Has Francis Collins, an evangelical, and his Organization Biologos Influenced the Southern Baptist Position on Evolution?

[Marshall (Janzen)]

@Mervin_Bitikofer

So Genesis 1 starts off with “Adam” (ha’adam) just being the Hebrew word for “humanity” - and inclusive of both sexes? And that continues into chapter 2, except there we now hear of “Eve” (meaning ‘the woman’) - but here it’s the awkward pairing you speak of: “the human and the woman”.

Yes, though as @Jay313 said, proper names aren’t used, so using them can confuse the issue. When adam appears with the definite article (like “the” in English) as ha’adam it can’t be a name, but without the article it may be a name. The very first mentions in Genesis 1:26–27 introduce the word first as adam and then as ha’adam; it’s possible the first mention is a name, but the second definitely isn’t.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

And this continues all the way to Genesis 3:20 where “Eve” first becomes the proper name of an individual as we would understand somebody personally. But the reference to “the human one” for Adam continues even here and on until we reach 4:25, where finally for the first time, “Adam” also becomes a personal name?

Yes. In the Masoretic text there are four exceptions, but this gets nerdy. The Masoretes preserved the consonantal Hebrew text with vowel points. In Genesis 2:5, 20 and 3:17, 21 the word adam is joined to a preposition that changes the way the definite article is represented. Instead of being a prefixed ha, it’s just a vowel change. Since the difference between having the article and not having it was, in these cases, not present in the consonantal letters, the Masoretes used this opportunity to insert vowels that indicate no definite article. But since they only did it in these four places where the article would be invisible without vowel points, scholars are confident the earlier text used the article with adam throughout. And again, with the article means not a name while without the article may be a name.

Anyway, that’s my inexpert summary of what I’ve read from those who actually know this stuff, such as the Richards Hess and Middleton.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

So would you say that Paul, when he draws his conclusions about women (2 Timothy 2:13-15), was failing to recognize how the original story teller might be trying to “allow the woman’s equality to break through”? Is Paul guilty of a faulty reading of Genesis here?

I’m not sure 2 Timothy is directly Paul, though I think it’s inspired Scripture regardeless. If it is him, it’s written well after 1 Corinthians and Romans. Perhaps Paul (or an associate) is dealing with some Christians who took his earlier statements that sin came from “one man” as a denial that Eve was also culpable. And so the passage isn’t trying to push women down so much as deny they are above men. There’s more there too, probably related to the Artemis cult and fertility rituals, but I won’t get into that.

As for “Adam was formed first, and then Eve,” that’s why I was very careful in my wording to show that in Genesis, God fixes up the remaining side to make a man before he builds the side that is taken into a woman. Genesis 2:21–22: God took one of the human’s sides and closed up the place with flesh; then God built a woman from the side God had taken. So this reading still has the man being made before the woman, but they’re sequential events. There’s no time when the man is conscious and doing things while the woman isn’t yet around.