The idea that Gen.1-11 is "a boulder" on the road to Christ assumes precisely what I am challenging - that one must come to Christ by starting with the early chapters of Genesis, & Adam in particular, & work toward Christ. We don't. Of course if people have been previously bothered by, & have left the faith because of, the notion that they have to accept the historicity of Adam &c as essential to Christianity then that problems needs to be dealt with somehow. But IMO that's better done by pointing out the the historicity of Adam isn't essential to Christianity than by putting together some concordist scheme. Even if they're convinced of the truth of the latter they're still likely to be stuck with a skewed version of Christianity in which Adam is of more importance relative to Christ than he should be.
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: Dick Fischer
To: ASA
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 7:31 PM
Subject: RE: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
Hi George, you wrote:
>People start with themes like "In search of the historical Adam" or "Who was Adam?" instead of viewing matters in light of what the NT says about Christ.<
Simply in terms of what is important and what isn't, accepting Christ ranks at the top without question. Whether there was an Adam or wasn't, or where and when he may have lived if there was such a fellow, for a believer, may be a matter of mere curiosity. So why stir the pot?
For one thing, truth matters. For another, there are untold millions of nonbelievers who feel they needn't bother with a book at all that starts with an unbelievable fairy tale. And for those who believe the Bible is supposed to be a reliable witness, the Bible can indeed be such witness if the first passages of the first book are shown to be reliable.
Why do millions fall for YEC when we, the intelligentsia, know with absolute certainty it can't possibly be true? It is because they believe the Bible is true and this is the only way it can be interpreted. An historical Adam in the context of human history they can believe in may persuade some to escape the clutches of the evil YECmeisters.
So I for one believe that lining up all the evidence both that which confirms the New Testament and that which confirms the Old Testament in the long run can have positive benefits. There are many road blocks in the way of potential believers. Genesis 1-11 can be one giant boulder in the middle of the narrow road leading to Christ. This is not to say there aren't others as well. But this is one I think can be removed, and why shouldn't we spend effort to remove it if we can?
Dick Fischer
Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of George Murphy
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 4:44 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
One execllent theological reason to prefer a fully evolutionary view in which H. sapiens - & thus Jesus - really is related to chimps & other species is that this provides a way of understanding the biblical promises that "all things" are saved, reconciled to God &c through the Incarnation. I set out this argument a long time ago in a PSCF (then JASA) article available at http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1986/JASA3-86Murphy.html .
A major failure in many of these discussions is the failure to approach the issues christologically. The usual Evangelical approach is, if I can coin a term, adamological.
This is almost exactly 180 degrees wrong. People start with themes like "In search of the historical Adam" or "Who was Adam?" instead of viewing matters in light of what the NT says about Christ.
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: David Opderbeck
To: David Campbell
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
Aside from the various other ways in which this particular question is causing me angst right now, here is something else that bothers me about it. It seems to me that this question presents a particularly thorny issue for how and to what extent "science" may be used to intepret scripture vs. how and to what extent we need to assert scripture over against a particular scientific data point.
When we consider the age of the earth / universe and the creation "days," it seems to me that it is easier to be flexible. There are any number of exegetical questions before we even get to the scientific ones. Moreover, messing with the age of the earth / universe involves basic physical constants like the speed of light that can't really be messed with under the anthropic principle. Finally, the theological issues seem somewhat less thorny -- though the question of death before the fall is not a small one.
When we consider the exegetical issues concerning Adam, IMHO at least, there seems to be significantly less flexibility, at least within even a moderate "inerrancy" framework. IMHO, without disrespect to those who think otherwise, it does too much damage to the doctrine of scripture and to the narrative framework of scripture to suggest that the accommodation principle -- which I think is a valid principle generally -- goes so far as to render these texts essentially non-historical. So for me, this seems to be a place in which it might be appropriate to say that, while scripture does not teach "science," it does to some extent bear on "history," such that it might be appropriate to question the naturalistic assumptions underlying particular scientific models.
In particular, it seems to me that the genetic continuity between humans and our presumed chimp ancestors, and population gentics studies based on presumed times of divergence and rates of mutation, do not render the traditional understanding of Adam impossible. They render it difficult, and perhaps unlikely, but not impossible. It is possible that God specially and miraculously created Adam using pre-existing hominid genes; and it is possible that God caused imago Dei man to be dispersed geographically in such a way that the histocompatibility diversity we observe today happened faster than the models assumed. This does not violate any fundamental physical constant such as the speed of light. It is a different kind, or at least a different degree, of question than the age of the earth.
At the same time, we can tentatively propose some other scenarios. But in my view, it's unfair to equate some push-back here with "YEC thinking." Perhaps, like the wine at Cana, this really is a place at which methodologial naturalism, without the illumination of scripture, does not really reflect the truth of history.
On Nov 12, 2007 3:03 PM, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:
Actually, evolution does not absolutely rule out a single couple as
ancestral to humanity. Glenn Morton's model develops this line of
thinking. It posits some rather long gaps in the genealogies and has
other difficulties, but then there are difficulties in any approach to
reconciling the scientific data and Genesis 1-11. It is much easier
to have rapid change in a small population. Any particular mutation
important to making humans human would have its origin in a single
individual. Many other variant scenarios with some sort of historical
Adam are also possible.
--
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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Received on Tue Nov 13 21:29:22 2007
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