Greg and the Doctrine of Creation

Heres a parable for you about a pretend man named Adam who had a family. It is a parable written for us in Genesis ch 5:

5 This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. 5 Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh. 7 Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.

9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he fathered Kenan. 10 Enosh lived after he fathered Kenan 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 Thus all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died.

12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he fathered Mahalalel. 13 Kenan lived after he fathered Mahalalel 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 Thus all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died.

15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared. 16 Mahalalel lived after he fathered Jared 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 Thus all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died.

18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he fathered Enoch. 19 Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died.

21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. 22 Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech. 26 Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.

28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son 29 and called his name Noah, saying, ā€œOut of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.ā€ 30 Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.

32 After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

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Yes, I do disagree with Emadi.

Perhaps ā€œbad theologyā€ is too uncharitable. I find the YEC construction of the gospel to be deeply limitedā€¦sort of like reading the parable of the prodigal son and thinking the moral is ā€œdonā€™t eat with pigs.ā€ I mean, yes, thatā€™s probably a good rule under most circumstances, but itā€™s NOT the point of the parable.

The thing I like very much about Anglicanism is that we are all fairly comfortable with the possibility of being wrong. We agree on the fundamentals of relationship with God but we accept that we might not always be able to agree on (or even fully explain) all the aspects of faith. Itā€™s a nice thing.

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Share with us how the gospel should be constructed.

I think you should differentiate between original Sin and original guilt. The eastern orthodox church as far as I know, acknowledges the fallen nature of humanity and connects it to a literal interpretation of Adam and Eves fall.
The entire plan of Salvation is targeted towards restoring the broken image of God in human beings.
I suggest reading ā€œon the incarnationā€ by Athanasius.

They believed there was a historical that affected everyone. Adam and Eve were not fictional characters in a parable. That is the point. They believed in a historical Adam and Eve, whether or not they affirmed original sin.

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Ironic, because thatā€™s one of the passages that lends itself particularly well to being read as a parable.

Did you know that in the Hebrew, the word for ā€œAdamā€ and the word for ā€œManā€ are the same? This passage could just as easily be translated, ā€œThis is the book of the birth of humankind. After God created humankind, he made them into the likeness of God. He made them male and female, and sanctified them, and called them ā€˜adamā€™ when their creation was complete.ā€

Sounds a little different, doesnā€™t it? Only reason to translate it differently is presupposition.

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The question is not ā€œdid they affirm a historical Adam and Eveā€ (after all, there was no reason not to at that point), but rather, ā€œWas their view of a historical Adam an essential or an incidental part of their theology?ā€ As often as not, the historical Fall was merely an incidental element of theology rather than an essential plank.

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It definately sounds different when you put it into the context of the ā€œparable:ā€ when ā€œhumankindā€ was 130 yrs old, he bore a son named Seth.

Definately different.

That is the part Iā€™m asking you to demonstrate for people pre 1500. I havenā€™t see in it yet.

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Well, letā€™s see. What did Emadi see as the essential elements?

We are humbled and challenged when we recognize that the image of God is not an inborn privilege but is the result of our taking on the likeness of Christ, with our unique identity being tied up in our capacity to know God and glorify Him forever. Our shared lineage reminds us that we are not only all brothers, but that we are separated from the rest of our fellow creatures only by our cognition that we are intended to be the hands and feet of Christ. When we recognize that we are all ā€œadamā€ and all substitute our own authority in place of God, we are able to fall at the feet of Christ, the life-giving spirit.

See?

Well, the example I gave was Augustine himself, what with arguing that sin nature (although originating with Adam and the Fall) was reborn in each person via the concupiscence of human sexuality.

Not sure why we would have interest what a segment of church history has to say anyway. We have documents that have been legitimately verified as reliable sources of prophecy that put together, show the fall of man and an atonement thread leading up to Christ to rely upon. I am confident that the God, Creator of the universe was sovereign over the compilation of documents we call the Bible. We know there is a God and He is sovereign, there is no way He let a compilation of prophecy get screwed up that has been accepted for centuries now.
We have this to look to, not church history spotted with error, political agendas etc.

And the main character in our history should not be Adam, or Eve, or Noah, or Mary. The main character is God. Forcing Adam and Eve into an old earth evolutionary perspective is far less important than wrongfully characterizing God. If Adam and Eve are not the first humans and if their generations procreate with humans who evolved from ape like creatures via a neo darwinian type, then this really complicates the creation story which additionally skews the true character of God who creates man in His image here, but also allows nature to do its thing there via disease and natural evil ridden survival of the fitest there. The god of lighting and goddess of love meeting and bearing a deity daughter goddess sounds more rational.

Sorry.

Entirely consistent with Adam being simultaneously the mythic typograph of humanity in early Hebrew theology and the earliest patriarch in the priestly tradition.

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And im the one who has ā€œbad theology?ā€ Do you understand the Hebrew ideals related to confirming geneologies?

This in Luke over the Genealogy of Jesus Christ

23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,[e] the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Sala, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

This is a very good example of the question-begging I used to employ ad nauseum.

And more question-begging.

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Thankyou for sharing your thoughts. This has been quite illuminating.

@swamidass,

So you are focusing on the term ā€œhistoricalā€ ā€¦ while I am focusing on the reference to ā€œFallā€.

And so your question was do you know of any religious writer or writing that suggests Adam and Eve were not historical?

Is that a correct paraphrasing of what you initially asked?

That is appears to be a fairly wild misreading of Augustine. Especially in City of God he clarified that descent from Adam is critical to his theology. He may be wrong, but you seem to be misreading him.

I agree with this. He could be both historical and Typographical. I propose this I the GAE.

The irony is that the passage often quoted in defense of YEC vis-a-vis ā€œno death before sinā€ is Romans 5, where the ā€œfirst Adamā€ and the ā€œlast Adamā€ are explicitly typological (not typographical as was my typoā€“no pun intendedā€“in the above).

Paul does not reference the gospels as texts, since they were not widely available until after his letters were penned. But we could imagine an alternate history in which Paul had access to the gospels and incorporated them in his epistles. Had this been the case, he might well have made reference to both the acts of Jesus and the parables of Jesusā€¦not necessarily distinguishing between them as such, since his audience would have been well aware of which were which. There would be no problem with doing this, because Scripture is equally true whether it is a parable or a historical narrative account.

In claiming that Genesis 2-3 cannot possibly be parable/symbolism, many YECs are implicitly saying, ā€œIf God wrote a parable here, then itā€™s not as ā€˜trueā€™ as if He had written history.ā€ That itself is an attack on the inspiration of Scripture.

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My 12 yr old in the Bible studies he has participated in, in our home school curriculum is able to distinguish the nature of language styles in passages like geneologies vs parables. Jesus even confirms the nature of the parables when He states them. On the other hand, Jesus is placed into language about a geneological tree going back to Adam in Dr. Lukeā€™s gospel showing that both He, the new and better adam who succeeds in Gods purposes is better than the first Adam who is also historical but failed God.

I am absolutely bewildered that you subscribe to such interpretations. Could i ask you if you also subscribe to the largely naturalistic universal common decent evolutionism that many contributers in the discourse here at ps do? I have been tacking a tally of all who subscribe to what we might call the neo neo darwinian evolution and their general beliefs, systems of thought as well as quality of interpretive skills of Scripture where i am contemplating encouraging a well known Christian theologian and author to write a book founded upon this data. We would of course never name names, but so far, the parallels are quite interesting.

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