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?
However, we all have the same coloring pigment in our skin -- melanin. This is a dark-brownish pigment that is produced in different amounts in special cells in our skin. If we had none (as do people called albinos, who inherit a mutation-caused defect, and cannot produce melanin), then we would have a very white or pink skin coloring. If we produced a little melanin, we would be European white. If our skin produced a great deal of melanin, we would be a very dark black. And in between, of course, are all shades of brown. There are no other significant skin pigments.
In summary, from currently available information, the really important factor in determining skin color is melanin -- the amount produced.
Melanin is needed to protect from skin cancer, and too much inhibits the body from producing vitamin D from the sun.
We need to realize we are not born with a genetically fixed amount of melanin, but rather with a genetically fixed potential to produce a certain amount, increasing in response to sunlight.
At the beach in the summer you can see this fact born out. Those who spend more time in the sun are darker, and those who spend less time are lighter.
All the factors for skin color were present in Adam and Eve, they would most likely be mid-brown. Noah and his family would probably have been mid brown, with genes for both dark and light skin. In fact, most of the worlds population today is still mid brown.
2. Eye Shape - Asian or Almond, eye gets its appearance simply by having an extra layer of fat. Both Asian and Caucasian eyes have fat, the later simply have less of it.
B. There are more variations within a group than between one group and another group.
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IV The Bible Has the only Answer to Racism.
Racism: a consequence of false beliefs about the origin of races.
*Resulting in people groups feeling superior to those they perceive to be different or inferior.
*Hitler tried to eliminate Jews and Gypsies, and to establish the “master race”.
V The Effects of the Tower of Babel
a. Once separate languages were imposed, there were instantaneous barriers
1 Not only would you not marry someone you couldn’t understand,
2. Entire groups who spoke the same language would have difficulty relating to and trusting those who did not.
3. They would tend to move away or be forced away from each other into different environments.
As God wanted mankind to subdue the whole earth.
4. Unlikely that each small group would carry the same broad range of “skin colors” etc as the original large group. So one group might have more dark genes, on average, while another might have more light genes. Same for other characteristics, nose and eye shape.
5. Since they would only intermarry and have children within their own language group the genetic tendencies would no longer average out.
6. As these groups migrated away from Babel, they encountered new and different climate zones.
Some would prosper in certain areas while others would die out.
God commanded the descendants of Noah to move out over the Earth. They refused, and instead, congregated together to build a tower—the tower of Babel, about 4,000 years ago. God became very angry at this, so He confused their language and forced them to move apart. Different languages resulted. One nation and culture was split into many groups. People with similar language would have moved together to various parts of the Earth. Soon after this the world would have been populated by groups which spoke different languages and lived in different places. These would eventually produce different cultures. Because of the different climatic conditions, the variations of skin color, etc., among people, the isolation and inbreeding of different groups of people, differing races of man with minor variations of skin color, eye shape, etc., came into being. New nations were being born.
We can say in summary that:
1. All people of the world today have their ancestry in a man called Noah, and further back to Adam, whether they be the Australian Aborigines, the American Indians, or the Eskimos.
2. The differing cultures separated by different languages have only arisen since the time of the Tower of Babel. The physical differences between the races (e.g. skin colour, eye shape) are only minor.
Information from www.answersingenesis.com
