Original Sin with Respect to Science, Origins, Historicity of Genesis, and Traditional Church Views.

In the matter of origins, the anthropological and DNA evidence shows that Homo sapiens dates from ca. 200,000 YBP (Years Before the Present) in Africa and humans migrated around the world from Africa starting at ca. 60,000 YBP. By ~10,000 YBP humans are known to have practiced agriculture and husbandry in the Near East, with Genesis 4:2 placing Adam and Eve in the Ubaid archeological period (~5000 BC) in southern Mesopotamia. This evidence brings up the seemingly insurmountable problem of how sin could have been biologically transmitted by Adam and Eve to the entire human race as in the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. This paper is the first of three consecutive articles on different aspects of original sin. The first two (Hill and Clouser) are each dependent on the other: Hill's article describes the science related to origins, historicity, and traditional church views; Clouser's article theologically supports Hill's proposals that Adam and Eve were not the first humans, but that they were real people. The third article (Murphy) deals pastorally with the origin of original sin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]