creation, there could be a very different class of created variants (“designed alleles”). Mutational alleles and designed alleles would be different in several important respects. 

Mutational alleles need time to accumulate, 

while designed alleles can exist from the beginning. 

Mutational alleles are essentially random typographical errors in the genome and so are typically harmful, while designed alleles would logically be created to be beneficial. 

While mutational alleles always arise in a population as a single isolated copy, designed alleles would logically be created at higher frequencies.

It is widely understood that a mutational allele arises as a single copy – which is, therefore, on the verge of its own extinction. 

When a new mutation enters a population, its frequency is just one copy in a population of 2n (with n being the population’s size). Therefore, most mutational alleles are rapidly lost due to genetic drift within just a few generations (Rupe and Sanford 2013). 

While mutational alleles are typically very rare, designed alleles would typically be expected to be abundant, in accord with the nature of their function, and in accord with their initially designed frequencies. 

The smallest possible unit of genetic variation involves a single letter difference in the genome. Population geneticists call these single nucleotide variants (SNVs). 

If the minor allele is found at a frequency greater than 1%, such a variant allele is also called a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). For simplicity, and in keeping with the final report from the 1000 Genomes Project (1000 Genomes 2015), we will use the term “SNP” for all single nucleotide variations, regardless of their allelic frequency. 

The 1000 Genomes Project detected 84 million SNPs within the human population (1000 Genomes 2015). The vast majority of these are very rare alleles (about 64 million of the observed SNPs had allele frequencies of less than 0.5%). However, this is still a serious underestimate of how many rare human alleles exist. 

Given our current population size and mutation rate, every nucleotide site in the human genome should mutate many times every generation somewhere on this planet. Therefore, the number of

existing SNPs should be roughly the size of the genome (3 billion). But most of these variants are so rare that they are not detectable, due to limited sampling size. Most rare human alleles are unique to a single people group or sub-population. This indicates that most of these rare variants have arisen via mutation in the relatively recent past. We have previously proposed that, excluding rare alleles, a large fraction of currently observed human genetic diversity might have arisen from designed genetic variants that were built into Adam and Eve when they were first created (Sanford and Carter 2015a, 2015b). The latest analysis of the human genome (1000 Genomes 2015), indicates that there are only 8 million SNPs with allele frequencies of 5% or more. 

Hypothetically, most of these common alleles could be designed alleles. The average person living today carries 4–5 million SNP alleles (Levy et al. 2007). Therefore, a single human today accounts for a large fraction (approximately 30%) of all common genetic variation (Carter 2018). 

The African people groups tend to have slightly higher rates of polymorphism (Gurdasani et al. 2014; 1000 Genomes 2015). Since there are only about 8 million common SNPs in the human population, and since most of the SNPs in a single person are common SNPs, this means that any given person carries a very significant percentage of all the common genetic variants found across the world (Carter 2018). 

A single modern couple should carry most of the 8 million common SNPs that are ubiquitous in the human population. Obviously, the genomes of Adam and Eve could have contained this amount of diversity and much more (Sanford and Carter 2015a, 2015b).

Some fraction of the pre-Flood genetic diversity would be lost due to the genetic bottleneck of the Biblical Flood. However, population geneticists have known for decades that even the most extreme bottleneck (i.e., two people) can capture a significant amount of a population’s pre-bottleneck diversity, assuming the bottleneck only lasts for one or just a few generations and is followed by rapid population re-growth (Nei et al. 1975). 

In addition to the 8 million common alleles (most of which may be designed alleles), the 1000 Genomes Project identified another 64 million rare SNPs (most of which can be assumed to be mutational alleles). 

Q: How many generations would it take for 64 million mutations to accumulate? 

A: Given a mutation rate of roughly 100 mutations per person per generation, and assuming our current population of over 7 billion people, it would require less than one generation to accumulate 64 million mutations in the human population. 

Even for a human population of just 10,000, it would only take about 80 generations. While most new mutational alleles usually drift out of a population, the rate of loss of mutational alleles would be greatly reduced in a population that is continuously growing rapidly. In light of all this, the blanket claim, “There is no way Adam and Eve could have given rise to so much diversity,” is not reasonable. 

While Adam and Eve could clearly have given rise to the currently

observed amount of human genetic diversity, a more technical objection can still be raised. It deals with the specific distribution of the variant alleles observed in the human population. The narrower claim becomes, “Adam and Eve could not possibly account for the specific patterns of allele frequencies that we see in the modern human population.” This more technical objection is not easily dismissed and calls for careful consideration.

To address these challenges, we developed a modified version of the Mendel program (version 2.7.2), and also a completely redesigned version of Mendel (“Mendel-Go”) written in the state-of-the-art computer language “Go”. 

We included a new dynamic population size function, so that special experiments could be conducted where population size was continuously dynamic (changing). We improved older features that enabled such things as tracking initially created alleles, studying normal mutation accumulation, and examining the effects of small founder populations, mid-run population bottlenecks, and subsequent population re-growth. 

Modifications were made so that the changing allele frequencies in the dynamic population could still be tracked across generations. At the end of each experiment, the final allele frequency distribution could be plotted and could be compared to actual allele frequency distributions seen in today’s human population. In this paper we will use logic and numerical simulation to show that the claim that “there is no possible way…” is overreaching. There are multiple genetic mechanisms that can reconcile the Biblical Adam and Eve with the observed human allele distribution data.

Our simulations required the creation and tracking of two very different types of genetic variation. 

The first type was the classically understood mutational allele, and the second type was the designed allele. 

Mutational alleles would arise essentially as word-processing errors in the genome. This type of mutational allele would always arise as a rare variant. Mutations are always occurring, and mutation count per individual consistently increases in number. Our default mutation rate was 100 mutations per person per generation. Our default mutational effect was “near-zero” (i.e., there was essentially no selection happening, all mutational alleles would be drifting). 

In addition to mutational alleles, we simulated initial genetic variants that were created as designed allelic pairs, wherein each allele in a pair had its own designed function. Designed allele pairs would be present at the beginning of a Mendel run. 

Under the heterozygous Adam and Eve model, there would be just four copies of each chromosome in Eden, and so every designed allele pair would have a ratio of either 50/50 or 25/75 (so all initial allele frequencies for the designed alleles would be either 0.25 or 0.50 or 0.75). 

In our evolutionary simulations, we have observed that mutational allele frequency distributions are determined by the rate of genetic

drift, which is dependent on the parameter settings for population size, mutation rate, and time.

Mutational alleles continuously enter the population at very low initial frequencies and those that are not lost to drift will very slowly drift toward the right (i.e., away from zero). The rate of drift in any population with 1,000 or more individuals is exceedingly slow. Only after deep time can a large population reach mutation/drift equilibrium, where older alleles are drifting to fixation as fast as new alleles are drifting into the population. 

When mutation/drift equilibrium is reached, the allele frequency distribution stabilizes. At the same time, the total number of polymorphisms in the population stops increasing. 

We first performed simulations with only designed alleles (no new mutations arising). The allele “distribution” is a single spike at 50%. Given this starting point, and given a constant population size of 1000, after 200 generations the distribution was a narrow bell-shaped curve that was still centered at 50%, indicating that in this time there had been very limited genetic drift. 

----A second, more Biblically-realistic experiment involved the same initial allele frequency and a time span of 200 generations, 

*but started with a population of two, 

*followed by rapid population growth, 

*a severe population bottleneck to just 6 people in the tenth generation, 

*followed by a rapid population rebound. 

In this Biblical scenario, we see that two population constrictions can result in much more rapid allele frequency spreading.

Still more promising were simulations that involved designed alleles that all began with a minor allele frequency of 25%. For every allele pair where the minor allele frequency is 25%, there is a contrasting allele with allele a frequency of 75%. 

In this case, the starting allele frequency distribution (in the first generation)  the spike located at 25%. With this lower initial allele frequency, it is much easier to approach the observed human frequency distribution.... after just 20 generations. Most of the distribution is shifting to the left, with the mode shifting downward from 25%. .... what happens after 200 generations. The mode is now approaching zero and the distribution’s bell-shaped curve has become a nearly straight line that slopes downward to the right. When re-scaled, this is the basic shape of the lower-most portion of the actual allele frequency distribution. 

These allele pairs responded rapidly to natural selection, effectively emptying the central part of the distribution and driving the high impact alleles to the left and right extremes (this effectively fills “gap zone” separating the high-frequency created alleles and low frequency mutational alleles). Such strong selective sweeps would be expected to carry many low-impact linked alleles along with them. 

If there were individually designed gametes/gametogonia in Eden, this would potentially constitute an enormous gene poo1, comparable to the gene pool of a large human population. 

To transmit a large fraction of the original genetic diversity to later generations would require that the first family was very large. Indeed, it is entirely feasible that Adam and Eve would have had a very large family size, given the extreme longevity and vigor of the early patriarchs (Carter and Hardy 2015). In such an extremely large family, there could have been 100 or more different sets of chromosomes, representing a very substantial sampling of the primordial gene pool that existed within Adam and Eve’s gametes. This means that the variants in that first human population could have started with almost any initial allele frequency distribution, in accord with God’s design for mankind. In the same way, the initial population of gametes could have also started with a great diversity of linkage patterns, as might have been in accord with God’s design."

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