Re: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?

The discussion about "accomodation" and Adam as an historical person puzzles
me a bit. As I understand it, contemporary genetic science renders unlikely
the claim that every person living today can trace their genes to a single
pair living in the Neolithic -- or living a hundred thousand years ago for
that matter. But, at the same time, current studies of individual geneology
strongly suggest that every person living today probably can trace his or
her ancestry back to a common ancestor in the recent past, even though not
every person living today carries that ancestor's genes (this was discussed
in a post a while back by Peter Reust, citing an article in Nature). As
Peter Reust explained to me at one point, there is a difference between the
lineage of a gene and the lineage of a person.

It seems to me, then, that a concept of "accomodation" can help us with
regard to Adam without necessarily rejecting Adam as an historical
person. Certainly
the Bible writers had no concept of modern genetics. So when the Bible
speaks of Eve as the "mother of all the living" (Gen. 3:20) or of Adam as
the "first man" (I. Cor. 15), we are not thinking like the Bible writers if
we think in terms of modern genetics.

How did the Bible writers think about lineages? Maybe some clues are in
God's covenant with Abraham, by which Abraham was made the "father of many
nations" (Gen. 17), in how the Israelite community refers to the patriarchs
and those who left Egypt as their "fathers" (e.g., Psalm 44:2), and in how
God is sometimes referred to as the "God of our Fathers" (2 Chron.
20:6). Clearly,
these references have nothing to do with modern genetics or the lineages of
genes. It seems that these references are to the spiritual heritage of real
individuals whose direct and indirect descendants eventually formed the core
of an existing community, where the community generally could trace its
lineage to the patriarchs in that some, if not most, of the individuals in
the community ultimately could trace a family relationship back to the
patriarchs.

I doubt that anyone today would conclude that a Jew living in Israel at the
time of the Psalms who didn't carry any of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob's genes,
or who also carried other genetic lineages, wasn't entitled to identify with
the reference to "fathers" in Psalm 44:2. Similarly, though perhaps most
of us today couldn't trace our genes directly back to Adam and Eve, there
seems to be no reason we all can't claim them as our "father" and "mother"
in the sense that heritage and lineage plays in scripture. In fact, given
the conclusions of the MRCA studies published in Nature, the claim that
everyone living today can trace a family relationship to a historical Adam
and Eve does not seem falsified or even outlandish. Given all this, it
seems to me that the Biblical texts can be understood through ancient eyes
without discarding the historicity of Adam and Eve completely.

Of course, none of this answers the very difficult suggestion from genetic
science that there were other hominids / humans living at the same time as
Adam & Eve, unless Adam & Eve lived millions of years ago. This in turn
raises some difficult questions about what it means to be "human" and to be
made "in the image of God." Again, perhaps a way to look at this is through
the lens of what it meant for Abraham to be the "father of many
nations." Abraham
was the first of the nation of Israel, but of course he had "fathers" before
him. After Abraham, however, there is a new, spiritual significance to the
family of Abraham based on God's covenant with Abraham. The break between
Terah and Abraham, in terms of Abraham being the "father" of many nations
and not Terah, is spiritual, covenantal and relational, not biological.

Whether God separately created Adam & Eve or not, perhaps we can view the
"break" in human nature before and after Adam as similarly spiritual,
covenantal and relational, rather than primarily biological. Perhaps this
is a way, again, to appreciate how God accommodated the Adam & Eve narrative
to the spiritual significance of geneology in ANE thought without rendering
the text a-historical.

These are all thoughts that have been banging around in my head, so I should
offer the caveat that I'm not putting this forward necessarily as "my"
theory of things. Also, I'm sure I'm getting these ideas from various
scattered places, and if anyone is aware of books / articles along these
lines, I'd appreciate references.

On 6/11/06, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
> Sure. This is standard procedure among historical
> harmonizers/concordists - to construct a "could have been" scenario & then
> claim that the problem has been solved.
> But the "problem" stems from assumptions about the nature of scripture.
>
> See the footnote reference to the comment of John Lightfoot, who knew a
> bit about ancient Jewish practice, on p.91 of NPNF, 2d Series, Vol.1,
> where this explanation by Eusebius begins: "There is neither reason for it,
> nor, indeed, any foundation at all."
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* glennmorton@entouch.net
> *To:* 'Dick Fischer' <dickfischer@verizon.net> ; 'ASA' <asa@calvin.edu> ; 'George
> Murphy' <gmurphy@raex.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 11, 2006 3:17 PM
> *Subject:* Re: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?
>
>
>
> I often find that when people don't think there is an explanation, they
> don't go look for one. Here is what Eusebius says about those genealogies.
> And, George, they both make Jesus to be Joseph's son.
>
>
> Eusebius says that both are genealogies of Joseph but due to
> Jewish law of who can raise up children for a dead childless
> brother, a genealogy of law is not equal to genealogy of biology
>
> ...Solomon......................Nathan
> .....|.............................|
> ...Mattan--------Estha----------- Melchi
> ...dies first |...........|
> ............Jacob---?---- Eli
> ....................|
> .................Joseph
>
> Eli dies Jacob marries Eli's Widow raises Joseph as Eli's seed
> according to Law
> ~~Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book
> House, 1955), p.33
>
> Why that wouldn't satisfy everyone, I don't know. Luke following biology,
> Matthew follwoing Jewish law. But it does show that one doesn't have to
> accommodate everything. And thus, Dick may be right, they both may have
> consulted the records.
>
>
>
>
> *On Sun Jun 11 14:46 , "George Murphy" sent:
>
> *
>
> Of course there were traditional genealogies - you can find them in the
> 1st chapters of I Chronicles e.g. But the claim that there were actual
> records going back to an historical Adam that had the same kind of
> historical value as the records we can get today at the couty courthoue is
> fantasy. & of course one wonders why if Luke & presumably Matthew consulted
> the temple records their genealogies back to David are so different. Yeah,
> I know, one was Mary's & the other Joseph's (or maybe the other way around!)
> - in spite of the fact that both are explicitly said to be Joseph's. Or
> some other dodge. Spare me.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Dick Fischer
> *To:* ASA
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 11, 2006 2:04 PM
> *Subject:* RE: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?
>
>
>
> Hi Paul, you wrote:
>
> >>But George also claims that even though Paul thought of Adam as a
> historical
>
> figure, there is no reason for us to do so.<<
>
> What about Luke tracing the ancestry of Christ to Adam? Up until 70 AD
> when Jerusalem was destroyed, the genealogies of all the Jews was a matter
> of record in the temple. Luke didn't dream up Christ's ancestry, and it
> wasn't dictated to him from on high. All he had to do was trot down to
> the temple and look up the records. Adam was a man of record in the
> temple. The only hard part began with the twelve tribes of Israel.
>
> http://members.aol.com/Wisdomway/twelvetribes.htm
>
> Up until that point it was fairly easy.
>
> Dick Fischer
>
> Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
>
> Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
>
> www.genesisproclaimed.org
>
>
>
Received on Sun Jun 11 18:21:42 2006