There is a view within Biologos on “if Adam was historical”. Does this view teach that we all come from Adam and Eve? Some Christian leaders (such as Billy Graham) are open to models that see evolution as compatible with Adam and Eve as real historical people. In one version, suggested by theologian Henri Blocher and others, God entered into a special relationship with a pair of homo sapiens, breathing his image into them about 200,000 years ago in Africa. Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens in Gods image. Genesis retells this historical event using cultural terms that the Hebrews in the ancient Near East could understand." Another article included the view of the image of God. within this view. According to this view, Adam and Eve were the first with Gods image, and it spread to everyone. Now, we know all humans today are mad in Gods image, so does this view mean we all are descended from Adam and Eve who lived from 100-200,000 years ago?
Better description of the view: 1. Adam and Eve as a transformed pair of ancient representative-ancestors of all humanity. At some early point when our ancestral population was only a few thousand individuals, perhaps about two hundred thousand years ago in Africa, God specially selected a pair not only to receive special revelation but also to be miraculously transformed—perhaps by a superabundant gift of the Holy Spirit—to make it possible for them to be truly holy, capable of obeying all of God’s spiritual and moral requirements. While they were for a while able not to sin, nevertheless they sinned, and the special grace that allowed them to be sinless was withdrawn. In the centuries following their revelation and disobedience, that group and their descendants mixed culturally and eventually genetically with other groups of humans alive at that time, and in this way the spiritual, psychological, and cultural effects of sin eventually spread to the entire population. This question is mainly about this view, so even if Adam and Eve may not be real, I’m mainly looking for how this view believes if we all are descended from Adam and Eve.
I don’t think Adam and Eve necessarily need to be either the first people or the first ones to be made in God’s image. Their names aren’t even mentioned until the second chapter of Genesis. But that doesn’t remove the question of who were the first image-bearers, or at what point that “image” was conferred. I don’t really know the answer – but I choose to believe that God used Adam and Eve to demonstrate important principles about the way humans relate to God.
what does 1 corinthians 11:8 meaning
There are a variety of views among forum participants, but my impression is tht Biologos does not take an official view, as it is a big tent in that area of interpretation.
William Lane Craig recently can out as supporting the 100K to 200K YBP A&E, and there was a thread on it here I believe. New book about Adam and Eve by William Lane Craig
I’ll look at that, btw what I described is one of the possibilities, apparently, not an official view.
Craig puts A&E ~700K YBP.
Do you mean does it teach that there was one and only one original human couple within the last 10,000 years from whom all people on earth are biologically descendants? No, because genetic science says that is not the case.
If you go back 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, you are bringing in other issues. How did we get a story passed down for that many generations? Why are Adam and Cain and Abel depicted as working in agriculture when agriculture and the domestication of animals didn’t begin until 10,000 years ago?
The question to ask is does God’s image need to be spread through sexual reproduction/genetics or can we imagine some other way an existing evolved population could become humans in God’s image?
Right, even more problematic than my faulty memory. It seems that trying to maintain a historical A&E brings out even bigger problems.
Doesn’t agree with the Bible and renders them insignificant to human development. I therefore hold that Adam and Eve were 6,000-10,000 years ago in the Middle East. And I don’t believe in any supernatural “image of God” thing. The divine breath is inspiration. So God adopted these two, spoke to them, and raised them as His own children, and that is the meaning of being created in His image for that is what we do when we create children.
Children of the mind to Adam and Eve (6,000-10,000 years ago), as we are children of God? Yes. But we are no more genetically descended from Adam and Eve than we are genetically descended from God. That is NOT what being the children of God means. This modern obsession with genetics is a total distortion.
Ok, so then how did the “image of God” spread? Are there any characteristics of the Image, and if there were, were A&E the first in the image? If so, then what was the religious beliefs of earlier humans like
First what is this “image of God” thing anyway.
- First and foremost I think it is an infinite potentiality to reflect God’s infinite actuality. That is what makes for an eternal parent-child relationship where there is no end to what God can give to us and no end to what we can receive from Him.
- An actual parent-child relationship requires more than just potentiality. It also requires communication. This is the difference between “good” and “very good” in God’s assessment of His creation.
- Then the basic idea of the Bible is that this “image of God” is what constitutes our humanity and makes us different from God’s other creations.
Thus I would suggest that there are two aspects to this which we can find in our use of the word “humanity.”
- On the one hand there are ways of thinking and standards of behavior by which we say that people have great humanity or are lacking in humanity.
- On the other hand, we believe in giving people a chance to learn and accept such human standards of thought and behavior, and so like with our own children, it is the potentiality which is most important.
So accordingly…
2 - Once God had communicated these ways of thinking and behaving to Adam and Eve, then all people in the world had this potential and thus should be given the chance to learn them.
1 - But of course the ways of thinking and behaving taught by God would take time spread over the earth and the speed of that can be as fast as it takes someone to travel around to world, which people can do walking in a few years. But of course just because people can travel around the world that fast, doesn’t mean they actually will and so we might observe the speed at which ideas have traveled around the earth in ancient times. And for the most obviously important ideas, I think it has frequently done so in less than a thousand years.
I would expect some connection to the beginning of human civilization.
I think it is possible, even with an A&E only 6,000-10,000 ago.
I have seen no convincing evidence that early hominids had what I would call religion.
Thanks. However I have some questions, but I’m not saying I agree with these arguments. How do you explain Acts 17:26, 1 Corinthians 11:7-8 and 1 Corithians 15:45 calling Adam the first man?
I would point out that this is hardly the first case where a single word is used in more than one way. In Acts 17:26, 1 Corinthians 11:7-8 and 1 Corinthians 15:45 it is referring to man made as a child of God in God’s image. In that case Adam was the first. But the words “man” and “human” are also used in other ways such as to refer to the biological species without any expectation of a relationship with God.
Literarily. Culturally. Anthropologically.
Genesis describes Adam being formed from the dust of the ground and Eve being formed from his rib, how do you explain this?
I explain this as the only way people could describe highly abstract truths without the sophistication of the language of science and philosophy.
God created our bodies from the stuff of the earth, matter, and communicated to us the the ideas which brought the human mind to life. And God created women who are as much a part of us as a rib taken our own body. As Jesus explained in Matthew 13, literalism is simply a way for people to shut their eyes, ears, and mind to things they simply do not want to understand. God speaks to us in parables, symbolism, and metaphors because truth and a relationship with God is not of universal benefit to all people.
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