You know I love you like a younger sister, right? A much younger sister!
But I think you are so keen on painting Genealogical Adam in a discouraging light, you are not being objective on what exactly Concordism looks like: you are being distracted by the “science-y” part of @Swamidass’ narrative.
In fact, I think you’ve written on concordism in other threads that suggests to me that you need to get back to the books, and get a better “lock” on what’s actually at stake. Here’s an example:
As you can see in the image (in case you or others can’t, here’s the entire (short!) text:
Addressed to @Marg:
“But don’t you think part of the interpretive process is understanding what it meant to the original audience, and then moving beyond that to try to understand what enduring truth the text is teaching? I don’t think it is so much that they had one lesson and we have another as we have to work a little harder to get the lesson, because our context and conceptual frameworks are different.”
According to the articles by our guest writers, it’s the last part that is actually Concordism! But I’m thinking you meant “going beyond” in the most restrained of ways - - not going beyond what the ancient audience understood … but only going beyond what was apparent to the ancient audience with a superficial reading!
In a subsequent post in that same thread, you rightly say this:
Here are some examples by our guest writers, starting with McKnight. I will summarize them in “sound bite” format, followed by slightly more meaty background details:
[1] NT Wright per McKnight: “Adam & Eve are Elected by God out of an Evolved Population of Humans”
[2] Denis Alexander and Ted Davis’s example from B. Ramm: “Day-Age Interpretation of the 6 Days”.
[3] Alexander’s example from Shatz: “Genesis 1 is about Big Bang Cosmology”.
[4] Alexander’s 3 examples of “Type C” (or “Good”) Concordism:
(i) Bible’s view on extra-terrestrials (but no verse is offered);
(ii) Bible’s view on Cognitive Psychology and/or Human Identity (but no verse is offered);
(iii) Bible’s view on Quantum Uncertainty (but, again, no verse is offered).
[5] McKnight’s view of Alexander’s proposal that “God revealed himself to a couple or community of [evolved] humans”. It was this “accusation” that triggered Alexander’s defense of what is Concordism, and what is Good vs. Bad concordism.
Versus
[6] McKnight proposes this as a non-Concordist proposal: Genesis 2 should be understood as a figurative comparison of Adam as an allegorical Israel (in exile).
So, now we have a pretty good aggregation of Concordist scenarios, plus McKnight’s so-called Non-Concordist proposal, to compare to the whole point of this discussion:
@Swamidass’s proposal: “God created Adam & Eve in an act of Special Creation . . . but after he had already created a population of humanity by other means.”
@Christy, as we have already touched upon, the trouble-point is not Joshua’s proposal that Adam and Eve were made by special creation. This can’t be concordism because this is actually the plain reading of the text.
And I hope I have gained your acceptance on the “Genealogical” and “Evolutionary” aspects of Joshua’s scenarios: he is not attempting to argue that some obscure part of Genesis is describing the “science of Evolution” or the “science of Genealogy”. These two elements of “Genealogical Adam” are defended by scientific observation derived from the evidence we see in the modern world. Joshua is not saying the Bible is “teaching Evolution” or “teaching Genealogical” notions of “progenitorship”.
There is only ONE part of the Genealogical Adam scenarios that can be accused of being Concordist: that Genesis 1 should be understood as a reference to an earlier population of humans, made separately from Adam and Eve (as we read in Genesis 2).
While it is true that Joshua proposes that this earlier population was created by God using Evolutionary principles (instead of Special Creation from dust or ribs), Joshua is not saying anything like “Genesis 1 is a veiled reference to Evolution”. So let’s not get hung-up on this red herring!
The Big Question then?: The Big Question is super simple! Along the lines defined by McKnight, and by you Christy!, which says Concordism is avoided by sticking to ideas that would have been valid considerations of the Bible’s ancient audience - -
Can we believe that the ancient readers of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 would have speculated on whether these 2 chapters were implying that there were humans prior to the creation of Adam & Eve for the Garden of Eden?
Is it reasonable to think that the writers of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 intended their readers to implicitly understand that Adam and Eve were not “literally” the first and sole humans - - in the same way that McKnight asks us to accept the idea that the writers of Genesis wanted their readers to implicitly understand that Adam is a literary proxy for “Israel in Exile”?
I think the answer is super obvioius: unlike McNight’s example (which relies on understanding the ancient world view of ANE civilizations), Swamidass’ example only requires common sense: when the Genesis writer tells us that Cain fled his family and had a child by an unknown woman, and built a city for an unknown people, it was INTENDED to provoke the reader into understanding that there were more humans than “just” Adam and his immediate offspring.
Not only is it reasonable to propose that this was the intention of the writer of this part of Genesis, but (unlike McKnight’s example), it is actually unreasonable to think the writer of Genesis expected any other reader response! McKnight’s proposal (Adam = Israel) is not nearly as obvious as this; and in fact, McKnight (and you @Christy) have had to specifically invoke the importance of learning more about the ANE cultural views, in order to defend the McKnight proposal!
In contrast, Genealogical Adam requires no special knowledge. Anyone who knows that it takes 2 biological parents to have a son, and that it takes more than just a handful of people to occupy a city, knows enough to conclude: that Genesis author is a clever one! He could have easily have provided some additional detail, or to have excluded Cain’s son and city. But he didnt’; and there’s something important in that!
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BACKGROUND DETAIL ON THE EXAMPLES OF CONCORDISM
NT Wright’: “Adam and Eve have been elected out of the many (hominins) who were available, and that they in some sense represented all of humanity – [which] sounded to me [McKnight] a bit concordist.”
Alexander’s view of the Day-Age Proposal:
Alexander quotes @TedDavis on the meaning of Concordism:
"According to the historian Ted Davis, an influential early use of the word “concordism” is found in the writings of Bernard Ramm, the Baptist theologian, in his book The Christian View of Science and Scripture [1954]. Ramm writes with regard to the Day-Age Theory …
"… (the idea that the days of Genesis 1 represent long periods of time): “It is called concordism because it seeks a harmony of the geological record and the days of Genesis interpreted as long periods of time briefly summarizing geological history” (p. 145). Ramm labeled such a view “moderate concordism.”
Alexander quotes Shatz regarding the “Bold” or “Hard” Concordists who propose that Genesis 1 is a veiled reference to Big Bang cosmology! Certainly many of us would agree that it seems unlikely that God was “waiting for the day when Bible readers would discover that God had already written about the Big Bang”. Much of this skepticism comes from the fact that a divinely inspired description of the Big Bang (even a veiled one) would not read like the opening section of Genesis 1!
This Big Bang scenario would be consistent with Alexander’s quote from a Patheos.Com article on concordism:
"Other Type B understandings are cautious about such impositions, but nevertheless state that “The concordist not only believes that nature and Scripture will harmonize, but sees specific references in the Bible to current scientific understanding of the universe.”
In his article, Alexander concludes by offering a THIRD TYPE (“TYPE C”) of concordism… a so-called GOOD KIND of concordism!:
“Scot McKnight finishes by suggesting that the concord he prefers “is one that sees Genesis 1-3 more in conversation with the ancient Near East accounts of origins and purpose”. That’s fine, but there’s no need to choose between this and Concordism Type C – we need both. There are too many “either-or” narratives in the world right now. Let’s have more of the “both-and.”
I think his 3 examples of this GOOD KIND are rather “inscrutable!”:
“Three examples (amongst many) of Type C:
[1st] … the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) - how does their putative discovery relate to the theology of the atonement? There are plenty of books and articles being written about this topic, a trend which first began in the 17th century.” [< Huh? What?!, G.Brooks]
[2nd] … how does cognitive psychology relate to theological insights concerning human identity? There is a growing Type C literature here." [< What the heck?, G.Brooks]
[3rd … how does the theology of God’s divine action relate to the proposal that God interacts with the world through quantum uncertainty?" [< These 3 don’t sound very concordist at all, without the Bible verses that are supposed to be related to them!, G.Brooks]
So it isn’t clear (to me, anyway) whether Denis Alexander considers his position on Adam/Eve to be Type “B” or Type “C”!. McKnight pronounces it as concordism:
“Even if I’m mistaken about Wright’s concordism, I see the same concordism in Alexander:
In the second type of model (my [Alexander’s] personal preference), God revealed himself to a couple, or community, of farmers in the Near East at the very beginning of a putative proto-Jewish era, the so-called ‘Homo divinus’ . These lived in fellowship with God, understanding their responsibility to care for God’s earth, but subsequently turned their back on God in disobedience, leading to human autonomy and a broken relationship with him (“sin”)…”
And finally, we have McKnight’s personal interpretation of Genesis 2, which is NOT Concordism, even though it seems more like concordism than even Alexander’s 3 examples of “Type C” concordism:
McKnight’s Interpretation of Genesis 2: "…understanding Genesis 2 as a figurative comparison of Adam as an allegorical Israel (in exile).
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[END OF BACKGROUND DISCUSSIONS]