CHAPTER THIRTEEN

RECOVERING MANY
TRADITIONS TOGETHER

IS THE RETURNED TERRITORY VALUABLE? Some will argue yes, and others will argue no. Perhaps most importantly, however, we might find a better ecclesial conversation, an understandable societal voice, where evolutionary science is de-weaponized, no longer a wedge nor a meaningful threat. Resolving the three dilemmas, evolutionary science would no longer pit different traditions in the Church against one another. The key point is that these traditions can be recovered together, in the same account. The disagreements that remain might be those intrinsic tensions of theology, not the external threat of evolutionary science. In this way, the splintering of many traditions might be undone. Alongside evolutionary science, then, several traditions can now be held together.

  • ■ The literalist tradition. With questions of inerrancy and infallibility in mind, this is an important tradition for many in the Church.

  • ■ De novo creation. Adam and Eve could have been created by a direct act of God, or not. Science does not tell us one way or another.

  • ■ Recent Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve could have lived in the Middle East as recently as six thousand years ago, or any time more ancient.

  • ■ Universal ancestry. If Adam and Eve were real people in a real past, they were likely ancestors of all of us, even if they were recent.

Along the way, there remain two concerns with which to grapple.

  • ■ Manageable constraints remain. This opens up new ways forward, but there are still constraints, pressing on some traditions.

  • ■ The mystery outside the Garden. Science gives us new information about an ancient mystery.

This final point is not just a concern; it is also an opportunity. Mystery is what keeps traditions alive, inviting deeper contemplation. It is here that science gives us more information. Without challenging the traditions of the Church, we are invited back into the mystery outside the Garden.

THE LITERALIST TRADITION

The literalist tradition is important in parts of the Church, and it is being followed through this book. This tradition is well expressed in the Chicago Statements on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics. Whether or not this is the correct way to read the Bible is beside the point, as other hermeneutics are easily accommodated.

  • ■ The statements affirm a literalistic interpretation of Scripture that takes genre into account. “The literal sense is the grammatical-historical sense, that is, the meaning which the writer expressed. Interpretation according to the literal sense will take account of all figures of speech and literary forms found in the text.”1

  • ■ The statements affirm a historical interpretation of Genesis that cannot be overthrown by science.2 A mythical interpretation of Genesis 1–11 is specifically denied.

  • ■ The statements insist that science cannot “overthrow” Scripture, and that it does not speak in the precise language of science. “Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.”3

  • ■ The statements are already reconciled with an ancient earth, death outside the Garden, and a regional flood.4

  • ■ The statements do not exclude affirmation of evolutionary science outside the Garden.5 There are literalistic readings of Genesis that suggest providentially governed evolution, but I agree that evolution is not directly taught by Scripture.6

It is the literalist and inerrancy tradition from which Tim Keller and Wayne Grudem are speaking when they affirm the de novo creation of Adam and Eve. It is this same tradition that leaves Ross and Rana troubled with an Adam and Eve too far back in history.7 This is among the traditions recovered now.

THE DE NOVO CREATION OF ADAM AND EVE

There is no evidence for or against the de novo creation of Adam and Eve within a larger population. Some traditions find it critical to affirm the de novo creation of Adam and Eve. Others disagree. There may be debate about the importance of affirming de novo creation, but science does not tell us either way.

  • ■ Historically, most readers of Genesis understood Adam and Eve to be created de novo, by a direct act of God. Several theological traditions confess that Adam and Eve were our “first parents” or “without parents.” Many organizational belief statements include affirmation of the de novo creation of Adam and Eve.

  • ■ The de novo creation of Adam and Eve has become a litmus test for orthodoxy in some circles. If de novo creation is deemed “orthodox,” other views should still be embraced as faithful heterodoxy, not heresy.

  • ■ Affirming the de novo creation of Adam and Eve specifically states that God acts in the world, and that science does not give a complete account of the physical world. This specific statement is seen, by some, to be an important confession for Christians in a scientific world.

  • ■ Some conceptions of “original righteousness” might entail the de novo creation of Adam and Eve. Perhaps they must have entered the world without sin in a sinless environment, and for this reason needed to enter the world in a different way. This might be similar, in some ways, to the Virgin Birth of Jesus.

  • ■ A literalistic tradition of Genesis 2:7, 20-22 might require that Adam and Eve were de novo created from the dust and from Adam’s side or rib by a direct act of God.8 Most Christians for thousands of years have understood Scripture to teach de novo creation. If the traditions of the Church are important, this grants primacy to this understanding of Adam and Eve. We can deviate from traditions like this. Deviations, however, need to be justified without appealing to the scientific evidence, which is silent on this matter.

For all or any of these reasons, some will find value in affirming the de novo creation of Adam and Eve. Some object, “Why would God make biological humans outside the Garden by an evolutionary process and then create Adam and Eve de novo inside the Garden?” This is a good question to bring into theology. Before dismissing it, remember that God does not always do things the way we expect. Let the theological dust settle before rushing to judgment.

A RECENT ADAM AND EVE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Adam and Eve, ancestors of us all, could have been recent, living in the Middle East. There are several reasons some might find value in a recent Adam and Eve over an ancient Adam and Eve. Not least of which, an Adam and Eve this recent are within view of the archaeological record, enabling a conversation between archaeology and exegesis that is already widely embraced by scholars.9

  • ■ A recent Adam and Eve might be consistent with dates ascertained by adding up generation times in Genesis. Taking into account gaps in genealogies, literalists date Adam and Eve between six and twelve thousand years in the past.10

  • ■ Consistent with the narrative of Genesis, a recent Adam and Eve could be in a paleolithic setting. The narrative describes agriculture, domesticated animals, cities, and ziggurats, which only appear less than ten thousand years ago. The term “nations” in Acts 17:26 also connects Adam to a recent date; the move from tribes to “nations” takes place within the last ten thousand years.

  • ■ A recent Adam and Eve is consistent with the rapid rise and spread of civilization, within the last ten thousand years. This may be required to make sense of theological work that connects the Fall to the rise of civilization.11

  • ■ Oral traditions have demonstrably preserved knowledge of events for as much as ten thousand years.12 If Adam and Eve are recent, the Genesis narrative could arise out of an oral tradition transmitting direct witness of their existence, perhaps written down later in the genre of Babylonian myths.

  • ■ The Persian Gulf Oasis seems to match the description of the Garden in Genesis.13 Till about twelve to ten thousand years ago, the seas were hundreds of feet lower. Surprisingly evocative of the Genesis account of the Garden, the Persian Gulf was dry land, irrigated by four rivers, without rain, but with fresh water springing up out of the ground.14 As seas rose globally, the Persian Gulf was submerged under the ocean, and ancient settlements appear along its current shores.

  • ■ One new discovery in genetic data is of relevance to theology. From about seven to five thousand years ago, the number of our male ancestors precipitously drops, while the number of female ancestors stays the same. There is just one man for every seventeen women. This global event, which lasts for a couple thousand years, might indicate a sudden rise of warring tribes organizing tightly along male lineages.15 The timing of this event, moreover, is consistent with the rise and spread of civilization across the world. It could, perhaps, be a cultural marker of the Fall.

Denis Alexander, John Walton, and others have understood Adam and Eve as a real couple in a recent past.16 Genesis seems to teach a recent Adam and Eve, situated in a Neolithic context, where their story becomes interlinked with the rise of civilization. If Adam and Eve were recent, therefore, some questions of human origins, from the perspective of theology, might become methodologically accessible through archaeology.17

THE TRADITION OF UNIVERSAL ANCESTRY

Adam and Eve, if they were real people, were likely ancestors of all of us. Monophylogeny is another way of affirming the unity of all mankind. Why might some find value in understanding Adam and Eve as our universal ancestors?

  • ■ The monogenesis tradition of the Church resisted racism rooted in polygenesis. With this history in view, pressure from scientific findings is unlikely to unsettle commitment to this doctrine.

  • ■ Several theological systems depend on natural descent from Adam and Eve. For example, a natural headship or Augustinian model of original sin might require Adam as our universal ancestor. Likewise, many formulations of covenant theology require natural descent from Adam and Eve to explain how and why Adam is our federal head.

  • ■ Alternatives to monogenesis often rely on what theologian C. John Collins disapprovingly calls “arbitrary representation” in Adam and Eve, raising several unanswered theological objections.18 How does Adam become our proper representative? The historical answer has been natural descent.

  • ■ The most common historical reading of Genesis is that Adam and Eve were real people from whom we all descend. For some understandings of infallibility, recovering the traditional account is intrinsically valuable. If the traditional account is consistent with what we see in nature, Scripture could have been successful in communicating its message to the Church.

  • ■ Denis Alexander, John Walton, and others have understood Adam and Eve as a real couple in a recent past who are not ancestors of all humans alive today.19 For this reason, their proposals are sometimes received as heterodox. Without requiring any theological modifications, a textual definition of human enables affirmation of the doctrine of monogenesis within their models.

The tradition of monogenesis looms large in theological discourse on origins. Notable for resisting racist versions of polygenesis, this doctrine is no longer bound up in a dilemma. It is, instead, a basic fact of the world. If Adam and Eve are real, we all descend from them. There is no longer reason any reason not to affirm monogenesis.

MANAGEABLE CONSTRAINTS REMAIN

If we are to remain consistent with the genetic, anthropological, geological, and archaeological evidence, there are some limits to speculation. We have focused exclusively on evolutionary science and theology of Adam and Eve. There are other details.

  • ■ The earth looks old.20 Even if our planet is actually young, it looks billions of years old. This evidence is not explained away by being “created” mature, because it appears to tell a story of past events, including the deaths of animals and people outside the Garden.

  • ■ The people outside the Garden appear to share ancestry with the great apes. Several precise patterns in our genomes are predicted by the mathematical theory of evolution. Even if common descent is false, our genomes still look like we share ancestry with the great apes.

  • ■ Noah’s flood did not destroy the people outside the Garden. Our ancestors, it seems, never dip down in the last hundred thousand years to five people. According to Genesis, the genomes of five people were on the ark: Noah, his wife, and the wives of his three sons.21 A unique regional flood might have destroyed all of Adam and Eve’s world in a large region, but not the whole globe.

All of these constraints have already been grappled with by others. They are ancillary to our focus on Adam and Eve. I do, however, emphasize that there are many ways to work within these constraints, including within a literalistic and inerrant reading of Genesis.

THE TRADITION OF MYSTERY

If Adam and Eve were recent, there were people outside the Garden. What do we know about them? What were they like? There is opportunity here for a sustained conversation with archaeology, anthropology, and genetics. The answers here depend on what precise dates we think Adam and Eve may have lived.

If Adam lived less than ten thousand years ago, people outside the Garden were anatomically and behaviorally modern humans. They would be Homo sapiens just like us. There were many of them, perhaps millions, spread across the globe. They had language, emotions, and minds just like ours. They wore clothes and jewelry. They made complicated weapons for hunting and might have constructed boats for traveling. They lived and died like us. They buried their dead. They kept dogs as hunting companions and pets. Some experimented with agriculture.

Until less than ten thousand years ago, most of them still lived as hunters and gatherers. Written language did not yet exist. Neither did nations, countries, or cities. Occasionally there was violence. Most likely there were murders. Weapons, however, were largely tools for hunting. The large-scale violence of war was unknown to the world. Our species survived and thrived by cooperation. They took care of their sick and elderly.22

Theological questions arise. What then was the difference between Adam and Eve? Why are they so important to the Genesis narrative? How should we think about those outside the Garden? These questions become more pressing when we remember that all these people outside the Garden were biological humans. What are the implications of understanding textual humans as a subset of biological humans? Were they in the image of God? Did they have human worth and dignity?

It will take time to fully explore these questions. The range of scientifically and theologically valid answers might be much broader than we first suspect. Remember, we are understanding human as a multivalent term. The image of God, universal rights, human dignity, moral worth, and “rational souls” might arise much earlier than Adam. Biological humans, however we define them, seem to arise long before Adam too.

Scripture does not tell us their story. Science gives new information about the mystery, but many details are left unfilled. This is the mystery of the traditional account, and we return to it with new eyes.

A BETTER WAY

In place of difficult tradeoffs and unending conflicts, we are invited into the wonder of an ancient mystery. Here, we can engage the question of Adam and Eve anew. An edited volume was recently published by a group of scholars, Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique. These scholars explained why current approaches that engage with evolutionary science in the Church were not acceptable to them. I found the theological section most salient. The theologian Wayne Grudem’s critique of evolution focused solidly on Adam and Eve.23 This echoed and expanded the doctrines of creation emphasized by Timothy Keller and the Gospel Coalition.24 With this in mind, my review of the volume offered an olive branch:

We find that Adam and Eve could be genealogical ancestors of us all, less than 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, de novo created, without parents. As surprising as this may sound, these confessions are entirely consistent with evolutionary science. With this correction in mind, it is not clear if any of the theological claims Grudem lays out are in conflict with evolutionary science.25

This review was published in Themelios, a conservative theological journal published by the Gospel Coalition. I ended with an invitation:

As a scientist in the Church and a Christian in science, I see firsthand the strength of evolutionary science. What version of theistic evolution could be theologically sound? This question, I hope, can be received with empathy by a new generation of theologians. Help us find a better way.26

This is the same invitation I offer now. Help us find a better way.

In these final chapters, I will synthesize the discussion so far into a theological experiment. This experiment is a recovery, not a revision, of the traditional account of human origins. It is a speculative narrative of human origins, consistent with evolutionary science and several traditions in the Church. The narrative contains within it the traditional de novo account of Adam and Eve. Within this narrative, the Fall can be understood as exile, where Adam’s ancient sin affects us in three different ways. Genealogical descent might be understood as a causal connection to Adam, through which we inherit certain consequences because we are caused by him. This narrative experiment is no more a challenge to theology than human origins understood without evolutionary science, and the narrative might be a crossroads for theological questions of many sorts.

Some see Adam and Eve as a myth. Some see evolution as a myth. Even if we disagree about which parts are fact or fiction, we can engage the grand questions within a common narrative together. I am not a theologian. I entirely expect that my speculation requires further development, perhaps even correction. I still hope this experiment is received with empathy. Take what works. Reject what does not work. Fill in the gaps in ways that make most sense. Let us find that better way together.