What is race? This is a population of people with similar hereditary characteristics. Each race has its own specific geographic region. It is thanks to this that specific external features are formed, as a result of adaptation to certain conditions. environment... Representatives of different races can produce common offspring, which contributes to the emergence of a variety of transitional forms and mixing of racial characteristics.

Now let's ask the question: how did the races of humans come about? According to one of the scientific versions, they formed in the Holocene, which began 12 thousand years ago. That is, before that, our distant ancestors did not have any racial differences. Another scientific version claims that racial differences have always existed, only they were not similar to modern ones. That is, each era had its own racial specifics, and today there is only one of the options.

According to modern science, our direct ancestors Cro-Magnons appeared in Africa about 200 thousand years ago. Their original population was racially homogeneous. When the Cro-Magnons began to leave Africa and populate the lands of Europe and Asia, then, taking into account different climatic conditions, racial differences began to appear. A variety of races have arisen, except for the Negroid, since it originated on the lands of the hot continent.

And when did ancient people start leaving African lands? It is assumed that the exodus began 80-70 thousand years ago. However, some experts believe that this happened no earlier than 45 thousand years ago. That is, the emergence of modern races is given 40-50 thousand years in the Paleolithic period.

It should be understood that it was not millions of Cro-Magnons who left Africa, but hundreds and thousands. Ancient people walked in small groups of 100-150 people. They met a land suitable for life and settled on it. It is quite natural that each such isolated group had its own genetic characteristics. Hence, it can be assumed that large races of people were formed from small groups who were simply lucky with climatic conditions, food resources, tribes living in the neighborhood. Less successful groups died out.

At the same time, it can be assumed that the numerous races of people that populated vast land areas were formed not only as a result of biological characteristics, but also as a result of general social and technological factors. Their appearance was influenced by agriculture, cattle breeding, state institutions, as well as various crafts and life in large administrative entities. All these signs of civilization appeared in the Holocene. And those who possessed them began to displace and destroy small and scattered tribes with a primitive level of organization.

As a result, the number of races decreased. The most developed survived. They became numerous, occupied large territories and created the current racial gradation. Thus, answering the question of how the races of people appeared, it can be argued that they were formed as a result of the integration of numerous tribal groups united by common economic and social interests with initially different genetic characteristics.

However, there are ambiguities on this issue. And the fact is that there are modern races that were formed without taking into account the signs of civilization. An example of this is the Aborigines of Australia. Before the Europeans appeared on this continent, there was a completely homogeneous Australoid race. There were only three types of people who differed extremely little from each other.

Racial homogeneity was accompanied by the absence of any significant geological barriers and low levels of social structures... The ancient inhabitants of Australia were neither poor, nor rich, nor caste. The aborigines were not even united into tribes, in the conventional sense of the word. Marriage unions were limited to neighboring neighbors, but in general it should be noted that marital contacts covered the entire continent, which contributed to smoothing out genetic differences.

Another example of racial homogeneity with a low level of civilization development was observed among the Hottentots and Bushmen who lived in Africa. But in India, with its highly developed civilization and rich culture, many different racial variants have arisen due to caste restrictions. There were no geographic obstacles between people, they lived in an equal socio-cultural environment, but at the same time different castes existed in complete isolation from each other.

The same can be said about many other peoples, who were subdivided into the poor, the rich, artisans, peasants, soldiers, merchants, and the highest nobility. All these social groups lived apart and entered into marriages only with their own kind. Even today, citizens try to marry and marry people of their own circle.

This suggests the conclusion that it is extremely difficult to answer the question of how the races of people appeared. Modern racial gradation has arisen for many reasons. They affect demographic, economic and social aspects. All this together gave rise to the racial diversity that we now see on Earth.

Alexey Starikov

09.02.2017 16:38 1340

How the races of man appeared on planet Earth.

A lot of people live on our planet and they are all different. People are divided into races. Race is a large group of people who have common physical and external features: skin color, hair color, cut and eye color, etc. How did they come about? Or maybe people have always been divided into races?

There are three main races on our planet: Caucasian, Mongoloid and Equatorial. Each major race is further subdivided into minor races. The Caucasoid race includes the population of Europe, the Caucasus, India, Southwest Asia, North Africa, America. Its representatives are characterized by light or dark skin, light eye color, straight or wavy soft hair, they have thin lips and a narrow nose.

The Mongoloid race is the indigenous population of Asia (with the exception of India) and America (from the northern Eskimos to the Indians of Tierra del Fuego). The Mongoloid race is characterized by dark or fair skin, coarse, straight dark hair, a broad, flat face with large cheekbones, narrow eyes, and protruding lips.

In the equatorial race, two large branches are distinguished - African (Negroid) and Australian - these are the Negroes of West Africa, Bushmen, Pygmies, Aborigines of Australia and Melanesians. They have dark skin color, dark, coiled or wavy hair, dark eyes, thick lips and a wide, slightly protruding nose with wide nostrils.

Each race has its own specific geographic region. It is thanks to this that specific external features of representatives of a certain race are formed, as a result of adaptation to certain environmental conditions.

Well, we got acquainted with the concept of race. Now you probably want to know how the races of people arose? According to one of the scientific versions, they were formed 12 thousand years ago. That is, until that time, according to scientists, our distant ancestors did not have any racial differences.

Another scientific version claims that racial differences have always existed, only they were not similar to modern ones. Races appeared as a result of the settlement and geographical isolation of the ancestors of modern people in different natural and climatic conditions.

Racial characteristics are hereditary, they arose in the distant past under the influence of the environment in which people lived. Some of them appeared as a result of human adaptation to living conditions.

For example, dark skin of representatives of the Negroid race protects the body from bright sunlight, while curly hair creates air layers that protect from heat. A wide nose and thick, puffy lips promote rapid evaporation of moisture with high heat dissipation.

The light skin of Caucasians transmits ultraviolet rays and thus helps the body to produce vitamin E, protecting them from rickets. The narrow protruding nose warms the inhaled air. And some of the signs of the Mongoloids are the result of adaptation to the harsh climate of Central Asia, often with dust storms.

WHERE ARE THE DIFFERENT RACES OF PEOPLE COME FROM?

Both secular science and the Bible are united in the fact that all humanity descended from the same ancestors, and races are a manifestation of diversity within the human race. Moreover, biological differences between people are due to differences in their hereditary constitution and the influence on this genetic potential of the environment.

“Race is one of the partially isolated gene pools that humans split into during their early geographic spread. Roughly speaking, one race arose in each of the five main continental zones of the Earth. [...] At this point in history, humans developed genetic differences, and we can measure and study the results of these differences in what remains of the old geographic races today. As you might expect, the differences seem to be determined by the degree of isolation. [...] When races were being formed on continents and thousands of populations around the world were locked in isolated gene pools, the differences observed today between gene frequencies were established. [...] The paradox is that, although all groups of people seem to be outwardly different, there is a fundamental similarity behind these differences. " (Carson H. L. Heredity and Human Life. New York, 1963, pp. 151, 154, 162-163)... At the dawn of human history, when groups of people lived apart and people married only within their own group, certain distinctive combinations of genetic traits in their descendants were more pronounced.

The formation of races is a long process, not limited to one or several generations, and associated with the gradual consolidation of features that are beneficial for a particular geography of a settlement, and the elimination of features that are unfavorable for it. Some signs could have existed even before the Flood and passed on to Noah's descendants through the genes of Noah himself, his sons and their wives (what prevented Noah and his sons from being, for example, white-skinned, and some of their wives - black or red?). Moreover, this means that the diversity of people according to the characteristics that form different races could be fully or partially laid by God himself in the genes of Adam and Eve and existed from the very beginning of human history. If this was the case, then the division of the descendants of Noah into races after their settling on the earth could greatly accelerate, since it would be reduced only to the selection and consolidation of already existing characteristics, and not to the emergence of new ones. (The question of Adam's DNA is discussed in more detail in the article "On Life Expectancy and Kinship Relations in the Book of Genesis.")

This can be compared to how people with different eye colors are mixed up today all over the Earth. However, if, for some mysterious reason, it would suddenly become much safer in Africa to live with blue eyes, and in Asia with brown eyes, then after a certain number of generations we could see how the percentage of blue-eyed people in Africa increased, and in Asia it fell ... Even later, perhaps, brown-eyed people would finally disappear in Africa, and blue-eyed people in Asia. Something similar could have happened with the formation of races, for example, after the Flood. Before the Flood, the climate on Earth could have been milder, and people of different racial backgrounds could coexist. However, when climatic conditions changed after the Flood and black skin color and curly hair became more beneficial in Africa and less favorable in Asia, the corresponding traits were fixed in different groups of people depending on their location, forming clear racial differences.

From which of Noah's descendants did black people originate from the Bible's point of view? All modern mankind, including all races known today, descended from the descendants of the three sons of Noah - Shem, Ham and Japheth - and their wives. The Bible mentions “Sons of Kush [son of Ham, brother of Canaan]: Seba, Havilah, Sabt, Raam, and Savtech” (Genesis 10: 6, 7). Later in the Bible, the name Kush is usually used as a synonym for Ethiopia, and the name Seva as the name of another people who lived in eastern Africa, apparently near Ethiopia (Isaiah 43: 3). Apparently, the Negroid race descended from them.

Dr. Don Batten and Dr. Karl Wieland

What are "races"?

How did the different skin colors come about?

Is black skin the result of Noah's curse?

According to the Bible, all people living on Earth descended from Noah, his wife, three sons and three daughters-in-law (and even before from Adam and Eve - Genesis 1-11). However, today on Earth there are groups of people called "races", whose outward signs are significantly different. Many see this state of affairs as a reason to question the truth of the biblical story. It is believed that these groups could arise only as a result of separate evolution over tens of thousands of years.

The Bible tells us how the descendants of Noah, who spoke the same language and stayed together, disobeyed God's command « fill the earth» (Genesis 9: 1; 11: 4). God mixed their languages, after which the people divided into groups and scattered throughout the earth (Genesis 11: 8-9). Modern genetic methods show how, after the separation of people, in just a few generations, variations could develop external signs (for example, skin color). There is strong evidence that different groups of people, as we see in the modern world, were not separated from each other for huge periods of time.

In fact, on Earth "There is only one race" - the race of people, or the human race. The Bible teaches that God « from one blood ... produced the whole human race " (Acts 17:26). The Holy Scriptures distinguish people by tribes and peoples, and not by skin color or other features of appearance. At the same time, it is quite obvious that there are groups of people who have common characteristics (for example, the notorious skin color) that distinguish them from other groups. We prefer to call them "groups of people" rather than "races" to avoid evolutionary associations. Representatives of any peoples can freely interbreed and give fertile offspring. This proves that the biological differences between "races" are very small.

In fact, the differences in DNA composition are extremely minor. If we take any two people from any corner of the Earth, then the differences in their DNA will normally be 0.2%. Moreover, the so-called "racial characteristics" will make up only 6% of this difference (that is, only 0.012%); everything else is within the "intraracial" variation.

"This genetic unity means, for example, that a white American who is markedly different from a black American in phenotype may be closer in tissue composition than another black American."

Fig. 1 The eyes of Caucasians and Mongoloids differ in the amount of fat around the eye, as well as in the ligament, which disappears in most non-Asian infants at the age of six months.

Anthropologists divide humanity into several main racial groups: Caucasian (or "white"), Mongoloid (including the Chinese, Eskimos and american Indian), Negroid (Black Africans), and Australian (Australian Aborigines). Virtually all evolutionists today recognize that different groups of people could not have different origins - that is, they could not evolve from different types animals. Thus, proponents of evolution agree with creationists that all groups of peoples descended from the same original population of the Earth. Evolutionists, of course, believe that groups such as the Australian Aborigines or the Chinese have been divorced from the rest by tens of thousands of years.

Most people believe that such significant external differences could develop only for a very long time. One of the reasons for this misconception is this: many believe that external differences are inherited from distant ancestors who have acquired unique genetic propertiesthat the rest did not have. This assumption is understandable, but essentially wrong.

Consider, for example, the question of skin color. It is easy to assume that if different groups of people have yellow, red, black, white or brown skin, then there are different skin pigments. But since different chemicals imply a different genetic code in the gene pool of each group, a serious question arises: how could such differences have formed over a relatively short period of human history?

In fact, we all have only one skin “dye” - melanin. It is a dark brown pigment that is produced in each of us in special skin cells. If a person does not have melanin (like albinos - people with a mutational defect, due to which melanin is not produced), then his skin color is very white or slightly pinkish. Cells in "white" Europeans produce little melanin; in black-skinned Africans, a lot; and in between, as is easy to understand, all shades of yellow and brown.

Thus, the only significant factor in determining skin color is the amount of melanin produced. In general, no matter what property of a group of people we consider, it, in fact, will be just an option, comparable to others inherent in other peoples. For example, the Asian eye shape differs from the European one, in particular, by a small ligament that slightly pulls down the eyelid (see Figure 1). This ligament is present in all newborns, but after six months of age it remains, as a rule, only in Asians. Occasionally, the ligament is preserved in Europeans, giving their eyes an Asian almond-shaped cut, and vice versa, in some Asians it is lost, making their eyes Caucasoid.

What is the role of melanin? It protects the skin from UV rays from the sun. A person with a low amount of melanin under the strong influence of solar activity is more prone to sunburn and skin cancer. Conversely, if your cells have an excess of melanin, and you live in a country where the sun is not enough, it will be more difficult for your body to produce the required amount of vitamin D (which is produced in the skin when exposed to sunlight). Lack of this vitamin can cause bone diseases (for example, rickets), and some types of cancer. Scientists have also found that ultraviolet rays destroy folates (folate salts), vitamins needed to strengthen the spine. Melanin helps preserve folate, so people with darker complexions are better suited to living in areas with high UV rays (tropical or highlands).

A person is born with a genetically given ability produce melanin in a certain amount, and this ability is activated in response to sunlight - tanning appears on the skin. But how could such different skin colors arise in a short time? If a representative of a black group of people marries a "white", the skin of their descendants ( mulattos) will be “medium brown”. It has long been known that mulatto marriages give birth to children with a wide variety of skin colors - from completely black to completely white.

Realization of this fact gives us the key to solving our problem as a whole. But first, we need to familiarize ourselves with the basic laws of heredity.

Heredity

Each of us carries information about our own organism - detailed, like a drawing of a building. This "drawing" determines not only that you are a person, and not a head of cabbage, but also what color your eyes are, what is the shape of your nose, and so on. At the moment of fusion of the sperm and the egg into the zygote, it already contains all information about the future device of a person (excluding such unpredictable factors as, say, sports or diet).

Most of this information is encoded in DNA. DNA is the most efficient information storage system, many times superior to any sophisticated computer technology. The information recorded here is copied (and recombined) in the process of reproduction from generation to generation. The term "gene" means a piece of this information containing instructions for the production of, for example, only one enzyme.

For example, there is a gene that carries instructions for the production of hemoglobin, a protein that carries oxygen in red blood cells. If this gene is damaged by a mutation (copying error during reproduction), the instruction will be incorrect - and we, at best, get defective hemoglobin. (Such errors can lead to diseases such as sickle cell disease.) Genes are always paired; therefore, in the case of hemoglobin, we have two sets of codes (instructions) for its reproduction: one from the mother, the other from the father. The zygote (fertilized egg) receives half of the information from the father's sperm, and the other half from the mother's egg.

Such a device is very useful. If a person inherits a damaged gene from one of the parents (and this condemns his cells to produce, say, abnormal hemoglobin), then the gene received from the other parent will be normal, and this will enable the body to produce normal protein. In the genome of each person there are hundreds of errors inherited from one of the parents, which do not manifest, since each of them is “hidden” by the activity of the other - a normal gene (see the booklet “Cain's wife - who is she?”).

Color of the skin

We know that skin color is determined by more than one pair of genes. For simplicity, we will assume that there are only two such (paired) genes, and they are located on chromosomes in places A and B. One form of a gene, M, "Gives the order" to produce a lot of melanin; another, m, - little melanin. By the location of A, paired combinations of MAMA, MAMA and mAmA can be used, which give the skin cells a signal to produce a lot, not very much or little melanin.

Likewise, in the position of B, there may be combinations of MIMB, MBmB and mBmB, which also give a signal to produce a lot, not much, or little melanin. Thus, in people with very dark skin color, there may be a combination of genes such as, for example, MAMAMBMB (see Figure 2). Since both sperm and eggs of such people can contain only MAMB genes (after all, only one gene from positions A and B can get into a sperm or an egg), their children will be born only with the same set of genes as their parents.

Consequently, all these children will have very dark skin color. Likewise, fair-skinned people with the mAmAmBmB gene combination can only have babies with the same gene combination. What combinations can be manifested in the offspring of mulattoes with dark skin, with a combination of the MAmAMBmB genes - which are, for example, children from a marriage of people with the MAmAMBMB and mAmAmBmB genes (see Figure 3)? Let's turn to a special scheme - the "Pennett lattice" (see Figure 4). On the left are the genetic combinations that are possible for the sperm cell, on the top - for the egg cell. We choose one of the possible combinations for the sperm and consider, going along the line, which is the result of its combination with each of the possible combinations in the egg.

At each intersection of a row and a column, a combination of offspring genes is recorded when a given egg is fertilized with a given sperm. For example, when a sperm cell with the MAmB genes and an egg cell with mAMB fuse, the child will have the MAmAMBmB genotype, just like his parents. In general, the diagram shows that children with five levels of melanin (skin color shades) can be born from such a marriage. If we take into account not two, but three pairs of genes responsible for melanin, we will see that the offspring can have seven levels of its content.

If people with the MAMAMBMB genotype are “completely” black (that is, they have no genes at all that reduce melanin levels and lighten the skin) marry each other and move to places where their children cannot meet with lighter-skinned people, then all of them descendants will also be black - you get a clean "black line". Likewise, if "white" people (mAmAmBmB) marry only people of the same skin color and live apart, without dating darker-skinned people, then the result will be a pure "white line" - they will lose the genes necessary to produce large amounts of melanin for dark skin.

Thus, two dark-skinned people can not only give birth to children with any skin color, but also give rise to various groups of people with a stable skin tone. But how did groups of people appear with the same dark complexion? Again, this is easy to explain. If people with the MAMAmBmB and mАmAMBMB genotypes do not intermarry, they will only produce dark-skinned offspring. (You can check this conclusion yourself by making a Punnett grid). If a representative of one of these lines enters into a mixed marriage, the process will reverse. In a short time, the descendants from such a marriage will demonstrate the entire spectrum of skin tones, often within the same family.

If all people on Earth now freely entered into mixed marriages, and then, for some reason, would split into groups living separately, then a whole lot of new combinations could arise: almond eyes with black skin, blue eyes and black curly short hair, and so on. It must of course be remembered that genes behave in a much more complex manner than in our simplified explanation. Sometimes certain genes are linked. But the essence does not change from this. Even today, within one group of people, traits usually associated with another group can be seen.

Figure 3. Multi-colored twins born to mulatto parents are an example of genetic variants of skin colors.

For example, you can meet a European with a wide flattened nose, or a Chinese with very pale skin or a completely European eye shape. Most scientists today agree that for modern humanity the term "race" is practically devoid of biological meaning. And this is a serious argument against the theory of the isolated development of groups of peoples over long periods of time.

What really happened?

We can recreate true history groups of people using:

1. information given to us by the Creator Himself in the Book of Genesis;
2. the above scientific information;
3. some considerations about environmental influences.

God created the first man, Adam, who became the progenitor of all people. 1656 years after Creation, the Flood destroyed all of humanity, with the exception of Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives. The Flood radically changed their habitat. The Lord confirmed to the survivors His commandment to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth (Genesis 9: 1). Several centuries later, people decided to disobey God and united to build a huge city and the Tower of Babel - a symbol of rebellion and paganism. We know from the eleventh chapter of Genesis that up to this point people spoke the same language. God put disobedience to shame by mixing human languages \u200b\u200bso that people could not work together against God. The confusion of languages \u200b\u200bforced them to scatter across the Earth, which was the intention of the Creator. Thus, all "groups of people" arose at the same time, with the mixing of languages \u200b\u200bduring the construction of the Tower of Babel. Noah and his family were probably dark-skinned — they had genes for both black and white).

This average color is the most versatile: it is dark enough to protect against skin cancer, yet light enough to provide vitamin D. Since Adam and Eve had all the factors that determine skin color, they probably did too. swarthy, brown-eyed, with black or brown hair. In fact, most of the modern population of the Earth has a dark skin.

After the Flood and before the construction of Babylon, there was a single language and a single cultural group on Earth. Therefore, there were no obstacles to marriages within this group. This factor has stabilized the skin color of the population, cutting off extremes. Of course, from time to time people were born with very light or very dark skin, but they freely intermarried with others, and thus the "average color" remained unchanged. The same is true for other traits, not just skin color. In circumstances that suggest the possibility of free crossing, obvious external differences do not appear.

For them to appear, it is necessary to split the population into isolated groups, excluding the possibility of crossing between them. This is true for populations of both animals and humans, which is well known to any biologist.

Aftermath of Babylon

This is exactly what happened after the Babylonian pandemonium. When God made people speak in different languages, insurmountable barriers arose between them. Now they did not dare to marry those whose language they did not understand. Moreover, groups of people united by a common language had difficulty communicating and, of course, did not trust the speakers of other languages. They were forced to move away from each other and settled in different places. This is how God's commandment was fulfilled: "Fill the earth."

It is doubtful whether each of the newly formed small groups contained people of the same wide range of skin colors as the original. In one group, carriers of dark skin genes could prevail, in the other - lighter. The same applies to other external features: the shape of the nose, the shape of the eyes, and so on. And since now all marriages took place within the same language group, each such trait no longer tends to the average, as it was before. As people moved away from Babylon, they had to face new and unusual climatic conditions.

As an example, consider a group heading to colder regions where the sun shines fainter and less frequently. Dark-skinned people there lacked vitamin D, so they were sick more often, and they had fewer children. Consequently, over time, people with fair skin began to predominate in this group. If several different groups headed north, and one of them lacked the genes for light skin, that group was doomed to extinction. Natural selection operates on the basis of already available signs, and does not form new ones. The researchers found that, who today have already been recognized as full-fledged representatives of the human race, suffered from rickets, which indicates a deficiency of vitamin D. ".

Apparently, it was a group of dark-skinned people who found themselves in natural surroundings, unfavorable for them - because of the set of genes which they had initially... Note again that the so-called natural selection does not create a new skin color, but only selects from already available combinations. Conversely, a group of fair-skinned people trapped in a hot, sunny region is more likely to suffer from skin cancer. Thus, in hot climates, black people were more likely to survive. So, we see that the impact of the environment can

(a) influence the genetic balance within one group, and

(b) even cause entire groups to disappear.

That is why we are currently observing the correspondence of the most common physical qualities of the population to the environment (for example, northern peoples with pale skin, dark-skinned inhabitants of the equator, and so on).

But this is not always the case. The Inuit (Eskimos) have brown skin, although they live where there is little sun. It can be assumed that initially their genotype was something like MAMAmBmB, and therefore, their offspring could not be lighter or darker. Inuit eat predominantly fish, which is high in vitamin D. Conversely, the indigenous people of South America living at the equator do not have black skin. These examples once again confirm that natural selection does not create new information - if the genetic pool does not allow changing skin color, natural selection cannot do it. African pygmies are inhabitants of hot regions, but they very rarely visit the open sun, because they live in a shady jungle. Yet their skin is black.

Pygmies can serve a shining example another factor influencing the racial history of mankind: discrimination. People who represent a deviation from the “norm” (for example, a very light-skinned person among blacks) is traditionally treated with dislike. It is difficult for such a person to find a spouse. This state of affairs leads to the disappearance of genes for fair skin in black people in hot countries and genes for dark skin in fair-skinned people in cold countries. This was the tendency of the groups to "purify".

In some cases, consanguineous marriages in a small group can cause a new manifestation of almost extinct characteristics that have been "suppressed" by ordinary marriages. There is a tribe in Africa, all members of which have severely deformed feet; this symptom manifested itself in them as a result of closely related marriages. If people with hereditary short stature were discriminated against, they were forced to seek refuge in the wilderness and marry only among themselves. So over time, a "race" of pygmies was formed. The fact that pygmy tribes, according to observations, do not have their own language, but speak dialects of neighboring tribes, is strong evidence in favor of this hypothesis. Certain genetic characteristics could have prompted groups of people to consciously (or semi-consciously) choose a place of settlement.

For example, people genetically predisposed to thicker subcutaneous fat are more likely to leave regions that are too hot.

Common memory

The biblical story of human origins is not only supported by biological and genetic evidence. Since all of humanity descended from the Noah's family relatively recently, it would be strange if the legends and legends of different peoples did not contain references to the Flood, albeit somewhat distorted during oral transmission from generation to generation.

Indeed, in the folklore of most civilizations there is a description of the Flood that destroyed the world. Often these legends contain wonderful "coincidences" with the real biblical story: eight people escaped in a boat, a rainbow, a bird sent in search of land, and so on.

And what is the result?

The Babylonian dispersal split a single group of people, within which free interbreeding was carried out, into smaller, isolated groups. This led to the emergence in the formed groups of special combinations of genes responsible for different physical characteristics.

The scattering itself should in a short time cause the appearance of certain differences between some of these groups, usually called "races." An additional role was played by the selective influence of the environment, which promoted the recombination of existing genes to achieve exactly those physical characteristicsthat were required in the data natural conditions... But there was no evolution of genes "from simple to complex" and could not be, because the whole set of genes existed. The dominant properties of various groups of people appeared as a result of recombinations of an already existing set of created genes, taking into account minor degenerative changes as a result of mutations (random changes that can be inherited).

Originally created genetic information either combined or degraded, but never increased.

What did the false teachings about the origin of races lead to?

All tribes and peoples are the descendants of Noah!

The Bible makes it clear that any "newly discovered" tribe certainly traces back to Noah. Therefore, at the very beginning of the culture of the tribe were laid: a) knowledge of God and b) possession of technology, high enough to build a ship the size of an ocean liner. From the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, we can conclude about the main reason for the loss of this knowledge (see Appendix 2) - the conscious renunciation of the ancestors of these people from serving the living God. Consequently, in helping the so-called "backward" peoples, the gospel should come first, not secular education and technical support. In fact, in the folklore and beliefs of most of the "primitive" tribes, there are memories that their ancestors turned away from the living Creator God. Dan Richardson of Child of Peace showed in his book that a missionary approach that is not blinded by evolutionary prejudices and seeks to reconnect lost connections has in many cases borne abundant and blessed fruits. Jesus Christ, who came to reconcile a person who rejected his Creator, with God, is the only Truth that can bring true freedom to people of any culture, of any skin color (John 8:32; 14: 6).

Appendix 1

Is black skin the result of Ham's curse?

Black (or rather, dark brown) skin is just a special combination of hereditary factors. These factors (but not their combination!) Were originally present in Adam and Eve. There are no indications anywhere in the Bible that black skin is the result of a curse that fell on Ham and his descendants. Moreover, the curse was not related to Ham himself, but to his son Canaan (Genesis 9: 18,25; 10: 6). The main thing is that we know that the skin of the descendants of Canaan was dark (Genesis 10: 15-19), not black.

False teachings about Hama and his descendants have been used to justify slavery and other unbiblically racist manifestations. Traditionally, African peoples are believed to be descended from the Hamites, since the Kushites (Kush - son of Ham: Genesis 10: 6) are believed to have lived in what is now Ethiopia. The Book of Genesis suggests that the scattering of people across the Earth occurred with the preservation of family ties, and it is possible that the descendants of Ham were, on average, somewhat darker than, for example, the genus of Japheth. However, things could have been completely different. Rahab (Rahab), mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, belonged to the Canaanites, the descendants of Canaan. Being from the line of Ham, she married an Israelite - and God approved this union. Consequently, it didn’t matter what "race" she belonged to — what mattered was that she believed in the true God.

The Moabite Ruth is also mentioned in the genealogy of Christ. She confessed her faith in God even before her marriage with Boaz (Ruth 1:16). God only warns us against one kind of marriage: God's children with unbelievers.

Appendix 2

Stone Age people?

Archaeological finds indicate that there were once people on Earth who lived in caves and used simple stone tools. Such people live on Earth to this day. We know that the entire population of the earth came from Noah and his family. Judging by the book of Genesis, even before the Flood, people had a developed technology that made it possible to make musical instruments, practice agriculture, forge metal tools, build cities, and even build huge ships like the Ark. After the Babylonian conquest, groups of people - due to mutual hostility caused by the confusion of languages \u200b\u200b- quickly scattered across the earth in search of refuge.

In some cases, stone tools could be used temporarily, until people equipped their homes and found deposits of metals necessary to make familiar tools. There were other situations when a group of settlers initially, even before Babylon, did not deal with metal.

Ask members of any modern family: if they had to start life from scratch, how many of them would be able to find an ore deposit, develop it and smelt metal? Obviously, the Babylonian dispersion was followed by a technological and cultural decline. The harsh environmental conditions could have played a role. The technology and culture of Australian Aboriginal people are well suited to their lifestyle and survival needs in arid areas.

Let us recall at least the aerodynamic principles, knowledge of which is necessary to create various types of boomerangs (some of them return, others do not). Sometimes we see clear but hard-to-explain evidence of decline. For example, when Europeans arrived in Tasmania, the Aboriginal technology there was the most primitive imaginable. They did not fish, make or wear clothes. However, archaeological excavations have shown that the cultural and technological level of the previous generations of Aborigines was incomparably higher.

Archaeologist Rhys Jones claims that in the distant past they knew how to sew elaborate garments from hides. This is in stark contrast to the situation in the early 1800s, when the aborigines simply threw skins over their shoulders. There is evidence that in the past they fished and ate fish, but they stopped doing it long before the arrival of the Europeans. From all this we can conclude that technical progress is not natural: sometimes the accumulated knowledge and skills disappear without a trace. Followers of animistic cults live in eternal fear of evil spirits. Many elementary and healthy things - washing or good nutrition - have been declared taboos. This once again confirms the truth that the loss of knowledge about God the Creator leads to degradation (Romans 1: 18-32).

Here's the Good News

Creation Ministries International seeks to glorify and honor the Creator God, and to assert the truth that the Bible describes the true story of the origin of the world and man. Part of this story is the bad news of Adam's violation of God's command. This brought death, suffering and separation from God into the world. These results are known to everyone. All descendants of Adam are afflicted with sin from the moment of conception (Psalm 50: 7) and share in Adam's disobedience (sin). They can no longer be in the presence of the Holy God and are doomed to be separated from Him. The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and that all “will be punished, eternal destruction, from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1: 9). But there is good news: God did not remain indifferent to our trouble. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16).

Jesus Christ, the Creator, being sinless, took upon Himself the guilt for the sins of all mankind and their consequences - death and separation from God. He died on the cross, but on the third day he was resurrected, conquering death. And now everyone who sincerely believes in Him, repents of their sins and relies not on themselves, but on Christ, can return to God and remain in eternal communion with their Creator. "He who believes in Him is not condemned, but the unbeliever is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God." (John 3:18). Wonderful is our Savior and wonderful salvation is in Christ, our Creator!

References and notes

1. On the basis of variations in mitochondrial DNA, attempts were made to prove that all modern people descend from a single foremother (who lived in a small population from about 70 to 800 thousand years ago). Recent discoveries in mitochondrial DNA mutation rates have drastically shortened this period to the time frame specified in the Bible. See Lowe, L., and Scherer, S., 1997. Mitochondrial Eye: the plot thickens. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 12 (11): 422-423; Wieland, C., 1998. A shrinking date for Eve. CEN Technical Journal, 12 (1): 1-3. creationontheweb.com/eve