I’ve already started reading this fascinating book on a big monitor cabled to my Windows laptop. No handheld Kindle device needed.
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Well, don’t keep us in suspense.
Yes, still $10.
The Adam and Eve story in Genesis is mythology like every other creation story. Discussing it as anything other than purely fiction is a waste of time. The real creation story is told by science. An expanding universe coming into existence on its own 13.8 billion years with life emerging 4 billion years ago and many species of human evolving the past million years. There are many details of the real creation story to be discovered. Science will lead the way.
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Long time no see, Patrick!
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I would read anything written by Allen Witmer Miller (Retired Professor and Minister, Biblical Linguist) since I am a lover of humor, wit, knowledge, and kindness. I’m not very interested in the “historical” Adam and Eve except insofar as the topic provides opportunities to free minds from damaging nonsense. You would have to pay me (or at least buy me a nice porter) to read writings from a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
But since we’re on the topic of low-price reading materials, I must recommend the MIT Press in general but especially its collection of Open Access books. Two very recent additions to that catalogue include collections of pieces on teleonomy and on evolvability, both topics that should be of interest to the literati in our forum.
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I have to say I agree with Stephen on this one. While attempts to fairly present multiple perspectives are often in good faith, they also give more credence to pseudoscientific positions than they deserve. For example, just look at how damaging attempts to ‘teach the controversy’ about global warming have been. Now in the US we have an entire political party which can’t even agree that anthropogenic climate change exists.
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I should explain what prompted this thread and my mention of this particular book. Many visitors to this forum may not subscribe to the email-list of Peaceful Science and thereby be unaware that the last email newsletter edition announced the release of Perspectives on the Historical Adam and Eve: Four Views. Moreover, major reasons for my interest in this book include the fact that Peaceful Science founder, @swamidass, wrote the summarizing “Afterword: This Conversation and the Next” final portion of the book. (Indeed, I freely confess that I read Dr. Swamidass’ contribution before the other four authors. I probably wouldn’t have purchased the book if not for his participation.)
Just as the goal of the Peaceful Science forum is constructive and personable dialogue, this “four views” book brings its authors together in constructive discussion. I will leave to other readers their own conclusions of how constructive was that discussion.
If discussing some “X” (whether that “X” be creation myths or various other kinds of origin stories) as “anything other than purely fiction” is truly a waste of time, than you’ve rendered superfluous entire academic departments of hundreds of top universities throughout the world, potentially departments of Religious Studies as well as subfields of Folklore and Anthropology. Much like my atheist and agnostic friends in those departments—many years ago, I must admit----I consider such studies very essential to the understanding of human history and the civilizations based upon those mythologies. Not a waste of time at all.
Of course, as every first semester undergrad learns in the first few chapters of every “Intro to Religious Traditions” textbook, the academic definition of myth is not “pure fiction” but “an explanation of origins and human experience.” Indeed, the “literal truth” of a particular myth is never the focus. (If some zealant would interrupt a university lecture on Hindu Puranic traditions describing the world resting on the backs of four elephants by passionately shouting, “This is nothing but pure fiction!”, I doubt if any of the students would bother to write it in their lecture notes. Even fewer would drop the course and see if they can get a tuition refund from the Bursar’s office.)
It is because I consider the freeing of minds a worthwhile objective that I am very interested in books of this sort. Indeed, it is longstanding traditions about the Edenic text of Genesis that explains most of the resistance to evolutionary biology education in the USA. I can’t speak for Joshua Swamidass, but it is clear to me that he considers positive clarifications of the ultimate compatibility of evolutionary processes with the Biblical texts as beneficial to Christian communities and society at large. For years now he has been telling “traditional Adam and Eve” proponents that they don’t have to abandon the relevant Biblical texts in order to affirm evolutionary biology.
How much less opposition to quality science education in this country would result if Christian evangelicals (and others) were more positive toward the GAE (Genealogical Adam & Eve) descriptions of Dr. Swamidass—or some of the alternative non-traditional views of other contributors to this book? Indeed, I don’t consider Josh’s contribution to this book a waste of time by any means.
To put it another way, I consider the traditional Adam & Eve view held by most Christian fundamentalists to be neither exegetically nor theologically sound. So any book which helps loosen its stranglehold on American Christians—and local school boards, members of Congress, governors, and state legislators—to at least have positive potential. Perhaps you all consider me idealistic in that regard. [But I’ve been called worse things! 
]
I can respect that.
Of course, in the case of this particular book, Dr. Keathley was the editor and not one of the five principal authors. I have no criticism of his editorial skills thus far, and I can’t say I’m all that familiar with his writings in general. (However, I wouldn’t turned down a nice plate of onion-sauteed-with-parmesan tofu for the opportunity to read a summary of a concise commentary of what he has written on Genesis 1-11, just to know more about where he stands on the spectra represented by this book.)
I have similar concerns—but this book isn’t really about “pseudoscientific positions” because it is not focused on science (although scientific topics certainly arise.)
I agree. But I consider a comparison of this book to a topic like global warming to be of the apples and citrous fruits variety—especially when rigid traditional interpretations of Genesis have been around for a very long time while climate change denial not-so-much. So I doubt that this book is likely to give fundamentalist Adam-and-Eve-ers any more clout or credence than they already have. (Moreover, I would also hazard to guess that Marcus Ross is more likely to get flak from traditional fundamentalists for his participation in this four-views book rather than thanks for allegedly raising their profile. But I could be wrong about that.)
All that said, I’m glad to see that Josh is still finding time now and then for these types of topics.
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That’s great! I think I may have given the impression that I agree with Patrick or others who think that such books (or conversations) are a “waste of time.” On the contrary, my comment about “freeing minds” is meant to point to the urgency of projects like PS and books like this one. I admit that my long-term hope is that freed minds will ask other questions about Christian belief, and thereby hasten its extinction. But I have affirmed the mission of PS, and its involvement in books like this, from its Genesis. 
Indeed I do consider you idealistic, but I mean it as a compliment and am happy to endure similar labeling. 
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Is “fiction” versus ‘non-fiction’ a meaningful criteria for assessing the impact or importance of a body of literature?
Ayn Rand’s work is explicitly fiction, yet seems to have had a reasonably strong (if, to my mind, unfortunate) impact on right-wing American political thought.
The ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Game of Thrones’ series seem to have engendered fairly fanatical fan-bases.
Does a body of literature have to accurately describe the actual physical universe to be important? Isn’t what it tells us about the mind of its authors and its most devoted readership sufficient?
I can remember being an avid reader of mythology (principally Greek, but also with some exploration of Egyptian and Norse) in my preteen years. This led to me reading The Lord of the Rings at age 13, and thereafter consuming my high-school’s collection of classic science fiction (Heinlein, Asimov, Frank Herbert, as well as lesser-lights such as Poul Anderson) throughout my teens, before moving onto a wide range of fantasy in my twenties – with Pratchett being the most consistent favorite.
I rather suspect that what I have read is both expressive of, and has molded, my worldview. So I’m loathe to right off any well-loved body of literature as merely “pure fiction”.
Given what I have read of some of the output of some such departments, I would suggest that Patrick’s efforts are not needed (and so is itself “rendered superfluous”) to mariginalise the value of (at least some of) them. The story of The Emperor’s New Clothes comes too often to mind when reading some of the less well-grounded efforts.
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Reading fiction that is label as fiction can be fun and enjoyable. I loved reading Greek and Norse Mythology. But I knew it is purely fiction. The four views above don’t start with this view of Genesis being purely fiction. They think it is God inspired story sent by god to these ancient middle eastern people. The Bible belongs in the ancient fiction section of the library and treated as such.
that’s my whole point - all creation stories are pure fiction. I don’t think it is mind expanding to students to read any of these stories. There is no historical value to any of them. Every culture has their creation myths. Studying them makes none of them true. What I do think would be mind expanding to students would be to study the cosmic background radiation story found by Penzias and Wilson in my town of Holmdel NJ. That is a real story of profound human enlightenment. Let the students learn 21st century cosmology to learn the real factual creation story. The four views above don’t address the other preposterous things in the Adam and Eve story like a woman created from a man’s rib, a god who has Adam to name the animals, a talking snake, a tree with forbidden fruit, a God who walks in the garden looking for naked Adam and Eve. The Adam and Eve story in Genesis reads like a mythological creation story because it is a mythological creation story in the fiction book called Genesis. The sooner humanity moves away from the Adam and Eve story, the better.
This statement brings back memories of some of my comparative religion professors. One lectured us on how British and American ignorance of Chinese religious traditions led to avoidable geopolitical blunders. (e.g., in the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, and the rise of Mao.) Another professor described how misunderstandings of the Japanese concept of kami — yes, as in “kamikaze pilots”—led to assumptions that the Emperor of Japan was a “god” in ways similar to the Western European concept of gods. Fortunately, according to her, Macarthur was better informed on Japan than most of his peers (and managed to appoint some very knowledgeable people to advise him) and got right some of the most important concepts even while failing with others.
When I worked a little bit with the National Security Agency back in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s—around linguists and cultural experts far more expert than I will ever be—I got the strong impression that they were intent on never repeating the glaring ignorance of State Department staff and CIA operatives of the past. I remember my boss in a “pep talk” telling the semi-official “cautionary tale” of how badly those agencies and the White House had bungled everything related to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the blundering decisions in Kabul and general aftermath. To hear him tell it, the only people in the American embassy in Kabul who really understood the local language and cultural factors were the Soviet spies who worked as low-level support staff there. (According to him, “And everybody but the people at the top knew they were plants.”) Not too long after that, in an entirely different kind of context, I was told that the only Americans in Tehran who truly understood how soon the Shah would be overthrown were missionaries working among the poor. (In fact, I was told that various missionaries, who understood Iranian religious traditions and cultural dynamics, tried and failed to warn the State Department and even tried to work through their home district congressional representatives but hit a brick wall at every turn. It was “Leave it to the professionals.”)
When there is a choice between being ignorant of how people think or being informed, I am biased towards being informed.
I do too. It is also a reminder that not all static should be ignored. (And maybe those students could also be taught just how stupid it sounds when Ken Ham says students should challenge their teachers by asking, “Were you there?” Of course, those students should also be taught to challenge Ken Ham by asking, “So, are you denying that we observe the past routinely? Are you ignorant of how science operates?”)
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You miss my point, which is that the stories we tell are important, and whether we “label [them] as fiction” or not is largely irrelevant.
Humanity can be described, without too much inaccuracy, as ‘the story-telling ape.’ The stories we tell each other, whether they are labelled as ‘history’ (a frequently malleable category in and of itself), ‘legend’ (I would suggest that Arthur and Robin Hood have had a more profound impact on English cultural identity than several of their minor histyorical kings), ‘myth’, ‘parable’ or ‘tall story’ are a profound part of our cultural identity.
I deconverted from Christianity in the mid 1990s, before the internet, and so before I had even heard of the ‘Four Horsemen of New Atheism’. I had however (a few years before) read a fantasy series, Louise Cooper’s ‘Time Master’, that I can remember strongly resonated with me at the time. Looking back, I cannot help but notice that it’s protagonist’s religious crisis foreshadowed my own, and wonder (from this distant perspective) if it did not contribute to my own apostasy. Does the fact that my apostasy may have been based (in part) on something that was “purely fiction” make it any less real, than if it had been based on reading one of the Four Horsemen’s ‘non-fiction’ books?
The stories well tell are who we are. How we label such stories is far less important.
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Coming into existence on its own? Science doesn’t tell that, does it?
Does it? I think the historical record might suggest a different explanation.
When Bishop Samuel Wilberforce debated evolution in 1860, it was not his views on the Edenic text that proved noteworthy (if he mentioned that subject at all, it does not seem to have been recorded), but rather his antipathy to descent from, and kinship with, apes. Throughout the history of the Theory of Evolution, Common Descent appears to have engendered a visceral and stubborn rejection from many of the devout.
On the other hand, when the traditional Young Earth interpretation of the Genesis narrative was first overthrown, by the nascent science of Geology, at the turn of the 19th Century, resistance was relatively short-lived (lasting only a few decades). It was not until this interpretation was linked to rejection of evolution, in the 1960s, that it achieved a degree of permanence.
This suggests to me that Common Descent may be at the core of the rejection, and that the traditional Young Earth interpretation (of which Adam and Eve are part) may be merely an ex post rationalisation of that rejection.
If this is true, then addressing Adam and Eve may be merely treating the symptoms, not the underlying illness.
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Cosmic Inflation expands space then hot big bang occurs. No god required nor necessary.
The stories that each culture keeps as their cultural identity tries to keep their view of history alive. The stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood are used to keep the British monarch alive but will do nothing to understand present day multi-cultural England. Legends from the past tend to gloss over the atrocities these cultures committed against other cultures.
Interbreeding of Modern Humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans kills the Adam and Eve story.
That has not been my experience with textbooks which speak to that subject. And just for fun I asked my Gemini Advanced A.I. engine (not the free one but the $20/month subscription version) to summarize Wilberforce’s objections and this was its first point in a five-point outline:
Wilberforce believed that Darwin’s theory contradicted the literal interpretation of the Bible, particularly the Genesis account of creation.
There are certainly many points of overlap between Wilberforce’s views and those of contemporary American fundamentalists but I have not found their AIG/CMI/CRI/et al resistance to evolutionary biology education all that dependent upon the late 19th century (and Wilberforce) so much as the American-based traditions that began with the publication of The Fundamentals (1910 to 1915 quarterly volumes) and which got applied to the “creation science” developments under Price, Morris, Whitcomb, and Gish. Those are the traditions to which I’m referring.
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