Adam and Eve, Part 1

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. . . . God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
Genesis 1.1, 27

“Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. . . . So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.”
Genesis 2:7, 21-22

“So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.
The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.”
1 Corinthians 15:45-47

In the Christianity Today Readers Choice digital issue (August 18, 2011), the lead article was “The Search for the Historical Adam.” I would like to respond to this article. The author, Richard N. Ostling, surveyed the state of the argument among Evangelical scientists and theologians and those in the secular scientific community about Adam and Eve. The debate swirls around the historical belief among Christians Adam and Eve were real human beings. That belief was summed up by Ostling as “the traditional tenet (summarized in the Wheaton College’s mandatory credo) that “God directly created Adam and Eve, the historical parents of the entire human race.”

In the article, Ostling highlighted the views of Dennis R. Venema, the BioLogos senior fellow for science and the biology chairman at Trinity Western University. Venema, and others associated with BioLogos, advocate theistic evolution and a rethinking of Adam. Venema contends modern humans come from a population “bottleneck” (probably thousands, see p.7) of hominids around 150,000 years ago. For him, the idea modern humans are derived from an original couple cannot be supported scientifically.

So, if Venema and others correct, what are modern believers to do? If Adam and Eve were not real, how can the integrity of the biblical account stand? What do we do with Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15.45-47 if we cannot rely on the evidence of Scripture?

Two questions arise. First, were Adam and Eve real? Second, were they the “historical parents of the entire human race”? I must describe my own position on Scripture in order to answer both questions. My own view is Scripture was inspired by God and, thus, is inerrant, infallible and sufficient. I am an “old-earth” creationist; I believe God created all things (see Gen. 1.1), being directly responsible for life upon this earth, including human beings. I reject theistic evolution as fundamentally in conflict with the First Chapter of Genesis. Having made those statements means, for me, Adam and Eve were real human beings.

My divergence with traditional creationists comes at the belief Adam and Eve as the first two human beings. Believing Adam and Eve were the first two human beings requires one to accept Genesis Chapter One and Chapter Two as two independent accounts of creation. The documentary hypothesis views Genesis 1.1-2.4b as the work of one redactor (the Priestly editor) and 2.2b-3.24 as the work of another (Yahwist). According to this view, these two sections of Genesis 1-3 give two distinct views of creation.

Do we have two creation stories in Genesis? If so, how are the disparities between the two reconciled, for reconciled they must be? Added to this mix is the statement by Paul to the Corinthians Adam was the “first” man. We are faced with a demanding problem. We must reconcile the entirely different Genesis accounts of creation if the Bible’s affirmation, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is to have any authority at all.