A sequential reading of the first two pericopes of Genesis does just that. But, you already knew that.
@gbrooks9 before getting everyone riled up, study these two figures. What do they say to you?
Stop using 500,000 years as some benchmark in human origins.
My apologies, I guess I missed your implied limitation to consideration of only two positions in your former post. I always find that particular restriction unfortunately limiting, but I can play according to hypotheticals that set up only two positions to choose from.
Under the postulated limitation: I do not disagree with A) and agree with B). But I still think there are others “stretches” to the text that don’t require your limitation to merely an “either this or that”. In addition, if I were an ardent YEC, and macro-evolutionary conclusions were unassailable and incontrovertible, I would find Joshua’s presentation of GAE brilliant and extremely helpful. (And I have told Joshua multiple times how valuable and important I believe his work on this is.) I think other approaches have been available prior to GAE for these individuals however, such as understanding AE as a selected representative pair from the population or a mytho-historical literary pair (I hope I’m referring to this correctly).
But this really highlights for me what I honestly think is the biggest point of friction for many of the ardent evangelicals to whom I think you’re trying to appeal, and that is the problem of macro-evolution as a foregone conclusion. I think you, Josh, we, all of us, still have a significant hurdle to cross if we are to bring ardent evangelicals into an integrative position with macro-evolution.
Maybe we’ll all be evolutionists one day. I’ve said this before on PS somewhere. And maybe we’ll all adopt a catholic view of integration like the one presented in the Stephen Barr article that @TedDavis posted (which I really appreciated). But before we come to complete unity, there remains distinct objections that will not be easily brushed aside. But it bears repeating, I’m thankful for a more broad unifying ground provided by the GAE model. @swamidass
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I’m curious, @Guy_Coe, how you understand the passage in Mark 10:6-9
Explicitly quoted in that passage are OT references to Gen 1:1, Gen 1:27; and Gen 2:24.
And implicitly he is referring to the couple, Adam and Eve, instituting marriage (joined by God at the beginning).
Is Jesus merely accommodating his first century Jewish audience and carelessly joining two texts that are referring to two different things?
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For what it’s worth, it seems like it is a third option, he is collapsing two closely related events into one sentence, as is common to do linguistically. Not careless at all, and perhaps even intentional.
Even if Genesis 1 and 2 are the same event, it still works with the GAE though.
@AJRoberts thanks for the kind words. I agree with just about all you wrote. Let’s say GAE pans out. What do you think the remaining hang ups are?
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My 3rd paragraph above in response to George is pretty explicit.
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Can you cite examples where Jesus does this elsewhere? ← honest question.
If not, and maybe you can, which would be great if you could, can you cite other biblical examples? Linguistics is great, but if it’s not a linguistic method used by Jesus it loses weight of argument (at least slightly).
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I think you’re right, but I do think there could be other issues at work too. I see GAE as a potentially significant (probably the most significant) avenue for “Christians who affirm the science of evolution” (CASE) to speak to YEC folks.
This is important to me because I teach a lot of science students who grew up in YEC households but are learning mainstream science. Right now, most of my students just say they don’t talk about science at home (typically either because they are afraid that they would be seen as unfaithful or they tried and were forbidden from doing it again). I think GAE allows a place for common ground in terms of faith, while still allowing for disagreement as to science.
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@AJRoberts, also wonder if GAE and dialog between YEC and CASE doesn’t actually increase the number of OEC. I could see, if a major theological hurdle (historical Adam & Eve) is overcome, there is, I think, potential for people to loosen up a bit on the scientific end. They may not go as far as affirming all of mainstream evolutionary science, but I think they may land somewhere on the OEC spectrum.
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As a former YEC, who is actively involved in a church community that is entirely YEC, and who still hasn’t complete sorted out how to reconcile my theology with CASE, I think there is a few issues that are going to have to be handled.
Age of the earth. An old earth seems almost indisputable scientifically. The primary challenge to most YEC, is that to an old earth appears to require a “non literal” reading of at least parts of Genesis 1-11. However there does appear to be a basis for reading these chapters in a still way that still treats the Bible as infallible (for most definitions), inspired and even literal, through a better understanding of the context and form of literature in which they are written. Solid scholarship and exegesis within an evangelical framework will be necessary for this to gain wider acceptance.
Adam & Eve& the start of humanity. I think this one is a lot bigger challenge, and I’m waiting for @swamidass book to see if he answers the many questions I still have. I think the challenge is primarily theological.
An old Adam and Eve (> 100K Years BC) is the easiest theologically, but doesn’t seem to fit well with the science (and personally I don’t think the arguments for discarding the timeline of the generations in the Bible are very strong).
An “evolved” Adam & Eve, somehow put into the Garden, seems to be a hard fit for what is described in the Bible, and present’s problems around the doctrine of original sin.
A de novo Adam & Eve, as per the GAE, seems to fit the science and the description in the Bible, but presents theological challenges in regards to the evolved humans and their moral relationship with God. It also presents challenges around at many of the understandings about being made in the image of God.
Obviously an allegorical / mythical, understanding gets rid of some of these problems, but it’s not that I, or most evangelicals will accept.
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I’ll look for some… busy day today! Obviously, John 1:1 and ff. is an example of another writer of Scripture doing it.
Sorry, not obvious to me… How is this an example of collapsing two closely related events?
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Catholics have no problem with this for more than a century.
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@Swamidass, maybe I can write something about @AJRoberts’ 3rd paragraph (above)… and let you take a look at it … so that I can tackle it again… we can compare approaches…
I find it extremely helpful to have someone with a landmine detector making predictions of where the next explosion could come from!
Thanks, Dr. AJR.
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@cdods (cc: @swamidass - Thoughts?)
Maybe you could spell out how you mean this?
Assuming the premise that Genesis 2 is speaking about a special couple, while Genesis 1 is speaking about an evolved population (both equally conceived, designed and arranged for by God), I have happily skipped along without a concern in my head about “the moral relationship of evolved humans with God”!
One: Genesis 1 says the pre-Adamite people (the evolved population) bears the image of God. Pretty exciting considering that this group can eat any and all fruit trees they can reach (which presumably means they can’t reach either the Tree of Life or the Tree of Good and Evil).
Genesis 9 re-confirms that whoever married whomever else, any human alive now and into the future ALSO bears the image of God. So we can either conclude that Adam & Eve certainly held that status (though it is not mentioned in Genesis 2)… or, for the more stubborn readers… all the God Image genealogy contributed by the evolved humans has survived genealogically in the ancestry of Noah (details of which we can’t possibly know).
Also, implicit in the Evolution model is that God has the power to deliver whatever genetic content into a species He wants … either by miraculous creation, or by Guided-Evolution.
If there is something “substandard” about the pre-Adamite population, we assume that the corrective is intermarriage with the experientially more advanced offpsring of Adam and Eve, and that this corrective is sufficient!!
SO: What would be the argument (and what would be the Biblical warrant for such an argument) … that the offspring of Adam and Eve can only accomplish its mystical purpose if there are no other “founding couples” anywhere else in the World?
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If you mean two events closely related in time, it’s not… but, that’s my point. I don’t see the “from the beginning they were made male and female” quote from Mark 10:6-9 as Jesus conflating the two things cited (made male and female, and the story of Adam and Eve) in time --not in a sequential reading of the text. They are, in fact, not the same thing, nor done at the same time in this kind of reading.
They are events closely related in theme, not time. The one event cited elucidates the other.
Jesus does the same thing here, for example:
And Jesus answering them said, “Have you not even read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God, and took and ate the consecrated bread which is not lawful for any to eat except the priests alone, and gave it to his companions?” And He was saying to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” - Luke 6:3-5 NASB
Does that make any more sense, now, @AJRoberts ? @swamidass ?
George,
I can only speak for the questions I have, but given my theology is fairly middle of the road evangelical, I suspect they are questions a wider audience will have for as well.
My understanding of “image of God” relates primarily to an ability to have a relationship with God. In the past I would have closely tied this to having an immortal soul, which is what differentiates us from all other animals. I see potential to differentiate between the immortal soul and the image of God, with the soul “arriving” with Adam & Eve, but it’s still something I need to process with the help of some solid biblical scholarship and exegesis. I should add that in my understanding the ability to understand moral right and wrong, comes with the soul.
Either way, it leaves questions about the moral relationship of the evolved humans. If they had an immortal soul, did they somehow not sin, or if they did, is there, is there salvation also through Jesus? I see no evidence of this in the Bible.
If they didn’t have an immortal soul, what did it really mean to be made in the image of God, when there would seem to be nothing that would differentiate them from other animals?
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The people outside the garden could be in the image of God, which would resolve many of your questions.
I assume they have to be made in the image God, given Genesis 1 talks describes them that way. But then I still have questions.
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If they evolved, how could they be created in God’s image, but be different from the other animals?
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If they were created in Gods image - did they understand moral right and wrong? Where they perfect?
Happy to wait for the book if it’s going to answer these questions.
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I have to wonder if you are just 6 months behind many other Christians on this blog:
1] gen 1, the chapter on the pre-adam population, specifies the ore-adam pop has the image of god.
2] but they appear in all respects to be the human masters of Earth… with one exception - God has not exposed them to any moral requirements.
3] this is done via Adam & Eve in His field station: Eden. Otgerwise there is no reason to explain why Hod would give them a moral test BEFORE they know Good from Evil.
4] Any ancient observer would notice that humans are unique in the size and clarity of human language skills… something that could easily merit having a soul to save!
So is it that you see missing from this scenario?