#3 Where Did The "Races” Come From? Series

Answering the Skeptics Questions

#3 Where Did the “races” come from?

The Church has done a good job of teaching bible stories in Sunday School, but we have done a poor job of connecting the historical stories of the Bible to our world. This would give a biblical world view?

God’s judgment of the Tower of Babel was one of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the world. In one moment, a massive, highly complex building project, involving the entire human race, came to an end. Thousands of workers suddenly found themselves incapable of communicating with anyone outside their extended family group. Overwhelmed by fear and frustration, each family group moved away from the others. Mankind has never recovered.

Man’s Theories

1. Darwinian Evolution was (and still is) a racist philosophy teaching that different groups or “races” of people evolved at different times and rates, so some groups are more like their ape-like ancestors than others.

Australian Aborigines

When Captain Cook arrived in Australia some 200 years ago, he encountered a dark-skinned race of nomadic people with a stone age culture. Evolutionists say these Aborigines came to Australia at least 40,000 years ago from unknown origins. The evolutionary view which is taught in schools and promoted in the media is really saying these were a people who hadn’t evolved as fast as other types of man. Because of this, most people including many white Christians, regard the Aborigines as primitive—especially in the sense of being not as good as the Europeans. It is little wonder there is racial discrimination when people’s minds are pervaded by such a false view of aboriginal history.

2. Biblical Ignorance

Cain’s Mark (Genesis 4:15) Only on Cain not descendants

Ham’s Curse (Genesis 9:25) On Canaan not Ham.

I There is only one race. The Human Race. (Acts 17:26)

Scripture distinguishes people by tribal or national groupings, not by skin color or physical appearance. Clearly, though, there are groups of people who have certain features (e.g., skin color) in common, which distinguish them from other groups. We prefer to call these "people groups" rather than "races," to avoid the evolutionary connotations associated with the word "race."

A. All come From Adam and Eve

B. All Come From Noah and Family

C. From Modern Science

1. Biologically - All peoples can freely interbreed and produce fertile offspring. This shows that the biological differences between the “races” are not very great at all.

II The Tower of Babel Explains the Different People Groups

God confused their languages, causing a breakup of the population into smaller groups, which scattered over the earth (Gen. 11:8-9)

Virtually all evolutionists would now agree that the various people groups did not have separate origins. Meaning the different people groups did not all each evolve from a different group of animals. Of course, they believe groups like the Aborigines and Chinese have had many tens of thousands of years of separation. Most people believe that there are such vast differences between groups that there had to be many years for these to somehow develop. We now know that they can develop very quickly in groups isolated from others.

Here the Bible tell why the one group scattered and became many groups with many different features.

Using what we understand from modern genetics, we can see how, following such a breakup of a population, variations in skin color, for example, can develop in only a few generations.

III The Tower of Babel Explains the reasons for the Differences in People Groups.

All the ethnic differences found today were potentially present in Adam and Eve’s DNA as well as Noah’s family if you believe the Scripture. After the flood, for a few centuries until Babel, there was only one language and one culture group. Thus, no barriers to marriage within the group. This would tend to keep the skin color of the population away from the extremes. This would also be true of other characteristics as well. It wasn’t until God broke the population up by languages that distinct differences in culture and appearance. As every biologist would attest, for animals or humans, to get a separate lines, you would need to break up a large breeding group into smaller groups and keep them separate. Over time differences would begin to occur.

A. The Differences are small (skin color, nose shape, eye shape, size, etc.)

1. Skin color -Different Colors or Same Color -Different Shades?

It is easy to think that since different groups of people have "yellow" skin, "red" skin, "black" skin, "white" skin, and "brown" skin, there must be many different skin pigments or colorings. And since different chemicals for coloring would mean a different genetic recipe or code in the hereditary blueprint in each people group, it appears to be a real problem. How could all those differences develop within a short time?