Story Three: Recent Sole-Genealogical Progenitor Adam

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@joshuahedlund

would this approach essentially view the creation of “male and female” humanity in Gen 1 as the general creation of human beings, and then view Gen 2 as the subsequent de novo creation of Adam and Eve, thus actually maintaining (in some specific aspects, at least) more of a “literal” interpretation of both chapters then even the YEC crowd?

There are several ways to take this. Here are a few:

1. Gen 1 and 2 sequential, like Walton describes. This appeals to many people here, like @anon46279830 and @Guy_Coe.

2. Gen 1 and 2 recapitulatory, with Gen 1 including creation of many people, and Gen 2 zooms in on Adam. This is an intermediate position.

3. Gen 1 and 2 recapitulatory, with both referring to Adam and Eve, and remaning totally silent on those outside the Garden. This matches the current YEC reading.

It is honestly hard to resolve which one it could be, from my point of view. All of them work in this model, though an early draft of my Dabar paper (i.e. the one that @TaylorS recieved) focused in on #1.

@joshuahedlund

I think the question here is if de novo Adam and Eve’s genetics would be similar enough to the rest of humanity to make them “deceptively appear” to have been commonly descended from the rest of humanity.

Who is looking at their genetics? They would appear as if they were the same biological kind, and this would be true.

@joshuahedlund

In keeping with the tightening of Adam-and-Jesus theology, this raises in my mind an interesting question of whether Jesus as a human being would have “deceptively appeared”, on a genetic basis only, to be “merely” a commonly descended human being. There are differences, of course, but at first glance I suspect a satisfactory answer to the second question would have bearing on a satisfactory answer to the first.

I agree with the final point. Essentially there is no guarantee that things are what they initially seem to be. Both theology and science are profoundly non-intuitive. It is not really a valid objection to worry about appearance of genetic evidence in these cases, because it is not as any ever saw their genomes. It never appeared to anyone.

Great to see you @joshuahedlund. Stay a while.