Ethical implications of God using Evolution

Hi Jay, thanks for your thoughts and sorry it’s taken me so long to reply. I like what you say about the complexities of language as connected to theory of mind - and humans being far more developed on that scale than chimps/other animals. Thinking about it and reading part of that “order without law” article (which I actually quite enjoyed the part I read - there’s something oddly intriguing, even dare I say strangely reassuring reading about Chimpanzee social behaviours … I don’t fully know why haha, maybe because it makes more sense of some of the more primal and often stupid things we humans do). Anyway, in thinking about these things, I consider there is indeed a huge gap between animals and humans with respect to language, morality and relationships.

I tend to think though, as you said in relation to the concept of language, that humans are just more developed on a sliding scale of those concepts … rather than possessing them entirely apart from other animals (not sure if you were ever saying that in the article your wrote - well done by the way on that, no small thing to have an article out there). I guess this idea (that humans possess these qualities only to a greater degree than animals rather than uniquely?) then makes it hard to tease out the specific point where the unique human soul is born. It’s an interesting area to think about :face_with_monocle:

On all that, I had a bit of a look into Nietzsche’s “Will to Power” concept you mentioned, (only a 10 minute or so look via some videos, so I might be a bit off on exactly what it means). Um, I actually think it is this Will to Power that indeed is a very key aspect of what makes us uniquely human! What I mean is (here we go, double Dutch warning) … the internal expression of a will in the form of a promise that can remain a force in itself while holding together concepts of past memory, current experience and future likelihood … and then the ability and strength to follow through on that will/promise despite what that future might bring … that’s significant. Animals can’t do that (I’m not completely sure about chimps but I think they can’t either [I didn’t meticulously read the Order without law article but don’t recall it dealt with such concepts]).

All this I guess is something I’d like to think more about at some point - maybe there could even be a BioLogos post in the future “what actually makes us human?”. In the meantime, I’m trying to gather all my thoughts about the ethical implications of a traditional Christian perspective God - A. using evolution and B. not making it clear he did use evolution in his special revelation to mankind (the Bible). While doing so, I’m trying to reply to people’s previous comments hence this post :slight_smile:

Hi George, that perspective of the Eastern Orthodox Church’s view of sin sounds fascinating. Would you be happy to share any links to articles/videos etc that expand on it? I’d like to learn a little more. For example, would you say that the Eastern Orthodox Church believe in a literal Adam&Eve and that ‘sin entered the world through one man’s disobedience and death through sin” as Romans says? And if so, how is that reconciled with how you describe the Eastern Orthodox view juxtaposed against Augustine’s view of Original Sin?

The Eastern Orthodox communities believe Adam/Eve proves that God intentionally created humanity with the inclination towards disobedience.

They believe this was an important part of what humans had to learn from in order for humans to be worthy companions of God.

This is also consistent with the view that Adam/Eve were created as mortal beings … otherwise there would be no need for the Tree of Life.

@Sinner

Do some Orthodox googling… but make sure it isn’t Russian Orthodox. They appear to split the difference between Latin & Greek!

I’ve never read your interpretation being described. But maybe some E.O. out there thinks like you.

@Sinner

I find that discussions regarding “Theosis” don’t really engage the issues of Original Sin or Romans 5.

@Sinner

Yes, I can understand that viewpoint. In fact, there is a lot of interesting interaction in the medieval period between Greek and Latin spheres on the topic of theosis.

But if we are to acknowledge your “neophyte” status in this discussion, theosis fits rather well with a non-Augustinian view of sin.

Romans 5 talks about death through Adam & Eve … and this might be an allegorical reference to “death” - - OR:

… or it could be simply a logical statement that if the first humans were created MORTAL (in need of eating of the Tree of Life)… then all death comes to all the other humans because we are made on their imprint.

@Sinner

I was reading your opening post on a thread on Original Sin. You write:

“it is my understanding that you’ve just illustrated the Eastern Orthodox view of Original Sin, otherwise known as “Ancestral Sin”. The eastern view, as I understand it, is that sin is like an infection that affects everything it comes into contact with.”

If you mean this in the same way that “crazy people” tend to provoke crazy behavior from otherwise good people, then I would agree.

If you are saying that “sin” transferred mystically from Adam to the rest of humanity, then I would reject your interpretation - - as does most of the Eastern Orthodox community.

https://orthodoxwiki.org/Original_sin

NOTE:

This quote is easily found in the OrthodoxWiki article link that you provided in your earlier thread:

“The consequences and penalties of this ancestral act are transferred by means of natural heredity to the entire human race.”

This does not mean that “sin” transferred; it means that the nature of sinfulness transferred.

@Sinner

You can’t use the sentence as you write it:

“Thus if sin is ‘transferred’ in some way …”

The Eastern Orthodox are quite clear. The consequences of sin might be transferred … but not the sin itself.

Sin is not transferred. You can say, SINFULNESS is transferred… by means of heredity.

You said a lot of things … including “Thus if sin is ‘transferred’…”

Sin is NOT transferred.

@Sinner

Too subtle. You going to walk into a hallway of rotating blades.

The SIN is not transferred… period. If you are trying to focus on the different ramifications of this point, being NUANCED or SUBTLE about how you explain the foundation point is only going to cause confusion for other people who don’t realize you are being subtle.

@Sinner

Why are you bowing out? I’m not your boss. I’m not even a moderator or administrator. If I were your boss, I would tell you not to quit the discussion because you wanted to use quote marks.

But I’ve spent a little time on this question of Eastern Orthodoxy’s views on Original Sin. I only wanted to make it clear that you can’t argue that “sin is not transferred”, when you use phrases explaining what happens when “sin is transferred” in your follow-up analysis.

Perhaps the discussion you are having might better suited to private messaging or even a seperate thread? It’s an interesting topic sure - perspectives on the nature of how sin is transferred - but to be honest, the back and forth in the last few posts has sounded argumentative, even if not intended that way

No problem. It’s taken me at least as long to reply to you. haha

Writing about 30 years after Darwin, Nietzsche derived the “will to power” from three anti-Darwin evolutionists, and he saw his “will to power” as an anti-Darwinian explanation of evolution. He says several times that adaptation and the struggle to survive are secondary in the evolution of animals, behind the desire to expand one’s power – the “will to power.”

Nietzsche expands the concept into the area of morals in The Genealogy of Morals:

To speak of just or unjust in itself is quite senseless; in itself, of course, no injury, assault, exploitation, destruction can be ‘unjust,’ since life operates essentially, that is in its basic functions, through injury, assault, exploitation, destruction and simply cannot be thought of at all without this character. … that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life

Nietzsche argued that there were two fundamental types of morality: ‘Master morality’ and ‘Slave morality.’ Master morality values pride and power, while slave morality values things like kindness, empathy and sympathy. His hatred for Judaism and Christianity really shines here.

Pack animals track other creatures “reputation” and social rank. It takes more brainpower to keep track of reputation than to remember where a food source is located, which is why larger social groups created selective pressure toward greater brain power. In The Symbolic Species, anthropologist Terrence Deacon proposed that marriage did something for human evolution similar to what you’re describing:

The pair-bonding relationship in the human lineage is essentially a promise, or rather a set of promises that must be made public. These not only determine what behaviors are probable in the future, but more important, they implicitly determine which future behaviors are allowed and not allowed; that is, which are defined as cheating and may result in retaliation. The second problem is how to verify and guarantee the assent of the other individuals that could conceivably be involved, both as possible cheaters and as support against cheating. What I am essentially describing is, of course, the skeleton of what we recognize as a marriage agreement.

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That will be quite the undertaking to summarize, I’m looking forward to it.

In terms of (A) - God using evolution (with it’s death, pain, etc). A thought crossed my mind – have you seen the move “Arrival”? If so, what do you think about the decision the Amy Adams character makes at the end? She chose to have a child she would love deeply yet knew with 100% certainty would get sick, suffer and die.
Even without heaven and an eternal perspective she seems to be making a loving, good choice despite the pain and death that will also be involved. Her husband in the movie does not think it was a good choice and leaves her because of it. If you haven’t seen it, sorry if I ruined it for you. I thought it was a pretty decent movie. Plus it has alien “heptapods” called Abbott and Costello - so it’s got that going for it.

In any case, the movie made me think about God creating life knowing with 100% certainty that disease, suffering and death will be part of it. Can that not also be a good and loving thing? Especially in light of eternity and the sufferings of this world being so short in contrast?

The problem of suffering is a real problem and there are no easy answers. But I do find that the Christian world view holds the best, if not always fully satisfying, way of making sense of it.

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SUMMARY POST - INTRODUCTION:

Hi everyone, so here I am, writing the first part of my summary of this thread. I hope it does not disappoint. This is just an introduction that aims to set things up - several more instalments Are in the way as I attempt to describe.

Obviously, this whole endeavour of summarising everything in this thread - all the posts and all the articles linked etc is a lengthy one. There have been so many decent thoughts and perspectives shared on this thread such that by nature, a faithful summary isn’t going to be short.

In a way too … this is a summary but it is also something else, something deeper. It’s me trying to ‘sort it all out’. Probably the puzzle pieces analogy fits best here; in this thread I’ve been given many puzzle pieces. Now I’ve tipped the box out and am sorting through the themes in an attempt to put something of a picture together. What that picture will look like in the end … I don’t quite know. I haven’t seen the picture on the box - I just have the puzzle pieces themselves.

Within all this … there is a definite sense where the foundations of my faith and therefore the biggest part of my life are being deeply examined. This is not just a laissez faire Sunday afternoon pass time … the implications of what I see in the picture as it develops will have big ramifications for my faith and therefore my life and relatedly, that of my family’s.
Some fairly intensive and frank analysis Is therefore what is required. Virtually no holds barred. All the cards will be out on the table. In line this this, I want this analysis to very much cut through what I have learnt is Heuristic thinking. Heuristic thinking

Amongst it all however, I will acknowledge by God’s grace that I even have the time and life context to conduct such a task. I say this as the context of many people through history and of people in other countries/situations today is such that their circumstances for a variety of reasons would not be conducive to allowing such an activity as what I am doing here, and I try not to take that for granted.

As this summary will be so long, I figure it makes sense to break it up into bite size chunks. I certainly appreciate when effort is made to organise large swathes of information i read in my work etc and I hope to do the same here. In that vein then, I lay out my plan of attack for these ‘summary posts’ below.

I’m thinking to seperate the whole summary into what I envisage will 3 main parts (not including this Introduction).

The first part will be Part 1A (“One A - really?”
I hear someone say. Yes, read on :slight_smile: In 1A I will summarise my initial very long post that kicked off this thread and distill it all into the two main questioning grievances with the character of God outlined there. For the sake of not going on too much in one single post - I will then summarise what I felt were the main responses/ideas to the first of these grievances. This part will be long, but I hope very helpful.

In Part 1B I will summarise what I felt were all the seperate ideas raised in response to the second grievance I had from my initial post.

Moving on to Part 2, things will get extra interesting. Part 1 was just summary … in Part 2, we get into analysis and critique. I aim to critique many of the key ideas and the responses of 1a, 2b etc, giving my general thoughts, what I see as the logical strengths and logical flaws and generally playing devil’s advocate something chronic. It’ll be fun. I’m looking forward to this part - it will be a frank and direct analysis of all the ideas and I hope very interesting. Indeed at the time of writing this … I have only taken some rough notes for this part but in that process have stumbled upon new perspectives I find very interesting. Expanding on these is going to get fascinating, exploring a lot of new territory for me I haven’t yet read or heard many other people yet talk about
Connected to this, I really look forward to hearing others people’s thoughts on what will be put out there in Part 2.

Now, what Part 3 will look like isn’t entirely clear to me right now. And fair enough … I just have a sense there will be a Part 3. In line with hearing other people’s reflections etc … I intend to give some time for people to reply to everything put out there in Part 2 and go from there. I think Part 3 will more or less be a summary of where I’m at, having considered all the many, many perspectives and related associations. Within this, I expect a list of still unanswered grievances is likely.

Two more final thoughts before we get into it (and thanks for reading this far!). Firstly, there is no doubt each section of these summary posts will need a lot of editing - please bear with me if you notice spelling or grammar errors (I’ll be going back over things and editing them, like I need to do at some point to many of the horrendous spelling/grammar mistakes in my earlier posts here).

Secondly, connected to that - it’s entirely possible people may feel a little misunderstood if I place their quotes etc under a heading they feel didn’t describe what they were meaning to express. If so, please let me know. I’ve done my best to be fair to what I perceive as people’s original intention’ (purposeful reference to hermeneutics there :wink: while also using those quotes to help gather my own thoughts under the ‘idea categories’ you’ll see.

So without further ado, let’s get into it!

Surely His special revelation to mankind was Jesus? Without Him there would be no Christianity, i.e. no Church, no warrant for believing in God at all, apart from the same ancient violent creation and foundation myths.

The Bible is man’s evolving response - at best - to the work of the Holy Spirit. Unless it is an inspired flat cookbook and one must take it all as inerrant and infallible, on a spectrum from as literal to as metaphoric as possible, which allows for YEC to theistic evolution and it being history and prophecy of the actions of God the Killer.

If it is man’s evolving response, then yes there are implications about God’s morality. One of which is that He’s not the Killer.

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SUMMARY POST - Part 1A

My main grievances I tried to outline in the initial post of this thread can be condensed into the two below issues:

  1. that God as creator obviously knew how the world was made and despite having the ability to communicate this, even to an ancient world, choose not to. He instead used stories that we understand were not factually true so that they could sound similar to other stories around in the part of the world the Bible originated from at the time, enabling easier reception to the original audience. I took issue with this as odd, very unsettling and casting all kinds of doubts on all kinds of things. Connected to this are the topics of the nature of inspiration, how we understand Genesis, the historicity of Scripture and purpose of Scripture and related topics.
  2. Ignoring the fact that God did not make it clear in his Word, we know that a God who created the universe used evolution. God used a system to create the world then which is heavily reliant on the death and virtually continuous (and sometimes horrible) suffering of countless creatures over literally eons. Despite this, God reveals himself in the Bible as one who hates death, promises life and is a God who even cares if someone is cold and shivering at night (Ex 22:26). Yet, used evolution? The contrast in what is presented in the Bible and what is presented in nature is profound and to me, confusing and even disturbing

Responses to Grievance 1 - God could have but didn’t reveal how he actually created all things and instead used another story

1a. God spoke in the Bible in such a way that would make sense to the ancient people who were the audience. God therefore was not focussed on communicating in a way that would relate to us in the 21st century with our codes of thinking, knowing that we would later develop further as a human race to better understand why he spoke like he did at the time

I actually took issue this in my initial post, supposing God was indeed big enough to both speak to ancient people’s in a way they would understand/could relate to and which also spoke actual truth.

Nonetheless, a number of people raised this point and it’s not one that can just be discounted, even if I partially disagree with it. I’ll therefore summarise below what I felt were the key quotes that encapsulate the thinking about this through the entire thread, which is what I’ll do for each of the ‘key ideas’ outlined here. I’ll use a Roman numerals reference system for each quote under each heading, as this will help in people commenting who might want to point a particular something out and also for me later on in Part 2, when I go into full ‘break down and analyse/critique’ mode (here we are in more of a pure summary mode). So, here we go - quotes summarising the thinking of idea 1a:

i.

From Post 11 (P11)

  • Note - some post reference numbers (Px) May be one or two off to what they may appear for you in the thread. I’ve tried my best to be accurate but they’ll likely be errors. I include the post number in case anyone wants to scroll back up to see the original post in context

ii.

P11

iii.

P16

iv.

P17

v.

P20

1b. The story of Adam & Eve (and by extension much of the Bible) uses metaphorical language to explain deep truths and is not meant to be understood as fact like we understand fact

i.

P11

ii.

P11

iii.

P16

iv.

P17

v.

P68

I will also mention in line with this key idea of Narrative Theology @Christy mentioned Narrative Theology
I found this very interesting… perhaps one of the best ways to actually view the Bible. Have a read.

Further on this point is some of the excellent thinking of John Walton in his “Lost World” series about Genesis, where he gives his House vs Home analogy of how to understand Genesis
John Walton on interpreting Genesis

Finally, I may well revisit this point in a future post as I learn more about views around Adam & Eve. Within the BioLogos community, my understanding is that the general range of understanding about Adam&Eve starts from them not ever having existed but representing all of humanity, in a kind of archetypal manner, to them actually having existed as selected HomoSapiens whom God brought out from the other HomoSapiens about 10,000 years ago to become his special chosen ‘image’.

1c. The Bible is man’s (humanely fallible) way at trying to communicate eternal truths and [sub idea to this point] is done in the context of God being accessible and awareness of his existence being felt in a deep way by all. This said, awareness of God can only be communicated via human means and is therefore bound by the restrictions of communication in time and place

I have combined a few different views in the responses here and drawn out this theme.

i.

P7

ii.

P12

iii.

P16

iv.

P20

v.

P46

vi.

P55

P11

Further to this I would mention the author, podcaster and theologian Peter Enns. In particular it’s probably fitting here to mention his book ‘Inspiration and Incarnation’ - where Pete basically says that in the same way Jesus is 100% human but also 100% God, so the Bible is 100% with everything that brings but also totally divine. It’s a good paradigm to view the Bible through … although I still feel personally it leaves a number of things unanswered about why the Bible is like it is. If anyone wanted to explore the key idea of this point 1c further - just scroll through the episode titles of the podcast They Bible for Normal people’ that Pete Enns co hosts. A warning though … if you have anything of a traditional view of the Bible, what he says is likely to mess with you a bit.

1d. God actually has put clues about creation having occurred by evolution in the Bible. Obviously these could only be vague clues as they could not have been understood by the original audiences but they are still there. It is also our duty, joy and privilege to find out the truth about creation rather than just have it told to us

For me personally, I want this to be true but I have ambivalent emotions and strong suspicions. This idea was only a very quiet theme that popped up in the thread, here and there. No one really hung their hat on it in the end, so when you read what you do below - just know there may be other parts in the thread where the person adds extra to these comments.

i.

P14

ii.

P67

From the article “Creation, Evolution and Christian Laypeople”

Blockquote
Ancient writers also could use much figurative and symbolic language. For example, Bruce Waltke points out that when the Psalmist says, “you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps 139:13) he was not saying that he hadn’t developed in the perfectly normal biological ways. It is a figurative way to say that God instituted and guided the biological process of human formation in his mother’s womb. So when we are told that God ‘formed Adam from the dust of the ground’ (Gen 2:7), the author might be speaking figuratively in the same way, meaning that God brought man into being through normal biological processes. Hebrew narrative is incredibly spare—it is only interested in telling us what we need to know to learn the teaching the author wants to convey.”
Blockquote

The core emotion/thinking in this key idea of 1d, to my mind, ultimately relates to that of scientific concordance - that is, that the Bible concords/agrees/is in harmony with, science. This is basically another way of saying that the Bible concords with actual observable and factual occurrences. For all kinds of reasons, people want to believe “yes, of course the Bible concords with actual observable history … God [slight arrogant scoff] has told us what is true in the Bible, he knows what is true (He’s God) and he doesn’t lie, why then would he tell us something otherwise? [slight narrowing of eyes]”.

As one looks into it all though, as a general experience it seems they either come to sadly, and with an element of resigned depression, realise that the Bible does not concord with actual historical/factual reality in the way science does … or, they go so deep into various rabbit holes that they actually start to look like a white rabbit, for lack of exposure to sunlight (joke). That said, I’d (desperately) love to be shown wrong on this (imagination: someone warmly comes up to me “Here [huge smile] let me show you how the Bible concords with reality, come with me” [walks me over to a corner where no one else can see], “here’s how it concords!” [whacks me in the stomach, Religious Mafia style)

All this said, I feel it important to give a fair hearing to this idea (“well it’s not fair now is it, you’ve totally biased it” [this comment invites a threatening glance from the non-concordant mafia]
(note - I grew up in the 90s when the Simpsons [boo, hiss] were extremely popular … and they had little ‘imagination moments’ like this as part of their humour all the time … it’s definitely soaked in)

1e. Explaining how all things were created was not a priority for God

P20

1f. At the end of the day, trying to understand the tensions and apparent contradictions of how science and scripture interact is not something we will eventually ‘figure out’, at some point we just need to accept that and move on while still holding on to faith

i.

P56

ii.

P68

iii.

P78

This idea of never really being able to know and properly reconcile the tensions we see between the character of God presented in the Bible and what we see in the natural world (including evolution) is obviously a huge theme throughout the entire Bible. Specific to evolution though, even Dr John Laing says at the end of his response about how God and evolution might be reconciled

Blockquote
So like John, I confess to profound gratitude tempered with a lingering unease at the state of nature. Though I believe in a Fall, this unease is not rationally relieved by attributing to an Adam the present state of all nature. Nor is it resolved by the various alternative considerations I’ve described and which, taken together, seem to have considerable merit but not sufficiency. Notwithstanding, I thankfully affirm that “I have known the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” And I look to the day when we may say together, “My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You” (Job 42:5).

FINISH
Okaaay, well that’s enough from me for now in this section - Summary section 1A is complete, 1B next (“is this guy serious?”). All this ultimately is an endeavour to put those puzzle pieces out on the table and try and form a picture … and it’s one of those puzzles with like a 1000 pieces!

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I’m not sure if you were looking for responses or not. Either way, what you describe isn’t my position, and I’m pretty sure it’s not @Marshall’s, but I’ll let him speak for himself. What you’ve outlined is the position of Hugh Ross and Reasons to Believe. @gbob is a pretty strict concordist, if you want a live specimen to observe. (Joke!)

When I say early Genesis contains “clues” of human evolution, I’m remarking first of all on the fact that the author’s language is incredibly flexible at certain key points in the narrative. It’s due to the same things you highlighted in your block quote:

  1. Ancient writers used a lot of figurative and symbolic language.
  2. Hebrew narrative is incredibly spare.

Together, those two facts have given early Genesis the necessary flexibility to speak to the human condition throughout the centuries, including the 21st. For instance, the author of Gen. 2-3 could have used the personal name Adam rather than calling him ha’adam (“the human”). Since he didn’t, and since I believe in the authority and inspiration of Scripture, I view this as a feature, not a bug.

Second, when I speak of clues, I’m not claiming a one-to-one correspondence between the scriptural narrative and the scientific narrative. One feature that distinguishes my approach from RTB’s concordism is that I recognize the discords as well as the harmonies. For instance, in Genesis 2 animals and birds are created after the man, and the creation of the woman must wait until after he has named all the animals and birds. In Genesis 3, God’s curse upon the woman is pain in childbirth, which, as the result of bigger brains and narrower hips, has been part of the human condition since H. sapiens first appeared. Needless to say, it’s impossible to align these events with anything in history. The author may have been inspired in his choice of metaphors, but the story he wrote isn’t the record of a blow-by-blow, supernatural vision of early human history.

A clue is nothing more than a hint, and I think almost every evolutionary creationist would agree that they see hints of evolution in Scripture. If the Bible had no interpretive leeway in that regard, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Everyone would simply agree that the language of Genesis 1-3 entirely rules out evolution. End of discussion.

So, if concordism isn’t my position, you may ask what is? (Yes, I could hear you asking.) Drawing inspiration from William Brown’s The Seven Pillars of Creation and Middleton’s Reading Genesis 3 Attentive to Human Evolution, I used a three-step process to create a “cross-disciplinary conversation” between science and the Bible:

  1. Elucidate the biblical text in its context.
  2. Associate the text’s perspective with the scientific perspective.
  3. Appropriate both insights to “live out” the text in a scientific world.

In short, I’m not re-interpreting Gen. 2-3. I simply considered contemporary interpretations of the passage (Walton, Middleton, Enns, etc.) and identified certain key themes for consideration from the scientific perspective. The goal is to create a dialogue between Scripture and science, not to naively overlay one upon the other. As I said in Adam’s Evolutionary Journey:

What distinguishes this approach from concordism? Middleton explains two key differences in his essay. First, the connections are “virtual parallels” or “analogous points of contact,” which entails a bit of interpretive subjectivity. Second, the interpreter must assume the ancient author had no knowledge of current science, which requires paying attention to the discords between science and Scripture as well as the harmonies. The goal, as previously stated, is not to allow science to dictate interpretation of the Bible. Instead, the hope is that dialogue with science will open new vistas for biblical theologians to explore.

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Yeah put me under the microscope and dissect me. lol :rofl:

Yes, I am a strict concordist. But few like what I have done. But I do match Gen to actual geologic history and to the science. Start here and read upwards. The Migrant Mind: Days of Proclamation: Historical Reading of Genesis 1

At least my view is original and something you will not have run into before.

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Genesis has beguiling hints toward human social evolution from gatherer-hunter through farming to empire, if that, nothing more. Biological evolution isn’t alluded to in any way; the contemporary Greek awareness of it hadn’t travelled East in to the Persian realm of Genesis’ final editors.