building bridges between adam, eve and evolution
TRANSCRIPT
Building Bridges Between Adam, Eve and Evolution
Some personal family history
Dr Samuel Philip Alexander and his third son, Lee Alexander, Portsmouth, England, 1906
Sailing to New YorkThe Empress of Britain used as a troop carrier in the First World War
Philip Alexander[Died, Battle of the Somme,
30th July 1916]
Alan Alexander[Died, Jerusalem,
8th Dec. 1917]
Dr. Samuel Alexander[Died, Spanish Flu,
New York, 14th Dec 1918]
The complexity of providential events
Starting Assumptions
• The Bible is the inspired Word of God from cover to cover.
• The Bible contains reliable scientia but not science.
• Concordism is unhelpful.• The early chapters of Genesis presents a series
of profound theological essays. • Evolution is the paradigm within which all
biological research is carried out.
The first meaning of Adam: ‘Humankind’
Then God said, “Let us make adam in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created adam in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26-27
When God created adam, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them adam.
Genesis 5:1-2
The First Toledoth: This is the family history of the heavens and the earth when they were created
Gen. 2:7 the LORD God formed [Hebrew yatsar] the adam from the dust of the ground [the adamah] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the adam became a living being.
2:9 after placing the man in ‘a garden in the east, in Eden’, God then ‘made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground [adamah]
For the kingly and priestly connotations of the ‘image of God’ language, see Richard Middleton (2005). The liberating image : the Imago Dei in Genesis 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.
The use of Adam and not ‘Ish for ‘Man’
• The usual word for ‘man’ in the Old Testament is ‘ish, used 1671 times [“Noah was a righteous ‘ish”, Gen. 6:9] .
• So there must be a special reason for using Adam for ‘man’ in Genesis 1-5.
• the choice of ‘adam’ here for man seems a deliberate teaching tool to explain to the reader that adam not only comes from the adamah, but is also given the important task by God of caring for the adamah.
• Also there is a definite article in front of ‘Adam’ which remains in place all the way though to Genesis 4:25 [‘The Man’ is mentioned twenty times in Genesis 3 and 4]. Personal names do not have a definite article in Hebrew.
The three distinctive meanings of Adam in Genesis 1-5
1. Humankind.
2. The Man, perhaps referring to ‘Man’ as a representative for humankind.
3. An individual who marries Eve.
Adam in the Bible After Genesis 5
• One clear mention in the Old Testament; nine in the New Testament.
• Citations seem to interpret Adam & Eve as individuals e.g.the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3, and 1 Corinthians 15:45 where Paul compares the ‘first Adam’ with the ‘last Adam’ Christ.
Prof. John Walton,Wheaton CollegeInter-Varsity PressMarch 2015
18,000 yrs ago
60,000 yrs ago
43,000 yrs ago
50,000 yrs ago
An original anatomically modern human population
POPULATION 1
POPULATION 2
POPULATION 3
BOTTLE-NECKPOPULATION 4 [c. 10,000]
POPULATION 5Etc.
TIM
E
200,000years ago
Gene flow between humans and hominins
Gene flow is indicated by the red arrows
Prufer e al., Nature, Jan 2nd 2014, pages 43-48
NI = Introgressing NeanderthalDI = Introgressing Denisovan
BUILDING MODELS- bringing theology into conversation with anthropology
The Theological Narrative The AnthropologicalNarrative
?
MODELS?
INTERACTIONS?
Adam & Eve, the Fall and Evolution - 4 Models
MODEL A: the Ahistorical View
The purpose of the early chapters of Genesis is to provide a theological account of the role and importance of humankind in God’s purposes, cast in the mould of a narrative of Adam and Eve which is a myth in the technical sense of being a story or parable having the main purpose of teaching eternal truths without the constraints of historical particularity.
“The Fall account in Genesis 3 is the story of ‘every person’” [Rom. 3:23].
Does Model A go far enough?• It represents the separation view: any kind of conversation between the theological and scientific narratives is inappropriate.
BUT questions remain e.g. • Personal knowledge of the one true God somewhere, some time?• Personal responsibility before God – How? When?• God must have started his new spiritual family on earth at some time. When?
Adam & Eve, the Fall and Evolution - 4 Models
The model suggests that as anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa from 200,000 years ago, or during some period of linguistic and cultural development since then, there was a gradual growing awareness of God’s presence and calling upon their lives to which they responded in obedience and worship.
In this model, the early chapters of Genesis provide a theological representation of this early gradual spiritual development in a form that could be understood within the Near Eastern culture of that time.
MODEL B1: A gradualist Protohistorical View:
The Fall in Model B1The Fall is interpreted as the conscious rejection by humankind of the awareness of God’s presence and calling upon their lives in favor of choosing their own way rather than God’s way, albeit by a process happening over a long period of time leading to spiritual death.
Adam & Eve, the Fall and Evolution - 4 Models
MODEL B2: A real couple within the ‘original’ founder population in Africa
REST OF HUMANITY
Against Models B1 and B2
• They evacuate the narrative of any Near Eastern context, detaching their accounts from the Jewish roots of the theological texts.
• Model B1 will not satisfy those who wish to viewAdam and Eve as historical individuals.
A scientific problem with Model B2
POPULATION 1
POPULATION 2
POPULATION 3
BOTTLE-NECKPOPULATION 4 [c. 10,000]
POPULATION 5Etc.
TIM
E
Genetically the couple in ‘population 4’ could not have been the physical ancestors of the whole of humanity
CREATION FALL REDEMPTION
Genetically the putative couple in a community of 10,000 reproductively active individuals 200,000 years ago could not have been the genetic ancestors of the whole of humanity.
Adam and Eve embeddedwithin an early humanpopulation 150-200,000years ago
Adam & Eve, the Fall and Evolution - 4 Models
God chose a community or a couple of Neolithic farmers in the Near East to whom he chose to reveal himself in a special way, calling them into fellowship with himself – so that they might know Him as the one true personal God. From now on there would be a community who would know that they were called to a holy enterprise, called to be carers of God’s creation, called to know God personally.
This new believing community is seen as the earliest progenitors of the Jewish faith.
MODEL C: A more ‘event-based’ Protohistorical View The Homo divinus
Revd John Stott[1921-2011]
The Homo divinus model and the Fall
Adam & Eve (Third Century) Fresco. Catacomb of St Piretro and St. Marcellino, Rome
Federal HeadshipREST OFHUMANITY
Federal Headship REST OFHUMANITY
Michelangelo's Temptation and Fall from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling
THE FALL
Federal HeadshipREST OFHUMANITY
Federal HeadshipREST OFHUMANITY
SIN SIN SIN SINSIN SIN
Homo Divinus
The Homo divinus model and Federal Headship
Derek Kidner[1913-2008]
“With one possible exception…the unity of mankind ‘in Adam’ and our common status as sinners through his offence, are expressed in Scripture not in terms of heredity (Is 43:27) but simply in terms of solidarity. …. Adam’s sin is shown to have implicated all men because he was the federal head of humanity, somewhat as in Christ’s death ‘one died for all, therefore all died’ (2 Cor 5:14)….Adam’s ‘federal’ headship of humanity extended, if that was the case, outwards to his contemporaries as well as onwards to his offspring, and his disobedience disinherited both alike”. Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis. London: Tyndale Press, p. 29,30
Atatürk – Federal Head of all Turks
ALL TURKS
Adam as the representative man- an example of corporate solidarity?
PRESIDENT DRAGS COUNTRY INTO WAR BY A BAD ERROR OF JUDGMENT
THE WHOLE POPULATION ENTERS INTO A STATE OF BEING AT WAR
CREATION FALL REDEMPTION
“sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…” [Romans 5:12]
Sin inherited from a single couple OR All people sinners because of a single couple
THE VERTICAL MODEL THE CORPORATE SOLIDARITY MODEL
Denis Alexander,Oxford: Monarch, Sep. 1st 2014Second Revised Expanded Edition[www.faraday-institute.org]
Denis Alexander,Templeton Foundation Press, 2011[www.faraday-institute.org]
350+ on-line lectures at:www.faraday-institute.org
For centuries the idea of human solidarity and the federal headship of Adam have helped to remind us that “the whole world is a prisoner of sin” [Gal. 3:22], and that the only way of being rescued from both sin and mortality is through the sacrificial work of Christ’s atoning death upon the cross.
Philip Alexander[Died, Battle of the Somme,
30th July 1916]
Alan Alexander[Died, Jerusalem,
8th Dec. 1917]
Dr. Samuel Alexander[Died, Spanish Flu,
New York, 14th Dec 1918]
Lee Alexander[1903- 2001]
Seymour Alexander[1906- 1991]
‘You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve’,said Aslan, ‘And that is both honour enough toerect the head of the poorest beggar’.
C.S.Lewis, Prince Caspian