Reviews of this kind are particularly interesting because they come from "neutral" territory - what impression did the book read on someone without an already entrenched position, someone who is a wide-ranging reader?
http://www.wordandspirit.co.uk/blog/2010/03/07/book-review-should-christians-embrace-evolution/
Quote:
"Several contributors seek to demonstrate that the Bible not only presents them as historical characters, but relies on it to develop crucial doctrine. And this is probably the major achievement of the book. It demonstrates that a denial of the historicity of Adam and Eve (or at least a denial that they are the ancestors of all human beings) results in some grave theological difficulties further along the line. These include making a nonsense of much of Paul’s teaching about Adam, and coming dangerously close to Gnosticism and Deism."
4 comments:
Hi David
I read that one as well. A number of charismatic Christians are seeking to embrace Word and Spirit as the website address highlights. Encouraging I think, but some TEs seem not have noticed the theological shift that is taking place in this regard.
Andrew Sibley
"It demonstrates that a denial of the historicity of Adam and Eve (or at least a denial that they are the ancestors of all human beings) results in some grave theological difficulties further along the line. These include making a nonsense of much of Paul’s teaching about Adam, and coming dangerously close to Gnosticism and Deism."
David since you are the author of book being reviewed please explain how not having Adam and Eve the parents of all living humans brings about all these problems. I tend to agree that there are problems if there never was a first couple who were developmentally ready to receive the image of God, God's law at least to a rudimentary extent and who subsequently fall into sin. Having other geneticially compatible people along with Adam and Eve solves a couple of problems. 1 Who did the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve take as mates.
2. Who was Cain afraid of that he needed a mark from God for protection. This has always bee a major issue for me.
3. Who were the children of God mentioned in early Genesis? Very minor quibble.
I have noticed that you do not take all of scripture in the most literal and straightforward sense. Why Genesis 1 and 2?
By the way Dembski on UcD said that EC/TEs are deists at best and O'Leary that we are athiests.
Dave W
Hi Dave,
Just to clarify - I'm the author of chapter 5 of that book. The material on Adam and Eve is more in the earlier chapters. But you can read some of my thoughts on this at http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/writings/creation-or-evolution-dr-denis-alexander - choose the chapters with "Adam and Eve". But short answers...
1. Their own siblings. This is frowned on now because of genetic deformities that can come from the narrowed gene pool - not an issue then, as Adam and Eve would have possessed the full variety now expressed in the entire human race. Without the hundreds of years of deleterious mutations, most of the problems people have here vanish (e.g. Adam and Eve would have been extremely fertile).
2. Again, his own siblings. The question that can be put back is, why would anyone who met Cain kill him unless they knew that he was Cain the murderer? And how would they know that unless humanity was a tightly knit circle? So, this question bats as much for one side as the other.
3. You mean in Genesis 6? I think it is the godly line of Seth as opposed to the ungodly line of Cain - given the context in Genesis 4-5 where those two lines have just been described. It must mean men (and not some other kind of being) because Genesis 6 explains that men were punished for the wickedness, which does not make sense unless men committed it.
David
"I have noticed that you do not take all of scripture in the most literal and straightforward sense. Why Genesis 1 and 2?"
Talk of "literal" or "non-literal" I think often obscures the issue. I and other creationists interpret Genesis as historical narrative, not because of some principle of "literal where possible", but because the evidence points that way (most conclusively, the other Bible writers interpret it in that manner - and the genealogies also militate this conclusion, unless someone wants to argue that the Genesis 5 and 1 Chronicles 1 genealogies are intended to link imaginary people with imaginary ages to real ones).
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