You know what? Jesus was an ape too! At least the part that was completely human!
Humans are pattern-forming creatures--
taxonomy is our way of grouping the biological world in manageable chunks. Why do we do this? We like sorting games. Taxonomy is a human construct--whether it is folk taxonomy, Linneanen taxonomy, cladistics, or kinds. Species (and other taxonomic groupings) are simply groups of similar things, biologically speaking. Technically, we made up the rules using our common sense: things with mammary glands go in the mammal group, feathered things go in bird group, plants with this type of foliage go in this group, etc.
The really neat thing is that now we can "check" our common sense rules against the genetic "key". In our DNA, we can detect commonalities with the most closely related species. The less similar your DNA is to another species, the farther away you are in time from your last common ancestor. To me, the most amazing thing about checking our work this way, is that the early naturalists were very good at their taxonomy. You don't often find that an entire family of critters are totally unrelated, molecularly.
So--after that general history lesson, let's talk about the classifications of humans as apes. Humans are in the Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class Mammalia, Order Primates, Family Hominidae, Genus "Homo", Species "sapiens sapiens"
Humans are animals with a neural chord and mammary glands. That takes us through the larger groups from Kingdom to Class. Now let's look at the Order Primates.
Here are some characteristics that *most* things in the Order Primates have in addition to the previous characteristics listed:
*Five digits on their hands and feet
*Grasping feet and hands
*Tendency to have erect bodies (standing, sitting up like humans, not like other 4-limbed animals)
*Clavicles and ball joints in their arm sockets
*Reduced snout
*Diurnal (awake in the daytime)
*Social animals
*Omnivorous
Sounds like we fit in this group rather well! Here is a
link with some more info and a few other characteristics.
On to Family - Hominidae. In addition to the characteristics that put us in the higher classifications, members of Hominidae have these characteristics:
*Males are larger than females (sexual dimorphism)
*Opposable thumbs and big toes
*All digits have flattened nails.
*No tails
*No ischial callosities (rear ends like babboons
)
*Same dental structure
*Complex social behavior (facial expressions and complex vocalizations)
*Usually give birth to 1 offspring, extended care.
Except for the opposable toes, we sound good to go here as well! Here is the
link.
On to the Genus. This is the human genus--it contains modern humans and our now-extinct ancestors like
Homo erectus. We are the only living things in it, so I guess we fit! Same for Species. We are biologically classified as
Homo sapiens sapiens. That's us!
If you go back and check our work at the molecular level, you will find that (as is oft-quoted) humans share 99% of our DNA with chimps and bonobos. Chimps are lumped in with us in classification all the way to Hominidae, when they split into the Genus Pan and then into their own species.
So, the short answer is that according to current biological classification, I am an ape. You are too. I have many ape-like qualities, as listed above--and if Jesus was a human like me, he also had ape-like qualities. I mean, I always assumed that a human Jesus would not have ischial callosities and could operate in complex social settings!
I don't feel the need to provide Scripture to back up observations of the natural world, or to explain what modern technology and thought has discovered. When your computer breaks down, do you look through your Bible to figure out how to fix it? When you want to know what type of plant will work best in your garden do you find it in Scripture? I doubt it--when you need information about things in this natural world, you use observations about this natural world.
Scripture teaches me how to interact with God and my fellow humans--not what temperature I need to cook my chicken so I kill all the germs.
--tibac
