Christianity Today interview with Joshua Swamidass about his new book, the Genealogical Adam and Eve

Faith & Science Conversation
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In my opinion the best quality of the book is how it expresses the limits of science. Science tells us that God did not start humanity from a single couple 7000 years ago. But science cannot tell us whether or not God miraculously created a single couple, put them in a special location, made a special covenant with them, and then called them to proclaim His redemption to a wild and wonderful world that needs good news.

By expressing scientific findings with evident humility, it may help some. After all, our life-changing decisions are rarely made on a purely rational basis.

At the same time, science also tells us that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and that life evolved over a period of ~3 billion years. This might be a bridge too far for most of today’s YEC crowd.

Best,
Chris

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a la John Walton’s Lost World of Adam & Eve, you could construe the “creation” of Adem & Eve to reflect some sort of “Theistic Evolutionary cultivation” of a specially spiritually chosen pair of “Priestly Prophets”

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The crazed mish mash is exactly what I believed of course for decades. This is nothing new.

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That spiritual “priestly prophet” interpretation of Adam and Eve does not seem to be accepted by people I know who hold to Old Earth Creation, because it is still too figurative for them. If God wanted us to think of Adam and Eve as priests, why didn’t he call them priests already in Genesis 1-3, rather than waiting until later to introduce the idea of priests

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I agree with everyone’s impressions about this GAE theory not necessarily being helpful for YECs, but more for OECs.

Thank you for these thoughts, Chris,

I strongly agree!! I think humility is one of the biggest factors that will help in these science/faith dialogues.

Christy,
I also appreciate your very thoughtful response to this GAE theory. I’ve gotten through the first half of the book, so the scientific argument makes a lot of sense to me. I still need to work through the ideas in the second half of the book on the implications for what it means to be human, made in the image of God, and original sin. I’m also interested to hear what more theologians think about if it fits with Christian theology.

This idea that everyone who likes GAE likes it for someone else was brought up on another BioLogos Forum thred. However, I think that is an unfair characterization. If the GAE idea is true and theologically acceptable, I would like it for myself, AND one of the things I like about it is that it could be good for bridge building. Its just one of those theories that we would never be able to prove or disprove.

We’ll know the truth when we get to heaven. In reality, most people are not drawn into the Christian faith by scientific arguments, but rather by their personal relationship with Christ and understanding the power of the work of His death and resurrection for their salvation.

For now, it can be very reassuring that there are various different ways of thinking about how the truth we see in scientific evidence fits with the truths in the Bible. Keeping humility will help those of us with different viewpoints get along, and demonstrate positive influences of Christ’s work in our lives to people who are not (yet) believers. It has really been bothering me how contentious these arguments about different origins theories can get, because the way we argue increases (rather than diminishes) the impression that science and the Christian faith are in conflict.

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For what it’s worth, here’s the response from Dr Carter of CMI (Creation Ministries International) (this was before the book came out):

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Well, FYI, the Holy Koran refers to Adam as exactly that, the “first prophet” of The One True God in the heavens

Moreover, Adam & Eve “communicated with (the one true) God”, which is the definition of being a true “prophet”, and actions speak louder than words?

I guess the term “priest” is probably too tied up with the notion of a physical temple location, on second thought, I’d like to retract the term “priest” and simply suggest “prophet”

I think there is solid “pan-Abrahamic Religious” basis for considering A&E the “first prophet & prophetess” who communed directly with heaven

some other things to think about, the transition from a forest-like environment of fructivorous vegetarianism, to one wherein animal blood is spilled to provide humans animal-hide clothing, corresponds accurately to the transition from chimpanzee-like Australopithecines to the first stone-tool using, fire-wielding, meat-eating homo habilis 2-3 million years ago.

Then, the curse of Adam to “work the land by the sweat of your brow”, from a previous existence of (hunting and) gathering, resembles the Agricultural Revolution 10-20 thousand years ago

And, corroboratingly, the conflict between city-dwelling Cain and free-ranging Abel resembles the ensuing conflict between burgeoning farming populations with those “conservative” hunter-gatherers around them, 5-10 thousand years ago

The text easily aligns with the scientifically-accepted time-line of homonid-to-human development over the past 2-3 million years…

although it does so according to an extremely non-linear (logarithmic???) notion of time, wherein scant words sweep us forward millions of years, and the next sentence or so thousands more

As Genesis unfolds further, the ratio of “Scriptural words to linear historic earth time” continues to increase, as more & more verses are devoted to the doings & deeds of Noah, Nimrod, Abraham & the Patriarchs, and so on…

Someone really “ought to” try to plot this out, I hypothesize that it traces out a nice logarithmic curve

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Just want to offer, that JS’s argument is “stronger than necessary”

Heaven “forming & shaping” A&E on earth can be straight-forwardly construed as a Theistically-guided, Providentially-governed, cultivation of A&E. To wit, “artificial selection”. The God in heaven intervenes into the natural mutational variation on earth, and influences selection upon this planet, so as to “steer” or “guide” terrestrial evolution until A&E emerge

All the other humans around were (according to Scripture) not affected by this heavenly intervention into earth history. The God in heaven “left them alone” and “let earth nature take its natural course” with them.

But, with the lineage(s) leading to A&E, heaven did actively intervene, favoring some & disfavoring others, until A&E emerged, by this process of “heavenly cultivation (and culling)”.

Cp. the historically widespread acknowledgement, by the entire human species on earth as far back as any ancient aboriginal Dreamtime song-lines recall, that heavenly powers reward faithful followers & punish apostates. Uncritically accepted, at face value, heavenly powers have intervened into evolution (mutational variation & selection) on earth, cultivating (& culling) amongst chosen sub-populations of humanity, until A&E were (thereby) brought about.

One does not have to adopt JS’s notion of A&E being literally cobbled together out of dust & clay. Those words could well allegorize a Theistically-guided, Providentially-governed, evolutionary process.

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Thank you Erik,
That is an interesting timeline you outlined for homonid/human development

Yes, I have made that same point to someone who used the “dust and clay” verse while trying to convince me that evolutionary creation could not be true.

However, there is the second, more challenging question, that I somewhat ironically first really understood during a workshop on the topic at last year’s BioLogos conference. Prior to that conference I simply claimed ignorant bliss, by avoiding thinking much about Adam and Eve.

That second question is: How do we understand the passages where Paul and Jesus refer to Adam and Eve as an actual, historical couple. I think that is why John Walton says that Adam and Eve must have been an actual (not just a figurative) couple, which leads to the priestly representative hypothesis.

While I like the priestly representative idea, somehow it hasn’t seemed to convince my old earth friends, so perhaps I shouldn’t fully cling to that idea either, but be open to others, as well. Thus, I also like that there just might be more options available, like the GAE idea.

As you can see, I’m still trying to figure things out for myself, here, too. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Well put! I am, too.
I appreciated Enns’ “Evolution of Adam” discussion of the Hebrew and Christian understandings of Adam and Eve, and their importance to the NT.

In my gut, I have a significant difficulty with any idea of God carrying responsibility from a progenitor (or any ancestor) on to current descendants; that is an ancient Near Eastern motif of corporate responsibility, and I don’t think translates to not just a Western, but a true, sense of responsibility. So, I don’t find GAE or even the Calvinist understanding of Adam congruent with a righteous God. Beverly Gaventa and Enns believe that Romans’ purpose is to rebuke Judaizers from giving restrictions to Gentiles, not to communicate a transference of responsibility. Also, Jesus referred to Jonah as a real person–and I am not sure that He opted to work outside the realm of what one would expect to know, or communicate, in his time. I’m not sure that his alluding to Jonah or Adam verifies their existence any more than their mention in the OT does.

Thanks for your reflections.

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well, the incredible lifespans of the antediluvians suggests (to my mind) that Scripture is using real, historic individuals as representatives of entire “tribes” which (say) they founded and which then continued on, as identifiable distinct groups, for hundreds & hundreds of years.

Something like the “Cain tribe” was founded by the historic “Cain”, and even after he met his end, his “Cain tribe” lived on for 900 years – during which time its population grew until it spawned another “Irad tribe” under another charismatic prophetic leader “Irad” – until eventually it (Cain tribe) was absorbed & dispersed into surrounding groups, losing its distinct identity.

If so, then “A&E” also represent both historic human individuals, as well as the “tribal groups” they founded. Both Gen 1 & Gen 2 (kinda like Matthew & Mark of the OT) synoptically describe creation, and both agree that man was created before woman.

Offer that implies that Heaven first “cultivated” Adam on earth, out of the surrounding population of people present…

and Adam founded a distinct “clan” or “tribe”…

and eventually Heaven “cultivated” Eve, on earth, from amongst that “Adam tribal group”…“from Adam’s side”…

this interpretation would make Eve some sort of daughter descendent of Adam as the historic individual founder of said “Adam tribe”…

and there wound up being some sort of “chain of command”:

God (YHWH) > Adam > Eve

which became inverted:

Adam < Eve < Snake (Nachash)

apparently picturing the proverbial “battle of the sexes” as manifesting the supernatural spiritual tension between YHWH vs. Nachash

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I am not exactly sure what the idea is about Adam and Eve being spoken of. I don’t think he made a new pair of humans and stuck them in the garden. I think like he has repeatedly done throughout scripture, choosing a few out of many to be his, is what happened. Obviously this was before the Hebrew language was even around. So there name was probably not actually hebrew names.

As for them being prophets I think it was just not a necessary title to make. I think you can reason through scripture if really pushed to show they were priests.

In the Torah was it not only the priests who carried out the sacrifices? Yet Adam and Eve made sacrifices.

As for the prophets thing again in the Torah enoch is not called a prophet but Jude mentions the prophecies made by Enoch making him a prophet as well.

also even in the new testament it mentions a different standard of morality between Jewish and gentiles. It mentions gentiles judged by their heart. No reason to believe that Adam and Eve after being selected was taught by god. God wanted to teach them good vs bad. Yet they wanted to do it on their own and was kicked out. So I believe the others were judged by a standard god used until the stories he wanted shared all over.

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I read the book and discussed it briefly with a YEC elder at my church (he did not read the book). He and I both didn’t really have any need for Adam and Eve to be ancestors of all humans. That wasn’t important to either of us.

When I think about the concerns of some other YEC friends and church leadership that I’ve talked to, I don’t think the book really addresses the reasons why they’re YEC. For example, some still have a problem with the order of creation in Genesis 1 - if that order isn’t correct, they think the Bible is false. And they expect physical creation on those 6 days, with A&E created on the 6th day. GAE doesn’t help them with that. There is also the flood, which my YEC friends believe was global. GAE doesn’t address that really, and it actually gave me new questions about the flood. I previously thought the regional flood was killing the line of Adam, but if Adam’s descendants are all over the world by that time, it’s only killing his descendants in that region, and then I have to ask what’s the point? I don’t really have a good answer for that. The flood has always bothered me more than A&E.

Prior to GAE hypothesis, I already believed that A&E were historical people, and I have for a long time said that they could have been born or specially created. I lean toward born. Genesis 2 and 3 are screaming figurative language at me. And even with GAE being specially created, there are things I can’t see being meant literally - like the serpent being a clever beast of the field, while the NT says it’s Satan. It can’t be just a clever beast AND Satan. That doesn’t make sense to me.

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I have not had much of a problem with the idea of a literal talking snake in the story, because I thought the idea was that Satan had spiritually possessed the serpent to use the serpent to speak to Eve.

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I don’t see anything in the story suggesting Satan possession, and I don’t see Satan possession elsewhere in the Bible either?

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Yes, and further, if Satan possessed a snake, I’d expect the chain of blame to go one level further: Adam > Eve > snake > Satan. Instead, it stops at the snake and the consequences are for the snake, Eve and Adam. How is Satan punished by snakes needing to eat dust and crawl on their belly or get their head crushed by Eve’s offspring? Only if we read the snake as symbolizing Satan rather than being possessed by Satan does the snake’s curse apply to Satan (or evil powers more generally, depending on what exactly the snake represents).

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Thanks @Marshall and @Boscopup you make good points, perhaps possession is the wrong word.

However, it seems to me that it would be possible to take the story both literally and symbolically.

This is what the notes of my ESV study Bible say:

“As he narrative proceeds, it becomes clear that more than a simple snake is a work here; an evil power is using the snake. As indicated by God’s declaration that “everything he had made…was very good,” clearly evil entered the created world at some unknown point after God’s work of creation was completed.”

The snake was cursed:

“Indicted for its part in tempting the woman, the serpent will be viewed with contempt from now on. This is conveyed both literally and figuratively by the serpent’s going on its belly and eating dust.”

“This interpretation requires that the serpent be viewed as more than a mere snake, something which the narrative itself implies, given the serpent’s ability to speak and the vile things he says. While the present chapter does not explicitly identify the serpent with Satan, such an identification is a legitimate inference and is clearly what the apostle John has in view in Rev 12:9 and 20:2”

“Within the larger biblical framework, this hope comes to fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who is clearly presenting in the NT as overcoming Satan”

so yes the blame and the curses do go one level further: to Satan

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@Boscopup

The GAE scenarios allow for a special creation of Adam and Eve… even in the midst of an evolved human population.

This approach doesn’t satisfy all Creationists, but it is the first modern movement that reconciles limited special creation with the science of Evolution!

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Interesting article:

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Have you brought this question to Dr. Swamidass at the Peaceful Science Forum? It would be interesting to hear his answer

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