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Cain and His WifeThe Watchtower—1977 | December 1
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ALL HUMANKIND FROM ONE SOURCE
The Bible statement, in Acts 17:26, that “[God] made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth” is acknowledged by Bible students to be backed up by the facts. John Peter Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures,a a work that considers the arguments of a great number of scholars in an analytical and explanatory discussion of the Bible, says on page 191:
“That the Scriptures neither know nor will know of pre-Adamites . . . nor of various primitive aboriginal races, appears not only from Genesis i. and ii., but also from the consistent presumption and assertion of the entire Holy Writ; for example, Matt. xix.4; Acts xvii.26; 1 Cor. xv.47. . . . The original unity of the human race coincides with the doctrine of the unity of the fall of man in Adam, and the unity of the redemption in Christ. . . . The greatest naturalists have mostly declared themselves against the originality of different human races . . . in regard to the alleged fruitfulness of sexual combinations among the various races, the proof of such fruitfulness is justly pronounced one of the strongest proofs of unity. . . . The autochthonic theory [that living things (in this case humans) were formed or occurred in the places where they were found] [can]not deny the fact that the origin of the various types of men points back to a common home in Asia.”
This statement about the unity of the human race (that all are one race, one created kind, not “aboriginal” tribes or nations in the sense that they were separately created or separately originating) coincides with the Bible statements: “Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin,” and, “just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive.” Yet the Creator has arranged, through the countless genetic combinations, to provide in mankind the most delightful and interesting variations.—Rom. 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:22.
For the reason that Adam was the father of all mankind, Christ can be called the “last Adam,” for he was a perfect man on earth, and now he can become father to all Adam’s offspring who exercise faith in his sacrifice. (1 Cor. 15:45) If men and women were from several different original fathers, the death of the one man, Jesus Christ, could not have provided a sufficient purchase price.—Deut. 19:21; Matt. 20:28.
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Cain and His WifeThe Watchtower—1977 | December 1
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a 1960 edition, 1976 printing, by Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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