Yes that’s correct, and thanks a lot for the acknowledgement.
Not specifically. He was just making the point that any common ancestor, far enough back, would eventually leave no trace on their descendants. He starts this section thus.
The race is incalculably more than the individual. The genealogical bulk of the individual is soon dissolved and lost in the general stream of humanity.
Next time don’t come guns blazing. 
. We could be on the same “side” if you like. Why not?
@Jonathan_Burke I found his book on line: The Kinship of Men: An Argument from Pedigrees; Or, Genealogy Viewed as a ... - Henry Kendall - Google Books.
How help me out. I see no indication that he proposes a GAE. He makes his case correctly both in a creationist and an evoltuionary scenario, but he does not seem to ever combine them. Can you please clarify why you think he is proposing a GAE? It seems instead that he preciently got all the inferences right, but never made the key connection to theology.
What am I missing?
Yes, that’s the one I’ve been using. I showed screenshots from it previously.
Because he states explicitly that his model works if we assume that humans are the product of evolution, and even if we assume there was more than one early human pair.
“It makes no difference to the calculation as to universal kinship and its continuous repetition, whether man arose at first by slow evolution or by a sudden act of creation—-whether there was only one original pair or several.”, Henry Kendall, The Kinship of Men: An Argument from Pedigrees; Or, Genealogy Viewed as a Science (Cupples and Hurd, 1888), 165.
I really think that is a money quote, together with his “genetic ghost” concept.
That is certainly not the GAE. Why do you think it is?
Well let’s take this slowly. GAE has a de novo Adam and Eve, yes or no?
At it’s core the GAE is the traditional account of Adam and Eve simultaneously alongside human evolution. Not in two different scenarios, as Kendall presents it, but in the same scenario.
There is more of course, but it seems that he scoops Rohde, Olson and Chang, but not the GAE.
Yes, like this.
So you have a first evolved pair, and you have a first de novo pair. So you have more than one human origin pair; one is the genetic origin pair, one is the genealogical origin pair.
I don’t think he is presenting only one scenario; I think you’re only reading the first half of his sentence. To me he is saying you can have evolution and de novo creation, precisely because you can have more than one original pair. In fact I think he is doing a Swamidass, by telling people “It works with X, Y, and Z”, and inviting them to figure out the details as they please.
I don’t think he is being prescriptive at all; I think he is saying the beauty of the genealogical Adam is that it works with evolution and de novo creation, and you can even combine them if you want.
I suppose I read him differnently. He is not really concerned with origins, but is in a context where some people affirm evolution, and others affirm AE. Rather that trying to fit the two together, he just wants both sides to know his point still stands in either model. He certainly does not explicitly stated a GAE, nor is he even attempting to reconcile evolution in scripture. This is not the GAE.
At the same time, if he heard of the GAE, he would immediately agree it made sense. It just isn’t what he himself was doing. He never combines the two scenarios, nor does he even try and adjudicate anything much about origins at all.
“Adam” and “original pair” come up in just a few pages of his several hundred pair book. He does not touch on the doctrine of monogenesis. He only mentions evolution once or twice. I think my 2,000 word Sapient is peice mentions these things more times than his whole work. He just isn’t concerned with origins.
That being said, he has a very interesting set of theological and political reflections concerning universal ancetsry that certain merit further consideration by theologians.
I think what may be going on is that you read Kendall and immediately perceived the GAE yourself. That however is not what he writes. He was right at the threshold, but he was asking different questions.
Note about de novo creation. That is the “default” for the GAE because that is the traditional account, but it is optional in the end. One could take a non traditional view, saying he was chosen, perhaps spiritually refurbished. Either way works.
That is precisely the leap I do not see in the quote or his book. What am I missing?
Now to be clear, you certainly did make that leap. I’m just not sure he did.
He doesn’t say “It makes no difference… whether humans arose by evolution or by a sudden act of creation”, as if humans could only have emerged through evolution or through creation, but not both.
He says “It makes no difference… whether humans arose at first by slow evolution or by a sudden act of creation”. In other words, his emphasis is “It doesn’t matter which humans came first, humans by evolution or humans by creation”. Saying that the first humans arose by evolution, does not say that no humans arose by de novo creation.
The first humans arising by evolution and other humans arising by de novo creation, are not mutually exclusive; the same applies to the reverse. This is why he can present more than one original pair as an option.
But let’s put it this way.
Humans emerging through evolution, and a de novo created pair of humans, interbreeding between the two, and a genealogical descent of all humans from an ancestral pair, isn’t the GAE?
I think it’s clear that’s exactly what he’s doing. If that were the case, why would he even mention evolution in the first place, especially in the context of creation? Why would he mention the relevance of genealogical descent to Adam and Noah?
If he wasn’t concerned with origins, he wouldn’t have included a section explicitly on origins, specifically addressing the extremely hotly debated theological topic of his day. He obviously accepts evolution, for a start.
If you want to say he wasn’t originally concerned with origins, I would agree. If you want to say his work wasn’t written with the intention of settling origin questions, I would agree. But if you say he had this idea but never considered any of the consequences, or theological implications, I would strongly disagree.
If you read his original article, which contains even more theological content (published before he wrote the book, which is a much expanded version), it’s clear that he discovered a genealogical fact and then saw how it applied to a whole range of issues. He says explicitly “The close kinship of mankind especially in the same nation has an important bearing on one or two points of theology”.
So he came across this genealogical idea, saw how it applied to a range of theological and social issues, and then explained how it applied: to current theological discussions of the origin of humans, to the Christian concept of the brotherhood of man, to current social issues such as slavery, economic injustice, and hereditary titles and authority.
As I said before, he was in a context where people believed one or the other and he wanted to communicate to both groups. That is why he mentions both.
I totally agree with you here.
I’m content to reference him prominently, saying he got the science right and was at the threshold of the GAE without actually proposing it, and that is okay. His Theological reflections are very interesting and should be recovered nonetheless.
People can read the reference themselves and decide I suppose. Either way it doesn’t hurt my case. I was all set to give I’m credit for the GAE, but I don’t see that he did make that leap.
From a scientific point of view #3, but theological default is #1, but both #1 and #2 are accommodated.
Though he has all the tools he does not make the case there is no evidence for or against de Novo creation of Adam and Eve in a population. Nor is he a scientist making that case. Nor did theologians congregate around his idea.
Okay @TWReynolds, just established for sure that this is NOT him. Kendall is a described as an Englishman here. This review is pretty harsh, and an entertaining read. Seems like he was dismissed as a crackpot, even though he was essentially correct.
Very interesting. What do you think @Jonathan_Burke?
Then you’ve said exactly what Kendall said.
I don’t think he needs to. Why would he need to? He simply identifies the fact that his view is compatible with humans arising from both evolution and de novo creation.
His initial article drew positive review, neutral review, and criticism. He responded to that criticism in his book demonstrating his math was correct. His article “Natural Heirship” was published widely; “New England Magazine”, “Bay State Monthly”, “Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art”, “The Library Magazine”, “The Dial”, “The Popular Science Monthly”, “The Nineteenth Century”, The School Herald", “The Scientific American”, and “The Athenaeum”, to name a few.
He was subsequently cited in theological literature on the topic of natural heirship, in the context of Adam. [1]
[1] E.g. Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology a Compendium and Commonplace-Book Designed for the Use of Theological Students, (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1889), 330.
I find item #1 (above) “Does your GAE require the first human pair to have evolved?” is closest to best practice… though the use of the phrase “first human pair” is a little out of place when a whole population of humans has evolved (first, in Genesis 1)… then de novo creation of Adam and Eve comes after in Genesis 2.
I’m flattered by your confidence, @Jonathan_Burke, but it’s misplaced here (and surely on many other topics, too). I know rather little about pre-Adamites. As Joshua points out, I had never heard of Kendall. Livingstone is “the man” on this topic, though there’s an important section in Bernard Ramm’s classic work, The Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954). The more I go back to Ramm (I read him originally more than 40 years ago), the more I continue to be impressed by the great care he took. Most of his own ideas are out of date (no surprise there), but his scholarship remains significant, especially for historians.
I note with considerable interest your treatment of ‘Complementarity’! - - as a sub-category (or parallel category?) to Concordism, which is an occasional criticism (unfair criticism in my view) of “Genealogical Adam” scenarios!
" (2) Even though TE advocates sometimes speak about God as the author of two “books” (nature and Scripture), TE is not usually seen as a Concordist position. At least among evangelical TEs, a position known as “Complementarity” is probably the most widely endorsed model for relating science and the Bible, though it is not the only one.
For a concise description of Complementarity, I borrow the words of Stanford physicist (now retired) Richard Bube, who wrote three books about science and Christianity, taught a course about it for decades, and edited the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation (now called Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith ) for many years. In his book, Putting It All Together , Bube presented seven “patterns” for relating science to faith (here and here), ending with his personal favorite, Complementarity, described as follows:
“Science and theology tell us different kinds of things about the same things. Each, when true to its own authentic capabilities, provides us with valid insights into the nature of reality from different perspectives. It is the task of individuals and communities of individuals to integrate these two types of insights to obtain an adequate and coherent view of reality.” (p. 166)"
The Complementarity view, as I’ve briefly presented it, might seem quite shallow—nothing more than the simple, unsupported claim that science is about HOW and religion is about WHY. Readers who want a subtler account are invited to study Christopher Rios’ article about its development. Rios quite properly stresses the work of two important British scientists from the last century, quantum chemist Charles A. Coulson and his friend, brain theorist Donald M. MacKay, one of the most prolific and thoughtful Christian thinkers of his generation. If you don’t know MacKay, I unreservedly recommend that you get acquainted, but his work is so wide-ranging that I am hesitant to recommend a single starting place."
“Evolution was not one of his chief interests (I don’t offer him as a prime example of TE per se), but I can’t think of anyone who wrote more about the Complementarity model of science and Christian faith.
Physicist-theologian John Polkinghorne can also be understood as a proponent of Complementarity, though I would not characterize his position solely in those terms. His overall vision captures the essence of Complementarity: theology complements the limited picture of reality given to us by science; it goes beyond science, providing a larger metaphysical framework within which both nature and the science of nature are more intelligible (see below for more).”
"Many of his books are conceptually deep, discouraging casual readers, but they are also eloquent and very creative, making the hard work of reading them time well spent. There simply is no good substitute for diving into them yourself. I’ve reviewed one of his recent books here.
.
.
.
@swamidass would do well to footnote this discussion of yours in some future paper!