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One Love
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| Posted 6/24/2011 7:59 AM (GMT -6) |   | Why is there only one human species?
By Michael Mosley
BBC
June 23, 2011
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The Search for the Historical Adam
The center of the evolution debate has shifted from asking whether we came from earlier animals to whether we could have come from one man and one woman. Richard N. Ostling | posted 6/03/2011 12:00AM
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No Adam, No Eve, No Gospel
The historical Adam debate won't be resolved tomorrow, so stay engaged. A Christianity Today editorial | posted 6/06/2011 09:31AM
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One Love
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| Posted 6/24/2011 8:33 AM (GMT -6) | | Evangelicalism's all shook up right now, right? Check this out...
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Evolution & Orthodoxy
QUESTION:
I am a Roman Catholic considering conversion to the Orthodox faith. As part of my journey I am reading Not of This World -- The Life and Teachings of Father Seraphim Rose. I am at a part in the book where there is a lot of "political" tension between hierarchs who are seeking after glory and fame and who are espousing suspect concepts. One such concept is that the Orthodox Church believes in evolution. The book that I am reading even goes so far as to say that the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) issued statements to Orthodox priests and laity that the Orthodox Church believes in evolution. Tell me, this isn't true is it? The Orthodox Church doesn't really believe in evolution does it?
I certainly hope that this isn't a belief that is held by the Orthodox Church because I would hate to think that such an esteemed organization would believe that we have evolved from apes.
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ANSWER:
I might begin by stating that, if by evolution one is referring to the theories and teachings of Charles Darwin, the Orthodox Church surely does not subscribe to evolution in any manner. Orthodoxy firmly believes that God is the Creator of all things and that human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, are unique among all created beings. At the same time Orthodoxy is not literalist in its understanding of the accounts of creation in Genesis, and I have encountered writings by Orthodox Christians which attempt to balance the creation accounts with a certain ongoing -- evolutionary, if you will -- process which, on the one hand, affirms that while humans may have evolved physically under the direction and guidance and plan of the Creator, their souls could not have evolved any more than the powers of reasoning, speaking, or the ability to act creatively could have simply evolved. In such a scenario the Creator intervened by breathing His Spirit into man and giving him life, as stated in Genesis. Such thinking, however, while admitting the possibility that the Creator guided a process of physical evolution, is not identical with the theories of Charles Darwin, which in my limited understanding implies that man's soul also evolved and denies the active participation on the part of the Creator. This poses a variety of questions and problems beyond the scope of your original question.
In short, then, Orthodoxy absolutely affirms that God is the Creator and Author of all things, that He is actively engaged with His creation, and that He desires to restore His creation to full communion with Himself through the saving death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This, unlike Darwinism, is not a matter of ideology but, rather, a matter of theology.
Orthodoxy has no problem with evolution as a scientific theory, only with evolution -- as some people may view it -- eliminating the need for God as Creator of All.
With regard to the "political tension" you encounter in the writing of Father Seraphim Rose and his statements about the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, I am unfamiliar with the book to which you refer. However, I would find it unbelieveable to imagine that the hierarchy of ROCOR would have ever issued a statement which claims that Orthodox Christianity believes in Darwinian evolution. It would seem that, if a group of hierarchs were, as you state in your email, "seeking after glory and fame and espousing suspect concepts," they would find a more reliable way to achieve their goals than promoting belief in Darwinism which, even in scientific terms, is regarded as theory! If such a decree had ever been issued, I would be very curious to read it.
I hope this helps you -- and I pray that your ongoing journey from Roman Catholicism to the Orthodox faith is filled with many blessings. The road can sometimes be a bumpy one, as Our Lord Himself promised, but stay the course!
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 6/24/2011 8:36:08 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 6/24/2011 8:36 AM (GMT -6) | | | The EO are just gonna dodge this bullet wholesale. They've BEEN open to theistic evolution.
Funny, huh? 
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One Love
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| Posted 6/24/2011 8:54 AM (GMT -6) | | Just thinking.
1) I don't see how Christ as "head" of redeemed humanity necessarily goes away if Adam isn't historical. If the Incarnation, Transfiguration, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension have occurred, then is it absolutely true that Christ is the "firstborn" of a renewed humanity, absolutely free from the "biological hypostasis" (Zizioulas). It's absolutely true that Jesus demonstrates the capacity in humanity for expressing and experiencing divine life. The Incarnate Word is the fulcrum of human history that came "in the fullness of time", evolutionarily speaking.
2) Complementarians (basically the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) are going to have to give up their 1 Timothy 2:11-15 argument... A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
This WHOLE TEACHING is blown out the water if there's no evidence supporting a literal human couple, Adam and Eve. Yep.
According to the Qur'an, God created Adam out of clay and commanded the angels to bow to Adam. Satan refused out of pride because he was made of fire and was banished from Jannah (Heaven).
In Heaven, Satan lured Adam and Eve into disobeying God by tasting from the forbidden tree. God, as a punishment, sends Adam and Eve to earth, arriving first at mountain peaks outside Mecca; Adam on Safa, and Eve on Marwa.
In this account, Adam repented for 40 days, at which point God forgave him, rewarded him by sending down the Black Stone and teaching him the hajj. The Qur'an also describes the two sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 6/24/2011 9:27:31 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 6/24/2011 9:39 AM (GMT -6) | | There Was No Historical Adam
Friendly Atheist
It’s incredible that this would be a controversy at all until you realize it’s only a problem in the Evangelical Christian world. And it’s only a problem there because reality is overlapping with their theology. They’re going to lose this battle eventually. It’s hard to keep the truth covered up and it gets more embarrassing the longer they do it (especially when everyone knows it).
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One Love
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| Posted 6/24/2011 9:47 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 6/24/2011 11:46 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 6/24/2011 8:04 PM (GMT -6) | |
A few things. IVP just put out this book: The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions
Francis Collins was the scientist responsible for leading the Human Genome Project to its completion. So I’m gonna place my bets on him. He says a few things in this book and at his website.
1. Collins and Giberson ask, “Does the uncontroversial fact of microevolution provide evidence for the complex and controversial claims of macroevolution? In fact, we believe this particular question is at the heart of the entire controversy over evolution.”
2. They say: “We have to distinguish between challenges to our imaginations, which have trouble conceptualizing slow processes that take millions of years, and challenges to nature which have no such limitations.
3. They go on to say that the study of DNA which began decades after Darwin has “enabled our understanding of human origin to achieve a level of detail Darwin never could have imagined” such that the “evidence for macroevolution that has emerged in the past few years is now overwhelming.”
4. As such, when evolution is so widely accepted and grounded and established, Christians look like buffoons when they contradict it especially via questionable interpretations.
Having said that, as of now, I embrace what Giberson and Collins say at the BioLogos Foundation, both here and here.
Brandon
Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 6/24/2011 11:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Hmmm...essentially you're saying that it wasn't simply "representational even as a human couple" because Eve came historically after Adam and that is Paul's point with regard to his whole argument with regard to leadership, false teaching, etc.
Well, Fee and some others would seem disagree with ya on that. That is, they would disagree that Paul's mention of Adam as being created prior to Eve is to make a theological point that man is to rule a woman is not made anywhere else and is an analogy. In other words, does the theological point rest on the literal historicity of Adam and Eve and especially Eve coming after Adam. It seems it doesn't. Or at least THAT point doesn't. For example, simply the mention of a sequence of events is all it is. Nothing more. Paul says later, that deacon's must be tested first and then let them serve. But this doesn't seem to imply ontological or functional priority just as those who are dead in Christ rise first and then those left will be caught with them in the clouds. The dead in Christ have no personal nor functional advantage over the living as a result of being raised first. In other words, what you seem to be doing is resting the whole of Paul's argument on whether it is historical as well as chronologically historically literal. This doesn't seem to be what Paul wants to convey. That is, could the point that Paul makes (not what you think he makes) be made even inspite of the use of this analogy? (Paul is not necessarily trying to convey historical information). Secondly, this is the best interpretation I've seen so far. So no, it doesn't conflict with Eve coming after Adam. Remember, you're also trying to combine what the scientific evidence says with the biblical data. So maybe we need an adjustment with our interpretation of the biblical data.
Brandon
Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine
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Tom
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:08 AM (GMT -6) | | I'm feeling it. Look, one either thinks (the traditional view) that (a) Paul is arguing for an certain functional priority of man over woman based on a historical/temporal priority of man over woman OR (b) one thinks he's arguing for a certain functional priority of man over woman based on ontology (or (c) one thinks Paul never argues for any kind of priority, functional or otherwise, in which case it's even less clear WHY Adam needs to have historically/temporally preceded the existence of woman). But either way (a or b), there's no exact parallel between the point being made about men and women today and the particular fact about Adam and Eve. It would be VERY interesting to research 1st century views on the historicity of Adam and Eve. I'd guess it's not the case that the traditional view that Eve's existence followed Adam's by some span of time was the only view.
Point is, The ontological precedence/priority (what's the word to extract from the ontological 'monoarch' of the Father and it's relation to Son and Spirit as "source" and them as "derived"?) of Father over Son doesn't at all require a temporal/historical priority. In fact, the Father has his own existence personally IN the act of begetting the Son, though the beggetting betokens a certain RELATIONAL priority of the Father to the Son. If such priority (functional or ontological or whatever) can be grounded in symultaneous-cotemporous relations, and if the humankind as male-female reflects the divine order, then it's not the case that Adam has to actually exist for some time prior to Eve's existing.
The only argument for thinking Paul HAS to view Adam's priority over Eve in temporal terms is that his being a Hellenistic Jew in the first century left him no available options. But a) Is this REALLY the case, and b) if we apply that hermeneutic consistently we prevent ANYBODY from saying ANYTHING new EVER.
T
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One Love
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:17 AM (GMT -6) | | Let's see...
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesian 4:25-33
And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Mark 10:2-9
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”
1 Corinthians 6:15-16
From...
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:18-25
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 6/25/2011 9:25:05 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:20 AM (GMT -6) | | | Come on, now...
Looking at how the language is being used, is it really hard to believe that Paul actually believed that Adam and Eve were a literal couple and that the Genesis account ACTUALLY happened? I don't see how.
Then there's this...
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes early away.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
But like Adam they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with me.
Gilead is a city of evildoers,
tracked with blood.
As robbers lie in wait for a man,
so the priests band together;
they murder on the way to Shechem;
they commit villainy.
In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
Ephraim's whoredom is there; Israel is defiled.
Hosea 6:4-10
Ok. It's clear here that the author says that Israel is transgressing the covenant LIKE Adam did. Israel is clearly being distinguished from Adam here. And it's clear that Adam's transgression would have been that mentioned in Genesis. This all ASSUMES Adam was a literal being whom Israel was being LIKE.
So...
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 6/25/2011 9:29:28 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Well, "historically" speaking, humantiy was created, came to be, and as rational self-conscious creatures freely fell into sin and misrelation. That's all historically the case. And many evolutionist (as I understand it) DO trace the origins of homo sapiens back to "a" historical couple. SO, I don't mind saying the Fall occured with a "couple." But "looking at how the language is being used" there are obvious non-literal aspects to the story (serpents that speak, trees that give life or death, etc.), though the events described refer to actual events (human beings were confronted with SOME choice, they really chose wrongly, etc.). I'm just not so sure Eve's being "made from a rib out the side of Adam" is more mythical (i.e., a literary) device used to teach something relational.
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:35 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Well, "historically" speaking, humantiy was created, came to be, and as rational self-conscious creatures freely fell into sin and misrelation. That's all historically the case. And many evolutionist (as I understand it) DO trace the origins of homo sapiens back to "a" historical couple. SO, I don't mind saying the Fall occured with a "couple." But "looking at how the language is being used" there are obvious non-literal aspects to the story (serpents that speak, trees that give life or death, etc.). I'm not so sure Eve's being "made from a rib out the side of Adam" is more mythical (i.e., a literary) device used to teach something relational.
1) We've already talked about how neither you, Tom, nor me believe that death came into the universe as a result of Adamic sin. Ain't that right?
2) Collins himself won't say that all modern humans have come from an Adamic couple.
3) I don't think it can genuinely be demonstrated that when both Jesus and Paul talked about "becoming one flesh" they were NOT thinking of a literal Adam and Eve couple grounding that. I just can't see it.
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One Love
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:37 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Perhaps, but must everything in the story be taken as historical/literal as the fact that there was "a" couple? We don't take the serpent or tree or other aspects in the story (that comprise part of THIS historical couple's experience) as literal. They stand for SOMETHING, yes. But must the creation from his side entail a historical/temporal sequence? Why is the creation story told twice? Why in one instance of telling it there's no mention of Eve's following Adam temporally? I'm not so sure Paul (and all Jews of his day) were as unsophisticated in there reading of the story. But I don't know enough about 1st century Judaism to say any more.
Explain the Hosea 6 passage.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 6/25/2011 9:41:30 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:39 AM (GMT -6) | | | Think about the "therefore" that both Paul and Jesus use.
'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’
What GROUNDS that "therefore" for them? Simply the ACTUAL ACTIVITY of the Adamic couple. Without that, there IS no "therefore"...right?
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One Love
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Paul can believe in a historical couple. Many evolutionists do.
No, they don't. I think you may have a mistaken understanding of the Mitochondrial Eve idea.
One of the misconceptions of mitochondrial Eve is that since all women alive today descended in a direct unbroken female line from her that she was the only woman alive at the time. However nuclear DNA studies indicate that the size of the ancient human population never dropped below some tens of thousands; there were many other women around at Eve's time with descendants alive today, but somewhere in all their lines of descent to present day people there is at least one male (and men do not pass on their mothers' mitochondrial DNA to their children, so the mitochondrial inheritance chain is broken). By contrast, Eve's lines of descent to each person alive today includes precisely one line of descent to each person which is purely matrilineal.
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One Love
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:46 AM (GMT -6) | | From the CT article...
In a recent pro-evolution book from InterVarsity Press, The Language of Science and Faith, Collins and co-author Karl W. Giberson escalate matters, announcing that "unfortunately" the concepts of Adam and Eve as the literal first couple and the ancestors of all humans simply "do not fit the evidence."
The Adam account in Genesis has long been subjected to scientific challenges, but "there was a lot of wiggle room in the past. The human genome sequencing took that wiggle room away" during the past decade, said Randall Isaac, executive director of the American Scientific Affiliation (asa), which has been discussing Adam issues for decades. The organization's 1,600 members, Collins among them, affirm the Bible's "divine inspiration, trustworthiness, and authority" on "faith and conduct," though not on scientific concepts.
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One Love
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| Posted 6/25/2011 9:51 AM (GMT -6) | | | I thought a major thing up for grabs was biblical interpretation and authority. Keller's right on here...
The other relevant text here is Romans 5:12ff, where Paul speaks of Adam and the fall. It is even clearer that Paul believed that Adam was a real figure. N. T. Wright, in his commentary on Romans says:
Paul clearly believed that there had been a single first pair, whose male, Adam, had been given a commandment and had broken it. Paul was, we may be sure, aware of what we would call mythical or metaphorical dimensions to the story, but he would not have regarded these as throwing doubt on the existence, and primal sin, of the first historical pair.
If you don’t believe Adam and Even were literal but realize the author of Genesis was probably trying to teach us that they were real people who sinned—Paul certainly was—then you have to face the implications for how you read Scripture. You may say, “Well, the biblical authors were ‘men of their time’ and were wrong about something they were trying to teach readers.” The obvious question is, “How will we know which parts of the Bible to trust and which not?”
The key for interpretation is the Bible itself. I don’t think the author of Genesis 1 wants us to take the “days” literally, but it is clear that Paul definitely does want readers to take Adam and Eve literally. When you refuse to take a biblical author literally when he clearly wants you to do so, you have moved away from the traditional understanding of biblical authority.
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And N.T. Wright's take on Paul in Romans would EXACTLY fit how Hosea 6 talks about Adam breaking the covenant!
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 6/25/2011 9:54:36 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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