I still haven’t had time to come back to Vinnie properly, but you don’t understand his distinction correctly. “Theological humans” were capable of abstract thought and had a soul. Biological humans were H. sapiens that existed alongside them but lacked a soul and were incapable of abstract thought. (Correct me if I’m wrong, Vinnie.) I find that solution morally repugnant and scientifically indefensible, but it’s exactly the same as “pre-Adamites” existing alongside Adam & Eve’s progeny after they were expelled from the garden. It’s a distinction without a difference.
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Non-denominational, but not the fringe non-dom kind. If I were to compare to other mainstream churches, a little bit of Baptist and Nazarene with a dash Evangelical. It was a mix of small town folk and farmers, so a good mix of down to Earth people.
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Yes, both Human and Liv (to use translations instead of transliterations) show us who we are. My one quibble with your earlier expression of this would be calling adam “man.” If it were ha’ish (?) and ha’ishah that would be justified, but ha’adam isn’t a sexed term like those. It marks species or kind, not gender or sex.
The Eden story refers to the human and later the help or ally for the human, both times using masculine terms. That doesn’t mean the human and the future helper are both male. Hebrew requires grammatical gender. Since there’s no neuter, the masculine typically gets used when gender is irrelevant or mixed or unknown. We don’t get gender reveals until the poem later on. “She will be called woman, for she was taken from man” uses the standard words ish and ishah for man and woman. Only here do we see that the remaining side of the human is a man while the helper built from the side that was taken is a woman.
A good analogy for this assymetry between Human and Liv is the difference between Israel and Judah. As names of nations, Israel and Judah are a lopsided pair. It’s obvious what nation “Judah” refers to. When both names appear together, they clearly identify the southern and northern kingdoms. But “Israel” on its own may refer to the early undivided nation, the northern kingdom, both separated nations, or even to Judah on its own.
Just as some of Israel split off to become the nation of Judah, God split off a side of Human to form Liv. These special parts, Judah and Liv, are not less than their counterparts who continue to be known by more common names. “Liv” refers to the woman we meet in Eden. “Human and Liv” are the first man and woman. But “Human” without Liv is just as plastic as “Israel” without Judah. It may reference the man, the first couple, the undivided first human or humans generally. Even as Genesis blends these dimensions into one character, Human remains a more blurry figure than Liv.
But, you can see why I prefer to call them Human and Liv rather than Adam and Eve, since “Adam” in our culture has become a standard name for a man. That’s a significant way Adam in English differs from the blandly generic adam in Hebrew.
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Jay,
I’m sure I’ve missed this response to my question before based on the numerous A&E discussion, but in a Adam as archetype model, where do you see the “ensoulment” or advent of us creatures becoming more than purely physical entities? I guess thats if you even believe in a soul, but regardless we clearly understand from Scripture that there’s a spiritual component to humanity that isn’t clearly expressed by other creatures. I’m just a bit curious to how you think we get there to that place.
-Liam
There are certainly rules to metaphysics but God will do what He wants when He deems appropriate. Mine is a working model. Parts are certainly flexible.
I am asking about those who were not Adam and Eve at the time outside the garden/sacred space. Or does Swamidass believe A&E were specially created mature. . The problem is Paul’s view. Death came to all as a result of one man’s sin. That is just not true if there were other full metaphysical, ensouled humans outside the garden that were already experiencing death. How can death newly come to those that already were experiencing it? The GAE needs to be consistent with what Paul says. I believe the view I have espoused is superior in this regard.
Vinnie
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Jay has a paper written in the CANADIAN-AMERICAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW that you can access here.
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George’s data.
This sounds like an apologetic for promoting the idea that the different versions
of the the Adam story “really are the same story”… and so we should use rhetorical
methods to “harmonize the different versions into one”.
But frankly, I think the different stories come from different times, different scribal
parties, with different goals that were made less authentic by the harmonization
process.
Karl Giberson and I knew an evangelical who went to Bible college in order
to learn “the truth”. The more truth he learned, the less evangelical he became.
And this was true about several of his classmates as well.
Showing the SEPARATENESS of the several threads of Biblical narratives
is both TRUE and BEST for the future of humanity.
G.Brooks
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Not at all. You’ve bought into the evangelical narrative. My computer is in for repair, so I can’t locate the chart, but Christianity in America held steady at about 90% until about 1990. The big change happened between 1980-85, the “Reagan Revolution.” Mainliners had been the majority and Evangelicals the minority until that time period, when they basically switched sides in terms of percentage of Protestants. It was politically driven by Reaganism and the start of the Culture War – the “Battle for the Bible” as the editor of Christianity Today put it in the mid-70s. Evangelicals prematurely declared victory in 1985.
The trend since 1990 has been downward for all brands of Christianity – Evangelical, Mainline, Catholic. Fundamentalism hasn’t been immune. Historically Black churches have held fairly steady, as have Judaism and “other” religions. But the rise of “nothing in particular” – religious “nones” – has been dramatic. They now make up almost 1-in-4 Americans.
Edit: Notice the jump in “nones” around 2016. Trumpism in action.
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No, I disagree with that approach. When you harmonize the two stories into one, smoothing out all the differences, you halve their revelation.
I don’t think we need to advance a smoothed-out synthesis or retreat into conflicting sources. The two creation accounts may indeed come from different times and places, but I see God’s Spirit guiding the editors and scribes who creatively stitched them together. They decided that one unified story about creation wouldn’t do. We need both accounts, perhaps since each one reveals what can’t easily be seen in the other.
The first shows God’s distance from creation and unchallenged power. God issues decrees from above and observes their fulfilment. To create birds, God says “let birds fly,” then sees that “it was good.” Every event fits in a well-ordered timetable.
In the second account, we glimpse Yahweh’s closeness and care. God stoops to the earth to give creation what it needs: a gardener for the ground and a partner for the human. Along the way to that partner, Yahweh forms “all the birds in the sky” out of dirt. Instead of a predetermined schedule, creation’s needs add links in the chain of events.
One shows that God is transcendent and sovereign; the other reveals God as immanent and provident. But they’re both true. Not mushed together into one harmonized chronology, but when both are allowed to convey truth through story. And since we have both portraits of God and humanity, we can avoid the extremes that come from taking only one or the other as the final word.
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Based on communications I had with the original author, I think he would agree that
the evolved Pre-Adamites were spiritually immature.
As to whether or not he believed Adam & Eve were CREATED immature, I just don’t
think he was adamant on either possibility. The one thing he and I agreed about GAE
was that it should provide maximum space for Evangelicals to come to their own
conclusions:
- Were A&E psychologically identical to the Pre-Adamites PRIOR to eating the
fruit of Good and Evil? One could assert they were, depending upon one’s
denominational premises. This would work with or without the doctrine of
Original Sin, in the sense that eating the fruit was enough, on its own, to
shake the metaphysics of the Universe… but not necessarily so.
versus
- Were A&E created with a special spiritual capacity from their moment of
creation? Again, this would depend upon one’s denominational premises.
This would be consistent with the idea that God “manages” the kind of
soul he equips each generation. This would work with or without the
doctrine of Original Sin.
versus
- Were A&Es metaphysical state augmented in the Garden even
PRIOR to eating the fruit of Good and Evil? … through encounters
and teachings from God himself? This is also a valid option.
And it would depend on one’s denominational premises.
Which one works best for your views of God and humanity?
G.Brooks
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I think you are missing something. Let me elucidate by referring to the NRA (national
rifle association) from the “old days” vs. the modern version. The NRA used to be
much more diverse, it represented HUNTERS of all kinds who wanted natural spaces to
be preserved for hunting. Membership is believed to have been less than 1 million.
Historical Gun Ownership Rates (1966–2019)
Late 1960s ~48–50% High baseline in post-WWII culture.
1970s 49–51%
1980s 45–54%
1990s 35–51%
2000s 34–43%
2010–2019 32–44%
All-time household low: 32.1% in 2012.
From these numbers, we would expect the NRA to be losing ground.
But alas…. not true.
In 1977, within the NRA there was the “Revolt of Cincinatti” when the sanctity of gun rights overturned the traditional pro-Hunting policies:
Estimated NRA Membership (1976–2023)
Year Estimated Membership Context/Source
1977 ~1 million Membership grew significantly following the 1977 “Revolt at Cincinnati.”
1980s 2.5–3 million Steady growth during the Reagan administration.
1995 3.5 million Reached a peak before declining following the Oklahoma City bombing.
1998 2.6 million Recent historical low following “jack-booted thugs” rhetoric.
2012 4.3 million Membership levels began a rapid climb following the Sandy Hook tragedy.
2013 5 million Wayne LaPierre announced the group reached the 5 million mark.
2018 5.5 million Historical Peak. Highest self-reported membership in history.
2019 4.9 million Beginning of a decline following internal corruption scandals.
2021 4.9 million Figures placed “just shy” of 4.9 million in legal depositions.
2022 4.3 million Dropped to the lowest level since 2012.
2023 3.8 million Court filings from 2024 revealed membership fell below 4 million.
But at no point did the NRA change its policies regarding the SACRED right to arms.
This was and is achieved by frequent internal campaigns to shake members loose who
were not 100% in line with their extreme positions.
So despite the long trend of a loss of interest in owning guns, the NRA’s PURITY
never changed, managing a level of influence WELL BELOW their statistical
presence in the American population.
There may be lots of Christians leaving the Fundamentalist groups… but they
are fading into obscurity …. while the PURITY of Fundamentalism continues…
punching well above their weight through zealotry.
Obviously, I hope one day there will be a more British level of zealotry (i.e., less
than 15% of the UK population). But as the current administration in the USA
has proved: reactionary zealotry is far from dead!
G.Brooks
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If that were true, then it would be EASY to convinice YECs that there was a
pre-Adamite population.
G.Brooks
Hello George,
To me, A&E come with original sin as a package deal. Without it, or death entering into the world for all full human beings, scripture is entirely inconsistent on this point. In my view, if we are accepting a literal Adam and Eve, we should also be accepting Paul’s punctiliar view of sin and death. I mean, that is one part of the argument on why we think Adam and Eve were literal beings in the first place (along with genealogies and the general treatment of scripture and Church tradition). So if the form of the GAE proposed cannot account for this singular entrance of sin and death into all of humanity from one man or couple, given the presence of other biological animals that appear and act very much human at the time of Adam and Eve, then it doesn’t satisfy what it needs to. It puts forth a scenario of a bunch of “true men” to use Catholic language, existing alongside and after Adam that were experiencing the new consequences of Adam’s sin (e.g. death) before it had happened. For me, this is a very good treatment of the issues from my perspective.
Kemp’s proposal is the better of the bunch for me as it all boils down to our supernautallty created, hylomorphic souls. They allow us to bridge the gap between what the Bible teaches and what science says. The other models don’t work as well to me. I would guess most conservative Christians believe in souls since the word is mentioned a bunch of times in the Bible. So if your interest is in providing conservatives with a means of reconciling A&E and original since with sincere, the position I articulated will work well. To be fully consistent they would just have to accept Genesis 1-11 has some history buried in ANE mythological elements.
Vinnie
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I provided 3 scenarios that I thought could be relevant.
What feature of GAE still leaves you worried or concerned?
G.Brooks
It occurs to me that the Fall could be described as the loss of access to sacred space.
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That’s exactly what original sin is believed to be by modern Catholics. We lack access to the preternatural gifts and original justice (Eden/Sacred space where A&E would not have died) that would have been ours had Adam and Eve not disobeyed. It’s a deprivation that occurs through nothing more than being descendants of Adam and Eve. Parent squanders away their wealth and their children lose access to it.
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So…. it seems the fastest way to “change evangelical minds” is to encourage
exposure to the sources of Evangelical truth … rather than expose them to
current science!
G.Brooks
The translational choice of ha’adam is between “the man” and “the human.” You make a choice based on grammar to prefer “the human.” I understand the argument, but once “the woman” appears on the scene, to call them “the human” and “the woman” implies the male is fully human and the female is somehow “lesser.” (Perhaps @Christy would like to weigh in on this.)
Also, I think it violates the spirit of the text to leave off the definite article and call them Human and Liv, as if those were proper nouns/names like Adam and Eve.
Sorry, Liam. The thread ran off the rails long ago, and I’ve contributed to that mess. As I put it in the article Vinnie linked below:
“While the exact location of that line may remain a secret hidden in God, Christians nevertheless will speculate whether Neanderthal, Denisovan, heidelbergensis, all hominins, or only sapiens should be considered human. On the analogy of the man naming the animals, I suggest the first speakers of words are adam, the first members of the human family. H. erectus possessed the physical capabilities for speech, and the appearance of trade networks around 1 million years ago implies communication, probably a combination of gesture and a few simple words. Consequently, all of our hominin relatives from that point would be considered human, although, like children, they were immature and still developing.”
So I would place the “ensoulment” of humans about a million years ago, but the exact timing could be anywhere from there to 100,000 years ago. That’s my best guess. As to how it happened – i.e. whether people were “ensouled” one at a time or in a group – I have no idea and neither does anyone else.
That’s the only consequence of the fall that isn’t an anachronism.
Possibly true
That’s the theme of the temple and the church’s mission. God re-establishes contact and the “tent of meeting” is constructed, which becomes tabernacle and temple. But only the high priest is allowed inside the holiest space, and that only once a year. You know the rest of the story if you’ve read Hebrews. The Christian task was to expand God’s presence throughout the earth.
Addendum: Two great books on the topic
A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology
https://www.amazon.com/New-Heaven-Earth-Reclaiming-Eschatology/dp/0801048680
The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God
https://www.amazon.com/Temple-Churchs-Mission-Biblical-Theology/dp/0830826181