How did the three stories of Adam ever reach any level of serious consideration in this group without being dismissed because no Theologians ever said anything like that?
I can only speak for myself - I studied science (especially in the form of medicine, where I dealt sometimes with addictions - disorders of the will), philosophy, theology and history, including history of ideas. Oh yes, and sociology, in which the question of free will is also relevant.
The views on Adam on this site came from the various fields of professional expertise of those propounding them.
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I value the text and seek to understand its coherence; that puts me in league with the theologians, often in their debt, but never as their slave. Errors of ommission are among the commonest of human frailties, as are failures of imagination, as is the constantly changing task of “doing theology” in light of current circumstances and better scholarship…
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Great question @Jeremy_Christian.
First off, we have not dismissed your model. It appears to be a variant of a Genealogical Adam that fits alongside several other models in this class. Your model is being considered, and you’ve gotten a lot of engagement on it.
Second, each and everyone of of the “three stories” (Three Stories on Adam) includes important scientific clarifications, and several public thinkers developing them more deeply, in close dialogue with Christian tradition.
Third, each story is open-ended enough to allow for multiple approaches on the theology. We are functioning as a large umbrella for people who believe a whole range of different things about Adam and Eve. We are trying to make as much space for people as possible. We expect that there will remain disagreement about the theology in the end, and that is okay.
As for your personal angle on the theology of Adam, it will attract more attention when you can explain it in a way that is understandable, and if you can connect it to the larger Church tradition. The strong resonance with Scripture and theology is how the GA has garnered so much attention already, due to the collaborative effort of several people here. You’re view is welcome as a legitimate and important work in progress, just like the rest of ours. It gets better as we allow others to adjust and refine our models.
That sounds about right. We don’t have to agree with them, but we do have to be in dialogue with them. We can also benefit from their work.
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True. From what I’ve seen, there’s certainly been an uptick in level of interest of views like this as you can see here …
My article postulating Adam was not the first human has gotten much heavier traffic than any other article I’ve published. For over a year it averaged over 500 views a day. That number has recently declined after Hubpages assigned a professional editor who made changes that were supposed to make it more “searchable”. Perhaps the traffic will come back up once the new version properly propagates through all the various search engines.