According to the Bible all mankind is descended from one man and one woman; Adam and Eve. Now genetic studies have shown this to be the case. One of the interesting outcomes of these studies is clear support for the fact that our most recent female ancestor ( Eve ) is actually older than our most recent common male ancestor. ( Noah )
Of the two lines of study the one pointing to Eve is the most interesting. Providing compelling evidence for Biblical history.
In 1987, a team at the
University of
California at
Berkeley compared the mitochondrial DNA ( mtDNA ) of several groups of people from different geographic locations. The conclusion was that all of the people tested had the same female ancestor and they referred to her as "Mitochondrial Eve." They then calculated the mutations rate based on the evolutionary assumption that we divergenced from an alleged common ancestor with chimps 5 million years ago. They concluded based on this estimated mutation rate that Mitochondrial Eve lived 100,000 - 200,000 years ago
Ten years later in 1997 a paper entitled
A High Observed Substitution Rate in the Human Mitochondrial DNA Control Region by Parsons, Thomas J., et al. was published in
Nature Genetics. They compared the mtDNA of many mother child pairs and found a mutation rate in mtDNA about 20 times more rapidly than previous estimate. Based on these measurements they calculated Mitochondrial Eve lived only about 6,500 years ago. This is just about the time that the Bible says that Eve lived.
Further research has been done in this area and they are quite interesting. Parsons later combined his research with others (
Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock) resulting in a figure of 1 motion per 1,200 years which is 1/10 the evolutionary estimate and 1.5 time Parsons original figure for a estimated date of mitochondrial Eve of 10,000 years.
While the variation of in different areas of mtDNA is to grate to pin down an exact date, it is important to note that when mutation rates are directly measured the rates derived are consistently found to be an order of magnitude faster than the evolutionary based estimates. The dates end up being just a few thousands years. This is far more in line with the Biblical account that than the evolutionary estimates.
DNA Support for the Bible
This is a two e-book set on how DNA supports the Biblical account of Adam and Eve and the Noah's Flood.
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