How did there get to be so many different races of people from just two people and, after the flood, from only eight?

While it is true that all the people on the earth came from the first two people—Adam and Eve—and then from Noah’s sons (Shem, Ham, and Japheth) following the flood, over the course of time, we have turned outward, physical characteristics along with cultural characteristics into differences of race. There is only one race—mankind, the human race. We have also been impacted by the representations of art that have been created out of predominantly “white” sensitivities—meaning that, for most of us, Adam and Eve were white; Jesus Christ was not only incarnate but white. The fact is, as one race, we are essentially all variations of brown. This is something that has been reported repeatedly by the scientific community and mainstream news outlets over the last 15-20 years. From the Advancement of Science Convention in Atlanta came this news (as reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer, February 20, 1997): “Race is a social construct derived mainly from perceptions conditioned by events of recorded history, and it has no basic biological reality.” ABC News reported (on September 10, 1998), “More and more scientists find that the differences that set us apart are cultural, not racial. Some even say that the word race should be abandoned because it’s meaningless.” In an article in The Journal of Counseling and Development, researchers in 1998 argued that the term “race” is basically so meaningless that it should be discarded. To underscore their position, they noted that so-called “racial” characteristics that people think are major differences (skin color, eye shape, etc.) “account for only 0.012 percent of human biological variation.” Finally, those working on mapping the human genome (the complete set of genetic information for humans) (as reported on the New York Times website, August 22, 2000) announced “that they had put together a draft of the entire sequence of the human genome, and the researchers had unanimously declared, there is only one race—the human race.” As noted by Dr. Harold Page Freeman, who was a part of this study, “If you ask what percentage of your genes is reflected in your external appearance, the basis by which we talk about race, the answer seems to be in the range of 0.01 percent.” This is the Bible’s point of view as well. When Paul was debating the philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens, he said this: [H]e himself (referring to God) gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live—Paul, Acts 17:25b-26. It becomes clearer when one reads these same verses in the King James Version: [H]e giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation—Paul, Acts 17:25b-26 (KJV). The Greek word for blood is AIMA (hah^-ee-mah). Among its several meanings is the way that it is used by Paul in Acts 17:26: blood-relationship, kindred, lineage, progeny, seed. We are all related as being members of one race; mankind is essentially one “family.” As Job so correctly points out, If I have denied justice to my menservants and maidservants when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?—Job 31:13-15. And certainly Paul carries this same point into the New Testament. In his letter to the Galatian church, he reminded them, There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus—Paul, Galatians 3:28. That same thought is certainly passed along to the Colossian church: Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all—Paul, Colossians 3:11. As ABC News concluded in their September 1998 report, “What the facts show is that there are differences among us, but they stem from culture, not race.”