Commentary on Revisions
A couple notes for the perplexed:
Keller never said that sole progenitorship was an “essential of creation” (see Keller on Adam and Eve). This was a straw-man of what The Gospel Coalition was saying in the video, perhaps unintentionally. I objected to this misrepresentation publicly and privately. It is good to see it fixed.
This was the main clarification to the article that does a great deal of good for the larger conversation. To BioLogos: thank you.
Reference 1 to Optderbeck is inappropriate. He does not discuss nor does he endorse the de novo creation of Adam. Reference 2 to the 2018 PSCF article is appropriate. A reference to my blog post defending Keller is missing.
I won’t quibble much with them here, but this is a hard claim to defend as written. It relies upon the ecological fallacy. We know that Homo sapiens interbred with others. For this reason, we do not know if they arise as a single couple or not. This edit, nonetheless, immensely better than the original version.
There were several places throughout the document, where they changed “human” to Homo sapiens. This is exactly the right thing to do. Science does not tell us what “human” is in theology. It does, however, tell us about Homo sapiens. This was the right move to make, as this is what they meant at the time when they wrote “human.”
Minor edits? This does reveal a gap in values. These are not minor edits for many people outside the BioLogos camp. These edits signal a major milestone in the conversation between science and theology.
May BioLogos broaden their narrow tent.
Peace.