First, I’d like to again thank Linnaeus for suggesting this debate, and for articulating his position regarding the different races of humanity. This is my response to his argument, which may be found here. (You can also find my original argument here and Linnaeus’ response here. All posts for this debate are here.)
To define race, Linnaeus invites us to consider the human family tree. “Race” refers to any given generational cross-section. If you go back to the beginning, when there is only Adam, there is only one race. One generation later we have two: Cain and Seth (not knowing if Abel had children). The next generation might bring about seven races, and then 40, and then 358, and so on and so forth, until you get to every leaf of the family tree.
Through the flood, the Lord trims all the branches but one, bringing us back to one race: Noah’s. The next generation we have three: Ham, Shem, and Japheth, and then, I suppose, the next generation introduces another multiplication of races, and so forth and so on.
Linnaeus states, “In fact, technically and according to the broadest use of the word, there are as many races as there are fathers, for each is the origin of the race of those who come from him.” [1] This definition has little utility. We need bigger groups, so Linnaeus prefers the cross-sectioning of humanity somewhere between Manasseh and Adam, or, to use his language, “between tribe and species.”
I think, for the most part, my original argument stands, namely, that the Bible does not teach us to think thus of humanity. In fact, I think Linnaeus’ argument helps to illustrate my argument. The problem of thinking of people like animals is, well, that you are thinking of people like animals.
The Bible does acknowledge that there are inherited characteristics, but it refuses to use such a reductionistic term to describe people groups. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. Fine. But we must remember that every acorn falls from two trees. One branch must link up with another to get to the next generation.
Linnaeus makes the historical argument that husband and wife would have needed to live close to one another, and that they would have been from the same general family tree. “[A] man’s access to genes has historically (before industrialized forms of travel) been restricted to the pool of people born within several miles of himself.”
Strangely, Isaac is offered as the Biblical example. Let us remember that Abraham had to send his servant into another land to find Isaac a wife from his family. If Isaac married a neighbor, he would’ve been marrying a Canaanite. Or consider Abraham. I’d like to remind the reader that Abraham, before industrialized travel, migrated all over the place, and that Sarah, his wife and a Shemite, was almost married to two different Hammites (Pharaoh in Genesis 12:10–20, and Abimelech in Genesis 20:1–18). Abraham had Ishmael from Hagar, an Egyptian (Genesis 16:1).
Linnaeus states that “The sons of Rachel and Leah would have displayed what we would consider an uncanny resemblance to Terah, because they were far more genetically ‘of him’ than modern great-great-grandchildren are of their great-great-grandfathers.” We can also remember that one of those sons married an Egyptian wife, and the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, were half Hamite. Linnaeus here admits that these crossover marriages were happening—Esau, for example, marrying two Canaanite wives, forming the new race of Edomite (which, I suppose, is half Shem and half Ham)—but Esau “did not take to wife daughters of Magog, for that clan had ventured north, and were beyond his reach.”
First, I don’t know this to be true, namely, that none of those of Terah married those of Magog. Second, the strange move that must be made from this assumed super-sedentary historical reconstruction is that this inbreeding (Linnaeus’ term) is God’s will. Linnaeus states: “[W]hat is really at issue here is the underlying biological realities that flow from how God made His creatures to differentiate in the course of our multiplication.”
Third, there is a difficult logical problem when you read biological history as an expression of God’s will: history changes. If, for example, it was God’s will to keep all the different branches of the family tree apart from one another, then it must now be God’s will that they all live together, at least in a country like the United States. How can Linnaeus not see industrialized travel as God’s will to mix us all up?
Linnaeus, helpfully, puts our attention on a verse that is very helpful to determine God’s view of all this: Deuteronomy 23:7b–8, “You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land. 8 The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.” Egyptians, we will remember, are of Ham.
Linnaeus notes “the Egyptians, like the Israelites, had practiced generation after generation of, and there’s no other way to say this: Inbreeding. They shared a gene pool in common with one another that was not common to other groups, hence they were recognizable as Egyptians on sight.” Really? Joseph’s brothers were not able to recognize their own brother after his years in exile.
“Despite the fact that the Israelites had lived in their land for 400 years, the two populations had not intermarried to any appreciable degree.” Really? Remember that at least 1/12 of Israel, Joseph, was married to an Egyptian.
“The Israelites were no more made Egyptians by living on Egyptian soil than Egyptians were made Israelites by living in Israel—else the above command would be incoherent.” Really? I would ask Linnaeus to read the original text. The grandchildren of the Egyptian living in Israel are granted access to the assembly. Whatever this means, it at least means that the Israelites are no longer to consider the grandchildren of Egyptians to be foreigners and strangers, but are to be welcomed into the political and spiritual life of Israel. They are to be citizens of the nation; they are no longer to be treated as Egyptian.
Linnaeus would have us think that the grandchildren of an Egyptian will always be Egyptian, but the Scriptures teach us a different way of understanding humanity: to look at the grandchildren of the Egyptian as belonging to Israel. In this way, the Bible refuses to reduce us to our gene pool, but honors each person as something more wonderful than that.
NOTES
[1] I wonder—and perhaps Linnaeus could articulate this in the next portion of the debate—when the split occurs. If the father determines the race, then Shem and Ham would, in fact, be the same race: Noahite. Only Shem’s children would be Shemites. I’m wondering if Linnaeus could help me understand my own family: if my four children are four different races, or if only my grandchildren will be different races from one another.