Did Adam and Eve Really exist?

John Collins wrote some terrific articles and notes in the ESV Study Bible, including the terrific article and notes on the Book of Psalms.

His book on the historicity of Adam and Eve looks well worth reading and digesting. I have so far only read samples and endorsements, but am confident it will be well worth our time.

Tim Keller's article which I linked to in the previous post is an extract from Creation, Evolution and Christian Laypeople.

More food for thought.

You wouldn't Adam and Eve it

Disclaimer: I was not a great Science student and happily gave up going to class in Fourth Form [aka Year Ten] in 1968.

However, I do like to ponder these matters.

In my opinion, if the Bible is reliable, it is there that we must start.

It seems to me that many Christians begin with current scientific thinking, and then attempt to get the Bible to conform itself to Science.

Other Christians, while aiming to affirm the Bible, adopt a particular understanding of the world's origins, which they think is in harmony with the Bible, but which actually goes way beyond the biblical data.

Christianity Today has several recent interesting articles on the issue of the historicity of Adam and Eve.

The current issue has an editorial provocatively entitled No Adam, no Eve, No Gospel.

The article begins with

Science as we know it grew from pagan, occult, and biblical roots.

Christianity Today likes to emphasize the biblical sources. The story of creation, told in Genesis and elaborated in the New Testament, pictures a rational intelligence creating an orderly and predictable cosmos.

Without that predictability in the natural world, neither Newton nor Einstein would have been possible. There are times, however, when a careful reading of the natural world seems to conflict with our reading of Scripture.

Sometimes, Christian ways of thinking must adjust.

It continues, by outlining the new challenge to theology made by Francis Collins, a Christian who was involved in describing the human genome:

Now we come to another great moment of tension between Christian readings of Scripture and science. This issue's cover story, "The Search for the Historical Adam," reports the claims of recent genetic research that the human race did not emerge from pre-human animals as a single pair, as an "Adam" and an "Eve." The complexity of the human genome, we are told, requires an original population of around 10,000.

The article comes down on the side of a conservative understanding of the biblical data by stating that

there must be an original pair of humans endowed with souls—that is, the spiritual capacity to relate to God in the special way Genesis describes.

Does it matter?

What is at stake?

First, the entire story of what is wrong with the world hinges on the disobedient exercise of the will by the first humans. The problem with the human race is not its dearth of insight but its misshapen will.

Second, the entire story of salvation hinges on the obedience of the Second Adam. The apostle Paul, the earliest Christian writer to interpret Jesus' work, called Adam "a type of the one who was to come" (Rom. 5:14, ESV), and wrote that "[j]ust as we have borne the image of the man of dust [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven [Jesus]" (1 Cor. 15:49, ESV). He elaborated an "Adam Christology" that described a fallen humanity, headed by Adam, and a new, redeemed humanity with Christ as its head.

This understanding, that Christ's obedience undoes Adam's disobedience, is not some late development, but is integrated with the earliest interpretations of what God did and is doing in Christ. This conceptual framework is almost impossible without a first human couple.

The article finally allows for the possibility that there may have been an original population of which Adam and Eve were the leaders, but this seems to me to conflict with what Genesis 1-3 tell us.

See also Richard Ostling's The Search for the Historical Adam, Justin Taylor's discussion of Jack Collins' new book Did Adam and Eve Really exist? and Tim Keller's Sinned in a Literal Adam, Raised in a Literal Christ.

John Piper interviews Rick Warren

John Piper's discussion with Rick Warren shows that Warren is not the lightweight populist that many people have assumed. It shows he has a first class knowledge of the Bible and of Reformed theology.

The interview is long, but well worth watching. If you don't have an hour and a half to spare, at least please read what John Piper says about the interview at the linked site.

Everything Old Is New Again

It is a great mistake… to suppose that we who are called “conservatives” hold desperately to certain beliefs merely because they are old, and are opposed to the discovery of new facts.
On the contrary, we welcome new discoveries with all our hearts, and we believe that our cause will come to its rights again only when youth throws off its present intellectual lethargy, refuses to go thoughtlessly with the anti-intellectual current of the age, and recovers some genuine independence of mind…
…We are seeking to arouse youth from its present uncritical repetition of current phrases into some genuine examination of the basis of life; and we believe that Christianity flourishes not in the darkness, but the light.

J Gresham Machen,1925

What To Preach To Yourself Every Day

A great quote from Tullian Tchividjian

I used to think that growing as a Christian meant I had to somehow go out and obtain the qualities and attitudes I was lacking. To really mature, I needed to find a way to get more joy, more patience, more faithfulness, and so on.

Then I came to the shattering realization that this isn’t what the Bible teaches, and it isn’t the gospel. What the Bible teaches is that we mature as we come to a greater realization of what we already have in Christ. The gospel, in fact, transforms us precisely because it’s not itself a message about our internal transformation, but Christ’s external substitution. We desperately need an Advocate, Mediator, and Friend. But what we need most is a Substitute. Someone who has done for us and secured for us what we could never do and secure for ourselves.
The hard work of Christian growth, therefore, is to think less of me and my performance and more of Jesus and his performance for me. Ironically, when we focus mostly on our need to get better we actually get worse. We become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with my effort over God’s effort for me makes me increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective.

Key sentence from Elyse Fitzpatrick, whom Tullian quotes: "If we fail to remember our justification, redemption, and reconciliation, we’ll struggle in our sanctification."

Wise Words from Charles Simeon

there is not a decided Calvinist or Arminian in the world who equally approves of the whole of Scripture . . . who, if he had been in the company of St. Paul whilst he was writing his Epistles, would not have recommended him to alter one or other of his expressions.

But the author [Simeon himself] would not wish one of them altered; he finds as much satisfaction in one class of passages as another; and employs the one, he believes, as freely as the other. Where the inspired Writers speak in unqualified terms, he thinks himself at liberty to do the same; judging that they needed no instruction from him how to propagate the truth. He is content to sit as a learner at the feet of the holy Apostles and has no ambition to teach them how they ought to have spoken.

Cited in H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon (London: InterVarsity, 1948), 79.

Calvinist versus Arminian

The Calvinist says something like, "God's grace is irresistible and His
calling effectual."

The Arminian translates that as, "So, you believe in a God who zaps people
against their will and forces them to believe in Jesus? You think that we are
robots and that God has no regard for what a person really wants."

Someone who calls herself Mrs Webfoot posted this on the Yahoo Theology list.

I think it is well said, but I also wonder if an Arminian could give us a rejoinder on how Calvinists caricature their point of view.