Darrell L. Bock's Blog Bock's Blog Christianity Today on Adam and Eve
Tweet
Christianity Today has highlighted the issue of Adam and Eve in its latest issue.
I will say nothing here other than one should check out the main article which is a nice discussion of the current conversation among evangelicals and the editorial which sets a clear and seemingly important bottom line.
Here are the key links:
This is for the editorial:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/june/noadamevenogospel.html
This is for the main article:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/june/historicaladam.html
Comments?
Paul and Adam
One of the most problematic issues is Paul's alleged accommodation to the cultural belief in a literal Adam. Paul's perspective on the universality of human sin in Romans 5 and I Cor 15 depend almost entirely on the assumption that there was "one act of transgression" by the one who "heads" the human race just as Christ is the head of the new, redeemed humanity. The tight parallel Paul draws between Adam and the New Adam in both the fall and redemption of humanity seems to come apart if both Adam and Christ are not individuals who did those "one acts" in time and space. Without a literal Adam, I don't see how the analogy can be sustained.
Paul and Adam
You have said it well. I agree. This is why CT drew the bottom line they did. I think they are right.
Darrell, Following the issue
Darrell,
Following the issue of a historical Adam, the next issue may be the historicity of Noah’s Flood. Studies now show that mankind originated in East Africa. https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html The properties of Mitochondrial DNA (inherited from our mothers) and Y-Chromosomes (inherited from our fathers) are exploited serving as biological clocks pointing back in time and to geography to a group of only 10,000 individuals in located Africa, the original starting point of humans. They left Africa and radiated throughout the world from there.
Regarding a flood that wiped out all mankind, there is no genetic evidence from mDNA or Y-Chromosome that shows a biological trail of man starting out from Mount Ararat, radiating out from there, and then populating the world. If a local flood occurred around Mt Ararat, then it did not wipe out all of mankind, since by the time of that local flood, the forebears of the American Indians were already in the Americas.
For me, this does not negate the story of either the creation or of the flood, nor does it impugn the ministry of Jesus. He like Paul were men of their times and the inspired scripture accommodated the ancient worldview and cosmology.
I believe that for evangelism to occur, there must be a common ground, a common story of cosmology and human origins. This was true in the Greco Roman times. It needs to be true now. To the “Blue States” and to first world countries in the 21st century, Evangelicalism appears to be an irrelevant cultural backwater. This view is in great part to the literal and historical commitment to Adam and to the Flood by Evangelicalism.
Jerry
Jerry, I beg to disagree with
Jerry, I beg to disagree with you.
“Following the issue of a historical Adam, the next issue may be the historicity of Noah’s Flood.”
There are other theories besides the out of Africa model. Noah’s Flood is already denied by many Christians. Some still believe it but don’t realize that their old earth views invalidate that faith.
“Regarding a flood that wiped out all mankind, there is no genetic evidence from mDNA or Y-Chromosome that shows a biological trail of man starting out from Mount Ararat, radiating out from there, and then populating the world.”
Does biblical evidence count for anything any more?
“If a local flood occurred around Mt Ararat, then it did not wipe out all of mankind, since by the time of that local flood, the forebears of the American Indians were already in the Americas.”
I’m sorry, but how do you KNOW that? The Bible says all mankind was wiped out. I doubt you can bothe be right.
“I believe that for evangelism to occur, there must be a common ground, a common story of cosmology and human origins.”
Do you think this common story of cosmology and human origins has to be true or just accepted by both? If it doesn’t need to be true, then we can sacrifice the Bible’s story and change it to make it acceptable to scientists and intellectuals of our day. I lean towards the idea that it is more important that it be true than commonly recognized by both sides. Yes, I admit, I’m a 51 year old believer awash in irrelevant cultural backwater. If it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.
So Disappointing
I could not be more disappointed with Christianity Today and this blog post. It is shocking how willing Christians are to abandon the veracity of Scripture for the latest "science." I am not some backwoods reactionary who stands in oposition to science and anything modern. But I am someone who demands there be actual evidence and data if you're going to make claims that would undermine the entire Word of God.
I challenge everyone to search the Christianity Today article and find the explaination of how the conclusion that there had to be 10,000 original people was reached. You will search in vain. I then encourage you to search the BioLogos Foundation website for an explanation of how that conclussion was reached. Once again, you will search in vain. The BioLogos website has a footnote claiming that this evidence is found in Collins' book, "The Language of God." Is that so?
On pages 126 and 207, the conclusions presented about the required population size are simply repeated. They are said to come from “population geneticists” who “look at the facts about the human genome.” They assure us that “studies of human variation . . . all point to an origin of modern humans approximately a hundred thousand years ago, most likely in East Africa.” That’s it.
This is a rehash of an old debate that Young Earth scientists have won regarding the DNA evidence. Every conclussion of the book and the article is formulated from a biased view of the data that starts from faulty and evidence-less presupositions.
Before we throw out Scripture and the work of Christ on the Cross, let's make sure there's actually something scientific to talk about!
ADAM, JESUS, AND PAUL
I think what bothered me most in the article were the ones who spoke as if Paul was just speaking from the limits of the common understanding during his day.
Where is the inerrancy in that kind of thinking? So he wrote apart from the Spirit of God leading him? How am I to trust anything he has to say?
If the first man Adam was actually a name for a collective, then maybe the second man Jesus was just a term for a collective god!
While the adherents to this new way of thinking say that they believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, their speech betrays what they really believe is inerrant: Science. Paul could be wrong but the leading theistic evolutionists are spot on. Really?
When the time of the end comes Paul will have been found to have given a true account, inspired by the Holy Spirit, of the first man Adam who became a living soul. And the second Adam, Jesus, became a life giving spirit.
Thank you for bringing this article and the editorial to our attention.
Lord my prayer is that you might be glorified as those you have created and recreated through the new birth renew their interest in Your word. May all scientific evidence be re-examined in light of the Your word. May the servants you chose and inspired to write Your word not be downgraded to mere products of their environment and culture, writing about and representing the limits of their understanding. But may they be seen as Your chosen vessels who wrote as the Spirit moved them. May all who are struggling with the various issues and ramifications of this debate be drawn to the more sure word, Your word. Amen
ekerwin
Questions about the Issue
Jerry:
About your theory. When do we get spontaneous mutation that leads to 10000 similar successful mutations that leads to a instantaneous human group? As confident as you appear about the science, remember that science often has paradigm shifts as well.
As to the theology, what do we do with a divine-human Jesus who appealed to Adam? Was Jesus just a man of his time? Probably seriously underestimates how he is portrayed in Scripture which is our only source for knowing who he is. The earlier note about Paul from Scott makes the case that Paul's point is not an analogy of fable to reality but reality to reality. This is why Christianity Today posed the question of what the bottom line was.
Take a read of 1 Corinthians 2 and understand why the charge of being "backwater" was already noted in Scripture for those who thought they were wise.
intelectual suicide is right?
Paleontology, archaeology and anthropology doesn't consent to imagine a literal and "historical" Adam as individual. It's a requiriment of a pure intelectual suicide by a caprice ideological.
intellectual suicide?
Yes, Jesus was a caprice ideologue as well. See his discussion of marriage, which appears to presume Adam and Eve in Matthew 19:1-10. Or Paul in Romans 5:1-11.
All the disciplines you cite would simply seem to support an older earth, which I have no problem with. The issue is how did man get to be in the image of God and why is he so different from other creatures. I think God introduced that dimension by creating the first humans.
FIRST HUMANS
"...how did man get to be in the image of God and why is he so different from other creatures. I think God introduced that dimension by creating the first humans."
AMEN!
Thank you, Dr. Bock, for remaining true to God's clearly revealed word!
ekerwin
Where's My Reply?
Did my reply get filtered out? Just checking.
Disappointing and Reply
Scott:
Be patient. I review these once a day. It takes a while. The posts are up now.
As for your disappointment, let me urge you to read the materials carefully. The CT article report on the 10000 human idea but does not endorse it. It simply leaves the issue open. That is not enough for some, especially those who work with and insist on a young earth model. On my part, the young earth model is possible but I am not certain about it at all. It is not clear to me it is the most likely explanation of the text or the science. I think the key point is the creation of humans by God in a real Adam and Eve as I have stated. That will probably leave you disappointed, especially given the exaggerated throw out Scripture and the cross remark, which is not at all what any of this means when we are discussing how the Genesis account works.
Hello Darrell, Yes, the
Hello Darrell,
Yes, the science has been pointing to an old earth driven by the weight of the evidence.
I started out as a young earth creationist in the 70’s, then took a class in 1992 with Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe, got into ID briefly, but since then over the last 10 years, I have been moving towards the Theistic Evolutionary perspective. John Polkinghorne and N.T. Wright have been very influential. By profession, I have been involved with the design of some of the satellites from NASA doing Big Bang research, namely the cosmic background radiation.
We have almost the same DNA as the primates including chimpanzees and bonobos. I think the issue of no historical Adam will continue to be borne out as more and more evidence comes in. This whole issue was accelerated due to the advances in genomics, and by Francis Collins.
I suppose the issues are the historicity of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, and the reference made to them by Paul and by Jesus. What science did Paul and Jesus know? It was most likely the cosmology of the time such as a Ptolemaic view. Paul was a man of his time and could believe in a historical Adam, since that was what everyone believed. Jesus? Incorporating some Lutheran theology perhaps, I am also suggesting that since Jesus emptied himself (Phil 2), and with respect to science and to history he was a man of his time too. He learned the same things that everyone else in his local culture learned – a historical flood.
C.S. Lewis had a notion of an evolved cohort of ancient men who somehow after being visited by God tragically spurned Him. Afterwards, sin entered in, and the story of creation, redemption, and salvation began to be told…
I pray for a coherence between the sciences and the scriptures that is true to both (Eph 3:20?). I hope it won’t be yet another round of Galileo versus Pope Urban VIII. The church took it on the chin that time.
Jerry
Jerry, what do you make of
Jerry, what do you make of this article about the Big Bang and all it's scientific problems?
http://crev.info/content/110617-cosmology_could_be_way_off
I'm all for coherence as well, but how we determine who moves to accomplish the coherence is a bit difficult to decide. It seems you want the Bible to move whereas others feel differently.
Jerry, I have a question for you.
How has your view of the Bible changed as you veered away from YEC, to Ross, and now to theistic evolution? Or how has your hermeneutic changed in that process?
You said: "We have almost the same DNA as the primates including chimpanzees and bonobos. I think the issue of no historical Adam will continue to be borne out as more and more evidence comes in."
"Almost the same DNA"? That is a real stretch, Jerry. Common design is just as valid as common descent to explain what similarities there are. You are making assumptions about the observations that are not warranted by Scripture. And even the observations are not always accurate. I think we need to start with truth first before we go allowing modern day ever changing ideas of evolution inform our interpretation of the Bible.
WHEN DID SIN ENTER?
Does evolution and an old earth include death?
If so, when did sin enter?
Is there any validity to the Scriptures if sin did not bring death? Or was it the primordial soup that sinned?
Sin entering
I take it sin entered in when Adam and Eve sinned.
Dr. Bock, about an old earth
Do you believe in a worldwide flood?
If so, how can you reconcile that with an old earth?
just wondering. I was under the impression that if there was a worldwide flood it would have laid down vast layers of sedimentary rock with lots of fossils in it. But evolutionists see the same fossil record as a record of the evolutionary history of living creatures. IT can't be both. They must have billions of years in order for their theory to float so they interpret the fossil record as such. But if the fossil record is more a record of the order of burial of living creatures in the flood, then one important evidence for an old earth is gone.
Rocks come up with an old age, but various assumptions must be made when dating rocks.
Radioactive dating in general depends on three major assumptions:
After hardening, the rock must remain a closed system, that is, no parent or daughter atoms should be added to or removed from the rock by external influences such as percolating groundwaters; and
The radioactive decay rate must remain constant throughout history.
If any of these assumptions are violated, then the technique fails and any ‘dates’ are false.
There is no way of knowing or verifying any of these. They are just assumed to be true. Actually there is a good possibility that decay rates did not remain constant during and after the flood but were greatly speeded up.
Other problems with dating methods:
No two dating methods ever give the same date for the same rock. And these dating methods are never accurate on rocks that we know the ages for so why should we trust the ages for rocks that we don't know the ages for?
Carbon 14 is found in everything and this should not be if it was formed millions of years ago. Contamination is simply assumed to save their billions of years necessary for the process of evolution to take place.
Scripture seems pretty clear that the earth is young.
I'm just curious as to why you believe in an old earth.
Old Earth
TJ:
I do not think the text gives us the details about how the fossil record works with a worldwide flood, which I accept. We have to reconstruct that and it is not certain. So I question if we can know how that works. On dating, that comes not just from the earth but from other bodies in the universe. So I have questions about your doubts on dating methods. I also think we have questions about how dating works in the early chapters of Genesis that also leave us with a less than clear answer. (Remember how some people read Scripture to say the earth was the center of the universe and were wrong). I do think Scripture is clearer on Adam and Eve and with Matthew 19 and Romans 5 mentioning them that God created them as the first humans made in his image. When? Only God knows that. So the earth could be young or old. We cannot say for the reasons I noted and so I do not take a firm position on that question.
worldwide flood
Thanks Dr. Bock.
"I do not think the text gives us the details about how the fossil record works with a worldwide flood, which I accept."
I'm glad you accept a worldwide flood. But if you do, I have trouble understanding how you can reconcile that with an old earth view.
The Bible is the starting point for interpretation of the Bible as well as the fossil record. You said the Bible doesn't give us much information on the fossil record or how it works, but that sounds like a bit of a copout to me. It really isn't hard to figure out. Any geologist can tell you what you would that would mean for the fossil record. It seems that you haven't really thought through the implications on the fossil record of your belief in a worldwide flood.
The rock layers were either layed down over long periods of time or they were laid down during the worldwide flood. If there was a worldwide flood, then the rocks would HAVE to give evidence of that.
What evidence would you expect from a global watery catastrophe that drowned the animals, birds, and people not on the ark? All around the world, in rock layer after rock layer, you would expect to find billions of death things that have been buried in water-carried mud and sand that turned into rock. And this is exactly what we find. Their state of preservation frequently tells of rapid burial and fossilization, just like one would expect in such a flood.
However, the evolutionists see these same rocks as evidence for evolution over millions/billions of years. Which is it? Are the evolutionists right or is the Bible right?
Dr. Bock, you do realize that if you believe in a worldwide flood, you are going against modern day geology and paleontology. If you are willing to go against status quo geology and paleontology, why not go all the way and trust the Bible when it comes to astronomy and biology as well?
Also, you do realize that accepting a worldwide flood would mean that you too would have to question the ages of rocks that evolutionists give, don't you? Why? Because most of the rock they are testing is filled with fossils and was laid down during the flood. This would mean that these rocks would have to be young! There is just no way they could be millions of years old. The fact that these rocks are full of fossils gives evidence of death and that means the rocks had to have been laid down after Adam and Eve were created because there was no death in the world until sin came. This is another reason they could not be millions or billions of years old.
Remember, evolutionists are biased too. The millions/billions of years are a NECESSITY for evolution. If they don't have that kind of time available, evolution could never have happened so they must find a way to come up with millions/billions of years. Their worldview prevents them from even considering a young earth.
Even if you claim that the earth is old and that the flood happened after millions/billions of years of earth history, still it would have ripped up the top layers of rock all around the world and there is no evidence of this. The Bible gives us the knowledge we need to properly interpret the fossil record. If you know that a worldwide flood occurred, don't you think that would influence how you interpret the fossil record? Since scientists do not accept this, they interpret the fossil record through their own lens of evolution and millions of years. However, as believers convinced of the trustworthiness of Scripture, we realize there was a worldwide flood and hence use that truth to help us interpret the fossil record.
Nature too has to be interpreted. A knowledge of the flood is imperative to interpreting it correctly. Trying to hide behind the claim that the Bible does not give us the details about how the fossil record works with a worldwide flood doesn't fly because it is obvious how it works scientifically speaking.
No hiding nor being bullied
tjguy:
My point about Scripture not giving us fossil etail is simply that how the science works is not the point of the text nor does it gives us detail on any science involved. Your response interprets the text and sees it in one way. The bullying of claiming I am hiding behind the text is not a very good way to argue a case. What I am doing is allowing the text to address what it seeks to communicate and not unduly extrapolate over what it does not address directly.
CT article on Adam and Eve, etc.
I am looking at this some months after the CT controversy. I have seen accounts on the internet that Bill Dembski got called to the principal's office at SWBTS a while back because he suggested in a book that maybe the flood was only local. Since he seems to have been kicked out of one institution for being too conservative (promoting ID at Baylor) and another for being too liberal (not being young earth at SBTS), I can understand his reluctance to go through this sort of thing again (he punted.) I'm curious if you all have had any similar incidents at DTS? I don't mean concerning the flood. I'm just curious if DTS has drawn a line in the sand and where it is.
As for me, I'm a biochemist and my perspective is that Jerry (above) is right. Genomics has put common ancestry of humans and other primates beyond any question. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a paradigm shift on that. The arguments on population size are harder to explain to laymen, and I'm not an expert on population genetics so I leave that to those who are.
I think it's regrettable that some conservative theological institutions think they can deal with these things by just stonewalling them and kicking people out. It may pacify the constituents but history indicates that solid scientific advances have to be dealt with eventually by theologians. I wish you guys would get on with it.
Adam and Eve
Preston:
We have had no such issues at DTS. Other than affirming Adam and Eve as historical creations of God we have never had an official position on the details of divine creation.
Post new comment