Is Genesis 4 Unrelated to the Neolithic Revolution?
Earlier in the paper we suggested the identification of the events in Genesis 4 with the Neolithic revolution in the ancient Near East around 10,000 years ago. That assumption led us to three views. Perhaps the tensions and problems posed by those three options can be avoided if we reject the assumption that Genesis 4 reflects the Neolithic civilization. Thus one alternative approach to the entire issue might be to insist that Adam and Eve are the biological progenitors of the entire human race, to insist on the unity of humanity on biblical and scientific grounds, to suggest that the human race is actually tens of thousands of years old, and to acknowledge that the human race has displayed abundant evidence of important cultural achievements long prior to the rise of Near Eastern civilization 10,000 years ago.30 Much before that civilization developed, anatomically modern humans had used fire, devised numerous stone and bone tools, created marvelous cave art, and produced ornamentatio
